Smart Economy

When will the recession/ depression end? Part 18 Hormones and Boom and Bust Cycles

It turns out that morning testosterone levels in male stock traders have a direct relation to risk aversion and profitability. Susan Pinker, the author of Sexual Paradox, describes the study done by John Coates, that shows a direct relationship between elevated testosterone levels in male traders in the morning and increased profits and risk aversion. That begs the obvious question. If you extend that testosterone effect across a firm, say Leahman Brothers, and  then across the industry, which is primarily male dominated, does it lead to increased industry-wide "irrational exuberance" over time and unwarranted risk-taking, which culminates in a boom and an eventual bust? Women traders are more risk averse and cautious.

The TV commentatoror asked Pinker, if it would have been better if Leahman Brothers were Leahman Sisters. No, said Pinker. Women in senior positions in regulatory agencies would have been a better safeguard, concludes Pinker.

Walter Derzko, Smart Economy, Toronto,

Author of the soon-to-be-released book: Hard Times Golden Opportunities.. about opportunity recognition in a recession/ depression features 45 opportunity scenarios.

 

Related Recession / Depression Posts

When will the recession / depression end ? Part 17 Recap from the World Economic Forum in Davos

When will the recession end? Part 16 It's all over, well sort of.

When will the recession end? Part 15 Year-end predictions for 2009 starting to come true

When will the recession end? Part 14 Four options for America's race to the bottom

When will the recession end? Part 13 Thirteen economic questions that economists can't answer

When will the recession end? Part 12 Bad times are good times for startups

When will the recession end? Part 11 Bank of Canada optimism

When will the recession end? Part 10, The Conformity Trap or Don't count on your economist for advise

When will the recession end? Part 9 Humor will signal recession /depression bottom

When will the recession end? Part 8 Lessons Learned from the last Post 9/11 recession; designing brilliant winning business models

When will the recession end? Part 7 False signals of recovery

When will this recession end? Part 6 The USA Paradox; Cheer vs Fear vs Transformation

When will the recession end? Part 5 Stop Auto Industry Bailouts, start buying Electric

When will the recession end? Part 4 The double dip housing crash in the USA

When will the recession end? Part 3 The coming collapse of the American Middle Class into an Underclass

When will this recession end ? Part 2 Do you listen to the Optimists or the Pessimists in 2009?

When will this recession end?

82 Signposts to the current Recession Depression Summary from 2008

© 2005-2009

Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

• ".....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"-old Japanese proverb
• ".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." -- H. Mumford Jones
• ".......Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  --A. Einstein
• ".......Change is difficult, but complacency and stagnation are surefire showstoppers..." --Walter Derzko

• ".......Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  -- Margaret Mead

• ".......Small minds discuss people; Average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas; --Anon

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

 

When will the recession end? Part 13 Thirteen economic questions that economists can't answer

I was reflecting on all the economic issues over the last six month, that frankly economists have either given contradictory answers to or simply admitted that they do not know the answers to.

1)       Can government spend their way out of a recession or depression and back to prosperity? Isn’t unbridled spending and leveraged debt financing what got us into this mess in the first place? So, is the government trying to tell me that the disease is actually the cure, in the second round of spending? That’s like giving more alcohol to a drunk to cure his hangover.

 

2)       Does stimulus spending really work? How come it didn’t work for over the past two decades for Japan, whose economy has been anemic at best? FDR’s New Deal didn’t actually pull the US out of the depression which lasted 11 years, It was World War II and the shift to the military economy, which got things going again. Short of starting another world war, what crisis should we be fighting? Climate Change? My bet is on global cooling and not global warming as a greater short term risk, which could push us back into a triple dip recession. What if NASA’s warnings of a solar sun spot cycle minimum and resultant decade or even century-long mini ice age (like we experienced in the 17th century) comes to pass by circa 2020-2022?

3)       How much stimulus financing is enough? Well, nobody really know? The US still has 14 assets bubbles that have yet to burst.

4)       How many rounds of stimulus will we need? Canada thinks it will be out of this recession by mid year 2009. Their logic? Exports are expected to improve by mid year, according to the Bank of Canada. In a synchronous global downturn, who will suddenly decide to buy Canadian exports with renewed enthusiasm? Recovery in 2009?  I seriously doubt it.

