<p>OT - Read a short newstory by a reporter for Reuters named Lisa Chon. She contends (I don't see any rationale given behind it) that the cutting the corp tax rate to 21% and repatriating money's  main effect will be corporations buying back their shares, which she said constituted 'burning value on a grand scale.' I can't make sense of what exactly that means - anyone want to give it a shot?</p> <p>Also - I've been looking into ways to invest in robotics/AI, as I can't see that field do anything but grow. The question is how to do that. I did find an ETF with the symbol ROBO - has had a very nice return over the past year. The expense ratio is .95, which I consider rather rich. They hold 10 different companies (if I could cut and paste, I would), most of them unfamiliar to me. One of them is Oceaneering International, which, if I remember it correctly, is a marine rig leasing firm, that had a terribly rough time when the oil crisis was in full bloom. Reading their literature says they also provide remotely controlled and monitoring devices for offshare drilling. I might take a position, but first I'll want to see what other ETFs there may be that cover the sector. Part of the problem in investing in it is that a lot of the really promising emerging technologies are being developed by companies that are not yet public, but still undergoing rounds of funding. </p> <p>Regardless, I think that the most common application in the news these days - driverless autos, enhanced AI auto functioning, is just the tip of the icebergI think in 10 years a lot of things will look/work fundamentally different in the next 10 years. The pace of change just keeps getting faster. Imagine - less than 40 years ago, a cutting edge personal computer was an Apple IIe, whose CPU had a blazing speed of 1 MHZ.</p>

Otherwise, a good New Year to you all.