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Changes Are Coming

Whether these changes are good or bad depends in part on how we adapt to
them. But, ready or not, here they come.


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 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.


19 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
deindustrialization 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 deindustrialization 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.

Here are 19 stunning facts about the deindustrialization of America :


#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 had 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 food and goods
for every $1 that the Chinese spend on goods from the United States .The
Daport Happy hour bars has not served  a Chinese dinner ever. Not even when
the president of China visited Daport.


#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.


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 deindustrialization of America is a national crisis. It needs to be
treated like one.


And to underscore the above: 11/9/10: The largest private employer in
Saginaw, Michigan will soon be the city government of Beijing, as a
104-year-old unit of General Motors will be sold to new owners from China.
The $450M purchase received little attention this summer, but it is a
landmark deal - the first time Chinese investors have bought a U.S.
industrial operation of such scale and history.

When was the last time any member of the Administration OR Congress spoke
about a plan to stop the job flow out of the USA??? 

Subject: What we have learned in 2064 years

What have we learned in 2064 years?

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt
should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and
controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest
Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on
public assistance."- Cicero - 55 BC

So evidently, nothing has changed .

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

Nicholas Carr

Special from Bottom Line/Personal
March 15, 2011

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The Internet is changing our brains. Neurologists and psychologists have discovered that our brains process Internet pages differently than they do printed pages. That can affect how much we learn when we read -- and even alter our brains themselves.

The human brain "rewires" itself depending on how it is used, an ability neurologists refer to as "plasticity." An experiment by UCLA psychology professor Gary Small, MD, showed that spending one hour per day on the Internet for just one week alters our neural pathways. That neural rewiring could have unfortunate consequences.

Example: For the past five centuries, reading books has helped train human brains to concentrate intently over extended periods of time, an ability that has helped our species produce ideas and inventions. If we abandon books in favor of the Internet, our ability to maintain focus and think up new ideas might diminish.

Other consequences of Internet use and what we can do about them...

INTERRUPTION SYSTEM

When we read online, words are not the only information coming at us. There usually are eye-catching advertisements alongside the text and hyperlinks in the text in case we wish to jump to different Web pages on related topics. We might have our e-mail program open and a Facebook feed, too, alerting us each time a new message arrives. Even when a printed book is transferred to an electronic device connected to the Internet, it turns into something very much like a Web site, with links and other digital enhancements.

These distractions don’t just slow our reading, they also make it less likely that we will understand and retain new knowledge.

Example: Canadian researchers asked 70 people to read a short story on a computer screen. Some read traditional text, while others read a version containing hyperlinks. Only 10% of those who read the traditional text reported any difficulty following the story -- versus 75% of people who read the hyperlink version. Those who read traditional text did so faster, too.

Simply ignoring online distractions does not work. We can choose not to click a hyperlink or open an e-mail message -- but ironically, the fact that our brains must make this split-second decision to not be distracted is in itself enough of a distraction to break our concentration.

Reading books often is portrayed as a passive activity when compared with surfing the Web, but the truth is, we think more deeply when we read printed pages than when we read Internet pages. The "quiet space" afforded by the printed page lets us mull over what we read. That quiet space usually doesn’t exist online, so we’re less likely to form reasoned conclusions about the validity of what we read or to create unique ideas by combining the new information we read with things we already know.

What to do: When you wish to give your full attention to online or eReader text, close your e-mail program, your Facebook page and any other competing information feeds on the screen. Also, use software and settings that minimize interruptions. Free, easy-to-use programs Instapaper Text(www.InstaPaper.com/text) and Readability(www.Readability.com/addons) strip away most, though not all, of the distractions from Web sites, leaving mainly straightforward text. Or use the Safari 5 Web browser, which has a "Reader" button in the address field that works similarly (www.Apple.com/safari).

LESS IS READ

The Internet puts more information than ever at our fingertips -- yet evidence suggests that it actually leads us to read and rely upon a smaller set of information resources, encouraging uncreative group thinking.

The trouble is that the Internet does not just provide information. It also subtly evaluates it for us. Search engines typically sort their results in order of popularity, and few of us scan past the first page of results.

Example: A study by James Evans, PhD, a sociologist at the University of Chicago, found that the increased availability of academic research online has led academics to read and reference a narrower set of articles when they write journal articles. The Internet allows them to identify which prior journal articles are most popular with their peers and most related to their own research, and they often ignore the rest.

True, the most popular Web pages and articles are likely to be the most useful -- but reading obscure authors, ideas and opinions has value, too. When we read things that most other people have not read, we increase the odds that we’ll have original ideas.

The ease and speed with which we can find specific facts online carry a hidden cost, too. Prior to the Internet, we often had to dig deep into newspapers, magazines and books to find the facts we needed. These days, search engines such as Google direct us to the desired snippet of data in seconds. Once we’ve found the fact that we are after, we usually stop reading. That’s unfortunate, because the time we previously had "wasted" searching through lots of resources gave us a chance to stumble across other important or interesting facts or ideas.

What to do: Scan beyond the first page of results when you use a search engine to explore a topic of interest. This at least gives you a chance to learn more than what almost everyone else interested in the topic already knows.