5)       What or who do we spend stimulus funding on? Most countries are spending money on traditional infrastructure, but what we forget is that traditional infrastructure does not produce ongoing revenue for the country or for a municipality. Traditional infrastructure such as new roads are a cost item on a national balance sheet, requiring maintenance and money from fuel taxes, unless you have a toll gate or a congestion tax like we see in London, England. A smart road would incorporate piezoelectric sensors that harvest energy by converting vibrations caused by cars and turning it into electricity that could power lights along the roadway. Intelligent sewers could be coupled with algae streams, that would digest the waste and produce useful biofuels. More natural sewage teatment systems have been proposed by biologists and engineers. " First you'd desludge it. Then you'd filter it through nonedible barrier plants and again through a tower of zebra mussels, the best filtering organism out there. After that, the water would be pristine," says Dickson Despommier at Columbia University

6)       What should we be spending stimulus on? Again, governments have a dismal track record of picking new industry winners.

 

7)       What will the recession bottom look like ? We do not know but it will be different from previous recessions / depressions for sure Why? Economist can’t explain the complexity of driving factors to predict the length and depth of the next bottom. Six months ago most of the business community were in denial that a recession was possible and were not considering contingencies or recession-related opportunity scenarios. As the Guardian newspaper is asking this morning about the annual Davos economic love-fest:" Davos is not holding a capitalist show-trial this year. Instead it wants to be the place where the rebuilding of capitalism begins. The event is attempting to slide guiltily into what the organisers call the "post-crisis world" without ever confessing to its role in the crisis....The obvious question is why, if everyone at this meeting is so smart, did almost none of them predict the scale of the crash? The few who did are this year's stars – led by economists Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Roach. And the greatest sinners have stayed away."

 

8)       Who will be the recovery leaders and laggards? We don’t know, despite that stock analysts claim example- Industry x is always a leader or laggard. Not true. Each recession has had a different profile and economists can’t explain why or predict the next one.

 

9)       Will gold and silver be a hedge against future devaluations of currency? Not, if everyone decides to trade in gold back in for cash like we saw in the stock market crash in 2008, when traders suddenly needed cash to cover margin calls.

 

10)   How will the global economy deal with pending strategic material and water shortages that are forecast over the next 15-20 years?  Peak materials ? Wars ? Embargoes? Rationing? Prohibition? Substitution?

 

      "If it can't be reduced, reused, repaired, rebuilt, refurbished, refinished, resold, recycled or composted, then it should be restricted, redesigned or removed from production."
Pete Seeger

 

11)   Are we going back to an economy predicated on unsustainable growth or can we develop a steady state, near zero growth and still be economically healthy? The 2 decade long extended L recovery in Japan could be a forwarning of what the USA faces. - the japanese economic flu.

 

 

 

 

12)   What new economy and technologies  will replace the one that’s currently crumbling before our eyes? The Smart Technology economy?

 

13) Why did Alan Greenspan warn of "irrational exuberance in 1996, but when he became the US Fed Chairman, did nothing to restrain it back into check?

 

Walter Derzko, Smart Economy, Toronto

Author of the soon-to-be-released book: Hard Times Golden Opportunities.. about opportunity recognition in a recession/ depression featuring 45 opportunity scenarios.

Related Recession Posts

When will the recession end? Part 15 Year-end predictions for 2009 starting to come true

When will the recession end? Part 14 Four options for America's race to the bottom

When will the recession end? Part 13 Thirteen economic questions that economists can't answer

When will the recession end? Part 12 Bad times are good times for startups

When will the recession end? Part 11 Bank of Canada optimism

When will the recession end? Part 10, The Conformity Trap or Don't count on your economist for advise

When will the recession end? Part 9 Humor will signal recession /depression bottom

When will the recession end? Part 8 Lessons Learned from the last Post 9/11 recession; designing brilliant winning business models

When will the recession end? Part 7 False signals of recovery

When will this recession end? Part 6 The USA Paradox; Cheer vs Fear vs Transformation

When will the recession end? Part 5 Stop Auto Industry Bailouts, start buying Electric

When will the recession end? Part 4 The double dip housing crash in the USA

When will the recession end? Part 3 The coming collapse of the American Middle Class into an Underclass

When will this recession end ? Part 2 Do you listen to the Optimists or the Pessimists in 2009?

When will this recession end?

