Today’s topic is another book review. The book is titled The Price of Tomorrow: Why Deflation is the Key to an Abundant Future by Jeff Booth. But before I get into the book, let’s have a word from one of our sponsors. Oh wait, the sponsor is me.

I haven’t put this in one of my posts before, but it has been on social media. My first book is coming out in a few months, and it’s called Get off You’re A$$ and Manage Your Money; Why You Need Alternative Investments. If you’d like to be one of the first people to get the book, you can go to the homepage at TheProlificInvestor.net. There’s a big green star there, and you can put your name on the list to be one of the first to get the book. It would be awesome if I had some pre-orders before the book comes out. Now, onto the book review.

The Price of Tomorrow: Why Deflation is the Key to an Abundant Future by Jeff Booth is one of the most thought-provoking books I’ve read in a long time. Jeff is predicting deflation. Almost no one is expecting a future with deflation. Everyone talks about inflation and, in some cases, even hyperinflation due to the government’s borrowing and money printing. Why is deflation coming? Technology. Technology is deflationary. Entrepreneurs and businesses are all about bringing more and more products, services, and value to consumers and businesses at lower and lower prices. Think about your mobile phone. Almost everything on your phone is free or practically free. Some of you will remember the days when long-distance phone calls were very costly. Now they’re basically free, even internationally.  While things are getting cheaper, it’s coming at the expense of jobs due to cheaper labor overseas, robotics, and computers.

Jeff says that technology is doubling every 18 months. If you’ve got the mindset that you don’t need to learn all that newfangled technology, and you’ll continue to do things the old-fashioned way, you might want to think again. Thirty-six to forty-eight months from now, you might not be able to function. Everything will be different. You might not be able to do anything the old-fashioned way. Like me, some of you probably have an elderly parent who hasn’t kept up with technology and doesn’t function well in today’s high-tech society. That trend is only going to get worse.

The opposite of deflation is inflation, and that’s what most people are talking about and predicting. And for good reason, it’s caused by the government’s massive money printing and borrowing. Additionally, the government wants a certain amount of inflation because it slowly erodes the government’s debt.

While certain things are going down, other costs are rising, housing and the stock market, for example. What Jeff says in his book is that the massive deflationary power of technology will eventually overpower the inflationary effects of government borrowing and money printing

So what does this mean to you as an investor? In an inflationary environment where prices rise, you want to deploy cash into appreciating assets as quickly as possible, whether it be real estate or the stock market because your money will have less buying power tomorrow. In a deflationary environment, you want to hold on to your cash because it will have more buying power tomorrow.

Reading this book has changed the way I think about investing. It makes me think long and hard about the term of my investments. If a potential investment will take five to seven years to reach maturity, return my capital plus profits, that might be too long in an environment where technology is doubling every eighteen months. In five years, technology will double three times, and what seems like a good investment today might not be a good investment in five years. It might be obsolete. There’s no magic answer here, but it’s worth thinking very carefully about how durable your assets are. Can they be made outdated or negatively affected by technology? It’s one of the things I like about apartment buildings. I don’t see any technology on the horizon that will eliminate the need for people to have a roof over their heads.

Check out Jeff Booth’s book The Price of Tomorrow: Why Deflation is the Key to an Abundant Future.

Don’t forget my upcoming book Get off You’re A$$ and Manage Your Money; Why You Need Alternative Investments.

Alternative investments have many advantages over conventional investments. If alternatives are so great, why isn’t everyone investing in them? That’s a great question since they are hiding in plain sight. I’ll answer that question and many more in my upcoming book, Get Off You’re A$$ and Manager Your Money: Why You Need Alternative Investments. I’ll compare conventional and alternative investments across thirteen categories using facts and figures from one of my alternative investments. You’ll be shocked at what you learn and wonder why you’ve limited yourself to paper assets for so long. Get Off You’re A$$ and Manage Your Money is not some hoity-toity, highfalutin book only understandable by MBAs, PHDs, and BFDs; pick a suffix. It is for ordinary people who want to get ahead and build a more prosperous future for themselves and their family, have an open mind, and are willing to learn. If that sounds like you, this book is for you!

As always, when you make better financial decisions, someday you can make work a choice instead of necessity.