The downfall of the USA will probably look a lot like the collapse of the Soviet Union during the 1990s, with break-away republics, terrorist insurgencies, and the rise of corruption and organized crime. But it won't happen until the rest of the world, or at least China, drops the US dollar as the default reserve currency, starts trading global commodities with an alternate currency, and stops buying US debt as if it were a "good investment". But the implosion could instead be an explosion if the US feeds its dwindling resources into its military like Germany did to keep its people working during the Great Depression. The US military has been "stabilizing" just about every region of the planet for the past 60+ years. The US occupation of its old enemies never ended and the US just kept redeploying its forces to avoid the short term economic damper of dealing with ex-soldiers returning home with no job prospects. Protecting "US interests" abroad had some marginal return back when US companies ran rubber and banana plantations in third world countries during the 50's and 60's, but now the US is footing the bill enforcing Pax Americana while Chinese corporations are buying up natural resource producing real estate around the globe like it's a game of Monopoly without fueling massive navies, corps of marines, or strategic air commands.
So there will probably be only one of two scenarios: 1. The US will see Chinese hegemony over resource rich third world countries as a threat to its "security" and launch World War III to substitute national pride, glory, and unity to cover for the lack of economic opportunity. or 2. The US will sell off it's navies and air forces to the Chinese so that China can better patrol and protect its third world holdings. In either event, after the dust settles the US will probably split into a number of very different nation-states. You will see the emergence of Greater California, which will encompass most of Washington, Oregon, and Nevada. Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio will be abandoned and eventually annexed by Canada. Greater Texas will grow to take in states from Florida to Montana. New England will become a commonwealth nation allied to Canada, while remaining areas become smaller isolated buffer states between Texas, California, and New England. There will probably be conflict between Texas and Mexico after Mexico closes its borders to illegal US immigrants fleeing to Mexico for safety and job opportunities. Some element of the former US will continue to play a role in world affairs, just like Russia and the UK do today, but they will probably be "leading from behind", while India, China and Brazil call the shots. During all of this change and turmoil the UN will probably continue to meet in New York City.
While mining may sound exciting, the first business on the moon will probably be off-planet banking. Just incorporate your business in the Sea of Tranquility, set up a Dark Side irrevocable trust, and manage your on-moon account remotely from anywhere in the universe. With no court system, no law enforcement, and no way to serve process, what better place to store your electronic currency? And by electronic currency, I'm talking US dollars, British Pounds, Euros, Yen, etc. Bitcoins have the potential to be held and transacted anonymously, but all currency these days is electronic. And the moon can't be any worse than Cyprus.
You raise some interesting points. But how is an aspiring engineering student from a working class family going to know any of this? It's not like STEM majors are known for having a whole lot of free time to look into these sorts of strategic career matters. Such strategizing is what business majors are taught to do. So maybe we should expect our engineers to take some more business classes? Given that engineers will be interfacing with people from business backgrounds on a daily basis, I don't see why more engineers aren't pursuing business minors and networking with their business majoring peers. Unfortunately, it is all too easy to go with the flow and excel within the engineering academic environment, only to flounder when trying to make entry into industry.
We occasionally get black ice here in Texas. But most often it will be patchy ice, and overpasses will be frozen. So there are millions hitting the road presuming they are driving properly for the conditions, then hit a patch of black ice they couldn't see or anticipate, and they skid out. I've driven in such conditions, but success was largely in part due to the fact I was one of the few souls on the road.
Helping out and pulling through together is for Hippies and Commies. That was me on the phone, and it was a very important call. I lead the claims department for a major health insurance company. One of my junior managers was about to approve three separate claims for surgeries that I didn't think were necessary given the age, health, and occupation of the covered patients. I saved the company over $100k in that one call. Given that the economic benefits of my actions will eventually trickle down to you, you should be thanking me for letting you direct traffic that night. Oh, and I have an MBA, so I don't think I'm an idiot.
I can get more traction from snow than I can from the layer of ice left behind after the plow pushes through. So bring SALT, SAND, or stay out of the way.
Why was this even the mayor's call? Decisions like this should be made by someone in an engineering or public safety role. That individual should have the technical qualifications to make such a call. If an engineer, they should be licensed. Appointing the right person to this post should be a political position - which is what mayors are for. Making up-to-the-minute calls on technical matters that affect the safety and welfare of the citizens should not be a political decision. Remember the Challenger shuttle when the person making the call was told to "take off their engineering cap and put on their manager cap"? Have we learned nothing?
