We are living in a digital world and the Material Girl looks like a zombie

Cyber Space, the final frontier this is blog of one man's continuing mission to enrage those people who just cannot bring themselves to accept that the world has changed and they have to deal with it and realize it's really for the best.

Recent retail sales data shows that Apple is dominating in terms of dollars earned per square footage of retail space with a whopping 6,050 for the fiscal year that ended in June. This beating out Tiffany & Co for the most productive retail chain. Coming in third was a company that sells yoga clothes at ten was Walmart which was ranked in the top ten in large part because of high volume in it's grocery department.

These numbers coupled with the fact that Amazon's kindle sales are out pacing traditional book sales by a significant margin. The news this weekend that DC comics is beginning to make it's titles available for digital sale are harbingers of the end of retail as we have known it.

The desire for material goods is the same as the desire to see Madonna naked, they are both things everyone did in the 80's but now are only done by individuals so out of touch that they think Madonna is still relevant (this demographic may only include Madonna at this point). The change has come out the desire for convenience. At first it was simply ordering from Amazon and the painstaking waiting of three to five business days for stuff to arrive (also worrying about the UPS driver sleeping with your spouse) now all that has given way to the instant gratification of having whatever you want down loaded right on to you WiFi enabled device.

What all this means is that we are witnessing a significant shrinking of how people live. I reminded of the George Carlin routine in which he talks about a house is just a place where you keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff. Now that most of our stuff is being kept in cyber space it means that we as people need less space. In addition to the fact that we need less space for our stuff to the fact that the birthrate is way down in the United States and that people are having their first children much later in life, the only demographic where the birthrate actually went up was in women between 35 and 45, means that there are smaller families which means again less space.

The days of the suburban home, two and a half kids, white picket fence, dog and multiple automobiles are past us. We are living smaller, cheaper and yes better than we were. Incomes may go down but the cost of living is also going down. A person can live better today on 30,000 dollars a year than they could have 10 years ago because what they need to be fulfilled costs less. 

It might not be the world you thought you were going to get but I'll tell you what it is actually better.  So relax turn on your tablet, make a single cup of coffee with your Keurig, watch last night's Daily Show on Hulu and IM me maybe?

Capitalism's Victory Lap

Seriously anyone out there that sees the election of Obama and the impending single payer health care system and other European style socialist programs as a defeat of the American system need to "Grow the Fuck Up" and realize that it is a sign of victory.

America has conquered the west, won wars, introduced nearly every significant innovation in the past 150 years and now is ready to bask in the glory of it's victory. That's right we won, the game is over and now we have to do what all adults have to do which is take care of the world we have created. As I have said before   the manufacturing and retail sectors of the economy are gone and are not coming back, simply because people no longer consume in the way they have in the past. Goods are now cheaper, the cost of living is cheaper and therefore not as much wealth is needed for life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

Wealth creation comes out of conquest and exploration since there isn't anything left to conquer we now only have to maintain a good standard of living for our people. Which is where providing for health care comes into play. Taking the burden of paying for rising health care costs both by individuals and the corporations frees up money for corporations to hire more people and allows for people to live better on lower wages. It also allows for freedom of movement which is valued by younger people much more than it was by previous generations, the days of working for one company 30 plus years is over. This also factors into the death of home ownership as well in this country as younger people no longer wish to be tied to a single community for their entire lives but I will tackle that at a later date.

Included in health care plan that needs to be free contraception and abortions for any reason. If this offends the values of whichever version of the Abrahamic Deity you believe in, grow the fuck up, its necessary as we need to control the population of the country and people are going to fornicate because as we all know it's a a lot of fun so get over it and join the party.

The western world as won, thanks to the internet anywhere in the world people know who Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny are so enjoy it with a state subsidized physical, some free condoms and a toke off the joint.

It's the demographics stupid

In the wake of the 2012 Presidential election I felt it was time again to attempt to get America to "Grow the Fuck Up". We all know that this is a nation divided but it's not divided along traditional ideological lines it's a divide along demographic lines, not unlike the divide of during the 1860's. This divide is economic but not in the way most seem to think it is, it's not about tax rates and government spending, it's about the products that  we as Americans now value. 

I will briefly touch on few topics here that I will expand on in further posts

I have noticed that the majority of those frightened about our countries future come form the perspective that we need manufacturing jobs in order to provide good lives for citizens. The question is manufacture what products? Consumer goods more and more come in the form of digitized information, 1s and 0s being sent from one device to another via WiFi connections. This has not only made manufacturing the products (books, CD's, DVD's, Magazines etc) obsolete but also the retail sales jobs that were once needed to staff stores are now obsolete and no matter what they are never coming back. 

Another area where I hear and understand the concerns of those for whom the election did not turn out they way they had hoped was home ownership. This too is a question of changing demographics, younger people more and more do not wish to own homes. They value mobility far more than stability. Those from older generations worry about how their children and grand children will be able to afford owning a home when odds are they won't want to own one. People used to spend their entire lives within a few miles from where they were born, this again no longer happens. It's not that those who are concerned about this are wrong they are basing their fears on their own experience. It is important for generations to remember that what worked for them isn't necessarily what will work for the next generation.

The survival of the automobile industry is also an issue that is misunderstood. Automobiles no longer carry the same mystique that they once did. Younger Americans grew up with everyone in their neighborhood having a car, it wasn't the status symbol that it used to be. What has replaced the automobile as the object of allure for younger Americans you may ask, it's the smart phone. Having the coolest phone in the bar will get the attention of the prettiest girl a lot better than a Corvette would. 

Social issues are also a question of demographics. In 2004 gay marriage ballot proposals increased the conservative voter turn out in order to defeat the proposals and this helped President Bush win reelection. Eight years later the proposals did not have the same effect which confused certain pundits. The reason is that in the past eight years many of the older voters who were against gay marriage died and there were eight years of new voters turning 18 who either support gay marriage or really just don't care and in fact may think the concept of marriage is archaic.

It's all about demographics, demographics tell us that the country is becoming more and more diversified, less concerned with what has been called "Values Issues" and more concerned with having affordable health care, clean air, affordable transportation and having the coolest tablet or smart phone on the market. They will prefer to travel via plane or train because driving makes it hard to update Facebook or send a tweet. They don't watch broadcast television because it is more convenient to watch whichever program they choose on their tablet on Hulu or Netflix during the day so the night can be left open to go to bars or out to dinner.

These are some of the reasons why President Obama won easy in the Electoral College even covering the spread I set at 44.5 votes. It is the changing demographics as to why Americans will no longer have 2.3 children and pack up the kids and dog for summer vacations and it is the changing demographics that has left the Republican Party obsolete and why this nation will find it's way to European style socialism, it's what nations do when they reach adulthood.

I will be nice and give those upset by the outcome of the election the day to get it out of their systems but as of tomorrow when I go into greater depth about the changing world I will tell them if they still are acting like Chicken Little then I will have to tell them to "Grow the Fuck Up"!