82 Signposts to the current Recession Depression Summary from 2008

 

© 2005-2009

Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

• ".....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"-old Japanese proverb
• ".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." -- H. Mumford Jones
• ".......Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  --A. Einstein
• ".......Change is difficult, but complacency and stagnation are surefire showstoppers..." --Walter Derzko

• ".......Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  -- Margaret Mead

• ".......Small minds discuss people; Average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas; --Anon

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

When will the recession end? Part 5 Stop Auto Industry Bailouts, start buying Electric

Instead of offering more unconditional bailouts to the big three North American automakers, the Canadian government should shift from supply to demand and change its procurement policy to promote green electric vehicles. When it comes time to replacing fleet vehicles, vans, trucks and buses or trains they should purchase electric vehicles from local manufacturers including Bombardier, GM, Ford or Chrysler or Toyota or Honda if they are made in Canada. This procurement policy could be extended to the army, crown corporations, provincial governments, municipalities and utilities. That would provide a financial incentive to the auto industry to retool and take them through dificult recessionary / depressionary times as well as indirectly supporting the auto-parts manufacturers. Increased production runs should bring down the costs eventually to normal consumers.

Walter Derzko, Smart Economy, Toronto

Author of the soon-to-be-released book: Hard Times Golden Opportunities.. about opportunity recognition in a recession/ depression featuring 45 opportunity scenarios.

Related Posts

82 Signposts to the current Recession Depression Summary from 2008

When will this recession end?

When will this recession end ? Part 2 Do you listen to the Optimists or the Pessimists in 2009?

When will the recession end? Part 3 The coming collapse of the American Middle Class into an Underclass

When will the recession end? Part 4 The double dip housing crash in the USA

When will this recession end? Part 6 The USA Paradox; Cheer vs Fear vs Transformation

© 2005-2009

Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

• ".....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"-old Japanese proverb
• ".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." -- H. Mumford Jones
• ".......Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  --A. Einstein
• ".......Change is difficult, but complacency and stagnation are surefire showstoppers..." --Walter Derzko

• ".......Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  -- Margaret Mead

• ".......Small minds discuss people; Average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas; --Anon

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page 

When will the recession end? Part 3 The coming collapse of the American Middle Class into an Underclass

Why will this recession / depression be longer and deeper then most of the downturns in the last 100 years?

In each of the post war downturns, it was the consumer, namely the middle class that spent its way out of a recession, using either savings or bank credit.

Today the  consumer is maxed out and the middle class in the US is shrinking, turning into an underclass-- bad news for any business who relies on this cohort of consumers for increasing business sales.

Elizabeth Warren a Harvard  Law professor, and author of the Two Income Trap, has been studying the middle class  over an entire generation. She’s been comparing spending patterns of a typical family with two kids today (data from 2005-2006) and a generation ago ie in the 1970’s. and is warning of the coming collapse of the Middle Class. Her presentation at UC in 2007  summarizes her research that shows that over a  generation, a typical family is

• A) more in debt  ie. 1.47% revolving  credit and 14% savings in 1970 vs over 15% of income in revolving credit and negative savings of 0.8% in 2005-2006) and
• B) now spending less of their family income on clothing (down 32%), food (down 18%), per car ownership costs (down 24%) and appliances (down 52%), but is spending far more on Child Care (up 100%), Mortgage Payments (up 76%), Health Insurance (up 74%) ,the second or third car (up 52%) and all sorts of taxes (up 25%)

She makes the insightful point that all of the expenses in the first category that dropped over a generation are all flexible. You have the choice not to buy fashionable clothes or eat at restaurants but shop at discount malls or eat more at home.

All the expenses in the second category are fixed, so that the loss of one or two income earners due to layoffs can quickly drive a family into bankruptcy and foreclosure.

 

So a family with  a single income earner in 1970 averaging $32K, who  spent half of their income on fixed expenses had more money left over then a two income family earning on average $72 K in 2003 with 3/4 of their income going to fixed expenses.

 

THE BOTTOM LINE: Families are now far less resilient to financial shocks, despite having two income earners then they were in previous recessions with only one income earner.

 

See video from March 8, 2007 lecture  of Coming Collapse of the Middle Class Increased Risks, Lower Rewards and Shrinking Safety Net

 

Related Posts

When will this recession end?

When will this recession end ? Part 2 Do you listen to the Optimists or the Pessimists in 2009?

