What does the New Year have in store for 2023? Economic Futurist Andrew Busch specializes in predicting what’s next for the economy and what that means for you. We talk inflation, recession fears, new technologies that will change the world and where to invest your money in 2023. Then, we unveil our Candle of the Year and countdown the Top 5 Trends that Should Stay in 2022.
Andrew Busch: 01:43
Pointless: 44:42
Top 5: 01:06:30
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Interview with Economic Futurist Andrew Busch
Nick VinZant 0:10
Welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant Coming up in this episode, our economic future, and things that should stay in the past,
Andrew Busch 0:21
there are massive changes that are going on things that are just kind of hard to get your head around, and they're occurring so rapidly, this generation is going to experience more change in the next five years than we've had. And over the last 50. I know there's a lot of people who are against things like GMO, but I will tell you that the synthetic biology that's going on right now, is amazing. In agriculture, there's three areas that I like, going forward, if you've noticed in the recent sell off of the stock market, defense stocks have held up extraordinarily well. Like if you think you have any income inequality now, just wait, because who's going to be able to do that? The wealthy,
Nick VinZant 1:00
I want to thank you so much for joining us, if you get a chance, subscribe, leave us a rating or review, we really appreciate it really helps us out. If you're a new listener, welcome to the show. If you're a longtime listener, thank you so much for all of your support. So our first guest is an economic futurist who specializes in looking at what's ahead, and how that is going to affect the life today, especially when we're talking about business and the economy. He has worked at the highest levels of both government and in the private sector. This is economic futurists, Andrew Bush, what do you think is ahead in 2023?
Andrew Busch 1:46
So my big thing is context. Too often. People want to know what what's coming next. And I say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's good to know. But unless you understand the context, like where we've been, so you understand where we are, so you can see where we're going unless you have those three together? Like you don't know what you don't know. So I think what's really salient for your audience is to say, Well, look, what happened to get us to where we are, right. So just really quickly, obviously, COVID, and the Ukraine war combined to make probably the largest disruption to our lifetimes of the economy, I mean, it just everything else. So with that in mind, you know, the reaction of governments around the world to deal with that also was extraordinarily disruptive, not only from, you know, our central banks, creating zero interest rates, but also from the government spending just massive amounts of money, like we've never seen before, in such a short period of time. So that's the context for understanding what is going on. And if you think about the US economy, just really quickly, prior to the COVID, like 70% of it was about consumer spending, right on services, and about 30% Were on goods, well, if you couldn't spend money on services, like going to a bar, restaurant, hotel, travel, all that kind of fun stuff. You know, you kind of held on to that money, but then you you know, if you're working from home, or you had to stay at home, then you start looking around you go, you know, I need a new computer, I need a desk, I need, you know, I'm kind of sick in the bed, I'm sleeping it, you know, all of those goods, you know, that spending got jacked up. And so that's why like, if you ordered a sofa in like 2021, and it never showed up, that's why there was just like, huge demand for all of these different goods, you know, durable goods, things that are physical, along with the technology. So that created a lot of inflation, it created a lot of supply chain disruptions, all of those kinds of things were occurring, at the same time that a lot of money was sloshing in in creating some some dislocations. And then you had a lot of people drop out. I mean, there was a lot, first of all, sadly, there was like half a million people died. So you lost a lot of people in the workforce from that. The next thing is, is you had over 2 million more people retire. And then the next thing was you had a much smaller cohort of the 20 to 28 year olds of people coming into the labor force all of those well, and then we shut our borders too. So all that wrapped into a labor shortage situation. So those are all the things that like combined into this year of 2022. They created the conditions where, you know, the authorities, central banks around the world said, We got to deal with this, like 10% inflation. And so that's when they began raising interest rates and they continue to raise interest rates to this day, and will likely continue to raise interest rates into 2023. So that's that's the backdrop of what we have going on as we go into 2023. So when you say what's ahead, here's what's ahead. We're going to have probably a mild recession and sometime in the US The sometime during 2023, I don't want to put exact, you know, first quarter second quarter in and that kind of stuff because I don't know what I don't know when it comes to that Ukraine war is not likely to get resolved, that's going to continue going forward. So that's going to create all sorts of, you know, problems when it comes to energy. And that translates in kicks into every aspect of the economy, food, you know, goods, all of those things. And then finally, there are things that are going on that, that I like to think of, that nobody talks about, that are just amazing things like synthetic biology. And I see so many positive things that are happening there. So as we look into 2023, and going beyond, I mean, there's all sorts of really cool things that are happening, that if you're only looking at the news, or only looking at your your Google feed or your Twitter feed, you're thinking, Oh, my God, the world is coming to an end. Where I see things, there's just amazing developments that are happening, that are going to make our world so much better. And I know it doesn't feel that way right now, especially with climate change and the storms that are happening and, and greenhouse gas emissions. But there are serious people at work, doing fantastic things that we're going to see the fruition of that shortly over the next two to three to five years. So what's coming, I would say some really good things, as we're getting through all of these bad things.
