The Post Office recently announced that it lost $1.5 BILLION from operation and are raising the first class stamp to 44 cents. They also want so discontinue Saturday delivery. I think they should ultimately discontinue all delivery but for now, just deliver mail once a week. Their mail carriers could have a different route every day. Americans don’t need mail more than once a week anyway. In short order, all of the mail that can be sent electronically should be eliminated.
Instead, the Post Office should be transformed into a package-only delivery company. The public needs a low cost carrier of parcels. It is what makes online shopping work for ordinary Americans. It reduces the amount of energy driving cars to stores and malls.
The Post Office is another industry that is imploding because of technology.
America is doomed.
I have been watching with interest (and glee) the recent trend from AP and News Corp as they bemoan that consumers are getting their content for free. Seriously, are these the stupidest executives in the world? This has been gone on for a long, long time and they are just now figuring this out? I guess they never read the thousands of blogs that have been predicting the death of old media.
I will agree that if any media company wants to hide their content they will be able to find a way. Clearly, anybody can hide something if they want to — the ultimate hiding would be not producing any content at all. But this is not even the important question to ponder. In fact, who even cares if they hide it?
The more important question is will enough people be willing to pay for the hidden content. There is already a long history of companies trying to charge. For example, the Wall Street Journal has long charged for their site and I am sure some people pay for it — but I don’t. The only time I have even read the Wall Street Journal it was for free — a newspaper lying around a doctor’s office or free on the internet. It isn’t that I wasn’t interested in their area of reporting either. I didn’t even care when the Wall Street Journal starting charging for their content, because there were plenty of other free alternatives. Plus, the sad truth about the Wall Street Journal content is that they don’t offer anything of value over the free alternatives.
Let’s just hypothesize that all of the for profit news media would go to a charge model at the same time. It’s all gone overnight. I still contend the news would still be available for free. There are millions of people writing about the news all the time. These people don’t even need to rely on any of the now hidden content, because there is tons of news available on television and radio for free. Sites, like Wikipedia, will have a steady stream of news. Google News will still find people writing about the news and making it available for free. People will report what they have heard or read. It will be organic and all of it without paying for the hidden content. There will be news aggregators that will show all the free news from sites who want to be part of it. If AP and News Corp want to hide their content, let them. They will be advertising on all the free aggregator sites to get people to try that free trail. Perhaps, they will sign up for spam emails to try and get people to try their news. They might even go to the so-call “micro payments” for each page hit. I won’t sign up for that either.
Sure, some people with more money than brains will find it convenient to pay for the news in some value-added format but here is the ultimate question: will this generate enough revenue to make it pay off? My guess is no — not even close. After a while the hidden content will have to expose some of their site to free or ad-driven traffic — just like the Wall Street Journal had to do. I have never subscribed to the Wall Street Journal but it appears on Google News from time to time. If it didn’t, I would never even know about it. Take it off of Google News and I’ll never read it again. Old media can get their content off of Google News but they can never get rid of Google News and the hundreds of other sites who do the same thing. Ultimately, the charge media will either go out of business of make their content available for free again.
Also, the internet will always have available news from organizations like PBS and the BBC which are public news organization. Not to mention getting news in more raw sources. For example, instead of hearing what the NY Times said about a bill in Congress, somebody would read over the bill and report on it for free. Instead of hearing what the Washington Post said about a Senate hearing, somebody will report on it by watching it on CSPAN. Congress people will report on their own news on their own web site. If one day I went to Google News and only found a few dozen sources of news, I am pretty sure it would cover what I needed to know. In fact, I will only pay for content when I don’t get enough news from Google News — let that be my criteria. Today, it is annoying that Google News shows hundreds of newspapers will the same AP wire story. I don’t mind one of them but I have wanted Google News to get rid of the rest for a long time.
Musicians figured out that people were getting their content for free and there was nothing they could do about it. They tried and sued lots of people. Ultimately, they gave up. So, the musicians adopted the concert ticket model where fans would pay lots of money to see the artists in concert. The experience of a live concert was something that could not be downloaded. People are willing to pay the equivalent of $1 a song (or more) to hear an artist perform some of his content in a concert hall. So, artists make their songs available for free on the internet (e.g. youtube) to get traffic to their concerts. In the same way artists make their content available to radio for free to consumers via an ad-based media.
If big named artists decided they would no longer make their content for free, there will be new artists that will make their content available for free. Many people, just to avoid paying for music, would listen to the new artists. There has been a massive explosion of new musicians since the internet provides a nearly free distribution media.
Anything digital can be copied. It is impossible to avoid this. Attempts at encryption, etc. have failed. Sure, companies can track who is downloading what but this has not proved effective either. Congress even passed laws to help but it had no success.
Let the big media try to impose a fee on their content. They will get some revenue. But, I contend the model will not work and they will be scratching their heads for decades trying to figure out how to monetize their content. Free web sites will be created and expanded faster than old media can imagine to fill any gap that old media leaves behind.
