Before Coffee 11/24: The Meek Shall Inherit…
Over the weekend my friend and I had a chuckle about the “bad economy” and how we’re pretty fortunate that it’s not effecting us at all (yet?) – Lower gas prices, stores having massive sales. Sure, there are stores that are closing and “going out of business”, but they were stores we never shopped at in the first place. Linens and Things? I mean, did you really need that overpriced bed skirt? – I’ve heard of people not being able to get loans… but you have to ask yourself… did they REALLY need that loan in the first place– and in general, do we need all this STUFF!? This STUFF seems to have gotten us into a heap of trouble. Actually, it’s not the “stuff” at all, it’s the untangible side of things that has the world’s economy quite screwed.
It’s not that we find joy in watching rich people suffer or people lose their jobs because of the rich people squandering things away. We just thought it was ironic, coming from what we came from and where we were 15 years ago to where we are now, and realizing that it seems that our lives get much better when the rich get poorer. Everyone around us will be losing their jobs and struggling, but we’ve somehow set ourselves up in careers and mindsets that don’t suffer during “hard times”
I guess we just kind of find it hard to feel sorry for dudes in suits begging for 25 billion dollars while they flew into town on private jets?
As far as people losing their factory jobs…. that sucks. I’ve been there and done that. I live in an area that was once dependent on these big factory jobs, but one by one the factories closed or moved away to a new country. I even thought I had myself locked in for a lifelong job at the Sony plant, with retirement and benefits and solid job security…. nope! It was back then I think I had the crazy epiphany that I’d had better kickstart my creative side to make ends meet in the future, because I wasn’t going to be able to rely on big corporations to take care of me or my family. Maybe it’s time for the world to get creative in it’s thinking again to fix things…
Seth Godin had a great post about fixing Detroit. And if they listened to his idea, we’d see a whole new revolution in the American auto industry. You should read the whole article, but here’s the jist of what he wrote:
What we don’t need are giant companies with limited choice, confused priorities, private jets and a bully’s attitude.
I’d spend a billion dollars to make the creation of a car company turnkey. Make it easy to get all the safety and regulatory approvals… as easy to start a car company as it is to start a web company. Use the bankruptcy to wipe out the hated, legacy marketing portion of the industry: the dealers.
We’d end up with a rational number of “car stores” in every city that sold lots of brands. We’d have super cheap cars and super efficient cars and super weird cars. There’d be an orgy of innovation, and from that, a whole new energy and approach would evolve. Betcha.
Could you imagine living in that kind of world? How interesting it would be to look at with truly innovative design. We’d have real working electric and water engine cars in no time. FRIGGIN WATER!!!!
So no… I don’t have a lot of pity for the guys in suits who aren’t being creative. I think it might be too late for them to start being creative. Instead of sitting in their cushy offices they are so proud of and thinking to themself “what can we do now to fix this” they’re often thinking “how do we get out of this mess?” — and many of them are getting their angles in order before filing bankruptcy papers as we speak. That is the end of the conversation, the end of the story for non-creatives.
I told my wife… maybe this is just what the doctor ordered? A sort of economic enema to wash out all of the bad stuff. People need to learn to live within their means. Only spend the money you DO have.
In October, as the markets were collapsing on a crazy rollercoaster, Comic Book sales broke a records,
and just this past weekend a science fiction movie without violence or sex pulled in 70 million at the box office. And bullshit cold-reading “psychics” are back in business big time. We’re seeing the start of a new age of escapism.
Without money to bring you all the things you thought your heart desired, you’re left with nothing but your imagination. Some people don’t know what to do with that, and some people do. It’s time to get creative.
Create or Die!
7 comments7 Comments so far
I would please me greatly if people would not refer to water as a “fuel”. It is a very stable material that takes quite a bit of energy to break apart into parts that are fuel. There is no “water powered” car, there ARE hydrogen powered cars, which as part of the process, produce water as a end result. Not to be a prick but there are so many scams out there that claim this exact thing, and it annoys me.
