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______ For SNS Members Only: After five years of work, I am happy to announce that we are doing a Members Only soft launch of my new book, The Pattern Future: Finding the World's Great Secrets and Predicting the Future Using Pattern Discovery - available now in paper or as an eBook, at: <https://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Future-Finding-Predicting-Discovery/dp/099672544X/> This is the first time we've mentioned the book in these pages, and we're doing so for SNS members only; the broader "hard launch" will happen sometime in the next few months. This early presentation is to enable those who are interested in buying it as a holiday gift, or who want an early look at this work, to have that opportunity by the fact of their SNS membership. Members will notice that, for the above soft-launch reasons, they have a chance to be among the first to write an Amazon review, which we would greatly appreciate. (For a list of pre-launch reviews, see "Takeout Window" below.) As described on the paperback's back cover: "Renowned technology and economics forecaster Mark Anderson reveals hidden patterns beneath the art and science of predicting the future. Through a series of personal vignettes, Anderson exposes a complex web of causes, influences, and effects that propel today's world, then describes strategies that he employs to lay bare new trends, to make new discoveries in a wide variety of disciplines, and to accurately foresee future events."
SNS: Top Ten Predictions for 2018 Last week we had the pleasure of hosting the 13th annual Predictions Dinner in New York, at the Lotte New York Palace hotel. In addition to an inspired conversation with Deloitte's Bill Ribaudo, and my first interview by my daughter, Scout.ai CEO Berit Anderson, on The Pattern Future, I shared my predictions for 2018. As usual, I started with a brief review of the coming global economic landscape, followed by my accuracy grading of last year's predictions. These and my Top Ten Predictions for 2018 are below. Themes for the year: 1. Nationalism and Aggression, in a Bare-Knuckles Fight for Power and Money 2. Unintended Consequences of the Net and Its Alternative Uses 3. The Myth of Free Trade Finally Collapses on a Playing Field Dominated by China
The World Investors and Dictators Up, Employees and Citizens Down
China's New Plan: The "Third Wave" First Wave: Global IP Theft Second Wave: Using Stolen IP to Build Champions via Protectionism and Fraud Third Wave: The "Going Out" Tsunami; Stolen Goods at Half-Price [Note: Our next SNS Global Report will focus on this Third Wave, specifically on China's push into chips.]
Countries
2006 - 2016 Average = 95.0% 2017 Year Score = 97.0 % Total Average since 2005, including 2017 Predictions: = 95.2 % The Math: (95.0 x 11 +97) / 12 = 95.2 % [Note: See full set of 2017 graded predictions in "Takeout Window," below.]
I look forward to talking with our friends at TAG Bellingham about these predictions in a few weeks, and with all of our members over the next year. In the meantime, SNS staff (and hopefully all of you) will be taking a well-deserved two-week vacation, as we do every year, starting this coming week. We will be back to you again at the start of 2018, coping with (and, hopefully, benefiting from the knowledge of) these and other predictions and events.
Your comments are always welcome. Sincerely, Mark R. Anderson CEO
To arrange for a speech or consultation by Mark Anderson on subjects in technology and economics, or to schedule a strategic review of your company, email mark@stratnews.com. We also welcome your thoughts about topics you would like to suggest for future coverage in the SNS Global Report. For inquiries about Partnership or Sponsorship Opportunities and/or SNS Events, please contact Sharon Anderson Morris, SNS Programs Director, at sam@stratnews.com or 435-649-3645.
"You don't understand how the Internet works." - Steve Wozniak, Apple Co-Founder, to the FCC, prior to its intended vote to end net neutrality; in an open letter posted on Tumblr Twenty top tech CEOs, including SNS member Vint Cerf, were signatories of the letter of protest to the FCC and Congress on this issue. What could possibly go wrong with appointing an ex-telecoms lobbyist to run the nation's most important policy group on telecommunications? Idiots.
"[The FCC's] rushed and technically incorrect proposed Order to abolish net neutrality protections without any replacement is an imminent threat to the internet we worked so hard to create." - Ibid.
