Yahoo! Finance and The Week The Trend Desk

Hey, can I borrow 10 bucks? No? Well, maybe you ought to consider it. A few wily entrepreneurs think there could be big bucks in lending money to strangers.

Take Zopa, a fascinating U.K. venture that connects people who want to lend money with people who want to borrow it. Prospective lenders offer up some spare cash and the interest rate they'd like to receive. Potential borrowers list how much they'd like to borrow and the interest rate they're willing to pay. Zopa helps facilitate the match -- and takes a 1 percent service charge. Think eBay for loans.

Zopa believes that by eliminating the middleman -- aka, the bank -- it can wring out inefficiencies in the market and give both parties a better deal. People who are creditworthy but whom banks don't understand -- for example, free-agent types with variable incomes -- can find lenders who grok that they're good risks. Individual lenders earn more interest than in a convention account. And Zopa protects them against the occasional bad apple by requiring a credit check and by spreading out larger loans among several borrowers.

Last month, the concept came to the U.S. in the form of Prosper, which bills itself as "America's first people-to-people lending marketplace." Co-founded by Chris Larsen, one of the founders of E-LOAN, Prosper operates much like Zopa, attempting to create a platform where buyers and sellers -- of money -- can list bids and strike a deal.

But Prosper, which is backed by high-profile venture-capital firms like Accel Partners and Benchmark Capital, has added an interesting twist. Borrowers can form groups -- consisting of PTA members, parishioners of a church, college professors, whatever -- in the hopes of getting lower rates. Micro-lending programs in South Asia have shown that loan-repayment rates are extremely high when borrowers are accountable not just to a lender but also to members of their community. It's positive peer pressure in action.

Skeptical? Think that no sane person would zap money across the country to someone he's never met and whom he knows only by screen name? Perhaps. Then again, ten years ago that's what they said about eBay.

Death Delayed, Profits Accelerated

Anti-aging medicine is all the rage these days. But if we're truly on the brink of dramatic breakthroughs in human longevity, what does that mean for work, business, and investments?

In a speech last month at the annual meeting of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, Stanford University demographer Shripad Tuljapurkar offered some intriguing projections we can use as a guide. Tuljapurkar estimated that within a decade, advances in anti-aging technology could begin raising life expectancy at a steady and unprecedented clip. From 2010 to 2030, he says, "the modal age of death" (the most common age at which people die) could increase by 20 years. So instead of dying at about 80 (the modal age of death now in most developed economies), plenty of people would live to 100.

The implications could be profound:

Housing: People living longer means less turnover in housing stock, which translates into more construction. What's more, Tuljapurkar says 50-year or even 75-year mortgages could become common.

And I wouldn't be surprised to see continued growth in co-housing (seniors forming the equivalent of 21st century communes), multiple generations of families living together under one (large) roof, and other alternative housing arrangements. Family structure has grown more diverse over the last couple of decades. But the structure of housing has stayed pretty much the same. Maybe not for long.

Pocketbook consequences: Over the long haul, housing remains a good investment. And the rehab and remodeling business, already strong, really takes off.

Health care: Health care would likely become an even greater slice of the U.S. economy. But perhaps not in the way we expect. One of the curious developments accompanying increased life expectancy is increased "health expectancy," the number of years spent in reasonably good physical condition. As a result, much of the health-care spending will go to improving lives as well as saving them -- everything from cosmetic surgery to sex-life-improving pharmaceuticals to brain fitness (see "First, Buns of Steel. Then, Minds Like Steel Traps").

Pocketbook consequences: Health-care comprises a larger share of individual investors' portfolios. Smart venture capital flows to businesses that enhance "health expectancy."

Other industries: The design business would tilt toward designing for older consumers. Auto makers would have to start making senior-friendly cars or develop vehicles that drive themselves. I can also imagine some sort of private taxi or bus service to ferry 80- and 90-somethings where they need to go. And continuing education would become, as Peter Drucker predicted years ago, one of the nation's hottest businesses.

Pocketbook consequences: Smart companies seek to become "lifestyle" brands for seniors in much the way that Mountain Dew, MySpace, and Abercrombie & Fitch have become lifestyle brands for teenagers. An array of education options -- from online mega-versities to private learning groups -- begins to blossom.

Fiscal: Tuljapurkar says the retirement age might have to rise to 85. If it were to remain at 65, the result would be an utter Social Security meltdown -- fewer and fewer workers would be supporting more and more retirees, many of whom would be collecting Social Security benefits for 35 years! If the retirement age climbs to the mid-80s and people pump payroll taxes into the system for two more decades, Social Security stays solvent a lot longer.

Pocketbook consequences: Interest rates could be lower, since the government may have to borrow less to finance Social Security. Likewise, a reduced risk of a recession since economy-slowing tax hikes might be less necessary.

Social: If the retirement age did leap to 85, companies would have as many as five generations in a single workplace, creating many new management challenges. Multiple careers would become the norm. So might multiple marriages.

And if people routinely live to 100, those at the lower end of the age spectrum might not see any need to take on adult responsibilities early in life. Adolescence, itself a modern concept, could stretch into the 20s.

Pocketbook consequences: Family lawyers, management consultants, and career counselors do a brisk business.

Last decade, when people pondered the effects of the Internet, they announced rather breathlessly, "This changes everything." Well, if Tuljapurkar is right (I think he is) and the modal age of death increases, this might not change everything -- but it sure will change a lot.

A Room With a W-2

Please don't tell your kids to become accountants. As I explain in my latest book, this generation's accountants confront the same two forces that toppled last generation's factory workers: People overseas can do their jobs cheaper. (An Indian chartered accountant makes about $500 a month, which is one reason why three million U.S. tax returns were done in India last year.) And machines -- or in this case, software -- can do their jobs better. (Twenty-one million Americans completed their taxes using the $39.95 TurboTax program.)

Accountants doing sophisticated, complex work that requires face-to-face interactions with clients will be fine. But as routine work gets outsourced and automated, accountants and other white-collar professionals increasingly will have to rely on right-brain abilities -- artistry, empathy, inventiveness, and big-picture thinking -- to survive (see "Creativity's Economic -- and Sexual -- Edge").

Which leads me to Kevin Marshall, CPA. After nearly two decades in green eyeshades, he left the accounting trade to become an innkeeper. He now owns the Dutch Iris Inn, a bed and breakfast in Granby, Connecticut. But all those years crunching numbers didn't atrophy the right side of his brain. Indeed, they gave him an inspired idea.

At his B&B, Marshall offers what he calls a "Tax and Relax package." Come for the weekend, bring your tax forms and receipts, and while you frolic in the bucolic bliss of New England, Marshall will complete your taxes.

In other words, in the right-brain, high-touch hospitality industry, Marshall has found a new use for his well-developed left-brain skills: He's using them to distinguish himself from competitors. It's a brilliant whole-minded move -- not to mention an inspiration to anyone concerned about being outsourced or automated into unemployment.

So in the month before Tax Day, let's give three big Trend Desk cheers for Kevin Marshall -- the only accountant in America who'll leave a chocolate on your pillow.

Want to share a trend, suggest an item, or do my taxes? Contact me at dantrend@danpink.com. I read every e-mail and respond to most.