So, yeah, this is an idea I've been kicking around and wanted feedback on it. I know what little I know about economics from Von Mises. So of course he likes the gold standard and doesn't like governments messing with the money supply. He also says savings are the source of all growth. Both of these things I agree with. But it's a different world today. So I feel like IF (big if) you have some idea what the future looks like when you want to withdraw your money, the best way to save money is to buy a stock that will be doing well then. So I think about: what stocks are going to be looking good 10-30 years from now? So I suppose I should say that I think we are just scratching the surface of what the internet is going to do to the world. But I don't think it will be a shiny utopia. It looks bleak for a lot of people (especially Americans) that are comfortable now. It will be very gritty and confusing like life usually is everywhere at all times except in postwar America. But anyway, in absence of a real hard currency option, wouldn't a stock be about the best? Of course, you can't pick all winners, but having mostly long-term winners would, I would think, be the best bet for storing value. Thoughts?
The supply of paper money/gov coin is infinite with quantative easing and fractional reserve banking. Central banks also have inflation targets so they are telling you the value of money will decrease. The supply of paper money/gov coin is therefore inflationary. The supply of some stocks where the company buys back stock from free cash flow is deflationary. If they borrow money to buy back stock then that is not really deflationary as the enterprise value is increasing. The supply of bitcoin, land, art and gold is limited so is deflationary and should increase in price as the supply of money/gov coin increases. The price of gold is controlled by central banks using the paper money they have created to sell 2000 futures contracts, in nano seconds, in the paper money futures market.
Investors pour billions into commercial space start-ups as they approach exit velocity In 2016 space start-ups received a record-setting $2.8 billion in investment, $400 million more than in the year prior, Bryce Space and Technology announced Wednesday. Roughly 25 space-venture deals have already been reported in 2017, including $351 million invested in SpaceX. The industry may be hurling toward a day of reckoning, with consolidation on the horizon. Clay Dillow, special to CNBC.com Published 9:19 AM ET Wed, 9 Aug 2017 | Updated 7 Hours Ago CNBC.com Photo by Kevork Djansezian Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX Investment in space start-ups continues to soar, buoyed by the exploits of highly visible space concerns, like SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin. But it's the terabytes of data streaming to Earth daily from a new generation of smaller, less-expensive satellites — thousands of which are slated to join the roughly 1,500 satellites already in orbit over the next several years — that have piqued investors' interest in everything from satellites themselves to software used to analyze their data and new rockets designed to loft them into orbit. Newly compiled data from space industry consulting shop Bryce Space and Technology released Wednesday demonstrates the trend. In 2016 space start-ups received a record-setting $2.8 billion in investment, $400 million more than in the year prior. With roughly 25 venture deals already reported in 2017 — including a $351 million investment in Elon Musk's SpaceX that pushed that company's valuation to more than $20 billion last month — these so-called "new space" ventures are once again on pace to raise billions in seed, venture and private-equity cash. Meet the 2017 CNBC Disruptor 50 companies "Fundamentally, investors go after opportunity, and the way I would sum it up is, this is one of the last frontiers, to be a little cliché," says Tom Barton, chief operating officer at Planet, whose 190 imaging satellites generate some 7 terabytes of fresh overhead imagery of Earth each day. "It's still old-school; it hasn't really been touched by Moore's Law." SpaceX is now worth $21 billion 9:29 AM ET Wed, 9 Aug 2017 | 01:02 But while cash continues to flow toward space start-ups at an unprecedented rate, the industry is also hurtling toward a kind of reckoning, industry sources say. For every new space start-up like Planet and Spire Global (which also operates a small and growing constellation of data-gathering satellites), there are several more that are developing satellite hardware or new launch vehicles that have yet to make it to orbit. "Over the next couple of years, there's a real series of systems that are poised to come online," says Raphael Perrino, the lead aerospace analyst on the Bryce report. But while investors see huge potential in space start-ups, the race is now on to see which companies can successfully convert vision to space-based revenue streams. A day of reckoning is coming "As much as I say that we're at the start of consolidation in the new space sector, I think we're probably at the start of some of these companies going bankrupt," Planet's Barton says. "I would guess that over the next two years we see five or 10 significant bankruptcies or acquisitions for pennies on the dollar for people that just aren't going to make it on their own." More from CNBC Disruptor 50: Elon Musk is rushing to beat NASA to Mars Who's next? Unicorn watch According to Bryce's report, 114 investors poured more than $2.8 billion into space start-ups last year. What's more interesting than raw dollar values is exactly who is piling in and how they are doing so, Bryce Space and Technology founder and CEO Carissa Christensen says. In 2016 the biggest VC