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When will enough, be enough?
Remember the Wall Street bail outs? AIG? The stimulus money given to these companies and how they used that money to give bonuses out.
We have become a society of the "here and now!" Nothing ever lasts for long. Tragedy and sometimes good news make the front page of our newspapers and headlines on TV News shows for maybe a day or two at most before they disappear into the far recesses of our attention span. Unless it is some celebrity gone bad, then it is thrown at us on every form of communications from Twitter, television, tabloids, talk shows, you name it.
Wall Street, AIG, GM, Chrysler bailouts, Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac crisis; a thing of the past. Cash for Clunkers, gone. Never to be reported on again. Wall Street bonus packages; a second or third page item. Bonuses for banks; page eight. AIG; not even mentioned lately.
The Dubai pending economic collapse news was a prime example. It came on Thanksgiving Day because they knew that the U.S. Stock Market was closed for the holidays and couldn't do their normal "knee jerk" reacting to economic news. Cooler heads would prevail and the news would be a page 4 story Monday morning. And that is exactly what has happened.
With our penchant for instant communication, we receive so much information on a daily basis from the Internet and other forms of communication; we can only process what is relevant at that moment. We mentally “filter” all information out that is not on our immediate radar screens. We have become a nation of reacting to the "now" news. We no longer act in a timely manner, we just react.
Blackberry, iPhone, Droid, Twitter, Facebook, all designed for the purpose of instant communication and gratification. The media can only focus on the events of the moment because our world is so out of control that we are just passengers on the road of life. At some point, we have to say, "Stop the insanity" and let me off.
You have executives in major companies putting off decisions because they are on information overload. Everything has to be "on the front burner" to reach an executive or it falls through the cracks.
We need to take back control and not let ourselves become what we feared the most. A society of self absorbed, media driven, attention grabbing, self-centered, what's in it for me, go for broke, to hell with everyone people who are so hell bent on gadgets that we ignore common basic human elements of communication, personal contact.
And this coming from a self professed "gadget guy."
We have become a society of the "here and now!" Nothing ever lasts for long. Tragedy and sometimes good news make the front page of our newspapers and headlines on TV News shows for maybe a day or two at most before they disappear into the far recesses of our attention span. Unless it is some celebrity gone bad, then it is thrown at us on every form of communications from Twitter, television, tabloids, talk shows, you name it.
Wall Street, AIG, GM, Chrysler bailouts, Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac crisis; a thing of the past. Cash for Clunkers, gone. Never to be reported on again. Wall Street bonus packages; a second or third page item. Bonuses for banks; page eight. AIG; not even mentioned lately.
The Dubai pending economic collapse news was a prime example. It came on Thanksgiving Day because they knew that the U.S. Stock Market was closed for the holidays and couldn't do their normal "knee jerk" reacting to economic news. Cooler heads would prevail and the news would be a page 4 story Monday morning. And that is exactly what has happened.
With our penchant for instant communication, we receive so much information on a daily basis from the Internet and other forms of communication; we can only process what is relevant at that moment. We mentally “filter” all information out that is not on our immediate radar screens. We have become a nation of reacting to the "now" news. We no longer act in a timely manner, we just react.
Blackberry, iPhone, Droid, Twitter, Facebook, all designed for the purpose of instant communication and gratification. The media can only focus on the events of the moment because our world is so out of control that we are just passengers on the road of life. At some point, we have to say, "Stop the insanity" and let me off.
You have executives in major companies putting off decisions because they are on information overload. Everything has to be "on the front burner" to reach an executive or it falls through the cracks.
We need to take back control and not let ourselves become what we feared the most. A society of self absorbed, media driven, attention grabbing, self-centered, what's in it for me, go for broke, to hell with everyone people who are so hell bent on gadgets that we ignore common basic human elements of communication, personal contact.
And this coming from a self professed "gadget guy."
posted by Brian J Perks at
7:23 AM
1 Comments:
What does the American auto industry, the health care industry, wall street firms and the banking industry all have in common; other than they were all on the brink of failure?
These are industries where the production side of the industry is no longer a free market with many producers competing head-to head to earn the business of consumers, or customers, of the industry. Instead each of these industries are controlled by a relatively small number of very large corporations that have transformed these markets into oligopolies.
Adam Smith when he discussed “rational self interest” and competitive markets in his book Wealth of Nations, envisioned many consumers buying goods and services from many producers with everyone looking out for their self-interest. By keeping markets “free”, producers pursue their rational self-interest and this best meets the needs of the consumers and the citizens of our country, who are also looking out for their self-interest. Under this system, what is in the producers self interest is to provide the best product possible to the consumer, while striving to be a low cost producer for their niche.
This consolidation of markets began in the late 1960's early 1970's in the auto industry when it was transformed from a free market to an industry that was controlled by three giant corporations and one union. As this transformation was occurring the auto company's and auto union's self-interest became separated from what the consumer wanted and/or needed. Competition between the companies broke down and this gave an opening for foreign competition to enter our markets and the beginning of the end of the American auto industry as we knew it.
Other industries saw what was happening in the auto industry and saw that government was not objecting so naturally they followed the same path with little concern on any ones part that we were losing our free market system to a more centralized market system of oligopolies. As a result we now have major markets where the producing entities self-interest is not always in line with the self-interest of the consumer. What is in the self-interest of the entities in these industries is to keep the oligopoly alive. Thus the creation of special interests and lobbyists.
These oligopolies have bought the protection of our representatives in Washington and state capitals. I am always baffled by the fact that corporations and unions cannot vote in this country, however they are allowed to buy votes with their contributions.
We lost track of a key ingredient that Adam Smith identified as necessary in order for “rational self interest” to work. There must be many producers. In too many industries, the number of producers has shrunk and the ones remaining have gotten “too big to fail”. This is true in the auto industry, the banking industry, wall street, health care and will soon be true in the computer software industry.
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