While I agree with going forward with Hydrogen cars and electric cars. Let’s not make it sound so easy. Hydrogen cars can be built now but the supply infrastructure is way behind. Also, making hydrogen in large amounts is another stumbling block. Now with gas prices falling to rather low levels, alternate fuels will once again have to battle the “cost” war. When gas prices reach $5 a gallon in today’s prices, it makes all the other fuels look cheap. If this goes on long enough, the other fuels will start to get big enough to have their cost shrink by volume and thus they will then compete with oil on an equal basis. Competition is the key to maintaining a stable energy environment. Do not kid yourself though, Oil companies know that they can’t allow prices to get too high for too long or they will lose this monopoly edge that they have.
Have you heard of John Kanzius? Look it up on Youtube. Homeboy is curing cancer AND creating fuel from burning saltwater.
From wikipedia: (Not the best source but better than youtube)
Philip Ball, a consulting editor at Nature and author of “H2O: A Biography of Water”, is highly critical of any theory of water as a fuel, both in general, and specifically as an alternative to traditional fuel sources. Although he says that Kanzius’ discovery itself needs to be verified through careful experiments, he states that “water is not a fuel” and “[w]ater does not burn”. Ball also states that according to the laws of thermodynamics, it is “impossible to extract energy by producing hydrogen from water and then burning it, as this would be a basis for a perpetual motion machine.” He is critical of lack of inquiry in the media reports about bogus science.[19] Ball writes “Here, however (for what it is worth) is the definitive verdict of thermodynamics: water is not a fuel.”
Me:
So as I say, water or saltwater is NOT a fuel, some sort of energy must be put in to get energy out. Also, YouTube is NOT a good source for real science. I spent six months have the thermal laws of dynamics beat into my head. There is a reason they they are referred to as “Laws” instead of “Theories”.
Sorry to ping on you DJ, but engineering is my area. Just like drawing cool comics is yours.
I’ll agree in part with what you’re saying. What most people don’t understand nationally, is that if the auto industry fails entirely, it will affect the ENTIRE country, not just Detroit. Specifically, roughly 1 in 5 people in the STATE of Michigan will be out of a job. So many other suppliers and service companies rely on the manufacturing of autos. They do need to have a plan though, they do need to change the way they do things, get pay in line with other companies, all of those things.
However, how ironic is it that Congress will criticize the auto industry for the way they spend money, and yet the Congress and government spends money, awards contracts, etc… in exactly the same way most of the time and has done so FOREVER. I find it hilarious that they will bail out Citigroup with 20 billion on the drop of a dime this morning, and back 300+ million in bad debt for them, and NOT EVEN ASK FOR A PLAN from Citigroup on how they’re going to change things around and get out of the situation that THEY TOO created themselves. Yet they REQUIRE a plan from the auto industry, and are pushing them to make, again admittedly, much needed change. How are all these financial institutions going to change? What are they doing to rectify THEIR problems? Why is making them come up with solutions BEFORE you give them money not being done? Also, while the auto industry has offered to make the “bailout” they’re asking for a LOAN, these banks aren’t every going to pay back the money they’re getting. It’s a giant clusterfuck.
The government doesn’t want more control of the auto industry. They DO want more control of the financial sector, in hopes to use it like they use “The Fed” to adjust interest rates. They hope to “move” the economy anyway they wish. It’s a scary though, kinda like holding a dragon by tail, don’t let go!
Additionally, we know why Citigroup et. al are failing and we know what should correct them; ability to lend, insured debt to bolster Wall street support etc. The auto industry is a murkier lake. We know mostly why they are failing, poor management, crap inventory etc. but we don’t know what would fix them. We also don’t know if it would be better to just let them fall into re-org bankruptcy. There are just a lot more unknowns with the auto industry that we don’t have with the financial sector. Or rather, we know what the unknowns are in the financial sector and have accepted them.
i heard on the radio that cigarette sales are through the roof, too.