ARE WE AN EASY "MARK"?

When Oliver Wendall Douglas and his beautiful wife, Lisa Douglas, moved to Hooterville from New York City, they bought a farm from the local conman, Mr. Haney. No matter how many times Haney swindled the Douglas', they always returned to him to buy items of need. In today's world, the USA portray's the Douglas' and China is our Mr. Haney.

Toys covered in lead paint. Contaminated pet food. Pharmaceuticals that kill rather than heal. Now the latest is the "knock-off" computer equipment they've marketed to our gov't. I guess we are as stupid as those "marks" who buy genuine "Rolex" watches from a street vendor for $35. I guess we could be compared to a tenent behind in their rent who'll do whatever their landlord wants, as long as he doesn't call in the debt. China owns most of the US debitures and I guess, if we don't play as their patsy, they could actually force our nation into bankruptcy. Which probably explains why we removed ourselves from the M-3 reporting and run the money-making machines 24/7. Our debt is in US dollars, not gold, and we can pay anytime they want. Of course the currency would be worthless, but we already know that, don't we. China really doesn't care though. They just purchase our stocks, bonds, whatever and, since they think in the "long-term", they know that given enough time they will own everything in America. To them its like a chess game. The experts plan their moves 15-20 spaces ahead. We are the amateurs playing in reaction to only the move in front of us. Being led to our own ruin.

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Televison as we know it is about to make another drastic change. When I was a kid most communities were lucky if they could even receive one station from a distant city by erecting antennas a few hundred feet high. And the broadcast business was controlled by three major networks. In the '80's cable-tv made massive inroads and we could get 36 channels and didn't have to rely on just the big 3 for our entertainment. The number of channels grew, direct satellite TV service came into existence. Along the way the internet grew. Connection speeds increased to the point where we can now watch live broadcasts from anywhere in the world. Through all this the TV networks market share has dropped steadily. The next step in TV will be people totally forsaking traditional broadcasts. Instead they will seek out those feeds that fill their niche needs. If you do a google-news search, you'll see that the next step will be to interlink your digital-TV with the web. The direct satellite feeds, the cable providers and over-the-air broadcasters don't have the bandwidth to provide the necessary HD and super-HD channels that are in our near future. Only the web will be able to satiate the publics desires. Eventually all web programming will ignore local, regional and national boundries. Television, ver 7.0, will be truly global. Advertisers will be able to market to exactly the demographic market they desire. Tailoring their ads for each specific segment of their audience.

Theaters are also losing market share. With the new digital big screen sets, theater quality (or better) home sound systems and the ability to "pause" when necessary, why bother even going to a movie house anymore. We can now purchase and download movies on the same day the DVD goes on sale. How much longer before it'll be cheaper and easier for the studios to just go to direct release rather than waste money on antiquated distribution systems? For the consumer its not a bad idea. The costs of the tickets and knoshes at a theater for the entire family are way more than what a download would cost.

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From today's Overheard In New York:

Comedy guy: I like your accent. Where you from?
Tourist: Ohio.
Comedy guy: You sound disappointed.
Tourist: Have you ever been to Ohio?
Comedy guy: Good point.

Over The Limit?
UNDER ARREST!
Please don't drink and drive

"Let's all be careful out there!"