More Indication that the Housing Bubble is About to Burst?

In a recent posting by Dean Baker at Alternet.org, he noted the following information:

1. The inventory of unsold homes climbed to 4.4 million in May, yet another record.
2. House prices are down by 4.9 percent in the Boston area and by 6 percent in San Diego.
3. Foreclosure rates are soaring.

Dean Baker goes on to state that house prices will not collapse to nothing like the most ridiculous of the Internet stocks, but homes in the most-inflated markets could lose 30 to 50 percent (in real terms) from their bubble peaks.

As I stated in a previous post, The U.S. economy has been operating in an unsustainable mode for some time now, and many experts have been predicting a serious "correction" for some time in the future. One of the main problems is the housing bubble. This could burst at any time, sending many overextended American families, and the American economy in general into deep financial trouble.

End of an Era?

Let's see, Wolfowitz just resigned. Jerry Falwell died. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is about to resign. Toni Blair announced that he will be leaving office. The military is just about in an open revolt against the administration policies.

Sounds like the beginning of an end of an era to me.

Priorities for NASA and others

In a recent article in Wired Magazine (June 2007) by Gregg Easterbrook proposed the following set of rational priorities for NASA, in descending order of importance:

1. Conduct research, particularly environmental research, on the Earth, the Sun, and Venus (the most Earth like planet)
   
2. Locate asteroids and comets that might strike Earth, and devise a practical means for deflecting them
3. Increase humanity's store of knowledge by studying the distant universe
4. Figure our a way to replace today's chemical rockets with a much cheaper way to reach Earth orbit.
   

Sounds like a very rational set of priorities to me. But here, according to the article, are NASA's current priorities:

1. Maintain a pointless space station
2. Build a pointless "Motel 6" on the moon.
3. Increase humanity's store of knowledge by studying the distant universe
4. Keep money flowing to favored aerospace contractors and congressional districts

That's only 1 for 4 in getting the right priorities, and the two most important ones are missing. One of the key aspects of leadership is the ability to set the right priorities, since you can never do everything you want. One of the key failures of the current national administration, as illustrated in the above lists, is the inability to properly set a reasonable set of rational priorities.

With that in mind, I can't help adding my own following list of what our national priorities should be in terms of addressing the biggest threats from rogue states and terrorists groups:

1. Al-Queda
2. North Korea
3. Islamic revolution in a nuclear armed Pakistan
4. The "loose nukes problem" in Russia
5. Iran
6. Iraq

Guess where the vast majority of our effort and resources is focused? Talk about a good illustration of the problems that arise from not setting reasonable rational priorities...

More Evidence of a Major Cultural Shift on Climate Change

Just another sign that we have passed the tipping point on public attitudes towards climate change. Here are some excerpts from a recent debate between John Kerry and Newt Gingrich. It was advertised as a "smack-down and a prizefight" over climate change, but it turned out to be something quite different. Wow....read Gingrich's words carefully and slowely. We really are winning.

[Kerry to Gingrich ] "what would you say to Senator [Jim] Inhofe [R-Okla.] and to others in the Senate who are resisting even the science?"

Gingrich didn't hesitate. "My message," he said, "is that the evidence is sufficient that we should move towards the most effective possible steps to reduce carbon loading of the atmosphere." The pro-Kerry crowd applauded.

"And do it urgently?" the senator pressed.

"And do it urgently, yeah," the former speaker replied. "I think there has to be, if you will, a green conservatism," he added.

Kerry didn't know quite what to do with his agreeable opponent.....

Full article is here

The Great Turning Conference

I just returned from a wonderful three day “leadership conference” about “Navigating the Great Turning” in Columbus Ohio (http://www.greatturninggathering.org/ ). The conference featured David Korten, author of The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, and David Cobb, the 2004 presidential candidate of the Green Party of the United States.

Many of the themes in the conference were based on Korten’s book The Great Turning, which made a big impression on my when I read it several months ago (for more information see http://thegreatturning.net/ ). In the book, Korten promotes the theme that the paradigm of Empire, which has dominated much of the world’s stage for 5,000+ years is no longer sustainable (if it ever was) and is collapsing. With some effort, it is being replaced by a paradigm of increased partnership relations in what Kortin refers to as the Earth Community. However, it is also possible that the collapsing Empire could be replaced by an increasingly brutal fight for dominance over other groups and access to the remaining resources. It was the goal of the conference to promote the vision of Earth Community partnerships as the alternative to the vision of Empire, and to help give people the tools and encouragement to work towards this more optimistic partnership vision of the future.

Many of these themes are contained in my presentation linked to on the right hand column of this blog (see Sustainability or Apocalypse). This analysis of events and vision of the future resonated with me personally, and with many of the religious groups represented at the conference. I would like to note that Unitarian Universalists dominated the religious representation there, in large part because they were co-sponsors of the conference. I will post more thoughts and insights from the discussions at the conference later. In the mean time, I added a link to the “Great Turning” web site to the list of links on the right column of this blog.

Zbigniew Brzezinski's Views

There are many arguments that what we do in the next few decades will strongly impact the longer term future of humanity. See my presentation on Sustainability or Apocalypse. But there may also be a much shorter range critical period that we need to be concerned about.

"If we can get through the next 20 months, there is some hope for America recovering and moving forward as a positive force in the world. However, if the war in Iraq expands to other areas of the region, especially to Iran, we could be involved in a 20 year conflict spanning Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and possibly Pakistan. And that will be the end of American global supremacy."

The above quote is a rough paraphrase of the comments from Zbigniew Brzezinski on The Daily Show March 14, 2007

These comments appear near the end of the segment.