Nick VinZant 6:28
When you know, going through the last two years, we're recording this in 2022. It was always a question in my mind, like, has the shoe dropped yet? I feel like we're recovering from the pandemic. But then every time we start to recover, like something else happens that pushes us back. Do you feel like we're headed more towards? Are we headed more towards more instability or more stability?
Andrew Busch 6:53
That is a great question. And I would frame it this way for millennials, they've come into the job market and what happened to him, I mean, the global financial crisis, so that was bad, especially if you'd bought a house, I mean, in you know, anywhere in 2000, or even a condo or whatever. So you feel pretty bad about that, then you're slowly recovering, right? And then all of a sudden, COVID hits, and then everybody's knocked backwards. And then the Ukraine war hits. So um, so from that standpoint, I can totally understand your your question about the next shoe to drop? And what I would say is like, look, yes, these are terrible things that have happened, for sure. But I'd like to use a reference to men and black when it comes to this, right. And at the end of the movie, the first one, which was the best one, the Tommy Lee Jones character, and the Will Smith character have this conversation. And Tommy Jones says, you know, I want to go back to where I was before, you know, I want to I don't want to know all about this, all these bad things that have happened. And Will Smith says, Yeah, but this crisis that's going on right now, you know, what are we going to do about it, and this is the thing that I always tell people, it's like, Tommy Jones says, there's always somebody coming to invade Earth, right to destroy it. And, and that's the way I look at the world. Like, there's always bad things going on. It's it's, it's where the good things are going on that you don't hear a lot about that you really have to start to think forward about those because they're very positive. They're very directional in in a good way. And I would say this, like, there are massive changes that are going on things that are just kind of hard to get your head around. And they're occurring so rapidly, that it can feel like when they cascade downward, that they're just like, everything's falling apart. And I understand that, but I don't see the world coming to an end. I don't see another alien force invading our, our Earth, I'd see positive things that are happening. And I don't want to belabor the point, but it's just it's so easy to go down that path to do scroll and feel terrible about the world.
Nick VinZant 9:14
Yeah, I mean, I'm a former news reporter. And I always say like, the world is always ending. It's always, you know, it needs it leans baby. It does. It does. There seems to be like this disconnect, though, between corporations and the people that they employ. That is, you know, are people getting burned out? Like, who do you think has the power moving forward? The employers or the employees?
