FM-Tech-AI-Cryto-Gas-Governors-Week’s Best Stories-Podcast 723

Every once and a while it’s good to roll through the news and pick a few stories to talk about. Used to do this a lot back in the radio days. These days not so much. We’ll talk about it in FM-Tech-AI-Cryto-Gas-Governors-Week’s Best Stories-Podcast 723.

The Brits May Say Goodbye To FM

Radio is a good place to start. Seems the Brits are getting rid of the FM Radio Band. Listening to digital services in the UK is now over fifty percent. Meanwhile in the US, the radio industry insists on telling the world radio listening has never been higher.  I don’t believe it.

Young Adults Abandon Radio

Especially relevant is an informal survey I did recently of younger adults. I asked them if they listened to the radio. Virtually none of them have. In years.

Princess Leia On Your Smart Phone

Radio talk makes me want to talk about tech. Remember the Princess Leia hologram in the first Star Wars? The first holographic smart phone is due to hit the market this year. The Red Hydrogen One will allow you to shoot 3D video and projects a holographic display which doesn’t require special glasses to see. Another idea from Star Wars that has become real. Details in FM-Tech-AI-Cryto-Gas-Governors-Week’s Best Stories-Podcast 723.

Big Tech Makes Us Mad

When they’re not complaining about gas prices, people love to complain about social media and big tech companies. With so many of the top market cap companies in the tech world, like Amazon and FaceBook for example, people are getting worried they might be too big. Regulation is the answer, right?

Not So Fast

Big Tech Disruptors

What disrupts social media and tech companies? Artificial Intelligence and Crypto Currencies to name two. Blockchain, Smart Contacts and Community to name three more. Moreover when you combine these new ideas with robotics and a faster and more robust internet, the next big thing might not be Amazon, FaceBook, Google or Apple.

Maybe It Will Disrupt Big Government Too

If so called ‘Big Tech’ can be disrupted by this ‘crust’ of new tech ideas that give the consumer control of their identity and money, what’s the possibility for the disruption and eventual dissolution of our sclerotic government? Think about it with me in FM-Tech-AI-Cryto-Gas-Governors-Week’s Best Stories-Podcast 723.

Minnesota Where Corruption-I Mean Business As Usual-is Legal

In conclusion it’s business as usual in the land of ten thousand lakes. The 2018 Governor’s race is heating up. Retiring 1st district congressman Tim Walz just got the nod from Education Minnesota. This is a big endorsement for Democratic candidates. On the Republican side the more things change…

Attack Of The Re-Treads

Gubernatorial re-tread and wealthy banking lobbyist Tim Pawlenty has decided to forgo the Minnesota GOP’s State Convention at Duluth in the beginning of June. He says he got into the race too late. Truth is, the twenty or so rich guys in Minnetonka don’t like the grassroots political community. Find out why in FM-Tech-AI-Cryto-Gas-Governors-Week’s Best Stories-Podcast 723.

Sponsored by Water Butler Water Purification and Reliafund Payment Processors

FM-Tech-AI-Cryto-Gas-Governors-Week’s Best Stories-Podcast 723

Unbounded Optimism-Exuberance-Technology Revolution-Age Of Trump-Podcast 707

The economy is booming. Everything is getting better. Talk to a Trump supporter these days and that’s what you’ll hear. We’ll discuss it in Unbounded Optimism-Exuberance-Technology Revolution-Age Of Trump-Podcast 707.

The Economy Is Booming

A few weeks ago the Atlanta Federal Reserve, known for its bullish predictions, announced first quarter 2018 economic growth might be as high as 5.4 percent. It sure seemed to make sense, to hear main street tell it. Wall Street seemed to agree. In Unbounded Optimism-Exuberance-Technology Revolution-Age Of Trump-Podcast 707.

Wait! What? But You Said The Economy Was Booming!

This week the same Atlanta Fed announced a revision of its earlier prediction, suggesting economic growth for the United States might only be 1.3 percent. Less than the 2+ percent growth in the fourth quarter of last year, which was hardly booming.

