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| Out Of Control |
I don't normally like to read long-ish posts, but this is an
eye-opener for me. You can read it, ignore it, delete it, or whatever,
but I feel it is that very self-centeredness and personal apathy that
has gotten us in the shape we are in today. Whether you agree or
disagree, I thought this was important and conclusive enough to post it for you! Jesse C Smith Jr Blog Editor.
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CHANGES ARE COMING...
1. The Post Office.
Get ready to imagine a world without the post office. They are so
deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to sustain it
long term. Email, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped out the minimum
revenue needed to keep the post office alive. Most of your mail every
day is junk mail and bills.
2. The Check. Britain
is already laying the groundwork to do away with checks by 2018. It
costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to process checks.
Plastic cards and online transactions will lead to the eventual demise
of the check. This plays right into the death of the post office. If you
never d paid your bills by mail and never received them by mail, the
post office would absolutely go out of business.
3. The Newspaper.
The younger generation simply doesn't read the newspaper. They
certainly don't subscribe to a daily delivered print edition. That may
go the way of the milkman and the laundry man. As for reading the paper
online, get ready to pay for it. The rise in mobile Internet devices and
e-readers has caused all the newspaper and magazine publishers to form
an alliance. They have met with Apple, Amazon, and the major cell phone
companies to develop a model for paid subscription services.
4. The Book.
You say you will never give up the physical book that you hold in your
hand and turn the literal pages. I said the same thing about downloading
music from iTunes. I wanted my hard copy CD. But I quickly changed my
mind when I discovered that I could get albums for half the price
without ever leaving home to get the latest music. The same thing will
happen with books. You can browse a bookstore online and even read a
preview chapter before you buy. And the price is less than half that of a
real book. And think of the convenience! Once you start flicking your
fingers on the screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in
the story, can't wait to see what happens next, and you forget that
you're holding a gadget instead of a book.
5. The Land Line Telephone.
Unless you have a large family and make a lot of local calls, you don't
need it anymore. Most people keep it simply because they've always had
it. But you are paying double charges for that extra service. All the
cell phone companies will let you call customers using the same cell
provider for no charge against your minutes.
6. Music.
This is one of the saddest parts of the change story. The music
industry is dying a slow death. Not just because of illegal downloading.
It's the lack of innovative new music being given a chance to get to
the people who would like to hear it. Greed and corruption is the
problem. The record labels and the radio conglomerates are simply
self-destructing. Over 40% of the music purchased today is "catalog
items," meaning traditional music that the public is familiar with.
Older established artists. This is also true on the live concert
circuit. To explore this fascinating and disturbing topic further, check
out the book, "Appetite for Self-Destruction" by Steve Knopper, and the
video documentary, "Before the Music Dies."
7. Television.
Revenues to the networks are down dramatically. Not just because of the
economy. People are watching TV and movies streamed from their
computers. And they're playing games and doing lots of other things that
take up the time that used to be spent watching TV. Prime time shows
have degenerated down to lower than the lowest common denominator. Cable
rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about every 4 minutes and 30
seconds. I say good riddance to most of it. It's time for the cable
companies to be put out of our misery. Let the people choose what they
want to watch online and through Netflix.
8. The "Things" That You Own.
Many of the very possessions that we used to own are still in our
lives, but we may not actually own them in the future. They may simply
reside in "the cloud." Today your computer has a hard drive and you
store your pictures, music, movies, and documents. Your software is on a
CD or DVD, and you can always re-install it if need be. But all of that
is changing. Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all finishing up their
latest "cloud services." That means that when you turn on a computer,
the Internet will be built into the operating system. So, Windows,
Google, and the Mac OS will be tied straight into the Internet. If you
click an icon, it will open something in the Internet cloud. If you save
something, it will be saved to the cloud. And you may pay a monthly
subscription fee to the cloud provider.
In this virtual world, you can access your music or your books, or your
whatever from any laptop or handheld device. That's the good news. But,
will you actually own any of this "stuff" or will it all be able to
disappear at any moment in a big "Poof?" Will most of the things in our
lives be disposable and whimsical? It makes you want to run to the
closet and pull out that photo album, grab a book from the shelf, or
open up a CD case and pull out the insert.
9. Privacy. If
there ever was a concept that we can look back on nostalgically, it
would be privacy. That's gone. It's been gone for a long time anyway.
There are cameras on the street, in most of the buildings, and even
built into your computer and cell phone. But you can be sure that 24/7,
"They" know who you are and where you are, right down to the GPS
coordinates, and the Google Street View. If you buy something, your
habit is put into a zillion profiles, and your ads will change to
reflect those habits. And "They" will try to get you to buy something
else. Again and again.
All we will have that can't be changed are Memories.
10. Facts About The Deindustrialization Of America That Will Blow Your Mind
The United States is rapidly becoming the very first "post-industrial"
nation on the globe. All great economic empires eventually become fat
and lazy and squander the great wealth that their forefathers have left
them, but the pace at which America is accomplishing this is
absolutely amazing. It was America that was at the forefront of the
industrial revolution. It was America that showed the world how to
mass produce everything from automobiles to televisions to airplanes. It
was the great American manufacturing base that crushed Germany and
Japan in World War II.
