The Online Investing AI Blog

Sid Caesar said that comedy has to be based on truth. You take the truth and you put a little curlicue at the end.

The truth is that the Singularity is happening all around us. Technology is increasing rapidly. So, according to comedian Lewis C.K., is our human ability to complain.

I was thinking recently about how I used to turn the channel of the television manually. With a little  knob. Inevitably, the channel turner would break off and we would channel surf with a pair of pliers.

But, over the years, I forgot how much of a pain that was.

After I watched this, I don’t think I’ll mind much that when I’m lying on my couch, sometimes my remote has to be in a certain angle to switch channels.

(Note: The embedded video doesn’t work, so please click on the link to watch the video on Youtube. Damn technology…)

Accelerating Technology, Online Investing AI AI, comedy, funny, future, singularity, television

In a previous post, 7 reasons Why Saving Money Makes You Poor: Reason #6, I talked about how it’s easy to waste a lot of time for a very small financial return. For example, some people will drive an extra 30 minutes to save a few dollars gas. Or, sometimes people take a job that requires hours communing and they don’t think about the time, energy and frustration that will be required just to get to work.

Those are some poor uses of our time. So that got me thinking.

What are some great uses of our time?

Probably for many of the people reading this, writing in your blog is one of the best things they can do with their time. Blogs are awesome because they let us create value for a large audience and even generate revenue at the same time. It seems that most of the people who post comments on this blog have a blog of their own. Chances are you’re probably well aware of all the benefits!

Read more…

Dreams Come True, Success blogs, energy, goal setting, relationships, Success, television, time, work

If anyone caught The Daily Show, Jon Stewart recently nailed the CNBC talking heads about their missed calls.

He’s absolutely right and he got props from a lot of folks in the investment community. Our friends at Pimp Your Finances wrote a piece about Stewart’s comments.

It also got a mention here.

I think Stewart, in his satirical way, made the case that human traders are wrong more often than they’re right. Or as he put it:

If I’d only followed CNBC’s advice, I’d have a million dollars today – provided that I started with one hundred million.

Right on, Jon!

But Jon missed the other half of the punchline. I’m wondering if Stewart ever made fun of this commentator’s quote:

“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

Of course, both Fannie and Freddie failed. In a big way.

Here’s another little bit that would have made a great skit on the Stewart show about the reason why, despite several warnings from the Bush administration, Fannie and Freddie Mac never got fixed:

“Through nearly a dozen hearings where, frankly, we were trying to fix something that wasn’t broke…”

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac wasn’t broke, but they went broke.

These comments were made by Democrats Barney Frank and Maxine Waters, respectively.

The government’s talking heads are no better in predicting the economy’s moves than financial show talking heads.

Stewart may have been unwilling to tell this side of the story for political reasons. He has moved his show from a satire that nails all idiots, no matter what side of the aisle, to an increasingly divisive partisan attack instrument, kind of a left-wing Rush Limbaugh.

Unfortunately, we are moving into territory where all of our information has an agenda and is skewed (and skewered) with bias.

I think Stewart is funny, but I’d be just as careful taking advice from a comedian about politics and economic issues as I am taking advice from CNBC broadcasters about my portfolio.

Author’s note: I didn’t watch every Stewart show, so I’m not sure if he didn’t do a send-up of Waters and Frank for their bad predictions. I’m still looking for clips of those Stewart Show clips. I’ll let you know if I find anything.

Investing, Money, Online Investing AI, US Economy jon stewart, satire, stewart, television, tv

How far would you drive to save 10 cents per gallon on gas? Some people will drive far away. Some people don’t pay any attention to how much gas costs and fill up wherever is convenient. But how much time does it take to get to that cheaper station?

So what’s the point? The point is that when we focus on saving money, we ignore the real costs. Because money is only one measure of value. We have other things that are far more valuable than money. These are time and effort.

Reason #6: Saving Ignores the Actual Costs

It’s very easy to spend a lot of time, energy and effort trying to save a small amount of money. For example, driving an extra 30 minutes to save money on gas gives us a very low return on our time and effort. Another example is people who spend two or three hours each day commuting to work. Besides costing money and gas, they have extended their working day by 20% or 30%. This in turn, robs them of time and energy that they could spend doing something productive.

On the flip side, there are things that people spend money on that consume all their time. The most popular is television. The person might say, well, I only paid $300 for the TV set. But actually, if you consider what the person could have done with the time that they spend watching, the cost is far greater. They could have built a business, become an investor, or gotten rich in any number of ways. They could have built the most popular blog on the Internet. The possibilities are endless.

