Juggling Dynamite

General Electric offers insight on where revenue growth can be found today: power and renewable energy. The company managed to report a rise in Q3 profits today thanks largely to strength in this sector of its business. Unfortunately other sectors like oil and gas, and slow investment and spending in the economy overall, remained a drag on the bellweather’s sales, prompting it to lower the revenue growth target for the year to zero-ish and report more share buybacks to manufacture profit growth.  See, General Electric’s proft up but revenue forecast trimmed amid sluggish economy:

Organic revenue, which excludes growth from acquisitions, rose 1 percent in the quarter, below GE’s forecast of 2 percent to 4 percent for the full year.

Analysts had been looking for GE to report stronger revenue growth after a weak first half. But oil and gas revenue fell 25 percent in the quarter.

GE trimmed its full-year revenue forecast to flat to 2 percent growth.

Ironically, in continuing to buyback shares rather than pay down debt and expand long term R&D and investment plans, GE is perpetrating the self-defeating circle which is plaguing itself and other companies today.  A fixation on financial engineering to keep shareholders placated in the short run, means less funds for long term investment and restructuring that will grow the productivity, innovation, and revenues of the future.

Good explanation of the weight holding back economic recovery today in this segment. Productivity comes from investment in efficiency, smart resource management and new innovation, not from excessive asset prices and capital waste.  Obvious, and yet, ignored for the last decade.

Komal Sri-Kumar, president at Sri-Kumar Global Strategies, discusses the U.S. economy and the lingering effects of the financial crisis.Here is a direct video link.

Here is a second clip.

Here is the US productivity growth chart showing stagnation over the past 6 years.  Trillions in taxpayer funds and debt have been wasted.  Far from helping growth, QE has counter-productively driven up asset prices and driven down yields while encouraging corporations to waste precious resources on financial engineering (just as revenues are in a post-credit bubble secular decline).  At the same time it has enabled governments to avoid necessary reforms and infrastructure investment.   Question is when can the theorists admit and repent (or be replaced) in order for the economy to finally reform and recover?

While much of the world remains preoccupied with impotent central bank grandstanding, the US presidential train wreck and reams of counter-productive nonsense, Tesla has now not only made and released the best rated car in history, that can be fueled for free from the sun with zero carbon emissions and zero air pollution–but now all of its vehicles also have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver.

If you think it’s not a huge leap forward to take humans and all of our many distractions and physical impairments out of the driving equation, then you’ve not been paying attention to the people around you in traffic.

While pundits banter about how to spur innovation, this is what it actually looks like.  It’s already transforming human behavior, the economy and the planet for the better, and few people are yet aware or acknowledging the milestone.  Worse, some low lights, who have personally never created anything, are still bashing the achievement and explaining why it can never be done! Humans sure can be stubbornly dim when they want to be.

For those who wish to see that the future of world changing automobiles is already here, this is the real time video.  Pass on the good news.

Eight surround cameras provide 360 degrees of visibility around the car at up to 250 meters of range. Twelve updated ultrasonic sensors complement this vision, allowing for detection of both hard and soft objects at nearly twice the distance of the prior system. A forward-facing radar with enhanced processing provides additional data about the world on a redundant wavelength that is able to see through heavy rain, fog, dust and even the car ahead.