"Today, the fingerprints of Russian disinformation campaigns have been left on both sides of the Atlantic. Whether it is Brexit or the American election, Russian propaganda still infects US social media networks. And we see the same sort of divisive propaganda that we saw during the Cold War." - Mark Jacobson, professor at Georgetown University and former Pentagon advisor, in a Congressional hearing in November; quoted in the Wall Street Journal
"We are losing the battle. Many have decided to not necessarily accept the American federal government's decision to leave the Paris agreement. -- What we are starting today is the time of action, because the urgency has become permanent and the challenge of our generation is to act." - French President Emmanuel Macron, at the second annual meeting of the Paris climate accord; quoted in the WSJ Only the US, among all of the world's countries, has stepped out. More idiots.
"The price being paid for reducing the China debt could prove more costly than the debt burden Sri Lanka seeks to reduce." - N. Sathiya Moorthy, Senior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation; quoted in the WSJ. First China lent Sri Lanka money to build the port; now Sri Lanka has to lease it back for 99 years to China, to pay off a small part of that debt. Got it? Want to see it again?
"India has been overwhelmed by China's offensive in its strategic backyard. Countries in the region are beginning to realize the long-term costs of Beijing's massive investment promises." - Constantino Xavier, Fellow at Carnegie India in New Delhi; quoted in the WSJ. They call it One Belt, One Road; at SNS, we call it One Rope, One Noose.
2017 Graded Predictions And here are last year's calls: Top Ten Predictions for 2017 1. Apple is done. Apple's failure to innovate and create new product lines has reached a critical failure point. Connected Car cancellations and the outflow of key players, NEST loss and founder departures, and nothing evident except tediously similar products and continued kowtowing to China: the result, for Apple, is that hope really is a strategy. 10 pts, with the failure to innovate even a new phone, collapse of watch market, increased pricing vs increased innovation, continuing slide in china market share. 2. Long live HP, HP is dead. Contrary to current stock moves, HP is Up, HPE down. 10 pts. Out with Meg, in with HP Inc. 3. Qualcomm and NVIDIA drive the chip world. The first has more promising company markets, and the second, more promising technology. 10 pts. Could not be more true, although QC now facing major threats via China. 4. Servers continue to outpace PCs in real innovation, with the next generation likely powered by Xeon Phi. 10 pts. Yes on innovation, with the most exciting chips showing up in servers vs. PCs, but the Phi looks to be getting replaced by related threads of Xeons. 5. CarryAlongs outpace PCs, as consumers continue to outpace producers. This category now dominates the personal compute space, including Phablets, pads, SurfacePro, Intel twins, Small MacBook Air-like laptops. All are in virtually identical sectors. 10 pts. True, from the Kindle avalanche to all other entrants in this form factor. 6. Microsoft gets its Mojo back. The Windows guys become the Xbox guys, making AR (HoloLens), Surface Hubs, Surface Pros, other computers, and beating Apple for Coolness in the recent NYC / Valley showdown. Which stock would you rather own today? 8 pts. Started out the first half of the year this way, but ending it with a more of a thud. 7. The car replaces the PC and smartphone as the exciting new test and launch platform for apps and innovations. New efforts will include: Personalization, wireless locking and synching, home / car connections, car / car connections, car / net connections, smarter nav, shared memory and databases, new entertainment features. 10 pts. Absolutely true, as hardly a week goes by without new international announcements in autonomous- and connected-car innovations, with the new rollout dates now just around the corner. 8. The Smartphone As Zombie. Steve is dead, copycats eat margins, China and SK subsidize their phones, real innovation takes a vacation. Google is the only source of innovation now. For everyone else, phones show the same level of real innovation as Asian copycat patents. 