Starting next year (2006), millions of people will begin to equip themselves with computers and portable devices capable of swapping files at a speed of 100Mbps, all wirelessly (WiFi/802.11n and UWB). Think about that… 100Mbps!! That’s about a hundred times faster than what the average broadband user in the U.S. is accustomed to today.
Our long-held conviction that the economy can't sustain rapidly rising interest rates remains intact. The main reason for this is the sheer amount of debt in the system and the average consumer's undesirable financial situation ... if the economy starts showing signs of weakness, then the question begins whether the Fed will continue tightening monetary policy. If it stops and we try again to artificially induce growth, then excessive speculation will remain the only game in town, eventually leading to a spectacular collapse of the financial system.
Elliot Gue, Ivan Martchev and Yiannis Mostrous, WSW
FCC today announced that states cannot force phone operators to offer naked DSL service. Naked DSL, in case you did not know, is a phone line that is purely used for a DSL connection, and carriers no voice or no voice related charges. This ruling makes absolute sense because you cannot have 50 states making different rules.
One of the main stumbling blocks in the American health care system, many experts say, is the inefficient use of computer technology to manage medical records.
When historians look back to assess the history of clean energy, the first half of the 21st century's first decade will likely be viewed as the point at which the industry began its hockey-stick growth spurt. Which is not to say that it's all smooth skating. Like the hockey rink itself, the business of developing next-generation solar, wind, hydrogen, and other technologies can be both slippery and high-risk.
The industry has entered a critical phase encountered by all major tech booms. As individual technologies mature, there is an inevitable churning of players: mergers, acquisitions, divestments, bankruptcies, and -- always -- new market entrants. The result is a constant rising and falling of prospects for companies, and even entire sectors, that is variously fascinating (if you're an outside viewer) or frightening (if you're an inside participant). But it's never dull.
The United States is faced with a huge budget deficit that makes foreign investors nervous about holding dollars. But as a percentage of GDP, that deficit isn't that much worse than those in Europe and better than the one in Japan, the homes of the two major competing global currencies. In addition, the U.S. economy is growing faster than those of Europe and Japan, and our budget-busting demographic burden isn’t as serious as those faced by the Europeans and the Japanese.
Peak Oil — Hubbard's Peak — Peak Energy — no matter what you call it, the notion that we will be at maximum oil production far sooner than anyone thought has caught fire of late, with a series of reports popping up in the industrial, environmental, and mainstream press. Some of these have been triggered by crude oil prices once again popping up above $55/barrel, flirting with an absolute record price (although still nowhere close to 1980's dollar-adjusted price of above $80/barrel).
Jim Jubak at MSN Money predicts tough times for the next five years.
...Along with Warren Buffett I think we're headed for trouble. I believe that the huge U.S. trade deficit matters. The money we owe to overseas investors is a growing tax on our economy that, over time, will lower our growth rate, raise interest rates, fuel inflation and take a bite out of our living standards.
Michael E. Marks, CEO of Flextronics, has a radical view of the future of America's electronics industry. Just as manufacturing and logistical operations began shifting en masse in the early '90s to companies like Flextronics (FLEX ), which sent most of the work to its factories in countries like China and Mexico, Marks predicts an equally dramatic shift will occur in engineering and design. As a result, many of today's giant electronics and telecom hardware companies will massively downsize their in-house R&D operations.
One of my deepest concerns is that the current complacency with the trade deficit which stems from the relative stability of the US economy and markets will lead to an event as dramatic as the fall of the NASDAQ. The US economy is growing handily, thank you very much, and unemployment is slowly beginning to drop. The trade deficit has caused no problems. Is it, I wonder, a replay of the 1990s where the stability of the era created further complacency and a continued growth in the imbalance of market valuations?