Andrew Busch 9:42
Well, right now we're seeing a big shift. Obviously, we're seeing a big shift with labor unions. Pilots union getting a 30% increase over two years is a fine example of that. The real world workers getting a 25% increase there over a short period of time, that shows you a shift shift from where we were, as far as the way that we looked at employees, and what they were being paid. Maybe it all goes back to, you know, minimum wage at 15. You know, trying to get that to $15. So I would say these are forces that have been at work in, in really now, because of the shortage of labor, it's put, if you would power back into the hands of employees in the sense that they're demanding things that they want. And were not able to get those previously worked from home is a great example that higher pay higher pays is great. But really flexibility and schedule, I think that's really important. More focus on work life balance, more focus on mental health issues, those things are great, and will actually lead to more productivity, I believe. So from that standpoint, I think it's really your question is great, because there is this shift going on. I wouldn't say necessarily power but a better focus back on employees to get not only get them what they want, but actually to help them be more productive.
Nick VinZant 11:11
Is that going to be the case moving forward? Because I keep hearing all these things that basically like the labor force is dwindling. And once all the boomers retire, this idea of growth all the time, but we just don't have the population to sustain that anymore.
Andrew Busch 11:27
Yeah, I mean, you know, really, I mean, what is growth was GDP growth, it's productivity times the number of workers. And so if productivity is flat, and your number of workers is flat, your economy is flat. So then you get into this question of, hey, can we get more workers? If we can't, then can we increase productivity? And the answer is yes, you can actually get both. Right now, there's a real problem in the United States, because of the immigration issue. There's actually it's so acute right now, I don't need to go granular on this, but we just don't have a legal immigration program, right. Now, we need to fix that. But the productivity side of things, if we have less workers, I guarantee you the direction that companies are going in, and everyone else is going in as well, is how do we make workers more efficient? How do we get more out of them for the time that they put in, there's a lot of things that do that, you know, different types of software, CRM is a great example of that. But AI is another thing that's that is going to assist workers, and AI is not something that's down the road, it's happening right now. Stitch Fix is a great example of utilities utilizing AI, you know, and the way that they, you know, can take a picture of you, but also how AI works with the designers. And you know, the people that are designing the clothes and picking out the clothes for you that you can have disagreements between AI and the sticks, stitch, fix people, but generally, they make each other better over time. So that's where I think things will go as far as being able to increase productivity to increase output. Even with fewer workers,
Nick VinZant 13:15
you obviously work in a lot of different sectors, agriculture, etc. Where do you think is going to be like, Oh, this is going to be where we're going to see a lot of changes. Like if you jumped in a time machine, so to speak, and fast forwarded? This sector would look totally different than it did in years past?
Andrew Busch 13:36
Yeah, I mean, I know people maybe look askance at agriculture and think, oh, you know, why would you spend so much time there? Again, context is king here, these people are selling a commodity. So what does that mean? They have to be the most efficient producers of that commodity, because everybody knows what the price is. It's not, you know, like everybody knows what the price of corn is. It's not like you can be Microsoft selling a specific product that nobody else sells. So you can, you know, have really big margins. That's not the way it works. So these are the people that are at the forefront of using technology in any way, shape, or form that they can to be more efficient, more productive. So I do spend a lot of time there. I see amazing things happening in that space. I know there's a lot of people who are against things like GMO, but I will tell you that the synthetic biology that's going on right now, is amazing in agriculture, that can really help agriculture feed the world, which is really important, but also overcome the problems with climate change that we're going to experience. Whether we stop greenhouse gas emissions today, we're still going to have problems for some time on that and the volatile weather that we have, whether it's droughts or storms or you name it, heat, all of those things. We need to be better at producing crops that can survive in those things. In in those environments, and then also increase yields. So I see just amazing things that are going on there that are using technology. Like if you were wowed by mRNA, that was came about because of CRISPR technology, the CRISPR technology that is used in agriculture is amazing. I mean, they're taking viruses as an example, using CRISPR, to, to turn off the bad component of the virus, and then modify it so that that virus can go on wheat, that kills a bacteria that grows on the on the way that kills the weed head, right. So like, it's kind of mind blowing of what you can do in synthetic biology. And then the use of AI is just amazing, and how they hook up all the different pieces of equipment. Now, that's, I mean, that's just a minor example of what's going on with it. I mean, every financial services firm, who's got their act together is using AI in a lot of different ways. So just a couple of examples. But I really think agriculture is such an important one for the planet overall. And I'm just blown away at the advances in it. I know that's gonna scare a lot of people. But there are really good things that are going on, especially with synthetic biology in that space. They're somewhere so much further past the scares of GMO. The other thing too, is, here's here's the thing about again, I'm gonna go back to agriculture, but they're developing plants that can they can absorb greenhouse gas emissions, and hold them in their roots, like a 30% increase over what they could do before. That is just amazing stuff. And so I get excited by this, as you can tell, because I think there's again, there's some really good things that are happening, that you're not hearing about unless you do your homework on this. So I think Agriculture remains for me just one of the most exciting areas that's that's rapidly developing positive things that are going to help out in the future.