10 pts. The Google Pixel 2, despite OLED screen issues, is the phone of the year, and nothing else has shown up of any interest at all. Those buying the Apple X are almost doing it under protest. Sad 9. The Shadow Knows: The Facebook Shadow Grows. Fake news, Trump election, aiding China censors, trying to name his baby after Xi Jinping, other craven behaviors relating to sucking up to bad guys and invading privacy, all leave a bad taste in the mouths of anyone paying attention. Where to go next? What part of your life do you really want to share with Zuck? 10 pts. Zuck himself has reversed his story on FB's fake news and Russian influence. What a jerk. 10. AI Hits a Speed Bump: In the middle of all this expansion and excitement, it turns out that Deep Learning and Deep Neural Networks, and Machine Learning, have been benefiting primarily from the single and simple discovery that more iterations help. 9 pts. All this is true, in terms of incremental-only new rollouts, but AI has made up for lack of quality with increased quantity, as every doorbell and IoT entry looks poised to carry some amount of "AI." Total: 97 points
Selected Testimonials for The Pattern Future "In The Pattern Future, Mark Anderson gives us a mini-biography illustrating his uncanny ability to discern patterns, whether in economics, science, education, or innovation. But Mark goes further and provides compelling examples of how the knowledge one gains from recognizing pattern shifts requires high moral courage to act on those insights, when everyone else is blind to the drastic change about to happen. The combination of understanding how to see patterns and the courage to act on their implications gives Mark his extraordinary Superpower. Quite a remarkable story!" - Larry Smarr, founding director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2, a UC San Diego/UC Irvine partnership)
"Our brains appear to be massive pattern matchers, according to recent neural studies. Some brains seem to match patterns better than others, and Mark Anderson's works especially well, as he explains in this wide-ranging book." - Vint Cerf, internet pioneer and VP/chief internet evangelist of Google
"In a career where I've been lucky enough to meet many of the best of the brightest, Mark is the smartest person in the world I've met who's still alive." - William Lohse, venture capitalist and founder of Social Starts LP and Pivot Conference
"Mark Anderson has earned his reputation as an extraordinarily prescient predictor of the unanticipated. His focus is on patterns as they persist through time and, critically, the subtle indications that what has been an established pattern is subject to more or less radical change. He now shares his distinctive approach to reading the future from the observable past and present." - Bill Janeway, senior advisor at Warburg Pincus and faculty of Economics at the University of Cambridge
"Mark Anderson's reputation as a trend predictor is well-established, and with The Pattern Future, he unveils how he does it. I found the techniques and stories to be useful for those who are anticipating and planning for the future." - Paul Daugherty, chief technology and innovation officer of Accenture
"A rare book written by a rare polymath, a book filled with amazing stories on Mark Anderson's most stunning intellectual trajectory - from the world of discovering the patterns that lie beneath complexity mathematics and the mysteries of relativity theory to uncovering the patterns driving many aspects of global trade and currency wars. "Patterns matter now more than ever, and developing the skill to find them is getting harder and harder, as complexity theory now seems to underlie so much of our world, best understood as comprising many kinds of interacting flows. "Reading this book will give us all insight into how a master continues to do this year after year after year." - John Seely Brown, independent co-chairman of Deloitte's Center for the Edge, former chief scientist of Xerox Corp., and former director of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)
"Mark R. Anderson has produced a brilliant and deeply insightful account of correlating pattern recognition of present and past events with prediction of future events. Such knowledge is important to grasp as we sit on the threshold of explosive progress in machine learning." - Dan Goldin, president and CEO of KnuEdge and past administrator of NASA