This is just another example of technology destroying another industry and how capitalism doesn’t work — it has been replaced with socialism. The music industry went through it and figured out how to keep a small part of their revenue. Perhaps the news media will be able to figure out the same but I doubt it. I just don’t see me going to hear a news reporter at a concert.
As time goes by it is going to be harder and harder to monetize anything digital. It will be harder and harder for people to make a living in those industries. As one industry after another fails, people will rightly conclude that capitalism doesn’t work.
America is doomed.
Nassim Taleb said it today that the world’s situation is much worse than the 1930s. This may seem surprising when some are pronouncing that the bottom is in, the worse is past, and things are up from here. Cisco said the bottom is in. Geithner and Bernanke think there is glimmer of hope emerging. But, they are wrong — they are all wrong.
America cannot control what is coming. They can spend money like crazy and print it by the truck loads, but there are fundamental problems that cannot be solved in the present system. There are not enough jobs. Wealth and income is concentrated among a few and the many are being left behind. The middle class in America has been decimated and will likely never return. Banks are all insolvent and only accounting tricks are masking the problems. Housing is in trouble because the prices are still too high and the people don’t have the wealth or the income to buy these homes. Plus, there is so much political corruption and influence buying that the government does not work. Even things like health care are being controlled by special interest and ordinary Americans are being ignored.
The earth has been neglected and it cannot be fixed, certainly not in the short term. Climate change is going to happen and there is no stopping it, even if there was interest in stopping it which there is not. Climate change is going to displace millions and millions of people and will make vast areas uninhabitable. There is going to be massive water and food shortages. Meanwhile, more and more fossil fuels will be burned, making the problem even worse.
Technology will continue to destroy jobs. The large number of unemployed will cause wages to be reduced. Companies will continue to hire the cheapest labor in the world leaving the unemployed without hope. Countries will continue to go more and more in debt and defaults will ripple through the world.
There will be diseases like flu pandemics and pathogens within the food supply. Mankind has disregarded prudent farming and animal practices and this is going to result in more disease — lots more. There are going to be product recalls because of disease outbreak. This is unavoidable as governments attempt to produce more and more food using less land, less water, and more pesticides.
Plus, there are the unpredictable events such as meteors heading to earth in the next 30 years. Not to mention earthquakes and more natural disasters, like hurricanes. Then there are nuclear weapons that are proliferating to such an extent there will likely be denotations within the next ten years and possibly even within the next year. There are unstable countries like North Korea and Pakistan with nuclear weapons. There are countries who believe God wants them to destroy infidels.
Society has developed in extreme self-interest that it is incapable to cooperating to solve major problems. Even states within the US cannot cooperate. There is massive political polarization in the US that will likely result in civil unrest. More and more people are buying guys and unwilling to compromise. The religious and extremists are becoming more vocal and violent.
Countries are even less able to cooperate. They have different political systems and different value systems. Many believe their religion is the right one. There is disagreement when it comes to aid to other countries and even how to treat citizens, like women.
Throughout it all there are more and more poor people throughout the world. There is going to be uprisings from the disenfranchised and governments are going to either kill lots of their citizens or be toppled.
America is doomed.
Oklahoma’s House has passed a bill claiming Oklahoma’s sovereignty. Just a reminder that sovereignty is “government free from external control” which implies that Oklahoma does not want to be part of the United States. States cannot be sovereign in the United States even though the federal government, and the Constitution, does give the states power in some cases. However, there are many, many, many things that states do not get to depart from the federal government, e.g. environmental, taxes, commerce, etc.
Reminds me of when Texas Governor Perry’s falsely proclaimed that Texas could secede.
If you haven’t notice the Republicans are not taking the election very well. In fact, they are getting more and more extreme every day. For example, consider Glenn Beck’s portrayal of Obama burning the average American in gasoline. Just today, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, declared that Obama promised him he would not nominate a “bomb-thrower” — he still thinks he should filibuster Obama’s still unannounced choice for the Supreme Court.
Gun sales are up strongly, because the crazy right wingers think Obama is going to take their guns away. Obama should take their guns away, but Obama is increasingly more disappointing each day. Obama is turning into Republican light but the crazy right wingers are still not happy.
Yes, the Republicans are getting crazier every day. Just listen to wackos Limbaugh and Hannity — just to name two of the crazy right wingers on talk radio. This is not going to end well.
America is doomed.
Below is a fascinating video about the 1918 flu and why the flu can be so dangerous. It is estimated the 1918 flu killed as many as 100,000,000 people — and that was in 1918. There were three stages in 1918 and the first stage was mild, followed by the deadly second stage. The current swine flu is a combination of the H1N1 and H1N5 avian flu.
When I see things like this it is apparent that we all in this together. Everybody needs health care and it makes the idea of health care for only people who can afford it just plain stupid.
The pandemic may not come this year but it will come. Many believe that the current H1N1 flu will reemerge in the Fall during the normal flu season.
America is doomed
