Look at the 19 facts of what has happened to our country from 1999 to 2008.
SCARY!!
Changes Are Coming - Things
We'll Be Saying Goodbye To
From Clark McClelland
We'll Be Saying Goodbye To
From Clark McClelland
12-25-10
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 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.
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???
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20 comments:
Ok, are they complaining, or reporting? And if they're blaming someone, who are they blaming? A mess of a post. Just picking out one point here, broadband Internet. Yes, America is falling way behind. South Korea has something like 80% of its population connected to high-speed (and getting faster soon) broadband Internet, at affordable prices (I lived there for five years, and spent the equivalent of about $45 USD a month on broadband (plus digital cable TV.) Where in the USA can you find that? Not from Comcast, or any other cable/Internet provider. Point the finger at big business, so this rant may not hit their intended target.
As Bill Gates recently said, if all you care about is America's relative power in the world, you've been losing ground since the last day of WW2.
America has changed, but its still the world's #1 manufacturer, #1 food producer, and #1 economy. Yes, we need to adapt and make changes, but just whining about it won't help. If you really want to stop it then you need to end incentives for companies to ship jobs to any location where they can save 3 cents per worker and then get a tax break for it.
Its funny, too, how the time frame overlaps exactly with W's administration, and yet no mention is made of his role or the role of the Republican Congress over this time period.
And the post office isn't going anywhere. At least not as long as Fedex and UPS rely on them to (secretly) do a lot of their less profitable work for them. Good old free market!
"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????"
I'm sure he's said more but to be very specific to your question.
May 4th 2009 11:39AM EDT
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-By-The-President-On-International-Tax-Policy-Reform/
Since the general thrust of this e-mail seems to be about manufacturing and how it is "shrinking" in the U.S., let me point out from Wikipedia:
The United States is the world's largest manufacturer, with a 2007 industrial output of US$2.69 trillion. In 2008, its manufacturing output was greater than that of the manufacturing output of China, India, and Brazil combined, despite manufacturing being a very small portion of the entire US economy as compared to most other countries.
We haven't suddenly stopped being able to make things. We just don't need people to do it anymore.
Paper checks are going away? China is pumping money into U.S employment? Outdated, anachronistic services like milkmen and record labels are disappearing?
Where's the downside here? The future sounds awesome.
oooo its another fear-fest with lots of things to be afraid of, and no solutions offered.
I'm not happy about the loss of jobs overseas, even non-manufacturing jobs that can be done with a telephone and computer have been lost. Congress needs to feel the heat from the unemployed to take some action.
Not sure how this is a right-wing post, except perhaps that one is supposed to assume that we should somehow blame liberals/immigrants/blacks/gays/non-Christians/feminists/whoever-we-hate-this-week?
Although it's kind of all over the place and some of the information is out-of-context, incomplete, only part of the story, etc., I actually think that there are a lot of good points in it.
What would be interesting would be to take this post, and address point-by-point which political party is responsible for what policies and consequences, and where each party stands in general on trade policy, privacy issues, corproate tax policy, and communication and copyright laws (which, as best I can tell, are the main issues that these points are linked to).
I expect your wingnut relatives might be a little suprised by - oh, what am I saying? Of course not! It's all the fault of black Spanish-speaking Muslim immigrant lesbians from Hawaii, which isn't really a state.
Conservatives, we are in the mess described in this forward precisely because YOUR leaders drove us here.
Had you not listened to your billionaire "betters" and voted the progressive ticket, America would have peace, prosperity, a cleaner environment, an effective education system that would be the envy of the world, rule of law, and affordable health care.
And all it would cost is the rich paying taxes like they payed under Ike, no more idiotic wars driven by a corporate agenda, and accepting people who may be different from you as FELLOW AMERICANS.
Seriously: it's that fucking simple.
...which is why the billionaire/corporate screech-fest runs 24/7 to steer you away from that particular happy ending.
These mashup forwards are really interesting. Who decided that a bit about outdated things should be stuck onto the bit about deindustrialization?
By the way, the first Google result for Clark McClelland is this.
What people have got to understand is that many groups have been working on a one world government, including Skull and Bones that both Bushes belonged to among lots of American leaders. George Soros and the UN want their new world order with China the leader. Islam wants a global caliphate with islam and sharia and in order to do that, they need to take the oil money they have been paid over the years and buy up America with it.. America is now owned by China and Saudi Arabia.