"The most breathtaking prediction I have heard was a mystic in the Himalayas who predicted that smallpox would be eradicated 'soon.' This was in the middle of the raging epidemic afflicting more than 250,000 in India in 1973, when hardly anyone thought the disease could be contained, let alone eradicated. That mystic was my teacher, Neem Karoli Baba, and I was sitting there when he made that prediction, and I remained in South Asia to see the last case of killer smallpox in nature in Bangladesh only a few years later. I don't know if that should be called prediction or prophecy, nor if it was based on scientific logic or mystical insight, nor if it was pattern matching or magic, but it came true just as he foresaw, and that was stunning. "The second most stunning prediction - or rather, family of predictions - I have seen were at Mark Anderson's FiRe (Future in Review) conferences. Mark is not a religious mystic, but sometimes I think he might as well be, for how well he seems to 'see' the future. Now he has written a book compiling some of his secrets and tools and methods and insights, how he 'sees' the future. "Not many have prophetic powers, but all of us can learn a lot about the science and art of prediction by studying this book, reading about the tools Mark has made accessible to those of us who are mere mortals. For those of us who are struggling to make sense of the present and peer into the future, the methods Mark reveals in The Pattern Future are a gift!" - Dr. Larry Brilliant, chair of the Skoll Global Threats Fund and author of Sometimes Brilliant
And in a letter from education consultant and SNS member David Engle: "As someone who has read every one of your newsletters, very little in the text was new or surprising. However, I was tantalized with your explanation of your educational history. In many respects, your text is an account of how you managed your cognitive construction assembling your mind, so to speak around the perceived power of pattern recognition. How you managed the cultivation of that particular design evolution was fascinating. I think that gets to your question about how essential it is to know how to ask the important questions and develop important ideas that matter in the world. That I believe is unique to your oracular acuity seeing forward must rely on a very keen reading of reality that results in a high beam out ahead of things. I think a more robust unpacking of what you mean by pattern recognition and pattern resolution is in order. Your text, though, had a steady biographical force to it that drove it through some rich territory like a fast drive does. Tantalizing glimpses sometimes that begged for a stop and a leisurely stroll. Sequel? "Next. The missing chapter. I've always been fascinated by your iconoclastic view of leadership, especially in terms of how you see it being expressed through a leader's personality. You've made many a good call based on your understanding of that driving dimension; and yet this doesn't get the treatment I feel it should have in your text. Your views on corporate leadership and how determinant a leader's personality is within that framework is unconventional (and correct, in my view). I would have greatly enjoyed more of your thinking about that topic, especially as I know you've given it many "inches" in your past newsletters. I kept looking for that chapter. Again, thanks for sharing the text with me. Knowing you over these many years has been an invaluable gift and spur to my own development as a leader and person." - David Engle, Founder, Treehouse Education Consulting; Past Superintendent, Port Townsend School District; and Head of US Operations, SNS Project Inkwell
And from inside the book -
Anticipation. It's the most uniquely human trait, peering at a future that doesn't yet exist, except in two wispy little nubs of gray matter, just above the eyes. Those prefrontal lobes are - to crib from the Bible - "lamps on the brow" that empower us to concoct what-if scenarios about the territory ahead. It must have conferred advantages on our ancestors, because we've spent a lot of time and energy making up stories about days and hours to come. These ranged from mere daydreams to the auguries and ravings of prophets, to stock market gambling, all the way to science fiction. Our sincere civil servants in all those alphabet agencies - and officers of any company - know that anticipation is their topmost job. When you get it right, you can act to stanch threats, grab opportunities, and open paths for initiative. Hence, nowadays your corporate CEO or head of an intelligence agency allocates plenty of money and effort to both data collection and predictive models. Some efforts have yielded fascinating results, as in recent appraisals of "amateur wisdom" by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency (IARPA). And yes, that includes bringing in science-fiction authors to poke and slash at the walls of the predictive box. For years, I harangued leaders in both commerce and government that they should focus on a simple project: Find ways to track who's right a lot! And which pompous seers more often get it wrong, offering metrics to a public that's desperately beset by charismatic charlatans. But above all, find those who are good at looking ahead. Study them. Decipher their methods. More often than not, they're happy to teach. Which brings us to Mark Anderson. As is