Brilliant question I also would like the answer to. For context, I have lived and worked in Ireland, UK, US, France, Germany, Cyprus, Japan and Singapore. I really like Singapore for the low tax, great weather, amazingly safe and crime-free environment (particularly appreciated by my wife) and tech-heavy leanings - although if you are a political blogger it might not be the place for you! It is also by some measures now the richest country on the planet (GDP per capita). It has a reputation for being expensive but if you are willing to live without owning a car (really not necessary in Singapore) and not buying a property (artificially expensive for a non-local) it really isn't that bad - certainly cheaper than central London or Manhattan. Hope this helps :)
* cost of goods and services drop significantly (trade 'agreements' only serve to make things more expensive for the end consumer to benefit a small number of producers)
* cost of transport of goods and people drop significantly (think self-driving vehicles)
* fiat currencies (USD, EUR, GBP, JPY etc etc) disappear to be replaced by market-chosen alternatives (gold, silver, bitcoin??)
* average standard of living across the planet increases - this is a corollary of the previous three points.
Banking. This is already happening. Paypal has already forced banks (at least in the UK) to stop holding onto people's money for 3 days during account-to-account transfers; zopa.com is disintermediating the banks with a peer-to-peer lending model (as is prosper in the US I think?); fundingcircle.com is doing that for commercial loans; currencyfair.com is doing the same thing with FX transactions; kickstarter.com is making it possible for companies to raise money without going to the capital markets. To cap it all, bitcoin is challenging the traditional role of banking in controlling the money supply in the first place! In short, almost every aspect of banking is under attack from startups everywhere. To date I haven't seen much of a response from the incumbents. Maybe the effect is too small at the moment but it is exciting to watch how it unfolds :)
Great question! Do a search for 'the Bates Method'. I am short-sighted and stopped wearing corrective lenses about 10 years ago when I discovered the Bates Method of natural eyesight improvement. I very soon experienced what he describes as 'clear flashes' i.e. 20/20 vision for a brief moment. When you have worn glasses for 20 years, it is a magical experience. I don't practice the exercises religiously but nevertheless my eyesight has measurably improved (from about -2.5 to -2.0). I still get the clear flashes, sometimes for appreciably longer periods of time e.g. 5 or 10 seconds. I hope that I will some day regain 'normal' vision and I only wish that someone had told me about this when I began to go short-sighted at about the age of 13.
Indirect exchange site. You put in what you are willing to give away e.g. a CD and what you are looking for e.g. a coffee mug. The site trawls all the 'swap' sites (like Craig's list) looking for intermediate swaps that will achieve the desired result e.g. you have a CD, Tom has a tennis ball and William has a coffee mug. William wants a tennis ball and Tom wants a CD. The program matches you all up so you give your CD to Tom, Tom gives his tennis ball to William and William gives his coffee mug to you. A 'mega-barter' system like this removes the need for a currency ...
The challenge is in the actual exchange of the physical goods. You make the effort and take the time to meet Tom in a coffee shop downtown in your lunch break and hand him the CD after he turns up late. Tom is a lazy ass and doesn't bother to meet William and ignores his pleading emails. You are then down one CD and one coffee mug. There is a good reason why money exists as a primary form of exchange rather than barter.
I had a similar idea for an app, but kept hitting physical barriers to implementation.
Exactly! I heard a story about a guy who started off with a pen and ended up with a truck. I don't even know if it's true but it is inspirational. Actually that could be an interesting system in its own right - I have a CD and I want a car - show me the swaps available to make it happen ... though I actually think the major limitations for such a system would be an intractably large search space.
I have used Sage for my UK-based freelance company (which has never had more than 2 employees). I don't think it is the most intuitive piece of software but my accountant uses it too so it makes it easy to export data for him to do end of year accounts etc.