When an Internet search for a piece of information leads you to a compelling article, book or Web site, jot down its name, then explore it more fully when you have some free time.

LESS SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE

The Internet is no longer confined to our desktops. eReaders, smartphones and even vehicle dashboards increasingly allow us to bring the online world wherever we go -- a trend that will accelerate in the years ahead.

The danger of digital distractions while driving already is well-publicized. Less discussed is the potential danger that such portable distractions pose while we’re just sitting around with friends or loved ones. Preliminary research by the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California suggests that the distractions created by the use of mobile Internet devices make it less likely that we will fully grasp the psychological states of those around us. The weaker our grasp of other people’s moods, the less able we are to show appropriate empathy, weakening the bonds that hold together human communities, families and friendships.

What to do: Turn off digital devices when you spend time with others, or at the very least, silence the chime notifying you when phone calls or new messages arrive. Even if you don’t stop in the middle of a conversation to check incoming text messages or e-mails, that chime alone could be enough of a distraction to inhibit your ability to focus on your friends’ feelings.

---

Bottom Line/Personal interviewed Nicholas Carr, a journalist based in Boulder, Colorado, whose writings about the social, economic and business implications of technology have appeared in The New York Times, Wired, The Atlantic and elsewhere. He previously served as executive editor of Harvard Business Review and was a principal at Mercer Management Consulting. His latest book is The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains(Norton). www.NicholasGCarr.com

How to Overcome Life's Disappointments

Rabbi Harold S. Kushner

Most of us must face the disappointment of not having all of our dreams come true. The fact that we experience failure does not make us failures -- although the way in which we respond to our failures could do exactly that. Here’s what to do when you have trouble getting past life’s disappointments...

Remember for whom you are working -- you. The promotion you had hoped for went to someone else... your family doesn’t appreciate the many things you do for them. It is natural to feel disappointment when things like this occur, but our mistake is to rely on others for validation. We should work hard because to do any less would be letting ourselves down. We should work hard for the sake of our own sense of integrity and knowing we have done our best.

Understand that those who have never been disappointed are the real failures. People who achieve everything they set out to achieve in life obviously have set their bars too low. We achieve more if we aim high -- though this also means that we will be disappointed more often, because lofty goals are difficult to reach. Understand that disappointments are inevitable when we strive for greatness, and consider your life successful if you accomplish just a fraction of your goals.

Escape the isolation of disappointment. We feel alone when we lose a loved one... suffer a life-threatening illness... or experience a major financial setback. Our loneliness then drives us further into despair. Example: My wife and I saw only happy families around us when one of our children was seriously ill. Not until after our child had died did we discover that other families we knew had gone through similar ordeals.

A tragedy does not separate us from everyone else. Sharing our grief brings us closer to the brotherhood of the afflicted, a huge club consisting of everyone who has ever endured pain or inequity. Our misfortune even makes us qualified to help other grieving people. Assisting others can get us past the sense of helplessness that often comes with major disappointments.

Keep disappointments in perspective. Try to remember what was worrying you two weeks ago. Many people cannot. Most disappointments are less consequential than we feel they are at the time. Psychiatrist George Vaillant, MD, director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which followed 800 men for five decades, found that it is not the bad things that happen to us that stay with us in life -- it is the good people we meet along the way. People who handle misfortune best are the ones who focus not on what happened to them but on all the people who rallied around them when it happened.

Fashion a new dream. There’s no reason that you have to let the failure of one dream stop you from dreaming -- and trying. The experience you have gained can help you create a new, more realistic and achievable dream.Example: When Al Gore lost the presidential election, he recast his dream. He moved from politics to environmentalism, producing a highly acclaimed documentary on global warming called An Inconvenient Truth. His success and impact have been tremendous since his “failure.”

Get angry with God. Some people consider it wrong to get angry with God. I believe that if we cannot get angry with God, then we have a constrained, artificial relationship with God.

When the world disappoints you, go ahead and blame God. Vent your anger, and bemoan the inequity. Voicing unhappiness with life’s disappointments brings you closer to moving beyond them. God does not mind. He will continue to stand by you no matter how angry you become. God understands that you really are getting mad at your misfortune, not at Him.

WHEN OTHER PEOPLE DISAPPOINT US

The friends, coworkers and loved ones on whom we rely sometimes will disappoint us. Two ways to forgive them...

Don’t focus on the mistake. Before ending a relationship based on a single failure -- however great -- consider this person in full. Think about who he/she has been in the past and who he can become in the future. Example: A husband cheats on his wife. The wife might choose to end the relationship, but she also might choose to view this as a single error from a loving but flawed partner.

Consider forgiveness a favor that you do for yourself. People often believe that if they forgive those who have wronged them, the transgressors “get away with” the misdeeds. But forgiveness benefits you more than the transgressor. Offering forgiveness removes a heavy burden that you have been carrying around. It cleanses your soul and eases your pain. The sooner you forgive, the sooner you can move on from your disappointment.

Bottom Line/Personal interviewed Harold S. Kushner, Rabbi Laureate of Temple Israel in Natick, Massachusetts. He is author of numerous best-selling books, including When Bad Things Happen to Good People and, most recently, Overcoming Life’s Disappointments(both from Anchor).

 

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