When will the recession end? Part 4 The double dip housing crash in the USA

When will the recession end? Part 5 Stop Auto Industry Bailouts, start buying Electric

When will this recession end? Part 6 The USA Paradox; Cheer vs Fear vs Transformation

82 Signposts to the current Recession Depression Summary from 2008

© 2005-2009

Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Author of the soon-to-be-released book: Hard Times Golden Opportunities.. about opportunity recognition in a recession/ depression featuring 45 opportunity scenarios.

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

• ".....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"-old Japanese proverb
• ".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." -- H. Mumford Jones
• ".......Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  --A. Einstein
• ".......Change is difficult, but complacency and stagnation are surefire showstoppers..." --Walter Derzko

• ".......Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  -- Margaret Mead

• ".......Small minds discuss people; Average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas; --Anon

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

When will this recession end ? Part 2 Do you listen to the Optimists or the Pessimists in 2009?

 Last week I asked the question on Christmas Eve-When will this recession end?

Today I'd like to continue the debate. Have you noticed lately the the recession prediction market has neatly sequestered into two opposite and distinct camps. The  middle camp (stay on the sidelines) is all but vacant.

The Optimist economist camp all unanimously predict that we will see this recession bottom out quite shortly --by mid 2009 or at year end at the least....”If the dominoes fall the right way, the economy should bottom out and start growing again in small steps by July 2009, according to the December survey of 50 professional forecasters by Blue Chip Economic Indicators.”  See New York Times Some Forecasters See a Fast Economic Recovery

 

Note that these are all the same people that up until the fall of 2008 were all in total denial that the recession was in fact a reality and raging since late 2007 What’s their sole justification for their Pollyannaism? Obama's stimulus package will be enough to breath optimism and hopefulness back into stock markets, get people investing their money in equities and to get banks lending back to the same people that got in over their heads into debt in the first place.  Look more closely and you'll find that these are all people who work for banks, investment houses, derivative funds, and stock brokerage firms who have a stake in you not taking your money out of your accounts or putting more of your money back into their accounts. Their pay checks and careers depend on creating a rosy future economic picture, and not a realistic picture. They rely exclusively on econometric models and simulations and not on gut feel and anticipating huan emotions and behaviors.They are in fact glorified overpaid cheer leaders and not independent economic thinkers, that can subjectively explore both sides of an arguement..Just look back at their predictions in the last two years.Their dismal track record speaks for itself. Yet the media continues to give these economic voices top billing.

 

 

The Pessimist Camp

 

In the other camp, we have economists whose jobs, pay checks and incentive bonuses don't depend on the size and growth of your bank accounts or equity portfolios.

These are economists who are typically retired or teach at universities or work at independent 3d party think tanks. You read about their analysis in working papers or academic journals which only a handfull of other academic read or have access to.

So in the interest of balance and fair play, here's their point of view. 

 

Nouriel Roubini, New YorkUniversity

Many economists are far more pessimistic, of course. Nouriel Roubini at New York University, who called the 2008 market disaster correctly, wrote in a recent commentary on Bloomberg News that he foresees "a deep and protracted contraction lasting at least through the end of 2009." Even in 2010, he added, the recovery may be so weak "that it will feel terrible even if the recession is technically over."

Writing in Foreign Policy this month in a story called Warning: More Doom Ahead  Nouriel Roubini  warns:

“The global financial pandemic that I and others had warned about is now upon us. But we are still only in the early stages of this crisis. My predictions for the coming year, unfortunately, are even more dire: The bubbles, and there were many, have only begun to burst.

 ..[..].."The prevailing conventional wisdom holds that prices of many risky financial assets have fallen so much that we are at the bottom. Although it’s true that these assets have fallen sharply from their peaks of late 2007, they will likely fall further still. In the next few months, the macroeconomic news in the United States and around the world will be much worse than most expect. Corporate earnings reports will shock any equity analysts who are still deluding themselves that the economic contraction will be mild and short.”

Martin Feldstein, Harvard

Reuters reported yesterday that the current U.S. downturn could easily drag on for the rest of this year, according to Harvard economist Martin Feldstein , the former president of the National Bureau of Economic Research, who was speaking  at the American Economics Association annual meeting in San Francisco

.

"The current downturn is likely to last much longer than previous downturns. ... We will be lucky to see the recession end in 2009," said Feldstein, former president of the National Bureau of Economic Research, said at the American Economics Association annual meeting in San Francisco. The NBER said last month that the U.S. economy had entered recession in December 2007.