almost always the case, Mark was way ahead of me in this, pioneering methods of self-tracking and making his own forecasts easy to score. And why wouldn't he? When you're on-target as often as he's been, you'll naturally want people to see clear results. Some of my fans and readers keep a wiki to track predictions from my novels and speeches, but Mark is tracked by some of the fiercest ands most-accomplished women and men in our civilization. This book is about how he does what he does. At the Strategic News Service, Mark and his analysts use their newsletter to peel back surfaces, looking for the trends under trends. He travels the world, invited by sages and leaders who ask "What did we miss?" The annual Future in Review - or FiRe - conference is one of the best and most lively events of its kind, bringing together a growing community of tech business leaders and other innovators, exploring what's next. A number of fast-rising companies got their crucial boost after being chosen as "FiReStarters," and the associated FiReFilms documentary film movement has widespread influence. Each year's FiRe CTO Design Challenge pits a few dozen top minds against some intractable problem - and generally all obstacles topple in just 48 hours. Ably augmented by both the Anderson clan and this growing community, Mark has put one priority above all others - fostering creative problem-solving. And now he's sharing his core methods with you. Mark didn't have to invent any arm-waved terminology; the key words were already there - pattern recognition. Indeed, AI researchers have poured billions into teaching our machines to parse things like picking out a dog amid cats. But Mark is after much subtler configurations - patterns of cause and effect that still pop out only when they are sought by human minds. Minds who are simultaneously both open and critical. In the autobiographical sections of this book, you'll murmur, "Sure, Mark Anderson was raised for this! But what chance have I to gain such pattern-seeking mastery?" But read on. He'll offer you dozens of tools, rooted in real-world examples. And that stretching sensation you'll feel - just above the eyes - will be your anticipatory muscles - those prefrontal lobes - pumping up! Eager to get on with it? Well, let me keep you for one further thought. Mark talks about many things that can block accurate pattern recognition. One of the worst of these is our human propensity for delusion. Imagination can be our greatest gift, when it's harnessed to enhance creativity. But those subjective colors, concepts, dogmas, expectations, grudges, and wish-fantasies that we overlay upon the world can also lead to misperception and error. Massively shared delusions have sometimes produced hells on Earth. The best cure has been something we usually deem bitter medicine - criticism. It works because other people have their own delusions, but they don't share yours. Moreover, both friends and enemies will happily point out your delusions. And you'll return the favor, pointing out theirs. It is the reciprocality of criticism - in markets, democracy, science, and other adversarial arenas - that I believe unleashed us, allowing many to start seeing patterns that might be true whether they liked it or not. Here lies the reason (I think) that Mark Anderson left the serene towers of science to apply his pattern-seeking gifts in the spuming currents of commerce. Science already is comfortable with reciprocal delusion piercing. But out there in our wild markets, where cheating and self-deception abound, is also where humanity builds and allocates the vast wealth we need, to end poverty and injustice, to solve problems and reach for the stars. Out there in the messy souks and bazaars of capital and policy . . . that is where we desperately need better pattern recognition, by officers of the state, by leaders of companies, and especially by average citizens. We must get better at perceiving patterns in the way that others (and that person in the mirror) are both wrong and right. Here's a toolkit to get started. David Brin
For SNS members who have been along for this amazing ride with us over the last 22 years, I hope this book meets your expectations, and helps you along the road ahead. - mra.
Blue Origin Makes 7th Flight From: Blue Origin media@blueorigin.com
New Shepard flew again for the seventh time today from Blue Origin's West Texas Launch Site. Known as Mission 7 (M7), the mission featured the next-generation booster and the first flight of Crew Capsule 2.0. Watch the mission highlights here. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSDHM6iuogI&feature=youtu.be>
Crew Capsule 2.0 features large windows, measuring 2.4 feet wide, 3.6 feet tall.
