Mothers Day, Counterfeit Reality, Higher Stress and #MoneyTalk

It is Mother’s Day on Sunday, normally the day with the most long-distance calls (if that data is still being collected). Traditionally, Father’s Day was when the most collect phone calls happened. To paraphrase Keith Hampshire “Be Good to Your Mother!”, remember everything she did for you?  Time to start paying back a little.

Do you realize that many articles you read are AI-created? Not here, as you can tell by my bad grammar and punctuation no computer could easily recreate my awkward writing style. Gartner in their Top Strategic Predictions for 2018 pointed to the dawn of Counterfeit Reality ¹ (analysis by:Daryl Plummer, David McCoy). The funny part of this analysis is that with the explosion of fake news via AI will be tools to combat it. It will all become an AI arms race, with your brains being the target. The best recommendation was, “…Do not underestimate the number of counterfeit reality sources that exist in the world today….”. This is very important in the world of Financial News. So much of Financial Documentation in general and Financial Media in specific is becoming AI based.

How can you tell you are getting a Real Financial Reality? For lack of a better term, guess you will have to do some research. Just because it is on Face-hole doesn’t mean it is the truth.

A more telling statement about Counterfeit Reality is from the same report, “By 2022, most people in mature economies will consume more false information than true information” (research by Magnus Revang & White Andrews). If this is true, we end up with the liar paradox of “All financial blogs are liars, and I write a financial blog“. Good luck figuring out what is the truth, and what is fiction in the coming years sums it all up.

What might Counterfeit Reality in the financial world look like? Maybe we can talk about how investing in any of the 900 cryptocurrencies (at last count) is a great idea. I’m just saying, folks, if I was going to send Hype to pump up an investment, that is where I would start.

If you believe that this is in the future, think again, the Associated Press is already augmenting their writing staff with AI (according to the MIT Tech Review). Maybe Financial Blogger won’t be a job of the future?

The Bank of Canada announced a 20 basis point increase on the Stress Test Rate, that is to be used to figure out whether you can afford a mortgage. The rate is now 5.34%, according to the CBC. This means if you want a mortgage you will have to prove that you can live with a mortgage rate of 5.34%, can you?

I did enjoy a Twitter discussion this week about Financial Media Whores, well worth checking out and I will be talking more about this soon.

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^{1. [“Counterfeit Reality” is the digital creation of images, video, documents or sounds that are convincingly realistic representations of things that never occurred or never existed exactly as represented (according to Gartner)]↩}

My Recent Writings

I did write about Get Your Taxes Done Dammit ! However, you are late now. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t file your taxes, just that you might have to pay penalties if you owe money. It really isn’t that hard, time to get that done, and if you are due a rebate, think how next year you can stop loaning the government money (for free).

Micro Blogging for Motivation

I do wander around the financial internet and found a very interesting article outlining a long list of things to do. Normally, I hate list articles, but this one was OK by me.

20 Rules of Personal Finance by @awealthofcs – it is a good list and #spoileralert the avoid credit card debt like the plague is the one I like the most https://t.co/CLSNpjpbXk pic.twitter.com/ECuGEPjLI9

— Big Cajun Man (aw) (@bigcajunman) May 9, 2018

Non-counterfeit Reality

I really hope the folks I link to here are genuinely human and not simply spewing Counterfeit Reality news. As you may notice, I have been listening to a few podcasts lately.

• Doug Hoyes had his partner on to discuss Second Mortgage or Interest-Free Consumer Proposal? on the Debt-Free in 30 Minutes podcast. It is a great podcast to listen to while commuting.
• Michael James points out that Money = Human Work , and it is important thing folks need to understand. If you make $15 an hour and you get a $5 latte, that cost 20 minutes work (at least).
• Preet brings us a very interesting talk and a lot of chat about Whiskey too.

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Other Mother’s Day

• Plenty of Money talk on Mother’s day back in 2018.
• What do RDSP’s have to do with Mother’s Day? Well in 2017 it had something to do with it.
• OK everybody take a Valium? On Mother’s Day 2015
• In 2014 it was a happier Mother’s Day to be had
• Long Distance calls and Mother’s Day? Yes they are related back in 2007
• How much to pay for a Mother’s services, a lot more than you might think in 2008.
• Mother’s Day and hens? Back in 2009 this happened.
• Model Trains and Mother’s Day, what the deuce?
• The Grandma in Giles is the atypical Mother in my books.

The New 2018 Random Thoughts

• Decisions, Bitcoin, Inflation and #MoneyTalk (April 20^th)
• Stock Picking Update, Crypto Credit, and #MoneyTalk (April 13^the)
• RDSP, Easter, Thanks Rusty and #MoneyTalk (March 29^th)
• Facebook, Spring is here and #MoneyTalk (March 23^rd)
• Still Financially Crazy after 13 Years (March 16^th)
• Steady Interest Rates, Spring Forward and #MoneyTalk (March 8^th)
• Budgets, Phoenix Death, Inflation and #MoneyTalk (March 2^nd)
• Potholes, Tuition Increases, and #MoneyTalk (February 23^rd)
• RRSP, Lent, Happy Year of the Dog and #MoneyTalk (February 16^th)
• Roller Coaster Markets , Olympics and #Moneytalk (February 9^th)
• Superb Owls, RDSP Deposit and #MoneyTalk (February 2^nd)
• OHIP Overload, Doomsday minus 2 minutes, and #MoneyTalk (January 26^th)
• Tighter Money, Best Investment, Go North! and #MoneyTalk (January 19^th)
• Paper Delivery, Bitcoin and #MoneyTalk (January 12^th)
• Polar Vortexes, Minimum Wage and #MoneyTalk (January 4^th)

My RSS feed is available.

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