Feldstein, called for fiscal stimulus that is "big, quick and targeted at increasing aggregate activity." Levels of $300 billion to $400 billion "seem like good targets" for both 2009 and 2010, he said. “Some of the areas that could be targeted for more spending including the military, the FBI, and funding for research through increased grants to universities and hospitals, Feldstein said.”

"In each area, the government budget must go beyond business as usual," he said.

He warned that even those efforts might fall short, leaving unemployment levels high two or three years from now and necessitating more drastic measures.

Crmen M. Reinhart University of Maryland. NBER and CEPR and Kenneth S.Rogoff HarvardUniversityand NBER

These two economists, who we have profiled before on the Smart Economy blog,  have done some interesting historical comparisons in a working paper called  "The Aftermath of Financial Crises"

They remind us that a banking crisis combined with a recession is a totally different financial animal. They conclude:

“Broadly speaking, financial crises are protracted affairs. More often than not, the aftermath of severe financial crises share three characteristics.

First, asset market collapses are deep and prolonged. Real housing price declines average 35 percent stretched out over six years, while equity price collapses average 55 percent over a downturn of about three and a half years.

Second, the aftermath of banking crises is associated with profound declines in output and employment. The unemployment rate rises an average of 7 percentage points over the down phase of the cycle, which lasts on average over four years. Output falls (from peak to trough) an average of over 9 percent, although the duration of the downturn, averaging roughly two years, is considerably shorter than for unemployment.

Third, the real value of government debt tends to explode, rising an average of 86 percent in the major post–World War II episodes. Interestingly, the main cause of debt explosions is not the widely cited costs of bailing out and recapitalizing the banking system. Admittedly, bailout costs are difficult to measure, and there is considerable divergence among estimates from competing studies. But even upper-bound estimates pale next to actual measured rises in public debt. In fact, the big drivers of debt increases are the inevitable collapse in tax revenues that governments suffer in the wake of deep and prolonged output contractions, as well as often ambitious countercyclical fiscal policies aimed at mitigating the downturn."

This is supported by the follow charts

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Walter Derzko

Smart Economy

Toronto

Author of the soon-to-be-released book: Hard Times Golden Opportunities.. about opportunity recognition in a recession/ depression featuring 45 opportunity scenarios.

 

Tomorrow: When will this recession end? Part3 Collapse of the US middle class

 

Related Posts

When will this recession end?

When will the recession end? Part 3 The coming collapse of the American Middle Class into an Underclass

When will the recession end? Part 4 The double dip housing crash in the USA

When will the recession end? Part 5 Stop Auto Industry Bailouts, start buying Electric

When will this recession end? Part 6 The USA Paradox; Cheer vs Fear vs Transformation

82 Signposts to the current Recession Depression Summary from 2008

 

© 2005-2009

Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

• ".....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"-old Japanese proverb
• ".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." -- H. Mumford Jones
• ".......Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  --A. Einstein
• ".......Change is difficult, but complacency and stagnation are surefire showstoppers..." --Walter Derzko

• ".......Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  -- Margaret Mead

• ".......Small minds discuss people; Average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas; --Anon

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

 

Top 10 smart technologies for Obama and Harper to consider for their infrastructure / cyberstructure / cognistructure program

Both US president elect Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper have promised "New Deal" like infrastructure programs for the USA and Canada to spend their way out of a depression / recession (pick one). A new term is needed to describe this type of new intelligence-infused infrastructure. I call it the cognistructure-an infrastructure that thinks for itself.

Here's my list of top 10 smart technologies that both Olbama and Harper should have their eye on and on their planning radar screens; (Niche applications 10-6, more ubiquitous applications 5-1)

10. Smart home fabrication (supersized 3D printer that prints your home on site) to improve construction efficiency and effectiveness and waste reduction in conventional house building (but there is little chance of seeing North American building codes reformed any time soon)

9. Smart sensors in bridges, levees, roads, buildings, vehicles, satellites  etc (smart dust) to provide a dynamic sense and respond environment- eco cities-earth with a fast track  nervous system

8. Move toward the electrification of transportation (GM, Ford, Chysler shifts production to electric cars and trucks)and smart road networks (ie smart retractable speed bumps, movable road mediums that adjust to traffic flow and congestion)

7.Biomimicry -- designing systems, objects and surfaces  based on natural biological models

6. Smart "emergent and self-organizing" traffic congestion systems that deal with natural complexity in unconventional ways

5.Infrastructure / congnistructure for Smart cities, that address and enforce  "system resilience" and mitigates the consequences future potential catastrophies (climate change, severe weather, man-made disasters, riots, etc)

4.Modermizing the electrical grid to accept consumer and commercial inputs from alternate energy and reducing power loss during distribution ( via super conductors and nanowires)

3.Adoption of smart alternate energy technologies (wind, water and sun) that approach price parity with gas, coal, nuclear and electricity. Move toward distributed and diversified energy production vs centralised energy production.

