• RETIREMENT PLANNING IS A MOVING TARGET, complicated by the fact that most people focus on currently recognizable risks, like equity market volatility or that a particular investment decision was wrong (perhaps guided by an incompetent or unscrupulous advisor). But other, more relevant, risks are too often overlooked because they are out-of-sight, out-of-mind: (1) Complacency risk – lulled into a false sense of security that an earlier-developed Plan is still realistic, irrespective of changes in lifestyle; (2) Longevity risk – that the timeline for utilizing investment funds has a long-enough cushion; (3) Emotional risk – that impulse response to the turmoil of short-term volatility can eviscerate long-term strategy. DCG guidance can mitigate the risk that your reality check will bounce when it most matters. [TIME – Feb 19. 18]
  • THE GLOBAL DRONE INDUSTRY IS EXPECTED TO GROW BY A FACTOR OF TEN OVER THE NEXT 5 YEARS. According to the FAA, some 420,000 commercial drones will require as many remote pilots, while smaller hobbyist drones multiply to 3.5 million. Beyond delivery of online retail and possible U.S. Postal improvement, PricewaterhouseCoopers projects that “agricultural drones which assist farmers with crop surveillance & fertilizer application could be worth more than $32 billion; could save the insurance industry up to $7 billion by reducing costs related to data allocation, risk evaluation and battling fraud; and could spark the global infrastructure market in land surveys & asset inspections by as high as $45 billion. [IMPACTLAB.NET – Feb 4, 18]
  • ‘SERVICE ANIMALS’ ARE NECESSARY FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES, but in the past few years there has been “a surge of animals brought on planes by passengers insisting they couldn’t fly without them – including pigs, monkeys, turkeys, snakes and untrained dogs. Delta alone flew 250,000 Service and ‘Emotional Support’ animals last year, “many unfit to sit in a passenger seat and which have disrupted flights by urinating & defecating, barking, biting, and fighting other support animals… People are abusing the accommodation to bring their pets aboard regardless of the discomfort to other passengers. What happened to decency? …The credo of today’s culture fetishizes individual preference and expression over communal well-being – simply and shamelessly: I am the center of the universe. What I want is what I need, and who cares how it affects you?[THE WEEK – Feb 16, 18]
  • THE “FUTURE OF ARTIFICAL INTELLIGENCE IS AUGMENTING HUMANS,” according to global government leaders who met this month with experts & innovators at the World Government Summit in Dubai. Top execs from organizations like World Bank, Int’l Monetary Fund, World Trade, World Health, UNESCO, World Economic Forum, & Human Longevity met managers from Microsoft, Amazon, IBM Watson, Facebook, etc. to discuss “the most immediate way that A.I. should be used to benefit humanity; the consensus was ‘augmenting humans.” Beyond brain implants that take humans to the next phase of evolution, wearable earpieces to translate language in real time, smart contact lenses to monitor glucose levels, an algorithm for predicting death, and the like, the objective is also for systems to “deliver humans from the seeming mundane systems of the present, to free us from hours of drudgery and allow us to truly spend our time on tasks we deem worthwhile.” Nice. [FUTURISM.COM – Feb 10, 18]
  • EXPECT AN INCREASING AND ONGOING BATTLE FROM THE POPULIST MOVEMENT – a “notoriously objective” concept which relates in general to the cause of “silent majorities, national humiliations, and rigged systems… which attack judges, journalists and bureaucrats it deems not on the side of The People… Insurgent populism varies from country to country but typically pits the People against the Elite and the Others (foreigners, immigrants, welfare spongers and the like, to whom the Elite has sold the People out).” The globally increasing influence of Populist parties have impacted “green transport, recycling, renewable energy and civic liberties – particularly sexual freedoms.” The future for global politics will see “more frequent referendums, less well integrated immigrants, more polarized political debates and more demagogic leaders emoting directly to an on behalf of their devoted voters.” America will see the same. [THE ECONOMIST – Feb 3, 18]
  • THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK: The greatest guilt today is that of people who accept ‘collectivism’ by moral default; the people who seek protection from the necessity of taking a stand, by refusing to admit to themselves the nature of that which they are accepting… hiding behind the empty assertion that they are lovers of freedom, with no concrete meaning attached to the word;  the people who believe that the content of ideas need not be examined, that principles need not be defined, and that facts can be eliminated by keeping one’s eyes shut. They expect, when finding themselves in a world of bloody ruins and concentration camps, to escape moral responsibility by wailing: “But I didn’t mean this!”   Ayn Rand – 1946

      An absolutely classic video on male/female communication block: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4EDhdAHrOg