A world in transition
The real nature of remote work, the ancient programming language keeping modern payment systems alive, US, China, and of course, Bitcoin. This is Issue #004 of Forward.
Stock markets are hitting all time highs, there is no news of fresh lockdowns in India and SE Asia, and a vaccine is within reach. After what has been a forgettable year for most, this rosy news was given an additional boost when India’s Q2 economic results came out recently. According to the report, manufacturing, which had tanked by 39.3% in Q1, actually staged a feeble recovery, growing by 0.6% in Q2. While this seems like added cause to celebrate, former Chief Statistician Pronab Sen advises taking the information with a grain of salt. In this interview with Karan Thapar for The Wire, Sen explains how a combination of piled up inventory, layoffs and salary furloughs, and delayed festival preparation could have led to companies reporting inflated profits without an accompanying fundamental recovery. Basically, we’re not out of the woods yet. Not even close.
The balance of power
The entire world is witnessing the meteoric progress of the stock markets, with Dow passing the 30,000 mark for the first time last month as the transition to the Biden administration begins. Besides the euphoria accompanying the change in the Oval Office, Biden’s decision to appoint former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen as Treasury Secretary has also been received well by investors. The 74-year-old Yellen, whose excellent credentials and track record of keeping interest rates historically low, is considered a safe choice and will become the first woman to hold the position. At a time when the US Government has resorted to large scale money printing to save an economy under threat, having Yellen will come as a relief to market participants
Not too far away from all this action, Barack Obama sat down with Jeffrey Goldberg for an interview to speak about the American ‘experiment’, memories from his Presidency, thoughts on Donald’s Trump’s, and his book The Promised Land.
“America as an experiment is genuinely important to the world not because of the accidents of history that made us the most powerful nation on Earth, but because America is the first real experiment in building a large, multiethnic, multicultural democracy. And we don’t know yet if that can hold. There haven’t been enough of them around for long enough to say for certain that it’s going to work.”
China’s platform play
China is attempting an ambitious project to essentially become—for lack of a better term—a country as a platform. Focusing on trade, payments, smart cities, and social credit, the nation is executing a careful strategy to become a standard bearer in these domains, and be the go-to provider of infrastructure and services for other nations looking to capitalise in similar areas. Of course, trust still remains a stumbling block, with the nation’s social surveillance systems and protectionist policies often drawing ire from international agencies. But all said and done, China looks to be in good shape to capitalise on the requirements of a post-pandemic world. Read in more detail here.
Has gold lost its shine?
As the markets tumbled at the height of the coronavirus pandemic earlier this year, investors understandably went looking for stable stores of value. Surprisingly, gold —usually the ideal candidate in such times of strife—has faced an unlikely competitor this year, despite the latter having a market capitalization of only 3.1% that of gold.
Yup, we’re talking about Bitcoin.
The digital currency is slowly seeing more investors and advisors take an interest in it, though most still advise a healthy mix between gold and the cryptocurrency. The speculative fervour attached to Bitcoin is one of the reasons it’s slow in gaining popularity as a supplementary investment instead of completely replacing gold as a stable store of value. That said, it does have some advantages gold doesn’t, the kind favoured by millennial investors.
“The transparency in Bitcoin is helping drive a lot of interest,” said Lyle Pratt, an independent investor who owns Bitcoin. “Gold is kind of like a blackbox, you have to trust the custodians to tell you about any flows in the market.”
Thinking about jumping on the Bitcoin bandwagon? Here’s a fascinating read on governance minimization for protocols. If blockchains can become as reliable and efficient as game-changing protocols like HTTP, we could be looking at a very different digital future for value storage.
The remote revolution
Is this it? Has 2020 finally shaken loose long-held conventions about commuting to an ‘office’, living close to where you work, and experiencing the joy of exploration only during hard earned vacations? The majority seem to believe remote work has arrived, and it’s the utopia we all need, but the truth is likely to be much more nuanced.
What happens when visiting visas expire? What impact would constantly changing locations have on friendships and relationships (which thrive on proximity and stability)? Is this freedom better or worse for mental health? What does the post-retirement life of a digital nomad look like?
There’s a lot more to working remotely than sitting on a beach sending email while sipping mai-tais. Pieter Levels would know, he was living the digital nomad lifestyle long before Instagram influencers and coronavirus made it cool. Here’s his comprehensive take on the future of remote work.
Stuff we loved this week
Ever heard of COBOL? It’s an ancient and largely disused computer language, older than Weird Al Yankovic. The people who know how to use it are often just as old. It underpins the entire financial system. And it can’t be removed. Check out this fascinating read to understand why. 👇
December 2020 marks 9 months since the COVID-19 health crisis was declared a pandemic. Despite the positive news on the vaccine front, it is clear that the world will never quite go back to the way things were before. We were curious to know what to expect over the coming months, and who better to listen to than the brilliant Bill Gates himself. Check out the first episode of his new podcast with Rashida Jones - What the world will look like after Covid-19. And in case even Gates’ measured take doesn’t alleviate the uncertainty stemming from living through a pandemic, here is an excellent piece on using mental models to cope with the pandemic.
As life becomes more digitally immersed, it's important to understand information capital assets. Accumulating new information capital assets will have an outsized impact on wealth creation in the digital age. Information Capital Assets: How to Grow Digital Wealth
Fed up of hearing about all things Earthly? Astronaut Scott Kelly, who spent over 500 days in space, talks about what he learned spending so much time away from the pale blue dot on this episode of the Tim Ferriss show.
Food for thought
Everyone wants to learn, but do we ever stop to think how to learn? Got you thinking with that one didn’t we? Here’s a list of excellent resources on streamlining how you learn.
“Our October sales for chess were up 178% over the same period last year,” Higbe says. That's a big increase. But something else unexpected happened at the end of the month. Now, she says, “our chess sales are up 1,048%.”
Wondering what that’s all about? All we’re saying is Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit may have something to do with it. ♟
The dot com bubble is still etched in the memory of anyone who tracks finance and tech. But bubbles are nothing new. Real estate has seen them, the Dutch even went into a frenzy over tulips in the 17th century. But what exactly feeds a bubble? How does one understand its anatomy better? Take a crack at this read.
Do you confuse being busy with being productive? It’s an easy trap to fall into, and happens to the best of us. That said, reflecting on the nature of true productivity can be a useful exercise for the rest of the weekend. Here’s a good place to start.
That’s all from us this week. We’ll see you in a fortnight. If you liked what you read and haven’t subscribed to Forward yet, just drop your email below and we’ll make sure you get the next issue in time for that Sunday morning cuppa, straight in your inbox. 📫.
Until next time,
Your friends at NEO