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$113.5 billion worth of electronics sold in 2004
ravy writes "Americans bought $113.5 billion worth of electronics in 2004 and by 2005 the number will reach $127.5 billion. Digital television sets, MP3 players and flash memory cards were the best-sellers percentagewise, while PCs and cell phones enjoyed more steady growth in terms of sales. Google Zeitgeist also lists ipod, digital camera and mp3 as the most popular consumer electronics queries for the year past."
I've got a server that's been hosted by a local provider since 1999... It's a Celeron 366 Slot 1!.
My calculators are at least 10 years.
However, I seem to be sending more and more money to Apple lately... The trend continues.
Geeky modern art T-shirts
It's no suprise, with the cost a an HDTV you don't need to buy to many of them to put them at the top of the list. Their's nothing unusual about HDTV, just an increase in resolution and an excuse to get a step change in consumer cost that will never come down.
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
How much did they throw into landfills?
Keeping the prices up helps keep the status up. It would be harder for them to create an iPod craze if the iPods were only $10 and everyone could afford one.
----- Vegans don't send SPAM.
How much longer until we have nationwide wireless internet access?
I am not talking about "Wow, my cell phone can view lynx web pages" but rather portable computing with a dedicated hookup to the net 24 hours a day everywhere you go. And no, pointing to hobbling along with a GPRS enabled palm and a cell phone plan is not what I am asking.
Perhaps we as humans NEED to disconnect from the net completely every so often. I sure as heck dont want to though. I go to the gym, go to work, forced to go shopping with wifey, have to see family etc. I want a pair of glasses hooked up to some unit about the size of a cigarette box that will allow me to get a netfeed, highspeed, anywhere. Or, barring that, cybernetic implants in the ol' eye to display them woulnd't be that bad (barring popups, or attacks by hackers).
Yeah, I am an anime junkie but I want the world promised to us by Lain. Its just - I have gotten so used to having any information available at a whim, that to be disconnected whenever I leave the confines of a computer room is kinda.. sad. And that is kinda sad I know, but its the way I am - I cant be the only one.
How much longer do I have to wait? Anyone? Bueler?
The problem is so will the US. While I don't agree with China's policies, I have to hand it to them, they are smart. They are akin to a drug dealer in a lot of ways, give the products real cheap, then get the US hooked on them so they will keep on coming back for more. They know how to play on the greed of the US and they are integrating themselves into the economy almost to the point where we would be in a shock if we were to try to get rid of them.
This is a country that as little as 6 years ago said war with the US is inevitable. They are spending vasts sums of money to modernize their military, and may very well get the EU to destroy the ban on selling them weapons.
Bush's election is the best thing that ever could have happened to the Chinese. They can talk all they want about trade reform and IP laws, but because they realize that if they stop buying US bonds, the US economy is fucked, and use that to their every advantage. I know Dick Cheney likes to pretend that deficits don't matter, but maybe I'm just old fashioned when I think that letting the largest communist country on earth make us their bitch ISN'T such a bright idea......
Maybe the US should take a step back and think about the costs and benefits of our trade realationship with China.
Monstar L
150,000 electrical engineers earning a median of $71k / year for a total of around $10 billion.
130,000 "electronics engineers, except computer" earning a median of $73k / year for another $9.5 billion or so.
70,000 computer hardware engineers earning a median of $79k / year for a total of $5.5 billion.
Yes, that's medians and not averages, but the BLS doesn't give averages, and it's probably within a few percent of the same thing. That's $25 billion of the $127.5 billion in wholesaler purchase price going back to the engineers in those three fields.
The US GDP is about $10T:y; with increasing indebtedness and unbalanced trade, Americans probably spent over $11T in 2004. So even that big industry is only 1% of the American economy. Hell, even some single companies, like IBM, Microsoft, GM and Exxon rake in close to $115B every year, though some of that is "electronics", and maybe half is foreign sales. That number is actually surprisingly low: only about $375:American, while the average salary is about $35K; again, less than 1%, especially considering debt. The real story is perhaps how much can be bought for little money. We seem to be much more than 1% surrounded by all this electronic swag.
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make install -not war
When you look at the DMCA as a tool by which the "media sector" is trying to micro-regulate the "tech sector" for the sake of controlling revenue streams - this statistic alone basically shows why the DMCA is doomed along with all the industries that rely on it. I say a clash of the titans is comming of the likes of which we haven't seen in a long time.