But now we are witnessing the deindustrialization of America ..
Tens of thousands of factories have left the United States in the past
decade alone. Millions upon millions of manufacturing jobs have been
lost in the same time period. The United States has become a nation
that consumes everything in sight and yet produces increasingly little.
Do you know what our biggest export is today? Waste paper. Yes, trash is
the number one thing that we ship out to the rest of the world as we
voraciously blow our money on whatever the rest of the world wants to
sell to us. The United States has become bloated and spoiled and our
economy is now just a shadow of what it once was. Once upon a time
America could literally out produce the rest of the world combined.
Today that is no longer true, but Americans sure do consume more than
anyone else in the world. If the de-industrialization of America
continues at this current pace, what possible kind of a future are we
going to be leaving to our children
Any great nation throughout history has been great at making things.
So if the United States continues to allow its manufacturing base to
erode at a staggering pace how in the world can the U.S. continue to
consider itself to be a great nation? We have created the biggest debt
bubble in the history of the world in an effort to maintain a very high
standard of living, but the current state of affairs is not anywhere
close to sustainable. Every single month America goes into more debt
and every single month America gets poorer.
So what happens when the debt bubble pops?
The
de-industrialization of the United States should be a top concern for
every man, woman and child in the country. But sadly, most Americans do not have any idea what is going on around them.
For people like that, take this article and print it out and hand it
to them. Perhaps what they will read below will shock them badly enough
to awaken them from their slumber.
The following are 19 facts about the de-industrialization of America that will blow your mind....
#1 The United States has lost approximately 42,400 factories since 2001. About 75 percent of those factories employed over 500 people when they were still in operation.
#2 Dell Inc., one of America 's
largest manufacturers of computers, has announced plans to dramatically
expand its operations in China with an investment of over $100
billion over the next decade.
#3 Dell has announced
that it will be closing its last large U.S. manufacturing facility
in Winston-Salem , North Carolina in November. Approximately 900 jobs
will be lost.
#4 In 2008, 1.2 billion cell phones were sold worldwide. So how many of them were manufactured inside the United States ? Zero.
#5 According to a new study
conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, if the U.S. trade deficit
with China continues to increase at its current rate, the U.S. economy
will lose over half a million jobs this year alone.
#6 As of the end of July, the U. S. Trade deficit with China has risen 18 percent compared to the same time period a year ago.
#7 The United States has lost a total of about 5.5 million manufacturing jobs since October 2000.
#8 According to Tax Notes,
between 1999 and 2008 employment at the foreign affiliates of U.S.
parent companies increased an astounding 30 percent to 10.1 million.
During that exact same time period, U.S.employment at American
multinational corporations declined 8 percent to 21.1 million.
#9 In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of U.S. economic output. In 2008, it represented 11.5 percent.
#10 Ford Motor Company
recently announced the closure of a factory that produces the Ford
Ranger in St. Paul , Minnesota . Approximately 750 good paying middle
class jobs are going to be lost because making Ford Rangers in
Minnesota does not fit in with Ford's new "global" manufacturing
strategy.
#11 As of the end of 2009,
less than 12 million Americans worked in manufacturing. The last time
less than 12 million Americans were employed in manufacturing was in
1941.
#12 In the United States today, consumption accounts for 70 percent of GDP. Of this 70 percent, over half is spent on services.
#13 The United States has lost a whopping 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.
#14 In 2001, the United States ranked fourth in the world in per capita broadband Internet use. Today it ranks 15th.
#15 Manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer industry is actually lower in 2010 than it was in 1975.
#16 Printed circuit boards are used in tens of thousands of different products. Asia now produces 84 percent of them worldwide.
#17 The United States spends approximately $3.90 on Chinese goods for every $1 that the Chinese spend on goods from the United States .
#18 One prominent economist is projecting that the Chinese economy will be three times larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2040.
#19 The U.S. Census Bureau
says that 43.6 million Americans are now living in poverty and
according to them that is the highest number of poor Americans in the 51
years that records have been kept.
#20 Morallity has eroded significantly in the last 60 years.
So how many tens of thousands more factories do we need to lose before we do something about it?
How
many millions more Americans are going to become unemployed before we
all admit that we have a very, very serious problem on our hands?
How many more trillions of dollars are going to leave the country
before we realize that we are losing wealth at a pace that is killing
our economy?
How many once great manufacturing cities are going
to become rotting war zones, like Detroit , before we understand that
we are committing national economic suicide?
The de-industrialization of America is a national crisis. It needs to be treated like one.
If
you disagree with this article, I have a direct challenge for you. If
anyone can explain how a de-industrialized America has any kind of
viable economic future, please do so.
America is in deep, deep trouble folks. It is time to wake up!!
In God we Trust and Follow