So, what if we consider how much value we are actually getting when we save a few dollars? Perhaps we could ask, “Is it really worth spending the time and effort to keep this money?”

Money, Success business, finances, Investing, poor, rich, saving, television

Savers focus on saving money. They tend to try to save money on everything. That includes food, gas and books. There’s one small problem with this strategy.

Reason #5: Spending Money Can Make you Rich.

Sometimes spending money is the best thing that we can do for our finances. For example, suppose we decide to become more educated about investing, so we’re not poor for our whole life. The saver will say, “Why should I buy a book when I can get it for free at the library?” Someone else might say, “I’m going to buy this book and learn all about investing.”

Which person do you think is more likely to follow through? It’s much easier for the person who invested nothing except their time in going to the library to simply return the book and forget all about it. However, the person who actually bought the book now has it sitting in their room. At the very least, they feel like they should read it.

Savers save money on everything. And they’re very reticent to invest in themselves. But investing is actually the same thing as spending. Investing is spending money to make you rich.

Consider this: some people have no problem spending money on the one thing that destroys their financial life more than everything else: television. Many people who refuse to buy a book have several televisions and spend over $1,000 per year on cable TV or satellite service.

So here’s the point. The amount of money that one spends is not important. What makes the difference is the quality of the product or service that they spend the money on. The difference in their financial lives is determined by whether they spend money on valuable things that enable them to become rich, or garbage that sentences them to a life of poverty.

Investing, Money, Success finances, Investing, poor, rich, television

One of the biggest changes to go along with technological advancement is a paradigm shift towards value creation. 50 years ago, the single goal of most companies was to sell as much as possible, of whatever it makes. The customer relationship started with a sale and ended with the sale.

Marketing became a very refined and effective tool for jamming as much crap down customers throats as possible. Magazines, television commercials, billboards and even movies became incredibly powerful tools for selling anything. And, once the sale was made, nobody cared about whether the customer was happy or not, or even if they could be sold to again!

Then one day, a very smart marketer started using the money back guarantee. This was the start of real value creation for the customer. If you’re not totally satisfied, as they say on the TV commercial, send it back and we’ll give you a full refund! This meant that the selling company was taking responsibility for your satisfaction, and if you’re not satisfied, you don’t have to keep the product.

This is a very powerful idea because it removes the risk for the consumer. The interesting thing is that the Internet has made this guarantee of value creation the standard. From Amazon’s quick and easy return process, to websites and software that you “try before you buy.” As technology improves, the guaranteed satisfaction to the consumer improves as well. How wonderful!

So here’s my question for you: as technology improves, more people buy everything on the Internet, and value creation increases, how will that affect the buying process? Where can we possibly go from “satisfaction guaranteed?”

Accelerating Technology, Business Strategy Accelerating Technology, billboards, commercials, marketing, sales, satisfaction guarantee, television, value creation

There are many dangerous and destructive forces in our society. Many people think that violence, gangs, drugs, and poverty are the source of society’s ills. But I would suggest that there is one force that is even more dangerous: Television.

Most people take television for granted, and think that it is normal for everyone to watch it for hours each day. In fact, the average American watches television for eight hours per day! Many people spend more time watching television than doing anything else, even sleeping.

What’s the big deal with the TV? The problem with television is that it destroys our future. It is so easy to lie down on the couch, get something (unhealthy) to eat, and zone out. Our eyes relax, our body relaxes, and we can have a sensory and emotional shower of sensations that requires no effort whatsoever. This process of zoning out is nothing more than a hypnotic state. A hypnotic state where we are more able to accept the suggestions that we are bombarded with: mostly marketing messages designed to make us buy something.

Here’s the problem. Anyone who has the resources to watch TV can create anything that they want to. They can make real any dream that they envision. But all dreams are built upon the solid foundation of action. And television is a powerful sedative, and prevents just about every action we think about taking. It even prevents thinking, creating a relaxed vegetative state in the viewer.

It seems almost a crime, to have a machine destroy people’s futures. Especially in this day and age. The internet has provided the most powerful tool in the history of the universe to create businesses, technological revolutions, financial success, and any other dream we can imagine. It seems a cruel stroke of fate to have these dreams so easily stolen.

Dreams Come True dreams, hypnosis, Success, television, tv