When The Jetsons first aired, the idea of a robot maid or a flying car seemed too good to be true. In 2023, we have moving walkways, Roombas, and flying car prototypes. With the growth of green energy, could we live in Orbit City by 2062? Get more here.
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Maybe you were there for the original episodes 60 years ago or saw them in syndication in the 80s, but The Jetsons cartoons remain iconic today. The show wasn’t the first to imagine jetpacks, flying cars, or moving sidewalks, but it gave Americans hope for the possibilities ahead.
For those children from the 60s or the 80s, the idea of a robot maid like Rosie might have sounded too good to be true. (How great would that have been for tackling childhood chores?) But now we have our choice of Roombas to mop or vacuum the floors, self-propelled electric lawn mowers, and even self-cleaning litterboxes.
How times have changed! Imagine what the next 60 years will bring.
As we’re watching the developments, it’s clear that the futurists of our day are interested in making the best of the modern world less wasteful, less expensive, and more efficient. And both industry and government have established benchmarks and best practices for improving how “clean” our processes are.
Sectors in renewable energy, efficient energy systems, and more sustainable forms of transportation continue to grow all the time. For example, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, our country’s wind power capacity has increased 60% in the past five years, and solar capacity has grown a whopping 200% in that same span. The share of energy humans harness from these sources is likely to continue growing, especially given the U.S. goal for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050—a goal other nations also share.
It doesn’t take a crystal ball to imagine more solar panels or wind turbines in our future. We believe there are opportunities that merit a place on our Buy List or at least deserve a closer look in the coming years. It makes sense to find positions that will help us invest in materials needed in the near future.
For instance, we keep our eye on various raw materials: we won’t be building any Jetsons-style Skypad Apartments without them, right? We are also closely tracking the potential of electric vehicles. No personal jetpacks yet, but EVs are an innovation worth our attention.
We don’t need our world to be hyper-futuristic to enjoy the benefits of technology, energy, or transportation. And we’d like this lovely planet to still be here for our children and grandchildren and the generations beyond.
So where are the opportunities between where we live now and the Jetson home in Orbit City? We can strive to invest in the world we’d like to see.
Clients, call or email if you would like to chat about this or anything else.
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I was recently amused by an online debate among some financial planners. One planner was wondering how to “deal” with a client who wanted to pay off their mortgage early, given that they could invest their extra money instead.
My amusement came from observing those who believed their calculators or spreadsheets could provide a definitive answer to the question. Was it better to make larger mortgage payments or to invest more?
They seemed to confuse their analytical tools with an ability to know the future.
Most argued that the “correct” answer was to invest more rather than pay down the debt, because their tools showed greater ending wealth by doing so. To them, the spreadsheet was the truth. (Usually, they did did at least concede that an emotional insistence to pay off the mortgage might offer the benefit of greater peace of mind.)
None, however, acknowledged that we cannot know the future. Hence there is always uncertainty about the “best” course financially. It is possible that the path to greatest future wealth is via debt reduction, rather than investing more. No one has been to the future and back; there are no guarantees about it either way.
We do know these things: if the future is like the past, chances are one might end with more wealth by investing. And one might reduce uncertainty and increase financial security by paying the mortgage. But we don’t know if the future will be like the past.
The spreadsheet is not the future.
I wonder if there are more interesting questions worth debating… If you have what you need, what is the point of pursuing more? How do you value the feeling of owning a paid-off home? No spreadsheet—and no planner—can answer these questions for you.
Clients, when you’d like to explore the interesting questions, please email us or call. We’ll talk about it.
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