Well…I am sitting here listening to Pandora on my computer and it sparked an idea in my head bout how much the delivery of music has changed so much just in my lifetime…I remember when I was young the nights where the weather conditions were just right and you could get WLS AM from Chicago and imagine that you were in that city….and listen to music that hadn’t made it to our little town yet….here in GR we had a heated rivalry between the two powerhouse AM stations that played rock and soul music…and there were even WLAV people and WGRD people who would only listen to the station they liked but I liked them both…in truth, they both played the same music fom Elvis, The Beatles, The Stones, the Temps, The Tops (that the Temptations and the Four Tops for those of you that didn’t grow up in that time) but that didn’t stop people from choosing their favorites…something like being a Ford or Chevy person…both perfectly good brands but you would never be caught dead buying the other brand. This continued until I was about 12 or thirteen when the magical new thing called FM came into being, but that was even preceded by some “underground” stuff that was being tried by the AM stations. One of the ones I remember was a show called “Campus After Hours” that ran on LAV, I think, and brought long form music that was beginning to break the 3 minute AM radio format and exposed us to bands we had never heard of and songs that were not the designated “hits” from bands we already knew.
Then came FM radio…I have such fond memories of WLAV-FM from here in GR and the wonderful times of the 70’s and 80’s…and the DJ’s from that time…Aris Hampers, Ed Buchanan ad Alison Harte actually knew and loved the music they were playing…and at that time there was no where else to get the insider information about the bands and exposure to new music you could get there. I heard “Nantucket Sleighride” by Mountain for the first time there…does any FM station have the guts or the freedom to play that live, over 30 minute song anymore? On any night you could hear George Carlin, then the Who followed by Pure Prarie League and Frank Zappa….then back to Cheech and Chong…I heard the “Dave’s not here” sketch for the first time listening to LAV and I can still remember laughing so hard that it hurt….I guess what I wanted to say is that those were wonderful days…and I know they can’t be recaptured….but I can still miss them, can’t I?
Well…read an interesting article in “The Guardian” this afternoon about all of the crowing the 1%’ers do that they create jobs and earn the ridiculous money they make and the politicians that still believe that nonsense…and I am going to keep pointing this stuff out until I can’t write anymore or things change. But, the first point on productivity that I touched on briefly last week is that from the late 40’s until the late 70’s, productivity and real wages of the middle class were basically a 1:1 ratio; that is that as productivity rose 118% in that time, real wages rose about 122%. Since then, though, from 1979 through 2009, productivity has risen almost 80% but the real wages of the middle class has fallen by 4% and the rich have taken all of that additional production for themselves in the form of bonuses and higher pay to the tune of a 279% increase. Can anyone see that from a pure economic standpoint, this concentration has stripped huge amounts of demand out of the economy since the the middle class has less and less of the pie to spend? It is something I have been saying for quite some time now…as the rich and corporations have been squeezing every last penny out of you and me, who is going to be able to buy the goods and services that make any economic growth sustainable? We are seeing these effects now in sluggish growth and stagnation that have become the hallmarks of this type of wealth concentration…and I finally hope someone cares….other than me, that is.
Well…don’t really have a big one for the day so, as I sit here and wait for lunch to cook, I thought I’d just talk about a few small things that I find funny or ironic….I do find it funny that the repubs are so scared of the Occupy movement that they have brought out the nukes already…but, then, Keith is bringing it from the left, too but I don’t see any equivalence…the repubs protecting their rich buddies and Keith trying to finally get the message of the unheard out…I do wonder how long Current is going to let him get away with having most of his show on the protests….I find it funny that that in the struggle of millionaires against billionaires in the NBA contact talks has reached the so what? phase….most of the the people I know and the writers covering it just don’t see where canceling the entire season would be a bad thing…I know I haven’t watched a pro game in years..too much whining and self importance from those folks…I also find it funny but irritating when the ceo of Bank of America starts whining about the Occupy protesters that they are hurting the feelings of the thieves that tanked the economy….boo hoo you tone deaf idiot…you people have stolen everything from the middle class and you want sympathy? Not gonna get it here or anywhere else but in the inbred, insular little world you live in….okay, that’s enough for now…have to go check the temp on the chicken….don’t want to overcook it…..