It has been a stealth PLAN to de-industrialize America. The progressives like Rockefeller,Kissinger and Breizinski also globalists, have been working on this for decades. Cloward and Piven and Ayers and Dohrn's dream come true is a failed de-industrialized America.
they did this to us stealthly.. they still steal our jobs and redistribute our wealth to countries that will attack us when we are too weak to fight.
An excellent book to read to learn what the current administration is doing to hand America over to Islam and the UN is Lethal Engagement by Joseph A. Klein..
As long as we remember right and do not get fooled to convert to islam, the religion of Satan, we will win in the end. Remain strong in God the creator and Jesus his son, our savior.
Hahahahaha...good one Anonymous...very funny...hahaha. Oh...wait. That was a joke, right? Wow, I need to post this to the Fundies Say the Darndest Things website. It fit that category and the Conspiracy Theorists Say the Darndest Things. Hahahahaha! You're hilarious, Anonymous!
Like: ohmigawd!! That last Anon post, as Thomas said, was a laff riot, esp the comment that Henry the K is a "progressive"!!! I would laugh harder if wasn't so sobering that some idiot actually believes this, and then the FEAR FEAR FEAR FEAR that somehow Xtians will be *forced* to convert to Islam bc, of course, Sharia law is so overwhelming the USA TODAY right now!!!111!! eeeeek!
FOOLS! The rightwing obscenely wealthy sure have them all bamboozled.
As for this mashup post: a lot of it is accurate; some of it's nonsense and/or incomplete or out of context.
There are some good points to ponder, though, and certainly this nation is going through a lot of changes, and many of them not very good ones.
I, for one, am thoroughly disgusted with Obama (and I'm extremely leftwing) and the current crop of so-called "Democrats." I think they're all colluding with the obscenely wealthy to turn the USA into a banana republic.
Rather than constantly pointing fingers of blame at either conservatives or progressives, most "small people" in the USA need to "get it" that the wealthy are out solely to rip us all off, to off-shore as many jobs as possible and downgrade this nation into a third world country, where citizens will accept crummy wages with no benefits. Wake up. We're being pitted against one another to our detriment.
Note that no one since Reagan has done much good for Main Street; it's all been for the benefit of the corporations, Wall St, the Banks, etc. That's my take on it. Make of it what you will.
Obama for me is the ultimate Manchurian candidate and is a Republican posing as a Democrat. I call him the Great Pretender, and I term what goes on in Wash DC as the giant Kabuki Show.
Caveat emptor.
Although anon is yet another poor sap who buys into Beckian conspiracy theory, this one was especially chuckle-worthy:
"It has been a stealth PLAN to de-industrialize America."
Hate to break it to ya, Sparky: it's only been stealthy to those who have attention deficit disorder or watch FAUX news.
The rest of us saw what was coming 30 years ago.
And, sadly, you still don't get it.
Hi gruaud!!
That sentence about the "stealth plan" to de-industrialize the USA by such vaunted *progressives* as Henry Kissinger!! Like: ohmigawd.
Yeah, I do agree that Henry Kissinger is *most likely* behind some of the plans to turn the USA into a 3rd world country and de-industrialize it (which is nearly complete). But that's a *progressive plan*???
Talk about Orwellian speak: black is white & night is day.
It would be a laff-riot, except that stooges, like Anon above, actually *believe* the rightwing propoganda carefully spoon-fed to them by RushGlenn & paid for by the Koch Brothers and Rupert Murdoch.
Ay yi yi yi yi yi... (shakes head in utter disbelief that anyone anywhere ever could consider Henry Kissinger a "progressive." Very very sad and tad scary).
@ ferschitz
Hey, what's up, you old war horse?
On a related tangent, something near and dear to your heart:
Vermont strikes a blow against the corporate kleptocracy...
http://www.alternet.org/news/149620/vermont_is_gearing_up_to_strike_a_major_blow_to_corporate_personhood?page=entire
Hmmm, link went tits up. Coincidence?
Anyways, go to this article:
Vermont Is Gearing Up to Strike a Major Blow to Corporate Personhood
No link, but yes, please to the move. Worst idea ever!
I am confused here. I was about to agree turn the USA into a 3rd world country exactly as it was described in the original post but why do I need politics?
this future sounds awesome! also privacy only goes away if you're perfectly honest :3
Thanks for the tip about Vermont, gruaud. Any blows against the empire, esp in terms the dreaded Citizens United SCOTUS decision is A-Ok in my book.
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