Tim Price: Power failure
Comment of the Day

January 20 2014

Commentary by David Fuller

Tim Price: Power failure

My thanks to the author for his ever-interesting letter, published by PFP Wealth Management. Here is a brief sample:

Here is a brief sample from the full report:

Make time, if you can, to watch this 2013 investment review from Century Management. For all the problems and financial distortions caused by overconfident central bankers and hopelessly indebted governments, Arnold Van Den Berg manages to convey a wonderfully balanced and even optimistic assessment for the US economy (and by extension for much of the world). A hat-tip to Jonathan Escott for bringing it to our attention. Van Den Berg highlights, for example, the impact of fracking on the domestic energy market; an Egyptian fertilizer company recently established a plant in the US where natural gas prices are now cheaper than in the Middle East. He also alludes to the advances in 3D printing, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence and robotics. As an example of the latter two trends, he points out that in July last year, the US Navy landed an unmanned fighter jet on the aircraft carrier USS George H W Bush:

“When you consider that the computer had to factor in airspeed, altitude, the angle-of-attack, pitching, a rolling flight deck, not to mention the changing winds and seas, this was a historic landing for the Navy and maybe equally so for robots and artificial intelligence.”

David Fuller's view

Here is a link to the full report.

This reminds me of one of my favourite quotes, which I also picked up from Tim Price:

“We have Stone Age emotions.  We have medieval institutions.  And we have god-like technology.”

Edward O Wilson

Fortunately, most of us do not invest in the Stone Age emotions or medieval institutions.  However, we can and do invest in the companies which benefit from god-like technology.

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