Lithium-ion batteries have provided the first serious competition in a century to fossil fuels and combustion engines for transportation. Now an honorary fellow at Asahi Kasei, the Japanese chemical firm where he has worked for nearly 50 years, Yoshino sees more disruption ahead as transportation and digital technology become one industry, sharing lithium battery technology.
And,
Right now, the auto industry is thinking about how to invest in the future of mobility. At the same time, the IT industry is also thinking about the future of mobility. Somewhere, sometime, with the auto industry and the IT industry, there is going to be some kind of convergence for the future of mobility.
Tesla has their own independent strategy. The one to look out for is Apple. What will they do? I think they may announce something soon. And what kind of car would they announce? What kind of battery? They probably want to get in around 2025. If they do that, I think they have to announce something by the end of this year. That's just my own personal hypothesis.

battery-pioneer-akira-yoshino-tesla-apple-electric-future

Is not most investing connected to "other peoples money" in one fashion or another? Over many years we have profited from "OPM" whether it be from the FED., large fund and pension houses and numerous individual investors, both foreign and domestic. I/we have to calculate the risk/reward based upon numerous factors. The potential of any given investment sector is one of the critical decisions that must be considered. The who, why and where of cash flows.
With negative interest rates on government issues in several large global economies; there remain those who wonder how could our Treasury and economy continue with a 1.5% yield on a 10 year note or 1.9% on a 30 year bond. These yields look nice, many times, in the eyes of foreign monies.
TIS OPM, somewhere; every minute of the business day, globally speaking.
Good Evening,
Catch

The requirement is for self-employed individuals, not those who work for private companies or in public sectors. In the past, the banks require to see 2 years of tax return so to establish the income.

4.6%, projects Moody's
https://www.barrons.com/articles/social-security-is-in-line-for-biggest-percentage-bump-for-inflation-in-40-years-51629489389
try this one if blocked
https://apple.news/AAiFOiTAxTNq7J8zKFlEm_Q

Here's SSAs summary of ways to make social security solvent. 22 out of the 33 pages are tables with bullet items and brief descriptions of different changes that could be made.
https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/solvency/provisions/summary.pdf
For the gory detail, see https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/solvency/provisions/index.html
One of the changes caught my eye because by itself it would reduce the long range actuarial balance shortfall by 86%. (For limitations in using the actuarial balance as a single magic number, see here, under A Range of Financial Measures.)
People are likely familiar with the fact that one's primary insurance amount (PIA), i.e. what one receives at full retirement age (FRA), is calculated based on one's 35 highest years of earnings. But earnings 35 years ago have to be adjusted; $1K in wages in 1986 was worth a whole lot more than $1K in wages today.
Have you ever thought about how that adjustment is made? I suspect that most people who have given it any thought believe that one's earnings are adjusted for inflation, just as SS payments have a COLA adjustment.
The proposed change, item B1.1 in the summary, is to calculate PIA precisely this way. This change would take care of most of the shortfall because in reality the current system is much more generous than merely adjusting past wages for inflation.

When we compute an insured worker's benefit, we first adjust or "index" his or her earnings to reflect the change in general wage levels that occurred during the worker's years of employment. Such indexation ensures that a worker's future benefits reflect the general rise in the standard of living that occurred during his or her working lifetime.

Emphasis added.
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/Benefits.html
While there are reasons I don't like this particular change, it would nevertheless be nearly invisible (as described) and come close to making SS solvent over the next 75 years (the planning horizon).

@MikeM - I am a hard yes on #'s 2&3. I have trouble with #4. How many years should we ask a person to work?

Old David and young JoJo, my 2 cents. I definitely agree that SS (and medicare) is one of the more efficiently run government programs. On the contrary, funding of that program is inadequate and has not kept up with the fact of increased life expectancy and the fact the ratio of ss receivers and tax paying workers has drastically changed in the last 30 years.
There are multiple ways to fund the program way past the life expectancy of a 32 year old or even a 3 year old, but politics always seems to be the road block. Politicians will always make short term decisions that get them reelected versus making hard decisions to protect the country long term,
Some thoughts to make ss viable for jojo:
1-raise the tax on the employee or the employer or both
2-eliminate or substantially raise the earnings ceiling that can be taxed
3-reduce the size of payouts based on need, means testing, or eliminate payment to those who don't need the money altogether
4-increase the retirement age
For me, all these are viable. Enact all and the pain likely will not be felt by anyone. Pick 2 out of these 4 and a 32 year old will not have to worry about SS not being there for their retirement.

I do.
https://www.aarp.org/work/social-security/info-05-2012/future-of-social-security-proposals.html
I am not clear what your second sentence means. Govs have headshaking inefficiencies, but many things are notably efficiently run (SS, MC, Darpa ...). Then again, I've had several public-sector jobs over the years.

