Economics – Living Universe Foundation

Buy Materion (MTRN)

Today’s recommendation is a little different that past ones. Previous investment ideas have had a “green” tilt. Today’s has a “tech/space” tilt. Materion is a mining company (a good one!) and mining is hard to do in an environmentally friendly manner. It is a necessary evil for a technologically advanced society. Eventually, this dirty industry should move off planet but for now we have to make do. Fortunately, the material this mine produces is particularly useful for aerospace applications and advances the cause.

The Procure Space ETF (UFO)

Today, I’m reviewing a new way to invest in the new space movement. There are three good reasons for investing in space at this time: 1) location based sharing apps are growing rapidly thanks to satellite enabled navigation 2) decreasing launch costs are creating new economically viable industries 3) with the formation of the US Space Force governments and the defense industry are poised to increase investment in space.

Will Climate Change alter your retirement?

Scientists around the world are largely agreed that the climate is changing and will continue to change. A few holdouts are still squabbling about what is causing that change but the actual data is hard to ignore. I’d like to discuss today as the Living Universe Foundation Economics and Finance Correspondent how economic disruption related to climate change might effect conventional and early retirements.

The Trillion Dollar Investment Opportunity In Renewable Energy

Today, I’m covering the renewable energy sector and making a buy recommendation. There is room for Wind and other alternatives at this company but the primary focus is utility scale solar photovoltaic plants.

A primitive selenium photovoltaic existed as early as 1839. During the early atomic age, Bell Labs improved on the design by using much more efficient silicon. The efficiency was still below the 6% deemed to be commercially viable. At any rate, there has been over a century of research and development into making better solar cells. If you were to buy a typical residential system today, you’d expect to get cells with an efficiency of about 20%. The technology exists already however for efficiency up to 26%, with 30% projected in just a few short years.

Introducing Lizard King – Finance and Economics Correspondent

By way of introduction, my name is Lizard King. I am the new Finance and Economics correspondent for the collective blogging effort of the Living Universe Foundation. As a matter of my credentials to weigh in on these matters I hold an Associates of Applied Science in Accounting, a Bachelors of Business Administration in Economics, and a Masters of Business Administration with a concentration in Finance. I am a little peculiar among my peers in that I retired early on 5OCT2012 at the age of 40. I blog about my trading strategies and the early retirement lifestyle at Financial Velociraptor.

In my short career, I spent most of my time doing close, consolidation, and the preparation of financial statements as required for SEC reporting for huge faceless corporations. I’ve several times been on the corporate insider’s list and have had the displeasure of rubbing elbows with the sort of psychopaths who rise to the C-Suite titles of such companies. Likewise, I’m well versed in the silly little games corporations play and the rampant conflicts of interest that exist in the external auditing framework for public companies.