RICI is the name of Jim Roger's international commodity index fund.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Rogers_International_Commodity_Index)
This blog will invite commentary on how to extend individual and group benefits from Jim Roger's work. I'll start with a summary question, that - if you love your country - every student should be exposed to by, say, 8th grade.
To stabilize population welfare, how does one start a new index fund ... that matters?
Looking ahead: optimal new index funds may be those that link hierarchies of commodity access, liability exposure, and adaptive capacity. For example, it may be ideal to optimize risk/reward from 3 principle components: smallest population load, adequate key resources, and maximal group intelligence.
Can one invest in commodities? (yes, e.g., RICI , assuming other risks.)
Can one invest in liability management? (crudely - e.g., corp mgt, politics, population, carbon & other "credits"?. We're all waiting on inevitable improvements.)
Can one invest in group intelligence or adaptive capacity? (very crudely - group intelligence credits?; or just carefully choose where to live? We're all waiting on even more distant but equally inevitable improvements.)
Why do these nuanced views matter? It's all about predictive power. Evolution of system design is all about densely engineered systems that factor in tasks with at least 3 time constants, today, tomorrow and distant futures.
[For example: just in the very recent past, vertebrates invested in mammals, mammals invested in adaptive behavior & primates, primates invested in homo sapiens, HS invested in adaptive cultures, ACs invested in transparent markets, markets invested in group intelligence, group intelligence will ultimately invest in .... ?]
The next needle in a haystack is hard to predict - but seeds of the supporting security market are inevitably forming. We just haven't recognized the signal yet.
If it can't be predicted, the smart things to do are either camp out at market crossroads where early indicators are most likely to 1st materialize (SE Asia?) or where pattern recognition skills abound to 1st recognize the emerging signal (Northern Europe?). Presumably, solution speed will depend on the achieved ratio of coordination vs invasions between those two strategies. That seems to rule out useful contributions from current US politics, so we're left with Asia & Europe unless things change very dramatically.
Is there an index fund linking Asian/EU trade & coordination (time constant #2)? Is there an index fund for emerging adaptive markets (time constant #3)?
Meanwhile, in the immediate future, is the commodity-alone run-up (time constant #1) fully invested, over speculated, or relatively sure to continue?
Are ag commodities hard to argue with, while metals & energy should have offsetting volatility?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_International_Commodity_Index
This finally brings up a more direct comparison of market & thermodynamic perspectives on ANY complex system ... as 3, hierarchical questions that should be in front of every local businessperson and student: how to survive today, how to make sure your kids can adapt to tomorrow, and how to ensure that the 7th generation yet unborn will also survive?
Possible answer: What are the most significant "commodities" of any system simultaneously juggling tasks with a range of at least 3 different time constants?
* where's the "moment of commodity power" expressed in any system?
* how is awareness of those commodities discovered by a system?
* how, & how fast, is discovered perspective on those commodities communicated through a system? (system instrumentation & info throughput)
Emerging answers to those ongoing questions define system politics for regional economies and local business communities: Maximally adaptive systems [those that will survive] might be predictable as a troika of: commodity access costs, population overhead burdens, and cost of managing adaptive group intelligence.
The following list of index funds are a fantastic start, but clearly aren't yet adequate for managing further human adaptation. We're always at the stage where trial & error is no longer adequate, and always discovering new adaptations "just in time". What's just in time for tomorrow, and should be added to this list of index funds?
TRAKRS
http://finance.google.com/finance?q=INDEXDJX%3A.RCT
Total Current "Commodities"
http://finance.google.com/finance?q=AMEX%3ARJI
Ag
http://finance.google.com/finance?q=AMEX%3ARJA
Energy
http://finance.google.com/finance?q=AMEX%3ARJN
Metals
http://finance.google.com/finance?q=AMEX%3ARJZ
--
regards, roger
301-370-1097
__________________________________________________________________
Roger Erickson rge@270Tech.com
http://www.270Tech.net
"People will do anything within their power
.... to avoid systems thinking"
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