My Thoughts

 

*This was originally written in January, but I never published it because it wasn't complete, and felt a  bit lack-luster. I never went back to revisit it, but since there have been some notable events concerning tik-tok, etc, I decided to publish it in its raw form. I apologize for the beginning, just scroll down for better content, and thanks for reading/visiting* As this new decade slowly emerges, I can't help but ponder about what these next ten years could possibly bring. Over the past 10 years, we've witnessed the emergence of some incredible new trends and technological advancements. A few brand names that come to mind that didn't exist at the beginning of 2010 such as Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Instagram, and Amazon's Alexa all now seem cemented into our society. These all shifted the way we think about certain things, from the rise of the gig economy to Instagram's morph of social media to a visual experience to Alexa becoming a household name as a virtual as

Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto https://medium.com/@iangkunsworth/the-long-term-economic-narrative-hasnt-changed-2464621f047d I find it almost too easy to get caught up with everything in the news. In the age of information, it’s virtually impossible to escape it. A constant bombardment of information can skew one’s perceptions in a drastic way when they aren’t careful, invoking fear, greed, pride, and plenty of other undesirable emotions. These emotions can be amplified with unexpected shocks like being laid-off from your job or watching your wealth decline as the stock market viciously sheds. When a “ Black Swan ” event like the COVID-19 epidemic emerges, you see many people react in a panicked manner, as people become conscious of the previously unforeseen risk. While this pandemic may be the largest nominal supply and demand shock the global economy has ever seen, we are still on course to enter the fourth industrial revolution and COVID-19 may be the catalyst

Blockchain technology possesses an incredible amount of potential for improving business functions across most industries. With all this promising change, surly it makes for a solid investment. However, the ETFs geared towards this emerging industry requires deep digging to see if they're positioned well enough to give investors the most bang for their buck. This is an exert from an article I wrote for Seeking Alpha. Follow the link below for the full piece! https://seekingalpha.com/article/4185144-betting-on-blockchain-etf-play-for-emerging-industry

   I recently watched a joint interview with Jamie Dimon , the charismatic CEO of JP Morgan Chase, and legendary investor Warren Buffet , where they called for an end to quarterly profit reports. They stress that short-term focus on a company can cause managerial complications that can then trickle down into lower tiers of the structure.    In their WSJ opinion piece they're quoted with stating “In our experience, quarterly earnings guidance often leads to an unhealthy focus on short-term profits at the expense of long-term strategy, growth, and sustainability,” and “The financial markets have become too focused on the short term. Quarterly earnings-per-share guidance is a major driver of this trend and contributes to a shift away from long-term investments.”    While this may go against the normal rhetoric that is widely observed as short-term capitalistic greed, it is important that this is coming from two industry titans with a clear vision. It goes without being said that q

Crypto Queries A paper I recently read talked about an economic simulation of cryptocurrencies, and it provoked a few thoughts in my mind about the topic in general. In short, the thoughts were: do we have a right to call cryptocurrencies money, are the speculative efforts of individuals holding various coins restricting certain tokens from their full potential, and is it even worth going through the regulatory framework process for cryptocurrencies with such a small adoption rate and governments having the ability to implement their own cryptocurrency? Let's start by addressing the first question. What exactly defines money has been heavily debated, dating back to 1875 when English economist and logician William Stanley Jevons wrote "Money and the Mechanism of Exchange". In this work, Jevons concluded that money must have four common properties, those being: a medium, a measure, a standard, and a store. Let's break down what exactly this means. Medium: Mon

   Introducing the Petro    When Bitcoin first emerged in January of 2009 there was an incredible amount of excitement surrounding its potential. The excitement was shared, but for many different individual reasons. On one end of the spectrum, you had excitement surrounding the peer to peer blockchain technology which eliminated any need for a trusted third party, allowing for truly decentralized transactions. While on the other end of the spectrum you have central banks along with policymakers who would love to reap the benefits of digital currencies underpinned by distributed ledgers, which would allow for an unprecedented amount of oversight on their currency, while simultaneously fearing the dangers of unregulated cryptos. The benefits and impacts of digital FIAT currencies are currently being researched and tested by various central banks and governments around the world including China, Sweden, Paraguay, the United Kingdom, Russia, Canada, Japan, the United States, and in Vene

Benefits of Blockchain       Since the internet first emerged in 1983 there has been an exponential increase in global connectivity which has allowed for new industries like e-commerce to flourish. As the internet began to emerge and evolve from being used solely by academics to being used by everyday people, the world wide web presented extreme potential and investors took notice. The internet was not well understood by most people at the time, in fact, many thought the internet was just a passing fad. Due to all the potential the internet held to disrupt a number of industries, money began flooding into stocks of companies who claimed to be working on anything related to the internet. Financial markets began to bubble up as Internet-based companies grew rapidly. The NASDAQ reached incredible heights, as did skepticism surrounding the valuations of companies.     The internet has allowed for overall societal progression in a wide range of fields varying from digital bankin