2. Energy harvesting- various smart technologies that convert latent heat, all light spectra and mechanical vibration into electricity. Objects that create their own energy

1. Internet of things (IofT) (or ObjectNet or O-Net) & the Internet of Services (IofS) or S-Net -Intelligent objects, systems and environments have their own unique IP address and are connected together, just like web pages are linked on the web today.

© 2005-2008

Walter Derzko

Expert, Consultant and Guest Speaker on emerging Smart Technologies, Strategic Planning, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me

.....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"

- old Japanese proverb

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

Smart Sustainability Showcase for Toronto and Canada

From: Walter Derzko

Sent: Friday, July 11, 2008 12:19 AM

To: undisclosed list

Subject: re Smart Sustainability ShowCase for Toronto and Canada.

Importance: High

Dear Colleagues

I’d like to plant an idea with you – after speaking with a number of designers and vendors, I’m exploring the idea for a sustainability showcase that would feature theme based exhibits with smart technologies from Canadian and international sources-the best from Ontario, nationally and from around the world.

The launch would be 2010, The timing for this seems right.  The target audience would be Canadian business, consumers and school children

I’m writing a book on smart technologies and this would be a logical extension of the concept.

Two years ago I talked to Samantha Sannella and Poala Polletto at the Design Exchange (DX) in Toronto and with several people at the Ont Science Center.  Both groups expressed interest but said that we would need to find sponsors for the project

My business model for this would be three pronged -vendor based revenue, corporate based sponsor revenue and municipality based sponsorship ie city of Toronto or Mississauga and possibly the province of Ontario who may wish to promote sustainable manufacturing.

This concept would be a Canadian, in fact a North American first.

I have a list of 150 potential vendors, and designers from around the world who are working on smart technologies that we can start to approach.

The exhibits would be theme based, --the sustainable kitchen, the sustainable office, the sustainable retail shelf, the sustainable workspace, the sustainable community, the sustainable city etc and would be updated with new technologies every 3-5 years and have a 1-5 year forward focus. (what's commercially available now or in the very near future.

For other exhibits, there can be a regional or national focus ie smart sustainable technology from the UK, Finland, Germany (Fraunhofer Inst), China, Ukraine, Russia, or Singapore, Hong Kong etc

Corporate sponsors might include: Walmart, Rona, Home Deport, Canadian Tire, Loblaws, Sears, Imperial Oil, the banks (RBC, TD, RBC BMO) etc.

The Sustainability Showcase could be housed in a physical location, or it could tour from location to location around the city or province or be mobile ( on a bus the way the Japanese and Korean do- a display bus turned into a demo center that tours from school to school or to fairs and exhibitions.

OCAD students and staff and Beal senior fellows could play a hand in designing exhibit spaces and sourcing new vendors and sustainable technologies.

Several other revenue opportunities could spin off from this as well

Here’s just a few examples of what can be showcased

1) Environmentally sensible packaging such as Mercury-Absorbant NanoSponge packaging for broken compact fluorescent lamps (CFL's) http://smarteconomy.typepad.com/smart_economy/2008/06/mercury-absorba.html

2) Concrete Wood (from the example I mentioned June 2 at OCAD, when Bob Logan was bemoaning the lack of durability of pressboard shelving from Ikea.  See Concrete Wood from lodgepole pine trees destroyed by pine beetles (kills two birds with one stone) http://smarteconomy.typepad.com/smart_economy/2007/11/concrete-wood.html

3) End of Traditional Heating and Air conditioning Thin-film version of Active Building Envelope (ABE) systems could make conventional air conditioning and heating equipment obsolete http://smarteconomy.typepad.com/smart_economy/2006/07/thinfilm_versio.html

4) OLEDs New High efficiency flat light source OLEDs > Almost any surface in a home, whether flat or curved, could become a light source: walls, curtains, ceilings, cabinets, shelves or tables.  Http://smarteconomy.typepad.com/smart_economy/2006/04/new_high_effici.html

Lots more like these

For anyone who is interested in exploring the idea of a Smart Sustainability Showcase for Toronto, we are having a meeting on Tuesday July 22 at 11 am at the Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD), Beal Institute for Strategic Creativity, room 600, 6th floor , 100 McCaul St, Toronto just south of the Ont Art Gallery.