Nick VinZant 17:05
This is kind of a rant for me, but I feel like COVID was a small showing of nature's power. And I feel like climate change is going to PAMP pound us into the ground. Are we ready for that? Right? Is that? What's gonna happen? Cuz I'm worried?
Andrew Busch 17:28
Yes, climate change is brutal right now, um, even the storms that just moved through the United States right now where we had just a ton of rain, bad tornadoes, and then you get this incredible cold wave that came in. These things are more persistent in their patterns. And so what I would say is, this is like, look, there's a lot of smart people working on this. As an example, in the last government spending bill, a lot of people don't realize this, this is the inflation Reduction Act. There, they're spending $369 billion on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, this is the largest spend by the US government ever to address climate change. Now, within that, there's a ton of money going into research. Here's an example. And this is what really gets me excited. So the Department of Energy, had a fund that invested in companies had about a $30 billion fund that invested in companies, you can make loans or grants or whatever, to develop technologies that are going to address things like greenhouse gas emission. Under this last bill, the amount of money they have now is $250 billion. And that goes into a ton of research. So I guess what I'm saying is like, look, yes, things are terrible now. And the storms are bad. And, you know, rising sea levels will create additional problems, for sure. But I would say this, I'm always blown away at the entrepreneurial zeal that is in the United States. It's why people like to invest in this country. It's like why people want to continue to come into this country. And I'm blown away by the amount of money that's flowing into specifically this space to address these issues. So I would say yes, things are bad now, but things change rapidly, just over the next two to three years, not like five and 10 years down the road. I'd see solutions coming to deal with greenhouse gas emissions. You know, just as an example. Now, it's not applicable yet, but I mean, they actually had a breakthrough in Fusion nuclear fusion technology, that they got gained by the reaction. In other words, they got more energy out of the procedure, and then they put into it. Now, we're probably a decade away from that. And that's not even the most salient technology for what's going on in fusion. But let's say we come up with something that's pretty decent over the next five years, all of a sudden, this whole thing about greenhouse gas emissions really changes in its tone, we can develop something that is more efficient and creating energy, then you don't burn greenhouse gas emissions. So like that to me, like, I don't want to be pollyannish. But like, please, don't just focus on the negative, there's great things that are happening.
Nick VinZant 20:27
As a millennial, that is not how they are. Right? It's so is. So as a millennial, right? Like, we basically went from one crisis to another from 911 to 2008 2000. Right, etc, etc. Is there a generation that you would say, though, that like, you know, what, they're really going to benefit over the next couple of years and this generation, you might, you might kind of get left out of this.
