Maybe I'm Disconnected

I have begun to wonder, as I often do, have I lost touch with what is actually going on in the World?

I barely watch the news anymore. ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN just don’t have my trust anymore. FOX? No thanks. I think they may be worse than the legacy brands.

I subscribe to The Washington Post but they are just as bad as the New York Times. I am too cheap to get a subscription to the Wall Street Journal and besides, I like reading a newspaper in the form it was meant to be read, on paper. Delivery is hit or miss so I scratched that idea.

There really isn’t any outlet I trust other than CNBC but they are limited to business and they lightly touch on other issues, thank you Joe Kernen.

The reality of my life is that I do not trust any media. There is not one outlet that reports just the news, without any bias. As Joe Friday used to say “Just The Facts ma’am”.

I guess I am shutting myself off from reality to some extent. I honestly don’t feel all that bad about it.

Let’s get right down to it. All your bitching and moaning about Trump, Schumer and every other politician is a waste of time. I have given up.

The only voice any of has is with our ability to vote people in and out of office. To decide to no longer watch certain shows. We can shut the whole system down if we wanted to but the vast majority of people would rather just bitch.

This column is a perfect example. I bitch all the time but the truth is, it is a small grain of sand in the Sahara. People may agree with my feelings about things but unfortunately, we can do little to change things.

Like I said, our votes are our weapon and we should use that weapon to make changes.

That weapon was used in New York City as the woefully ignorant Gen whatever the fuck they are now, voted a Socialist into office. They succeeded in creating change. That is what people can and should do. Change for the better, not a chance in hell, but change just the same.

I bring all of this up because I will have to admit, I am disconnected from the reality of the present day investing environment.

Why do I say that? Well, simple. I think there is a tremendous amount of risk in the market right now. The amount of money that is flowing into certain sectors is way too far ahead of the actual value in those sectors.

Yes, yes, I know that you don’t invest for today or tomorrow, you invest for a much longer time frame. Your horizon can be 3-5-10 or 20 years and what that looks like. I am fine with that but is there anyone who actually knows what the World will look like in 3-20 years from now? If someone tells you they know, run.

My fear is once again, very simple. You have these very large corporations investing hundreds of billions of dollars in technology that may never have a decent return on investment. That is my biggest fear. I don’t think there is eminent collapse coming but there will be day of reckoning and that will not look pretty.

The balance sheets of these major investors are very strong. Right now, their business models are working very well. However, the World is rapidly changing and the billions in profits some of these companies have reaped over the years might slow down substantially.

I get that these companies know that and they are looking to plant a huge flag in what they believe will be the next generational movement.

The third industrial revolution (or is it the fourth?) is what they calling it and fans believe this movement is much like the turn of the 20th century. Billions were spent modernizing the World and old industries were replaced with new industries. This is the story they are selling.

Here is another part of my disconnect.

Transformative technologies over time have buried some industries and created whole new industries. Manpower was always needed. This new generation of transformative technology doesn’t actually need people. The whole point is to eliminate roles that can be done by trained AI programs. Robots, Chatbots etc.

Of course new roles will develop but not on the scale of the past industrial revolutions. Even the development and expansion of the Internet required programmers, coders, salespeople and so on. This new iteration? Not so sure that that many people will be needed.

The skillsets are way more advanced than someone learning to use a metal lathe. Is our education system even capable of educating enough students to have the backbone of this new revolution?

Lots of question marks and I am sorry, I don’t see too many answers. What I do see is trillions of dollars going to building an infrastructure that requires more power, more water than any other industry, ever. Sure, the construction jobs are great but what happens after a 37 billion dollar project is done in 6 years? they need 150 to 200 people to run one of these sites. Not really a boon long term.

I am not saying that these investments won’t have major benefits as well but strictly as an investment, I think people are believing the hype and not doing the research that these investments require.

There is an old Wall Street adage about the timing of retail investors. When they start piling in, it is time to get out.

That is where we are now.