The Monday Read

Digital Detox edition

As I wrote in last week’s post, I have started trying to detox myself digitally. So far so good! I’ll probably be writing about it in the future, but one possible drawback is less material for these Monday Reads…

I guess we’ll deal with that problem when it arrives, if ever 🙂

This week’s links:

  1. They have to crash at some point, right? Don’t Pin All Your Hopes on U.S. Stocks
  2. I’d like to have one of these: Meet the Money Whisperer to the Super-Rich N.B.A. Elite
  3. I hope no one thinks they can: Can pensions cover retirement expenses?
  4. It isn’t fair that this guy is only 32: 32 Thoughts From a 32-Year-Old
  5. Four energy futures: Model and manage the changing geopolitics of energy
  6. This was a nice story: Stay in the Game
  7. This was written 30 years ago. Wonder if much has changed? “HOW A TOKYO EARTHQUAKE COULD DEVASTATE WALL STREET AND THE WORLD ECONOMY”
  8. Game over, man. Game over. Scientists shocked by Arctic permafrost thawing 70 years sooner than predicted
  9. Everyone’s situation is different: FSA estimates couples need retirement savings of up to ¥30 mil
  10. Worth thinking about: Visualising investors’ emotions
  11. Pretty much nothing to see here: Cabinet OKs reforms aimed at addressing Japan’s labor market woes
  12. This guy really doesn’t like Mark Zuckerberg (he thinks Facebook’s proposed cryptocurrency Libra would be a good idea if someone else did it): ProfG Coin — Scorpio
  13. Panicking seldom makes things better, but this was pretty stupid: Remain Calm
  14. I’m not sure if this works in Japan: Employees Who Stay In Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

What do you think? Anything interesting in there? I enjoyed #4 and #6 the most, and #8 terrifies me.

13 Responses

  1. Take a deep breath, the Earth is not going anywhere!
    For readers interested in a different perspective from the political hoax on global warming created by civilization, I would recommend a book by Roy W. Spencer: The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World’s Top Climate Scientists
    and a Youtube documentary: The Great Global Warming Swindle

    1. Ugh. I’m going to approve this, but only to forestall claims of censorship. This kind of nonsense is why we’re in such trouble. I hope the companies and individuals that paid for this campaign of disinformation get their just rewards someday 🙁

      And yes, the Earth will be fine, but human civilisation will be untenable. Well done.

    2. Hi Patrick,

      It’s a Pascale’s wager type situation.

      If you are wrong, and we do nothing to reduce CO2 emissions, then we may suffer increasingly detrimental climate effects which reduce the habitability of certain portions of the earth by humans, not to mention other effects such as sea-life die off due to ocean acidification. This could have negative economic, social and health effects for a large number of people in the near term. Moreover, in the long terms, we could render the earth unable to support the estimated 10-15 billion people who will live here in the future.

      If you are right and global warning is a ‘hoax’, but we nonetheless spend the effort and money to reduce CO2 emissions, what is the worst that can happen? At most, we suffer the economic burden of over-regulation of the fossil fuel industry and waste tax dollars on researching clean technology for no noticeable beneficial effect on the environment.

      I don’t know which will happen, and you don’t either. So it is a gamble either way. But if one fail-mode leads to possible mass death and destruction and the other fail-mode leads to merely the possibility of wasting money and unnecessary restrictions on people’s use of fossil fuels, I will take the latter option any day of the week – not just for me but for future generations.

      1. I never said that global warming was a hoax!
        The politicization of it, is.
        The Earth has been warming and cooling for a long time and will keep on doing it, way after we are extinct!
        But don’t worry, according to the US Green New Deal, we are all going to be dead in 12 years! And Al Gore invented the Internet…

        1. Alright – you seem to have some political axe to grind but I don’t think this is the forum for it. Anyway, I am glad you don’t think global warming is a hoax.

      2. Yeah, imagine if we spent 3-5% of GDP cleaning up air pollution, developing cheap unlimited energy, and creating millions of jobs, all for nothing 🙂

  2. Then, it is my understanding that you read and digested the other point of view, but disagree with it. Fair enough.
    Thanks for not censoring!

    1. We don’t censor for content here at RetireJapan, only for spam, personal attacks, offensive content, etc.

      Thanks for being pleasant 🙂

    2. And here is the problem, global warming is not a “point of view” or an “opinion” but a scientific theory (a set of scientific hypothesis that have been extensively tested).

      You can disagree with a point of view or an opinion but you have to prove or disprove a scientific theory or an hypothesis.
      The difference in the terms is paramount and should frame the way one approaches any topic in general and this one in particular.

      1. Good points.

        Climate skeptics tend to point to the fact that certain (many) predictive models made in the 70s and 80s have not come to pass. This is true. That said, it is by no means disproves the underlying thesis that (a) increased CO2 leads to warmer average temperatures and (b) that the current rapid increases in global CO2 levels are directly or indirectly related to human’s use of fossil fuels.

        Given the complexity of the global climate, it is absurd to think that any scientific model will capture exactly the outcomes from increased CO2 emissions. CO2 causes warming – it is a scientific fact. Humans are most likely the cause of recent spikes in CO2 – it is a scientifically high probability. A warmer world will cause change in the climate -it is so obvious as to be tautological.

  3. “For readers interested in a different perspective”
    Yeah tell that to the people in France seeing 45C now..
    10 years ago there was some doubt about global warming, the last few years have eliminated any doubt
    I looked at soem of the posted video, people I had never seen giving their opinion… again just the usual argument trying to raise doubts on the current arguments for global warming and CO2 being the cause… there are no doubts now, most scientists are in agreement now