Please RSVP, so we know how many people are coming

I have had some positive feedback from several organizations, & I’d like to push the concept forward

I'm sending this nationally and internationally in  case you are aware of any designers, vendors, manufacturers or research centers who have interesting cutting edge smart sustainable technology to showcase.

Contact me by email

----Walter  Derzko; Senior Fellow Beal Institute for Strategic Creativity, OCAD 

© 2005-2008 Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Expert, Consultant, Keynote Speaker and Lecturer on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

Millennium development goals: radically reducing extreme poverty and hunger. Are we on track? 07-200

One year ago in my presentaion at the World Futures Society on Smart Technologies I was reflecting on how smart technologies, namely nanotech and biotech converging technologies could be used to address the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In April 2007, the General Assembly of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations convened to discuss progress made towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Professor Patrick Webb,  dean for academic affairs at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at  Tufts University, presented on the status of the Millennium Development Goal One (MDG1): radically reducing extreme poverty and hunger.

The MDGs were developed at the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000 to set measurable goals and targets for a range of pressing global problems, including poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women.

MDG1 has a twofold objective: reduce the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day, and reduce the proportion of people suffering hunger by half. In order to meet these goals, Webb highlighted recent successes that can guide future efforts.

There are three priority issues to be tackled in seeking to address the second objective (on hunger)

• removing the ‘invisibility’ of hunger by better measuring and highlighting areas making limited progress,
• promoting innovations in programming, and
• integrating mainstream lessons from successful action in humanitarian settings (saving lives and reducing acute malnutrition) into development interventions.

Development efforts can address these issues by improving protocols and products for treating malnutrition, and preventing malnutrition by enhancing behaviors and choices that lead to improved nutrition throughout the lifecycle.

Poverty and hunger are multidimensional problems requiring multidimensional solutions. (see related post on Sensmaking Redux 2006)

To address the multidimensional nature of these problems, the first MDG addresses five distinct goals: reducing poverty, narrowing the poverty gap (between richest and poorest), increasing the share of income enjoyed by the poorest families, reducing the share of preschool children who are underweight, and lowering the share of each country’s population that has too little to eat.

“Progress in one target area does not guarantee progress in the other areas,” says Webb. “Focusing on just one aspect of the problem, or just one of the target risks, is missing the point…and risks compromising the success of the entire agenda.”

Speaking on behalf of the three Rome-based agencies of the United Nations (the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP), and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)), Webb argued that governments should engage more seriously in measuring their own progress towards agreed goals. Solutions to hunger are known, and novel approaches to the treatment and prevention of malnutrition in emergencies have shown that quick gains are possible. Making such gains sustainable means scaling up innovations across developing country settings, and targeting resources towards such key priorities.

This meeting of Member States, UN System Organizations, other major institutional stakeholders, as well as non-governmental organizations, academics and foundations concentrated on the theme “Eradicating poverty and hunger – Joining forces to make it happen.” The conference explored the issues and set the groundwork for the ECOSOC’s first Annual Ministerial Review (AMR) this summer in Switzerland.

Webb concluded by stating that “…in order to successfully impact malnutrition it takes complementary inputs delivered through complementary partnerships. It is not only about food, and it is not only about cash in the pocket. Many different elements are needed to achieve the five goals, and many institutions have to bring their resources to bear. In order to tackle the problem it is not possible to focus on just agriculture or just health; in order to be successful the many facets of the problem must all be addressed.”

Webb will continue to work with the many stakeholders involved in assessing progress and further advancing the important human goals that are the MDGs.

Source: Tufts Univ press release

© 2005-2007

Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

• ".....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"-old Japanese proverb
• ".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." -- H. Mumford Jones
• ".......Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  --A. Einstein
• ".......Change is difficult, but complacency and stagnation are surefire showstoppers..." --Walter Derzko

• ".......Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  -- Margaret Mead

• ".......Small minds discuss people; Average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas; --Anon

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

Wake up and smell the future; Mind to Market Breakfast series on Innovation hosted by the Ontario Centres of Excellence 07-008

Ontario Centres of Excellence - Where Next Happens

An Early Morning Checkup on the State of Innovation - Join us for the second event in a new and stimulating breakfast series dedicated to innovative emerging technology in Ontario.