Re: "SNS: Amazin'" Mark, I posted this on FB with a link to this week's SNS about Amazin': Mark Andersonfeatured a deep look at Amazon in this week's SNS. This isn't like analyses covered anywhere else. And makes it even more interesting to note this post today by Mark Edward Minie: https://www.businessinsider.com/vertical-farming-company-ple --------- Anyone interested in the trajectory might find some juice in the search thread "amazon vertical farming," I've just noticed. Those paying attention might've seen it coming. The link to the post is here: From the Comments, by Mark Edward Minie: What does Mark [Anderson] think about negative emissions technologies? Like my Amazon funded Bionic Leaf project? I firmly believe we will need to develop a wide array of bionic technologies to regulate Earth's biosphere to keep it human habitable...is Mark and SNS interested? I think they will "suddenly" become the next big thing... and:
Mark Edward Minie
Sally Anderson
Mark, Yes, we are extremely interested in any technology that can take CO2 out of the atmosphere at scale. Thank you; we'll check it out and perhaps have a chance to see you there. Mark Anderson
Subject: E2MS Mark and Lee, My apologies for being a bit detached. Finally got near my computer after couple days detached, feels more like a week. 'Whim-ed off' to Vernazza (Cinque Terra) and then ended up staying there for the past couple days. I am really delighted for your interest in WorldWind and how it can support E2MS. On another note. . . Mark, I am greatly disappointed that you will be just over the hill in Half Moon Bay for a couple days just when I am not there. I would have loved to visit you or have you visit my office. It's a nice corner one over-looking a federal airfield that is now a playboy runway. Anyway, one of the nicest offices at the Center (thanks to my now retired former boss, a 50-year NASA guy and former Peace Corps). If you are going to be near Moffett Field, and would like to drop in, I can arrange a visitor badge and someone to meet you at my office who is on our small team, but not me [sigh]. My return flight from Rome arrives Wednesday eve. So I can be in the office Thursday. And I'll sure need a sanity check after a couple weeks 'off the grid.' We dearly need to see ourselves, as E2MS will show, as we ride this snowball into the Inferno. Even with 'use the force Luke' there is as yet no maneuver to pull out of this nose-dive, even with Patty Wagstaff at the controls. www.youtube.com/watch?v=wx_ui2qWgqI Just too many clowns too full of themselves hanging on the wheel (or stick as the case may be). As for getting E2MS to rock the joint with a "Hello World!", sure glad for whatever moments we can wise-up and delay this 'over-heating' thing. Thinking of ^energy^, from what angle do you want to work? Generating it or spending it, i.e., power sources or consumption? And since we have the Earth to observe, we can consider the various storage volumes, fossilized (petro) and vegetative (cellulose), then there is anthropogenic (methane from rice production and cows). And who is accounting for the huge sea lane CO2, nobody. It would be great to go after it all, but I know you like to focus and build. I guess it would be nice to 'monitor' it at the source, where it [is] being 'generated' (converted) from petroleum, coal and gas, including HUGE venting associated with offshore production. I was a commercial diver for three years, doing maintenance on blow-out-preventers (underwater plumber) on the sea floor (in the mid 70's). And at night we would just go under the flare and scoop up scampi and everything else attracted by the light.
Subject: Re: CNBC - Trump claims $250 billion China trade 'miracle' - whether those deals live up to the lofty price tag is under question Mark and Scott (Foster),
Another favorite quote (and likely accurate): "Interesting to see how many of those are past agreements/purchase orders repackaged. Beijing is a master of selling the same agreement 10 times," former Mexican ambassador to China Jorge Guajardo posted on Twitter. Trump claims $250 billion China trade 'miracle' whether those deals live up to the lofty price tag is under question President Donald Trump can return to the U.S. claiming to have snagged over $250 billion in deals from his maiden trip to Beijing. Read more: <https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/09/trumps-250-billion-china-miracle-adds-gloss-to-off-kilter-trade.html>
P.S. Re: "'We can no longer tolerate these chronic trade abuses': Trump lashes out at China and others" CNBC Music to my ears -- and a long time in coming. Now let's see what actual retaliations are taken when inevitable further violations occur. Hopefully not just more blah, blah, blah. - President Donald Trump addressed the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam on Friday against a backdrop of regional trade tensions. Read more: <https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/10/donald-trump-speaks-to-asia-pacific-economic-cooperation-in-vietnam.html> -JP
John, This is probably the best speech on China I have heard Trump give to date; clearly, it was written by someone else on his team, but it sure is refreshing. If only he would act, and not just talk. Mark Anderson
Mark and John, I like what he said about our trade deficit with China not being China's fault, that his foolish predecessors are to blame, and that China has done good things for its people by cheating its trade partners. But he's probably not smart enough to turn the tables.
