The Good, the Bad and the Ugly!

The Good!

With clear skies at dusk each night for the past week, my wife Karen and I sat out at dusk and watched the SpaceX Starlink Broadband Satellites whiz past overhead. Soon there will be tens of thousands of low earth orbit (LEO) broadband satellites. With 35TB SSD storage now weighing grams, each satellite will be a data centre carrying copies of the Netflix, YouTube and iTunes portfolios. LEO satellites will communicate with each other via laser with latencies significantly lower than terrestrial broadband, especially for inter continental communications. We can all look forward to better, faster and cheaper global broadband connectivity.

This weekend, Crew Dragon, atop Falcon Heavy, brought crew to the ISS on an important step toward a permanent human colony on the moon which in turn is a step toward Martian colonisation and then onward to explore beyond our solar system. The final frontier!

We are making amazing progress in areas such as energy, climate change, information technology, communications, space travel and medicine. I am sure that humankind has the IQ needed to solve all of our problems.

The Bad!

This week, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the EU is quoted as saying, "The cost of investing in rebuilding after the (Covid-19) crisis would be rising debt that would be inherited by future generations.".

The leading investor, economist and author, Ray Dalio, describes what he terms the 'long term debt cycle'. This theory suggests that with unprecedented personal, corporate and sovereign debt coupled with current low interest rates, we are about to enter a phase of debt deleveraging similar to what happened in the 1930s. The rise of the Chinese economy relative to the US economy will put strain on the dollar. The EU is struggling with many very weak southern economies on top of Brexit challenges. While it is true that people are being taken out of extreme poverty, Oxfam claim that global wealth inequality is growing. Wealth inequality leads to populism and unstable democracies.

It looks like the world is in for a period of economic turmoil.

The Ugly!

This weekend we have seen riots across the US caused by outrage over the murder by police of George Floyd. Economic turmoil, a global pandemic and the growing wealth gap are ingredients for an unstable society. Fear and prejudice escalate during times of uncertainty resulting in populism and conflict. Populism, instead of leadership, results in Mexican walls rather than health care. Conflict instead of cooperation results in sub-optimal solutions such as Brexit and WHO funding cuts during a pandemic.

I am not sure that humankind has the EQ and compassion necessary to solve all of our problems.