Andrew Busch 20:58
Now, this generation is going to experience more change in the next five years than we've had. And over the last 50 things build, they take time to build, I mean, you think about I mean, just to use the iPhone as an example, like, just even to get the glue that you have to use for the screens that they have just to develop that took decades. And so yes, you're standing on the shoulders of the people who went before you to create that product, it took forever. I mean, all of those things had to lead to the development of, of the iPhone. Same thing with CRISPR. Same thing with AI. I mean, you couldn't do AI with without cloud, we had to get cloud computing, right, you had to have the data storage, otherwise, you couldn't create a GPT general purpose technology like AI, without it. So we're at the very beginning stages of taking all of this incredible technology and applying it in a very useful way to our lives. It just doesn't feel like it because we're still dealing with a lot of the past that are bad things that, you know, a lot of boomers get blamed for I get it. Right. But honestly, there's a lot of really things that are like that are that we're on the cusp of right now. So I would say I'm more excited about the next 510 years than I about anything that's happened over the next over the last 50 years. I mean, there's just great things coming. That's all I can say.
Nick VinZant 22:31
I'm gonna butcher this acronym. So Correct. Correct. The resume, you were the chief, the first chief market in an I O some intelligence officer. So what was that? What do you think of the situation now? I guess is the Yeah. So uneducated way to ask you that question.
Andrew Busch 22:55
Yes. So I was very fortunate. I was very first chief marketing intelligence officer for the US government. So my job was to take all of the research all the I had a team of 40 researchers looking at the economy in the markets, what was going on, we had the best data on the planet better than anyone else. And I literally mean that better than any hedge fund, because we could see the position changes of all the major players in the futures market of every product that's out there. So what does that mean? That means like, if I saw a piece of news come out, and I saw, let's say Exxon Mobil change their position in oil futures, for whatever reason, I'd be like, Huh, that's important to them. So let me dive into whatever that piece of news was, that changed what we call the market narrative. So that just informed me to make much better decisions Overall, about how the world worked. So it was the coolest position. I worked for a friend of mine, and not a friend of mine, but somebody I'd known who became a chairman of an agency, the CFTC. And we, we jointly created this position. So it was really like, nobody does that. Nobody does that in US government. So very unusual. But with that, I got exposure to Nobel Prize winners, to you know, people in the industry in the financial industry that are smarter than I'll get out. So I can glean from all of these people and understand the world much better. And then in turn, my job was to communicate that to Congress, to the Senate, to the house to, to the White House, all of these different groups and to be external as well. So that Job was just amazing. I did that from 2017 to the end of 2019. And that really helped me understand how the world worked. We we looked at a wide range of things, not only AI but you know, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. And my view on them hasn't changed since they've collapsed and the collapse of FTX and everything else that's going on in that space. it. So it was a fascinating experience. And here's the thing that just blew me away about this experience in your left. There are really smart people working at the top levels of government. I know
Nick VinZant 25:21
that, that runs counterintuitive to all my
Andrew Busch 25:27
work. So what I want to provide some comfort to people like when the world starts falling apart, there are brilliant people who really stepped in to try to help out, come up with solutions. Now Congress is a different animal, they do crazy things all the time. They're politicians. But that's the one comforting thing that I really want to impress upon everybody. That surprised me. I did not expect that. And so that made me feel a lot better about what was going on in the world overall.
Nick VinZant 25:54
Are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions? Oh, yeah, bring them on, give you one of the easier like maybe one of the easier ones? Where should I put my money?
Andrew Busch 26:05
So yeah, I just did an interview on this, you can go to Andrew bush.com, and watch it there. But there's three areas that I like, going forward. I already mentioned synthetic biology, like I'm not going to tell you like exactly what to do. That's not my job. That's for you to work with a wealth manager or whoever you want to work with. Do your own homework, what's your risk tolerance? I don't know any of those things. What I do know is there's three areas I like a lot. One is synthetic biology. Two is the development of AI and three is and this is terrible. But I'm a money flow guy. So I'm being honest here is defense. If you've noticed in the recent sell off of the stock market, defense stocks have held up extraordinarily well. Now, there's a reason for that, because the world is becoming somewhat bifurcated between autocratic regimes regimes like Russia, like China, and democratic regimes like the United States, and like EU, and that leads to conflict. And because Europe's had an existential threat to them, namely Russia being on their doorstep with Ukraine, they've woken up to the fact that that's a big risk. So they have to say, you know, maybe we ought to step up our defense spending. And that's exactly what we've seen. Japan just made a huge change in the way that they approach defense, and they're going to spend a lot more money on it. Now, overall, how does that fit with my optimistic world? Well, when people aren't weak, it's less likely that they get attacked. So I would say we're a little bit going back into the Cold War. But we're also hopefully in a situation where we're mad, right, Mutual Assured Destruction if people try to engage in what Russia is doing right now in the Ukraine. So those are the three areas that I like, with the caveat that one of them's not necessarily super positive. But, you know, if you're looking to place money, where money flows are going, which is my big thing, when I help clients, I think those three areas you'll do well with.
