First Blog in 2010!

It's 2010, the year's figure looks futuristic. That's the first impression that came to my mind when I typed the title. There's no judgement day, no mass flooding, no flying cars, no robot slaves yet, everything is as usual quite similar to 50 years ago except there are cellphones and computers everywhere.

I see blogs and articles everywhere mentioning the past and coming decade, comparing their differences and expectations in the years to come. Almost all predicts a slow growth in 2010.

What is growth anyway? Turning natural resources into currencies?

Sometimes, I think we are better off being conservative than innovative. What is a cellphone made of? What is a computer made of? How much natural resources we need to sacrifice in order to make a computer or cellphone? Can we use money to turn back into natural resources? No. But we can turn some back into unnatural resources.

I may sound pessimistic but that's the fact. The world has been blindfolded by greed, especially the greed of feeling good at the expense of mother earth. I may sound very Na'vi (from Avatar) but it is what I always think before I watched the movie. I like green tech, I like solar power and I like recycling. That's who I am. People just don't see the consequences of indulging in short term pleasure, how much we sacrifice our future just for the spark of joy that will not last very long. If everyone on this planet can sacrifice 10 seconds of joy a day, the world will be a better place.

Some may think that' s a very negative thing to happen to wall street or the financial world as people consume less. I have a different opinion. Advertisements encourge joy indulgence to stimulate growth. The growth turn into profits and revenues, and eventually employment. Why do companies employ employees? To handle tasks. Can't we hire people just to create value-added or new inventions to the company rather than just sell more? The demand is always up and down. Unless there is no competition, the demand will be up proportionate to the growing population. In order to sustain capitalism, we cannot just count on consumption. We need to also inspire invention, inventions that benefit human and secure human's future. I like the current administration encouragement on developing green technology. We can actually reverse our capitalistic negative consequences to secure a better future. We can spend money on human resources to develop ways to reuse our rubbish, obsolete computers, cellphones, etc., to generate energy and new gadgets without polluting the environment. We can also think of ways to recycle waste into "unnatural resources" and resell them or reuse them to make new stuff. This is an area that cannot be ignored. If the idea is ground-breaking, it can actually promote employment.

This is just an idea. I'm sure there are still many other things that is doable. As our natural resources are depleting quick due to consumption to turn into profits and revenue, we actually don't have much time before the time bomb is set off. Historical facts tell us that there will be correction, either war or natural disaster to reduce the population in order to balance the system.

Having said that investing in stock market is crucial to those who are not that good in grabbing cash in the piramid system. Top management are substantially rewarded for their ability to plunder natural resources. What's left for the rest? Not much. Stock market is one of the hopes left for everyone else, to sniff the remaining scent from the gobbled flowers.

Hello 2010! Here I come...