While the world is filled with many complex problems, I love the Thanksgiving season because it reminds me that much more is going right than wrong. We have so much to be grateful for, and there is a bright future ahead!
Nick Murray said it best in his book Simple Wealth, Inevitable Wealth: “Pessimism is counterintuitive because no one would look back at history and see a failing worldview….The U.S. economy has seen it all and come back from the brink every time. It has seen wars, crises, recessions, depressions, inflation, deflation, burst bubbles, and the never-ending end-of-the-world whispers and screams….Despite all that, the American capitalist machine was constantly creating, innovating, and driving the economy forward every step of the way….Optimism is the only realism.”
What Makes the Market Grow?
Sometimes people ask me whether the stock market can really continue to climb in the future. It’s easy to forget that market growth is driven by the effort and ingenuity of millions of people working every day to make the world a better place—new products, new services, and smarter ways of doing things that improve our collective standard of living. So yes, as long as enough people throughout the world continue to do that, the market will continue to grow!
What exciting new developments may soon enhance our lives in ways we can scarcely imagine now, while producing awesome returns for investors? Here are some real examples currently being developed:
- The proliferation of truly autonomous vehicles
- Flying cars
- More accessible space tourism and space sports
- Improved artificial intelligence and machine learning
- New technology and DNA studies to help fight diseases
- 3D-printed bone replacements for surgical use
- Brain-reading robots and brain-controlled prosthetic limbs
- Cleaner, cheaper, and more efficient energy and batteries
- Global high-speed internet for everyone, everywhere
- Radically enhanced virtual reality capabilities for gaming, shopping, training, education, health care, and exercise.
It’s Not Just About the Money
Our collective global progress and my optimism for the future are not just about financial growth. The research company YouGov conducted a survey in which 65 percent of Americans thought the world was getting worse and only 6 percent thought it was getting better. However, in their enlightening book published in 2020, Ten Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know, authors Ronald Bailey and Marian L. Tupy demonstrate that the world is actually getting much better in a myriad of ways. Here is a small sample of many promising trends they highlight:
- “The global absolute poverty rate has fallen from 42 percent in 1981 to 8.6 percent today.”
- “The prevalence of undernourishment in the world fell from 37 percent of the total population in 1969-1971…to 10.8 percent in 2018.”
- “Satellite data show that forest area has been expanding since 1982.”
- “Natural resources are becoming ever cheaper and more abundant.”
- “Since 1900, the average life expectancy has more than doubled, reaching more than 72 years globally.”
- “Over the past half century, wars between countries have become rarer, and those that do occur kill fewer people.”
- “People today are much more likely to survive natural disasters because of increased wealth and technological progress.”
- “Nearly 90 percent of the world’s population in 1820 was illiterate. Today almost 90 percent can read.”
- In the United States, the percentage of income we must spend on basic necessities has fallen sharply, we have bigger and better housing than ever before, air travel is cheaper than ever, and almost everyone has electricity, plumbing, central heating and air conditioning, a vehicle, refrigerator, microwave, dishwasher, washer and dryer, color TV, computer, smartphone, and internet access.
Why We Get Dragged Down So Easily
It can be easy to feel gloomy about the state of the world because the media tends to focus on dramatic negative events, which grab our attention much more than steady progress. Additionally, as our standard of living increases, we tend to be harsher critics and have less patience for temporary inconveniences like losing an internet connection or having to wait an extra ten minutes for our pizza.
Next time you feel like there is no hope for the future, make a list of everything you can think of that is better in your life now than it was 20 years ago. Then try to imagine what could possibly be better 20 years from now. Yes, we will endure many new unforeseen challenges—that’s life, but I am excited about the future and firmly believe that the best is yet to come!