Collapse of Arctic Sea Ice 'Has Reached Tipping-Point'

There are multiple "tipping points" in climate change - points at which comparatively rapid change starts to occur from which it is hard to recover and return to the original climate state. Some of the tipping points are expected to be reached in a decade or two if we do nothing. This one, however, may be imminent.

A catastrophic collapse of the Arctic sea ice could lead to radical climate changes in the northern hemisphere according to scientists who warn that the rapid melting is at a "tipping point" beyond which it may not recover.

See the full article at: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0316-04.htm

The Overextended U. S. Economy and Bankruptcy

On a more general note about the U.S. economy being overextended, here is another article from last year .

The United States is heading for bankruptcy, according to an extraordinary paper published by one of the key members of the country's central bank. A ballooning budget deficit and a pensions and welfare timebomb could send the economic superpower into insolvency, according to research by Professor Laurence Kotlikoff for the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, a leading constituent of the US Federal Reserve. Prof Kotlikoff said that, by some measures, the US is already bankrupt.

"To paraphrase the Oxford English Dictionary, is the United States at the end of its resources, exhausted, stripped bare, destitute, bereft, wanting in property, or wrecked in consequence of failure to pay its creditors," he asked….

.

The full article is available at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/07/14/cnusa14.xml

Many of these arguments sound very convincing when you look at the data they point to. However, the one concern is that people have been predicting a “major correction” for some time now, often predicting in the past that it would have already happened by this point time. Is there something fundamentally wrong with their analysis, or just with their timing?

Housing Bubble About to Burst?

The U.S. economy has been operating in an unsustainable mode for some time now, and many experts have been predicting a serious "correction" for some time in the future. One of the multiple problems ( huge budget deficit, trade deficit, etc.) is the housing bubble. This could burst at any time, sending many overextended American families into deep financial trouble.

There was a recent article quoting financial expert Jim Rogers about this. Excerpts:

...investment guru Jim Rogers stepped into the U.S. subprime fray on Wednesday, predicting a real estate crash that would trigger defaults and spread contagion to emerging markets.

"You can't believe how bad it's going to get before it gets any better," the prominent U.S. fund manager told Reuters by telephone from New York.

"It's going to be a disaster for many people who don't have a clue about what happens when a real estate bubble pops.

See the full article at: http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USL1470530620070314

Recording Your Life

In New Jersey last fall, 16 year old Matt Leclair started objecting when one of his public school teachers promoted his fundamentalistic religious beliefs during class. When the teacher denied to the principle that he did that, Matt took out a recording he secretely made in class that clearly showed the teacher doing what Matt claimed. The school took immediate action to make sure this would never happen again - they banned students from recording in class again. (To be fair I believe they also told the teacher not to make such religions statements again too).

Thanks to rapidly developing technology it's going to be possible to record more and more aspects of everyone's daily life, so get used to it. The school was a little naive to think they could actually ban such recordings. Students can now by a mini MP3 player that can also be used as a tape recorder. These things are so small that it's impossible to prevent students from bringing them into school and recording what happens without conducting exhaustive strip searches each morning. And the technology gets better each year.

Did You Know? - the video

There is a great little video making the rounds about the exponential rate of change we are living through titled "Did you know?" http://www.scottmcleod.org/didyouknow.wmv

It was based on a presentation about the future of education created by Karl Fisch, a high school teacher in Colorado. It contains some of the predictions about future computer power that were made by Ray Kurzweil in his book "The Singularity is Near", as well as some comments about the growth of China and India. Besides a lot of intriguing facts, it is accompanied by a wonderful instrumental musical selection that becomes strangely haunting after listening for a while.

You can find our more information about this video and Karl Fisch on his blog at http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2006/08/did-you-know.html
He's an interesting character, and his blog contains a lot of good commentary on our educational system.

Is Peak Oil Here Already?

"In the next year or two the issue of peak oil may replace global warming as what we're worried about and talking about."

This prediction was recently made by Matt Simmons, Chairman of Simmons and Co. International, an independent investment bank specializing in the energy industry. Matt recently made an interesting claim that we are already at world wide peak oil production. Oil production in the future may be flat for a while and then start an inevitable decline. With demand for oil still accelerating, this will drive oil prices substantially higher, possibly reaching $300 per barrel at some point

He expects big changes in society, and if we make these changes right we'll get through this change alright. You can see Matt Simmons talk about this here.

Additional speeches from Matt Simmons are available here. Another interesting link on peak oil can be found here.

The Prospect for Change in the Coming Century

The 20th century started with no automobile or air travel to speak of, or without at theory of atoms. Teddy Roosevelt had not yet started pushing the modern conservation movement and building out our national park system. The 20th century ended with supercomputers communicating over the internet, genetic engineering, nuclear power, space shuttles flights, studies of planets in other solar systems, and extensive studies of the changes to Earth’s climate that we were causing.

Will that be the greatest century of change in the history of humanity? Is the path that civilization is on represented by what is called an “S curve” that looks like the curve below?


Remarkable as this century of change is, all indications are that the coming century will introduce even greater changes. And more surprisingly, this amount of change could take place in just the first 50 or 60 years of the 21st century. In other words, the rate of change is actually accelerating, and the path of civilization will look more like the exponential curve here.

An Introduction to an Interesting Journey

Let me introduce myself and this blog. I work at a major computer firm projecting the future direction of technology developments. My interest in studies of the future dates back to at least my college years when I took a senior seminar on the topic. Lately I have been convinced that we are entering a fascinating period of significant change in both our technological capabilities and social structures. The consequences of which can be very beneficial, or very disruptive (or both), but they will likely be profound. This blog is an attempt to summarize the thoughts of others and myself on some of the more interesting and provocative outlooks for the next 10 to 50 years, and to explore some of the ways that we can help determine which of multiple paths humankind will follow. It promises to be a very interesting journey.