The Unincorporated Man

I recently found myself in a vacation house with limited connectivity to the outside world. No internet. No television. But I had access to books. The book called The Unincorporated Man written by Dani Kollin and Eytan Kollin, published in 2010 caught my eye. So between walks to the beach and trips to the grocery store, I dove into the Science Fiction novel set 300 years in the future. 

In addition to the futuristic tech and changes in society, I found the economic aspects to be fascinating. Three things come to mind from the book that struck me from an economics perspective:

1. Value shifts - The Tiffany blue box holding large carrot high quality diamonds was worth a lot of money, the diamonds in the box thrown in the trash as they had become worthless through synthetic diamonds, destroying the rarity and intrinsic value.  Diamonds in modern times have since lost value through the widespread use of lab grown diamonds, this book predicted that inevitability.

2. Rare earth metals - The opening scenes of the book involves a career scavenger exploring off-the-beaten-path abandoned mines in search of rare earth metals that may have been overlooked when prospecting for silver or other metals.  Technological innovations make extraction of rare earth metals more economically viable than when the mines were first prospected, so with the new technology, additional value could be extracted.  This book predicted the increasing reliance on rare earth metals for high tech products.

3. Store of value - Savings were stored in the form of electronic tokens issued and backed by large financial institutions such as American Express. Today they are known for credit cards, but in the future, they are presented as a store of value that can then be universally. This book predicted the equivalent of Facebook issuing digital currency and Visa acting as neutral currency to intermediate transaction settlements.

This book, and the related economic concepts, have made think about the future and where society will place value.  This influence led to my investment thesis around gold, Visa, Bitcoin and Ethereum.  It also led to my thesis to move away from oil as an investment area, as changes occur that will disrupt former fortress industries, such as was the case for energy and the move towards uranium and electricity, away from fossil fuels and internal combustion engines.