Scott Foster
[Followed shortly by:] Subject: CNBC - US government warns businesses about cyber bug in Intel chips Mark, US government warns businesses about cyber bug in Intel chips The U.S. government urged businesses to act on an Intel alert about security flaws in widely used computer chips. Read more: <https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/22/us-government-warns-businesses-about-cyber-bug-in-intel-chips.html>
John Petote
Mark, China's debt crackdown hits cash loan firms: <https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chinas-debt-crackdown-hits-cash-022221282.html>
John
Subject: Re: Now this is an interesting update about China consumer debt + Mark and John, This is interesting. Micro-financing not as a route out of poverty for rural women as in Bangladesh, but as a way to indulge spendthrift tendencies and goose consumer spending in China. Beware. Consumer loans have on occasion threatened the health of the South Korean economy as a combination of eager lenders, reckless borrowers and high interest rates caused a dangerous pile-up of debt. Academic study from 2007: Between 1999 and 2005, the share of household loans in total bank loans outstanding grew from 30 per cent to over 50 per cent, as bank lending to consumers grew twice as fast as total bank lending... News from 2011: If thrift is an Asian virtue, then it is one that South Koreans are notably lacking: each adult has almost five credit cards on average and the household debt burden exceeds that of the United States before the subprime crisis. (Reuters) News from 2013: South Koreans are spending more than they earn. After decades of strong economic growth, a nation of careful savers has given birth to a credit culture that has been labelled a "ticking time bomb". (BBC) It hasn't blown up yet, but ... The country's household debt stands at more than 160 per cent of household incomes, having risen steadily for more than three decades, and is seen as one of the economy's weakest points. (FT) We might think we have a credit card problem. Korea and now China have a bigger problem.
Scott Foster
John and Scott, While we assume that most events inside China occur with the permission, if not direct strategic guidance, of the Standing Committee, when we saw the country shift the debt burden onto individuals, from the real-estate bubbles to off-balance sheet wealth management vehicles, it was clear that, at the least, Xi and Co. were well aware of it. In all likelihood, they were pushing it, as a way of clearing debt from the obvious places, even as they added much, much more to the national total. All of this recent buildup helped underline, for us, the crash that started in January 2015, and the extent to which Xi will go to mask it, internally and externally. What would happen to the Communist Party if it became public knowledge that the real GDP is in the -2% range? Nothing good. Mark Anderson Subject: Watch "3D-Printed 'Schwarzite': Building Material of the Future?" Video at Tech Briefs TV Mark, Interesting 3d printing articles. It is fun to watch this industry.
Scott Biddle
Subject: Blockchain and the have-nots Mark, <https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/blockchain-technology-can-serve-nots/> One of the most important aspects of blockchain is, like cell phones, it's a technological innovation that could bring people in the developing world along, rather than leaving them behind. Charles A. Richardson
Subject: well that's interesting... Mark,
Please visit www.stratnews.com/insideSNS for:
Register now for FiRe 2018
Returning to the beautiful In Park City, Utah www.futureinreview.com/register 
FiRe 2018 Member Discount - 2 weeks left! EXCLUSIVE EARLYBIRD DISCOUNT RATE FOR SNS SUBSCRIBERS: Until midnight December 31, we are pleased to offer subscribers a discount of $2000 off the regular FiRe rate of $5900. For details and to register, go to www.futureinreview.com and use code FIREeb2018 on the reg. form. * On January 12, Mark will be speaking at Predictions NW, at the annual Technology Alliance Group meeting in Bellingham, WA.
In between times, he'll be in the Wasatch Mountains, at 7,200 feet, looking out and wondering how, for the first time in his adult life, there is no snow in the Utah mountains in December - while our friends dodge statewide urban wildfires in California and it snows in Atlanta. Let's get rid of the Trump crowd now.
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