Nick VinZant 28:17
So this may be more of a societal question, right? And if it's not your area, let me know it's not your area. But it seems to be like this juxtaposition between power to the people on one side and power to the dictators on another. Right, like we seem to be going back and forth. Why do you think that is? Is this normal? Who wins? I guess, like, what do you is that even a correct assumption that there's this like Power to the People, on the other hand, like, let's get the one strong leader, there seems to be like a battle between those two opposing philosophies.
Andrew Busch 28:56
I think that's more interesting in the democratic countries, the United States, Brazil are great examples of that. And I'll say this, like because of the January 6 event that occurred in the United States and the severe test of our Constitution at that point. The good news is, and the great news that everybody should take a lot of comfort, as is that it held our institutions held the theories behind those institutions held. That's fantastic news. You don't know if something really works until it gets tested in a really difficult manner. That's what we just experienced. So while it may feel terrible, and this would probably add to the list of things that millennials feel terrible about, right? There's that very difficult transition. But the fact is that people did speak. They brought in a different president. And so our constitution held and that's what elections are all about. The same thing just happened in Brazil. And you You saw the the peaceful transfer of power that's so critical for any democracy. So I would say it seems like democracies have tilted towards stronger rulers and, and become a little bit more Latin American and their structure like of what people voted for. But I would say we have really experienced that. And now we're moving back the other way, I think more than ever, we want people in this country who can produce results, to really solve the problems that we have today, and not fight the problems of the past. And I think that's the direction we're heading in. Yes. It seems like that we've gone through that period of time. We're, you know, people gravitated towards strong man rulers. I think we're moving away from those now.
Nick VinZant 30:55
Yeah, I never really thought of it until you mentioned that that way that that was like such an such a lynchpin moment, but it seems so bad. But then at the same time, it's like, Well, we did actually kind of get through it. Yeah, it did, like the bridge did hold, in a way. Okay.
Andrew Busch 31:15
But on the other side of that is, the autocratic regimes that are out there now are even more autocratic. China is a perfect example of that with President Xi, you know, eliminating the two term limit on how long somebody can stay in power. And then obviously, Vladimir Putin is another example of that. So, like I said, there's this bifurcating world that we're we're going to experience going forward. That makes things challenging. So I sorry, I didn't interrupt your question. But I just think it's important that, that we've moved through that process from a democratic standpoint, from a democracy standpoint, or a representative government standpoint, but other countries have actually gone further in that direction. And that is destabilizing overall, you make better decisions when you involve more people, right? That's the concept of diversity. You get different ideas that can really enhance wherever you're going on a decision. That's not happening in Russia. And that's not necessarily happening in China,
Nick VinZant 32:18
and follow it up with this brilliant question. What movie do you think has the most accurate depiction of what the future will be like?
Andrew Busch 32:28
Oh, my gosh. Actually, you know what, here's the book that you should read. It's called ai 2041. Now, this was written by two ex Google executives. What's over cool about this, and I love this book is that it's science fiction, there's science fiction, short stories. And so those are really fun. And at the end of each one of these short stories, they do about three or four, maybe even five pages describing the technology that's in the short story and how it is today and where it's going in the future. To me, that's just gold. I love that. Like, if you're if you're a futurist, if you're really interested in where things are going, take a read on that book, it's super easy. You can just read a chapter at a time. And it's, it's just a blast. From a science fiction, nut standpoint, I really dig stuff like that.