My PRWCX is in Roth. Best place for that type of fund. 10 years earlier it was in taxable, but sold and bought in Roth.
With the change, it might make it easier to reopen because the overall company wide ownership in some holdings might be low enough. If it did, the rush would likely cause a fast closure. Hope you can get in, Mike.

I would LOVE it if they re-opened PRWCX.... Have been wanting to get into that fund for years.

I taken that you don't invest with Matthews Asia funds or have high opinon of their outlook? Though I agree that Matthews Asia funds have not excel with the exiting of several experienced managers.

I used to, but not anymore. I was pretty enthusiastic about them 10 years ago after I met with one of the founders. I found their approach to investing and vibrant team pretty compelling and unique. However, performance started becoming mediocre around 2015 and their fees are high, then portfolio managers started leaving, and not to retire, but to other competitor firms. I can't list all the names, but i recall at least 10 relatively young portfolio managers leaving the firm in the past two years, which is meaningful given the size of Matthews. Something seems off with the team and overall company. Not something we haven't seen happen at other boutiques. Its tough to stay hungry and not slip into complacency and mediocrity. The recent departures, who again are all relatively young, tell me people are jumping ship and there are bigger issues at play than just poor performance.
Its been interesting to see where Matthews PMs have left to. I've been trying to find a way to get into Tiffany Hsio's China private/public fund at Artisan (I loved her China Small fund at Matthews). Others left for Genesis (UK) and Rondure in SLC IIRC.

About to go live with feature that enables you to run Preferences from the MultiSearch results table page via View/Preferences. Then, will get to work on EMA, adding individual years to Ferguson analysis page, searches by benchmark, and other things!

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/nixon-reshaped-the-world-economy-50-years-ago-is-crypto-on-the-brink-of-doing-the-same-now-11628893012?siteid=yhoof2
Crypto is reshaping the world economy, 50 years after Nixon ended the dollar’s peg to gold. Here’s how some are playing itLast Updated: Aug. 14, 2021 at 10:52 a.m. ETFirst Published: Aug. 14, 2021 at 8:00 a.m. ET
Mark DeCambre
 
A Bretton Woods for the digital-currency era? Will we see more global coordination on digital assets?
Cryptos to the moon?

A year that has rewarded those who have simply enjoyed the ride.....

The gains are smaller, befitting a less hysterical year. When the S&P 500 Index has risen in 2021, the daily increase has been half what it was in 2020. But in terms of persistent, day-after-day gains, these seven months in the U.S. stock market have few historical precedents.
Over the last century, there has been just one other year when the benchmark set more high-water marks by this point in the summer -- in 1964.

Slow Slog
Plus, an optimistic view going forward:

What’s keeping stocks aloft? As usual, the answer is corporate America’s earnings machine.
...the equity market is not the economy. If you compare the two, the equity market has massive technology in it, a lot less small-caps. Those earnings are super defensive to a no-GDP-growth scenario.”
In the eyes of analysts who follow individual companies, profit growth is set to slow, but at roughly 10% in each of the next two years, that would still top the historic rate of 6% annually.
Profit margins, which just reached a record high, are expected to increase over the next years, analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence show.
To Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Leuthold, this boom cycle is just starting.

S&P 500 Snubbing Dire View

50 years ago, on August 15, 1971, President Richard Nixon shocked the financial world by ending the convertibility of the dollar to gold, upending the monetary and currency exchange system that had been in place since 1944. This week Nick Sargen, author of Global Shocks, joins us for a WEALTHTRACK podcast to explain the consequences of that momentous decision which are still being felt today.

I've also migrated much of my portfolio to ETFs. Each year I start a new spreadsheet with the expected distributions. The mutual funds is a big guess, but I look at the past few years for a ballpark number.
As the year goes by and taxable money comes in, I replace my guesses with the actual numbers. I still guess between qualified and regular dividends.
By the end of the year, thanks to the kind folks here at MFO, I find out what the fund companies are estimating.
I might sell at gains during the year, but it is starting in November when I make my final plans on what I sell. Seems to work for me.

I taken that you don't invest with Matthews Asia funds or have high opinon of their outlook? Though I agree that Matthews Asia funds have not excel with the exiting of several experienced managers.

Yes, quite--- re: Matthews. I was going to create a separate thread about this. The Matthews funds I track are MAPIX and MAINX. (The latter will finally be 10 yrears old at the start of Nov, 2021, if I'm not mistaken.) Seems that for a few years, at least, they have just sucked, performance-wise.

Value oriented shops such as Oakmark has turned around this year after many years of lagging behind their growth counterparts. Let's hope the trend continues.

Unfortunately, Grantham has been wrong for over 10 years. But he is not alone, Arnott (PAUIX) and Hussman were too.
See one source(link)
He was so off on US LC(SP500) and EM stocks.

yeah I still like listening to him. He is a great story teller. But yeah, he hasn't been correct for awhile.

TMSRX had a decent 2019-20 and terrible 2021 and why you need to trade these funds. I pretty much gave up on alternative funds. Their performance is uneven and unreliable over the years.