We Have To Make Stuff, right?

We’ve been hearing it for awhile. America doesn’t make stuff anymore. Trump’s gonna fix it. Trade protection for the struggling manufacturers. Help for the broad shoulders of America’s industrial past. Trump’s gonna show ’em all. Find out if this is true in Unbounded Optimism-Exuberance-Technology Revolution-Age Of Trump-Podcast 707.

Where Is The Greatest Generation When You Need Them Say The Baby Boomers

Whether it’s your local Tea Party guy or President Clinton’s former labor Secretary Robert Reich, the chant is the same. We don’t make stuff anymore. Sudden authorities on the subject of character point to World War II heroes and 1930’s social welfare warriors as paragons of virtue. The past sure seems sweet to the baby boomers these days.

Suddenly the 1950’s are back.

Forget Big Oil and Banking Go After The Tech Guys

Especially relevant are the Steel and Oil barons. They used to be the villains. Now it’s the tech guys. Republicans used to be against regulation right? Suddenly the republicans and democrats want to regulate social media and search engine tycoons, because ‘something’s got to be done’. Listen to Unbounded Optimism-Exuberance-Technology Revolution-Age Of Trump-Podcast 707.

Smells Like Reagan But…

Administration officials talk trade protection and a weak dollar. So called conservatives add trillions of dollars in debt to pay for tax cuts. There’s talk about increasing taxes on gas and diesel and spending hundreds of billions more on building bridges and roads. There’s talk of US involvement in war in Syria and on the Korean peninsula. These are republicans?

Does that sound like the Reagan Revolution to you?

Everywhere an unseen revolution in technology is eroding and wiping away institutions, including government. The right and the left have lost their way. Big change is upon us. We’re going to have to figure out what comes next because our leaders never will

Are we?

In conclusion we can’t go back to the 1950‘s. However, we can’t seem to move forward. What’s our role in creating the future. What are the most important values in a world where human beings may live hundreds of years longer, robots will farm and manufacture, money will be on your hand held device, cars and trucks will drive themselves, drones will deliver and your robot girlfriend may be a lot smarter than you!

Sponsored by Reliafund

Unbounded Optimism-Exuberance-Technology Revolution-Age Of Trump-Podcast 707

Podcast 538

Western Minnesota Road Trip. Freestyle talk about my travel in the last last 6 weeks. My reflections on a weekend jaunt to Western Minnesota’s New Ulm and Walnut Grove, tying in the talk about technology threatening jobs in the future. Recent road trips have intensified my interest in the history of the Western United States. There is a lot of significant western history in Minnesota. We often think of historic topics like Indian Wars and Pioneers has happening further west, but one of the bloodiest clashes between settlers and American Indians happened in New Ulm in 1862, when the mostly German townspeople had to barricade the streets of their town to fight off attacks by the Dakota. Further west is Walnut Grove, the home of Laura Ingalls Wilder and the famous ‘Little House On The Prairie’. While the museum in Walnut Grove could use a little bit better curation, some of the artifacts in the museum are interesting, especially grasshoppers or Locusts the size of a man’s hand, which plagued the settlers of Walnut Grove. When you examine items in a museum, it’s easy to think about how old they are. For the people of the time though, it was new technology. It’s fun to flip the script and wonder what our descendants will think of the artifacts of our time in a museum at some point a hundred years from now. Today, supposedly new tech like robotics and autonomous machines and software threatens millions of jobs. Proposed ‘solutions’ to this ‘threat’, like guaranteed minimum incomes and job retraining programs don’t make much sense. When people came west for opportunity, 140 years ago, they didn’t have job retraining programs. They couldn’t have known they’d be plagued by grasshoppers the size of a man’s hand. Yet they came anyway. We need to start thinking about the opportunity new technology provides us in building a new world, and stop being so negative all the time. Sponsored by Karow Contracting and Hydrus Performance.