Nick VinZant 33:23
Is there a technology or a thing happening in society, though, that maybe from a perspective of like, okay, we can do this? Should we do this? Yeah. Is there something that you're like, wait a minute, maybe we shouldn't do that?
Andrew Busch 33:39
Yeah, I think we need to get into synthetic biology. That's where some weirdness can come in. Not to get too deep into this, but cells have a trigger called senescence. senescence, which is basically they grow old and they stop reproducing, right? I mean, to make it simple. We could theoretically in the future, stop that. So that people could live a lot longer than they do now. And, and you can even go further with that, probably down the road where you could actually rebuild different parts of your body and the cells that are in there. The question is, do we want to do that? What kind of problems would we have because of that? You think people like if you think you'd have any income inequality now, just wait, because who's going to be able to do that? The wealthy for sure. And the longer you live, the wealthier you become? You know, you create assets that you're hold on to and they don't pass them to generations, then it makes the problem worse. So you'll really get a sectioning off of of different income levels across different countries because has that. So that's those things really bother me. Currently, I would say, there's really not enough being regulated as far as live biology right now. There's crazy stuff that's going on that could get outside of a lab that worries me. There's something called gain of function, when it comes to testing viruses that could have produced COVID. There's a lot of theories about that in Wuhan, and China. But the study of gain of function is a disturbing one, because you could take measles and you could modify it. And then if it gets out, like modified to make it more virulent, to see if it would change or adapt in a new environment to understand it better. But if that got out, you kill 1000s of people, hundreds of 1000s of people, like what keeps me up at night, some of this kind of stuff. While I'm very, very positive about it, there are aspects of it that are disturbing from a societal standpoint, and risks that are out there. From a pandemic simple standpoint.
Nick VinZant 36:03
What is something that you think like, Oh, hey, we used to do this, this is a commonplace thing, but like, we're not gonna do that anymore. What goes away kind of like?
Andrew Busch 36:16
So we're laughing about this the other day. So I went in to open up a checking account right? Now, this is hilarious, because you physically have to go in, right? And so when I'm sitting there, the person asked me, they go, Well, do you want checks? And I was like, Well, of course I want to so you have to get and she said, You don't understand. Like, if I ask a millennial that they'll go, what's the use case of a check? It's, so in other words, like, it depends on your framework of like, okay, like, Now, are we going to move to a cashless society, right, where we don't use cheques or cash at all. And so we're heading in that direction overall. But there's certain things for cash that we will continue to use, that has big implications for all sorts of financial services that are out there has big implications for things like ATM machines, but it also has big societal implications for people who don't have checking accounts. Now, it sounds crazy, but there's a lot of people that aren't banked, that are poor, that get cards for, you know, food credits, that they can go. And they use those just like a credit card, they don't have a checking account. And so those are the people that got sent cards for the STEMI checks that came in actually as a card for them. So, you know, thinking some kind of an interesting topic to get into. But, you know, when people are saying, Oh, we're gonna get, we're gonna get rid of, you know, checks, and also cash. That's something that you'd have to think long and hard about, there's a lot more to that than what you realize and the people that are going to be impacted by that. So just something to think about. As we go forward, I do think it'll become less and less. But, you know, we have to be careful, because you can end up hurting people that you don't want to hurt.
Nick VinZant 38:20
This is the last last question that we got. Okay. What is your words? Two questions, actually. So this is this is a completely safe space, there is no, there's no judgment of any of the theories. What is your absolute boldest prediction for the future? Like if you're at your futurist buddies, you couldn't even say it to them? They would be like, what? That's ridiculous. What would you say is your boldest prediction for the future, your safest prediction for the future?