Well…as I was watching the news as I do most nights, my heart broke a little with watching the footage of the police crackdown on the OWS protesters in Oakland, California. If you haven’t seen it, the protesters and police were faced off in downtown Oakland…the protesters standing in a group, not moving, not making any threats to the police, when one of the police shot a tear gas round at point blank range into the face of one of the protesters; knocking him to the ground and fracturing his skull. While this Iraq war veteran was lying on the ground, critically injured, some of the protesters gathered around him, trying to give him aid when one of the police, in the second row of their phalanx, behind barricades, and perfectly safe, tossed a “flash-bang” grenade into the people trying to provide medical attention. On the video, you can see this jack booted thug smirking as he pulls the pin and tosses the grenade; knowing full well that he could be doing great bodily harm to these American citizens who are exercising their constitutional rights. And, what has happened to this thug? The mayor of Oakland comes out and says that her police force acted to protect their safety. Oh, really, from what? Against unarmed protesters who are clearly not moving toward this thug? I am outraged and have had enough of the police thinking they are above the law, that they can abuse American citizens like the Egyptian citizens were terrorized and abused in Tahir Square…that the police have the power to “grant” us our constitutional rights and limit them in any way. All of us should be outraged at this abuse of power, at this usurpation of our rights…rights that are not limitable to what is convenient for the police but exist to protect us from this kind of behavior….geez…
Well…with all of the turmoil that is going on with Netflix and the giant mistakes they have made over the past few months, I thought a few comment on their management might be in order. As you know, the stock has been in free fall since the ceo, Reed Hastings, made the stupid decision to raise prices almost 60% and split the company into two parts, losing almost 8 billion dollars in shareholder value in the process. What I don’t understand is the lack of economic understanding of the market they operate in and the utter hubris of their decision making. If you know anything about economics and how markets operate, you know that in the early days of Netflix they were operating as consumers of marginal output…that is they were the only purchasers of content that the providers had already paid for as an addition to the normal channels like HBO and Starz, giving the content suppliers marginal revenue that standard economic theory says should be taken at any cost. And, until competitors come into the market, Netflix got a bargain on this content that they then built their streaming services around. But, what they missed is the fact that as more channels are available for content providers, the price will rise as marginal demand for the product increases. That is exactly what happened in this case and this was compounded by the fact that the supply side of the equation changed as well, limiting the amount of price increases that the market will bear. So, in every possible part of the economic equation, Reed and his cronies got it wrong and they are now paying for it by the company’s valuation plunging by almost 75%….it just looks like a karmic payback for trying to screw the customers that made them successful….couldn’t have happened to a worse bunch…
Well….I read a short little article today in the Guardian today the exposes another scam by Murdoch and co…this time involving the Wall Street Journal and it’s European edition. What these ethically challenged idiots did this time was inflate the circulation of the paper by having secret contracts with other companies to purchase bulk amounts of each days excess production…in effect cheating their advertisers by being able to charge higher rates for more eyes on the paper that don’t exist. With the phone hacking scandal, the general lying of fox news, and the smearing of opponents, the picture of an organization that is approaching the worst excesses of William Randolph Hearst is slowly being revealed and should be a huge cause for concern for anyone who values the truth and journalistic integrity. But, I may be the only one left in this country that cares about that anymore….geez…
Well…I was laughing my butt off a few minutes ago when I read an article in the Washington Post that covered the new round of extortion that is being foist on the public by many of the biggest corporations in the US. These shameless thieves are claiming that they are ready, willing, and able to create jobs if they just get some teensy little concessions in regulations…like being able to write the regulations that cover the oil and gas industry or the ability of the telecom industry to continue to consolidate until there is just one huge carrier that can then steal even more from the public. These thieves are even saying that when they merge, it will create jobs….never mind that the primary reasons for these mergers are higher profits by the reduction of redundancies….which, in corporatespeak means that jobs will be cut, not created. When are we, as a country, going to stop letting these greedy idiots steal everything? Geez….
Well…just a short one to talk a little about Steve Jobs who died yesterday…while I’m not a fan of Apple or it’s business practices, you can’t deny he was a brilliant man who almost single-handedly dragged us into the digital age. People like that don’t come along every day and he will be missed.
Well….there is something that has been boiling my blood lately and that is the increasing erosion of our privacy by entities large and small ranging from the Onstar that keeps recording your driving actions even after you cancel the service to the one that spurred this one….the institution of a “card” that is necessary to receive the sale prices at the local Family Fare grocery store. I find this to be a particularly onerous requirement…having to give up your personal information and have all of your purchases tracked to be able to get these prices, if you don’t, you pay full price. I liken this to blackmail and I will never shop in that store again….the owners say that there is no use for the information other than to make sure you get the best deals…and haven’t we heard this from every other corporation that has sold personal information to make a profit? What’s next…you have to give up your firstborn to be allowed to set foot in the store? People…in this new world, about the only thing we have left of value is our personal information and to give it away to save a few pennies at a store whose prices are not competitive anyway is just stupid….boycott Family Fare until this farce is ended…geez….
Well…I had to laugh the other day when the repubs continued to push tax cuts as the only way to create jobs here in the US….and you’ve heard me talk about how boneheaded that is considering the excess capacity that exists in the economy. Corporations will not add one job when there is no demand for the products that that job will create…and lowering taxes, even to zero, will do nothing to create that demand. What is the mechanism that tax cuts use to create jobs? I’ve never heard that described by any of the repub idiots out there…but they don’t believe in the science of economics any more than they believe in the science of evolution so why should anyone be surprised? I still think that the lack of demand in this economy is the direct result of the collusion between the repubs and business to cut the real wages of working people by making them compete with overseas workers that earn a dollar an hour and by the union bashing that is one of the central tenets of the repub philosophy. I’ll ask the same question I’ve asked many times before…”who is going to buy your 40 thousand dollar Suburban when everyone is making minimum wage?” Geez….