deal came from Softbank, an atypical venture investor (some have characterized the deal as private equity, though Bryce analysts have defined it as venture-based on its nature and purpose). The most active conventional VC funds in the space start-up ecosystem have been and continue to be Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Founders Fund (both early backers of SpaceX) as well as In-Q-Tel, the venture arm of the Central Intelligence Agency. Money keeps flowing into space ventures Investment Type 2015 (millions) 2016 (millions) Change (millions) Seed/Prize/Grant $264.5 $416.0 +$151.5 Venture Capital $1,868.9 $1,453.4 -$415.5 Private Equity $175.0 $0 -$175.0 Acquisition $109.2 $962.5 +$853.3 Public Offering $14.0 $0 -$14.0 Total Investment $2,431.6 $2,831.9 +$400.3 Debt Financing $371.0 $0.4 -$370.6 Total with Debt $2,802.6 $2,832.2 +$29.6 Source: Bryce Space and Technology Though there were roughly half as many venture deals in 2016 than in 2015, the average deal value rose by more than $20 million, to $80.7 million, per deal. Moreover, of the 62 venture investors that funded space start-ups in 2016, fewer than a third had put money into the commercial space industry previously, Christensen says. Both points suggest that investor perceptions about the long-term viability and nearer-term profitability of space start-ups is changing. The influx of new investors send a strong signal that perceptions of the commercial space industry and its ability to create viable business models are shifting among mainstream investors, Christensen says. "There are strategic investors that are investing in space because it aligns with their business," she says. "But the most interesting investors, and the ones that have really entered the arena in the last few years, are the financial investors — the ones that are entering the space market because they see the potential for outsized returns." 5 years, 147 companies: See them all "The cost structure is coming down, and I think that's fundamentally what investors are interested in," Planet's Barton says, and as those costs go down, the path to profitability becomes easier to navigate than it was just a few years ago. "What's different today versus five years ago is, we now have these data sets, and the cost to apply machine learning and analytics has probably come down by a factor of 10 in the last five years." Teeing up a new space race While we haven't see a blockbuster deal like Softbank's $1.2 billion investment in satellite communications start-up OneWeb last December, it's possible we will see something like it before year's end. In terms of performance, the commercial space industry is arguably enjoying its best year ever. SpaceX, the industry darling, is on pace to launch more rockets this year than it ever has before by quite a wide margin (the company also plans to fly its much more powerful Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time later this year). Bezos' Blue Origin continues to test critical technologies and construct new rocket-building facilities. Small satellite constellations continue to grow, bringing the industry closer to the Holy Grail of on-demand real-time satellite coverage of the entire planet. For the investor who can stomach a little risk, it's an industry that can suddenly look very attractive, says Marco Caceres, a senior analyst and director of space studies at aerospace consultancy Teal Group. "If you look at the traditional market, nothing exciting is really happening," he says. "The Boeings and Lockheeds of the world, in terms of launch services or manufacturing satellites — there's no big boom in the market. But if you look at what's proposed, it looks like the market in five to 10 years is going to look a lot different." The trick is, of course, transitioning from proposed satellite constellations to real, revenue-producing data sets and insights — and doing so before investor enthusiasm runs out. There's nowhere near enough launch capacity in the world to put all these proposed satellites into orbit in the near term, Caceres says, creating risk for satellite companies and opportunity for new launch providers. But at some point in the next year or two, the entire space start-up ecosystem will have to start delivering in a major way. "We're not yet seeing the outcome of investment in a lot of funded companies," Bryce's Christensen says. "We're seeing their ability to raise money, we're seeing their ability to design and deploy their systems, but we're not seeing their ability to return profits." Starting as soon as next year, that will have to change.
Yep... space is the next frontier!! But how do you get in on that? All of those companies are still private...
Good question. .....Pretend you're working at GS. "Hmmmm... now which one should we take public? Roadrunner Rocketships&CubeSats or Blue Apron"?
They will sit on it until they can get decent money out of it on an IPO. The fee difference alone for taking a 5 bln or 100 bln company is huge. So, at what time will the likes of SpaceX/BlueOrigin do an IPO? When they need more money than they can get off-market... I think that will take a while, if not... I'll jump on that!
Speaking of the devil... https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-spacex-launches/ - warning - there seems to have been a toddler writing on this, perhaps making it more visibly interesting for the big DT...
Paypal was a good idea. Tesla is a vanity product. SpaceX may or may not work. I have about zero faith in Silicon Valley's account of the future. I think about: Who's manufacturing textiles in India? Who's building ships in Indonesia? Who's doing construction in Thailand? The American consumer will have much less money. A lot of people are not going to like that.