Andrew Busch 38:52
Well, there's two different things. Usually, I do try to let the data tell me where things are going.
I would say because of the movement into electric vehicles, and the demand that that's going to generate for the grid, we have to generate a massive amount of power. And so I'm not like I'm not in the camp that we're going to need fossil fuels forever. I'm in the camp that we need power for everything for, for we need so much power, it's hard to comprehend right now. So my boldest prediction is this is that we're going to run into some severe problems. If we get as many people as we think we do. If we get up to 50% EVs, we got a massive problem in a short period of time, because we can't generate the amount of power for the grid. So I would say my boldest prediction is we got a big power problem that we got to solve fast. And that leads me to believe, of course that we will solve it. So I'm like, That's my big thing is like, I think we're going to transition faster off of greenhouse gas. Fossil fuels, I should say, and reduce down the amount of greenhouse gas emissions, I think it's going to happen faster because we have to do it, we don't have enough energy right now. And so there's positive things that are moving forward as far as that goes, but that, to me, is going to happen in a shorter period of time, that will move more rapidly. Because we need to, because we have to ignore the choice about it. And then positive things will come out of reduction of volatility, eventually, from climate change, because of that. So that's my boldest prediction. It sounds kind of like, whatever everybody talks about alternative fuels and stuff like that. But to me, it's like, yes, there's a reason why we're talking about it. Because like, this is really cool. There's so many things that are happening, there's so many people that are want to buy electric vehicles, all you have to do is look at the top 10 automakers out there and see where they're shifting their production to. And places like California saying, you know, by 2035, there's no ice engines, or I think it's 2030. There's no internal combustion engines that can be sold in the state of New cars. So there's an acceleration coming on that front, that's going to be challenging. But again, that's why I say this transition is going to happen a lot faster than most people realize.
Nick VinZant 41:33
Yeah, that's definitely one of those things. We're like, Alright, let's do this. Oh, shit. Oh, yeah. It's always the thing you don't see. Right, right. It's like always like, oh, yeah, we need to do. And I think that's about that part. For me, that's
Andrew Busch 41:53
the fun part is getting people to think like that, and go, Hey, you know, these rare earths that we have right now, in the batteries, you know, we need lithium, we need cobalt. That's not going to get us there. We need a different type of battery, we need a different type of storage system for electricity. We'll get there. I don't know what it will be, you know, what, could we use hydrogen? Yeah, sure. I mean, that's another power source, for sure. But can we get a lot more efficient at those kinds of things? So it's, it's, it's like, it's like seeing where we're going, and then going, and then backing it up going? What do we need to get there? Like, what has to change to really get these changes going forward, like the you know, to, to really enact that trend, and get that outcome that we want? Oh, batteries are one part of it? You know, cars are another part of it, you know, what else can we do? Where else can we solve this problem? So that's, that's really the fun part. When when you're looking at these bigger trends,
Nick VinZant 42:58
we do have we are resilient. You know, I would say that about humanity, like we do tend to, we take bad steps, right? Oh, yeah, tend to kind of move in generally in the right direction.
Andrew Busch 43:15
It is, we're resilient, I think is the best way of putting it. Human beings throughout history have have been that way. It's how we've survived. It's truly a miracle that we're still alive, kicking it to this day that we were wiped out by something. But our immune systems are amazing. Adaptation. Our big brains are very helpful. opposable thumbs are really helpful. Those are all adaptations over time. But yeah, I think that's, and that's what I would hope for, for millennials is a look out into the world and see things that are bad, you kinda have to step back and go. Yeah, but what was it like, you know, 50 years ago, without a polio vaccine, or 70 years ago, without a polio vaccine? You know, that that was life changing for so many people. So that's the thing, you know, context is king, you know, where have you been? To understand where you are to see where you're going? And I think that's really helpful. I know, there's a lot of bad things, but I think, you know, and they've happened at some frequency, but yeah, like your line, you know, we're resilient. I like that. That's great.