WAKE UP AND SMELL THE FUTURE.
Experience a hot breakfast and an even hotter climate of innovation, as leading innovators share their experiences, strategies and vision for an Ontario ready to explode onto the global scene.

It's your chance to get an early taste of the future, brought to you by OCE, passionate champions of the Next Ontario.

Session 2: HEALTH RESEARCH:
THE 21st CENTURY'S PROSPERITY ENGINE

Featuring: Dr. Robert S. Bell, MD,
President and CEO,
University Health Network (UHN)

From photodynamic therapies to nanotech diagnostics, the research underway at UHN offers enormous opportunity for Ontario companies. Research hospitals are a critical driver of economic benefits to the province's economy. They improve the quality of our health care and its delivery, and attract and retain leading scientific talent.

Join Dr. Bob Bell as he considers the way commercialization of biomedical research is not only bringing to light better treatments and better detection, but is also improving the economic health prospects of the province.

7:30 a.m. - 9:00 a.m., January 23, 2007
Toronto Board of Trade, First Canadian Place
77 Adelaide Street West, 4th Floor, Toronto, Ontario

Click here (http://bot.com/asp/EventManager/EventSearchDetail.asp?id=591), to register online.

For more information about the Mind to Market breakfast series, please visit
the OCE website at www.oce-ontario.org or contact the event hotline at
416-439-4143 or by email (mailto:events@bot.com?subject=Ontario Centres of Excellence Mind to Market Breakfast Series).

© 2005-2007

Walter Derzko

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate & comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

.....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"- old Japanese proverb

".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." - H. Mumford Jones

"Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  A. Einstein

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  - Margaret Mead

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

Happy 1st Birthday to the Smart Economy Blog; Announcing a new Web site, Monthly workshops and webinars

Today marks the 1st anniversary of the Smart Economy Blog. We've received many encouraging feedback & emails from our readers over the past year and good suggestions from positive-focused critics for future improvements.

• According to Pingpoat, The Smart Economy Blog is worth  is $1011.17!  per day
• Inbound links: 1085
• Technorati rank: 34,021

So today, I'm announcing a series of new "smart" initiatives that we will be kicking off in October 2006.

The Smart Economy is growing exponentially and so are we, right along with it.

Smart Economy Learning Series-monthly workshops in Toronto

Starting in October 2006, we will be launching a monthly series of one-day workshops on topics that our blog readers say interest them. These include:

• Latest Tools for Advanced Environmental Scanning, Managing Information Overload and Sense-making ( October 12, 2006, BCE Place Toronto) email me asking for a registration form
• Lateral thinking in business  (Date TBA)
• Developing foresight in your business or industry  (Date TBA)
• Resolving conflicts and disputes using lateral thinking (Date TBA)
• The Opportunity Clinic --Scanning your business environment for Opportunities(Date TBA)
• The Idea Lab --Designing smart products and services that will drive business development forward (Date TBA)
• Introduction to Business Development --Tracking emerging technologies as threats or opportunities for your business (Date TBA)
• Technology Assessment for Investment Professionals & High Tech Startups (Date TBA)
• Building a Busines Case for Smart Devices, objects and services (Date TBA)
• Designing winning business modles for Smart Technologies (Date TBA)

Register today, since space will be limited. Past workshops have sold out quickly.

The Smart Economy Web Page

We are finally in the last stages of planning and constructing our new web site for the Smart Economy. Watch out for launch date soon.

The Smart Economy Webinar Series.

Also starting in October 2006, we will host a monthly opportunity for our blog readers to phone in and participate in a "live seminar" which will include power-point slides and a Q&A session, all from the comfort of your PC or laptop. It will be on some current topic related to the smart economy and some rising smart technology that will be coming into prominence soon. This will be a subscription based series.... We will try to keep the price reasonable so that everyone can participate. Subscription information & schedule will be out soon. Watch for announcements.

Thanks again for all your ideas and keep the feedback coming in.

© 2005-2006

Walter Derzko

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight,, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

To arrange for an in house presentation on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

.....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"- old Japanese proverb

.......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to. - H. Mumford Jones

"Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  A. Einstein

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page