“What if I’m wrong? What else might happen instead?” This (two-part) question may just be the smartest question in the world, because it allows you to lift your head and look around at a broader world, outside the boundaries of your opinions and preconceptions. If you’re considering the future, as I do, then this […] Read more

What follows is a summary of a presentation I gave to a symposium on the future of food. In attendance were farm producers, food processors, food retailers, and research scientists. I believe that the development of nutrigenomics will prove to be the most important development in food production and preparation since the introduction of fire […] Read more

What follows is a summary of a presentation I gave to a Canadian manufacturing group concerned about the financial and economic effects of the current crisis. I found it particularly interesting that I had just spoken to this same group eight months earlier, and the presentation was hastily arranged and held just seven days before […] Read more

Regular readers of this blog know that I have been increasingly concerned about the credit crisis, and have maintained for some time that this crisis has the potential to bring down the global financial system. I have also stressed that there has been a very low probability of this happening. More recent posts, though, have […] Read more

I recently spoke about the future of education to the faculty of an elite, K-12 private boys school. Money had clearly been lavished on the campus, which looked like a small private university. And it was clear that only people with deep pockets could afford to send their boys there. During the Q&A after my […] Read more

“That 70s Show” is a TV program, presumably about nostalgia for an earlier day. Yet, we may actually be going back to the world of the ’70s, and I don’t think we’re going to like it. In particular, we are going to experience inflation that is higher than any we have had since the 1970s, […] Read more

What follows is a summary of a presentation that I made for the international “Pulp and Paper Strategies” conference in Miami, Florida, in mid-February of 2008. In it, I outline the major changes in our society’s use of paper, and the very positive forces at work that can benefit pulp & paper producers, particularly the […] Read more

In June of 2000 I wrote an article called “Hi, robot!” (which you can still find on my website) in which I said, among other things, that a robot vacuum cleaner for households would be among the first robots available, that a general-purpose robot housekeeper might be available within 7-10 years, and that human-like commercial […] Read more

 The credit crisis unfolding in the U.S. is not over, nor have we seen the worst of what may be to come. Indeed, I would argue that we have seen two of the four Horsemen of the (financial) Apocalypse, and should keep our eyes peeled for the other two. The two that we’ve witnessed to date […] Read more