After a technically competent official has made the call, it should then be the mayor's responsibility to make the announcement and coordinate his staff to deal with the situation, preferably following a written procedure designed for just such an event.
The research was funded by the no-limit hunting lobby. "Unrestricted hunting doesn't wipe out entire animal populations - climate (and legislative) change do!"
Actually, the 1% don't really have anywhere near the same level of power and influence as the top 0.01%. Those are the ones we should be worrying about, right? In all seriousness though, I think the reason for this whole debate is that we have an entire generation that was told "we're all in the same boat", then we were told, "OK, we're in different boats, and some of us have luxury motor yachts, but a rising tide floats all boats". But when the tide flowed over to the Yacht Club marina, and didn't come to the fishing wharf, we were told that the economic benefits would trickle down, as long as we got an education. So now we have the most educated generation of Americans ever seen, and still the luxury yachts are rising much faster and further than the research vessels.
When education wasn't enough, we were told that we needed to invest and grow our savings. In fact, if we didn't buy stocks inflation would eat our savings and we would be left behind. So we did, and lost it all in the dotcom bubble. Then we were told we couldn't go wrong with real estate, but if we weren't owning we would be left behind and forever priced out of the chance to own a home, which is the biggest investment a family can have, right? The so-called "experts", those with Ph.D's, those leaders of think tanks and industry associations, those in-house consultants working for the news outlets - they all sold us a bill of goods of higher education, 401k's, and home equity. They told us that moving up economically was not a zero sum game. But reality is that financial success is reserved for the pop stars, Ivy League grads, "qualified investors" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accredited_investor), the charming, attractive, well-connected schmoozers, those born into it, and those married into it (see "schmoozers"). For everyone else, it is not enough to just work hard at school and at their jobs or small businesses. You have to make sure to never get married, never have kids, and never get sick. Then you might get by and not find yourself greeting people at Walmart or passing out fries just to carry you through "retirement".
Primaries draw in the political extremists, and campaign financiers are not likely to be soccer moms. There is no "moderate" party, and ordinary, mainstream, working people just don't have as much time, understanding or motivation to get involved that early in the game, nor is there any grass roots drive to form any sort of "moderate" or "mainstream" movement. The only thing that has materialized has been even more polarization by the emergence of the radial Tea Party and Occupy movements. Yes, this is a problem, but it is systemic of mass democracy, a problem which is compounded by mass media. Mass production, commercialization, and industrialization are what separates the 1% from the 99%. The vision of our founding fathers was for the most important decisions of governance to be decided at the local level. But how can we return to the local level where small voices can still be heard in this age of globalization, interconnected technology, and national - even international - job mobility and relocation?
Not to mention the value of being able to ask someone in the group for help. There are a lot of software geeks and hardware geeks who would love to build a robot - just for the fun of it - but often lack enough skill in either the software or the hardware to be successful. Working together they can both accomplish their own unique goals more effectively. Combined with community gardens, open source software projects, shared work spaces (co-working), peer-to-peer communications, peer-to-peer lending, Wikipedia, etc. it seems like no matter how much power our corporate overloads may gain, people in our society keep finding ways to progress further into a more communal and collaborative society.
If it saves you money, empowers you (from the domination of conglomerates), gives you freedom of choice, serves as a creative outlet, gives you a chance to help others, nurtures the development of new skills, potentially advances the state of the art (OK - I know that's a stretch for this example), gives you satisfaction, helps you connect with other like-minded people, or opens up a new revenue stream, then why the hell not?
I think there is still a fear among industrialists, and those believe their economic well being is dependent on the profitability of industrialist, that 3D printing will eat into the spare parts business (where a single component of a 10-20 component product can cost more than 50% of the retail price of a replacement product), and possibly also those businesses that thrive by charging consumers $100 or more for a product that is nothing more than a small collection of lose parts manually connected together in a span of one to ten minutes, often by the consumer themselves when labeled "some assembly required".
As a taxpayer I'd rather fund local libraries that get the masses off the streets, educated, literate, potentially productive and even entrepreneurial. If I was going to cut bloated government bureaucracies that are not essential to the freedom or security of our nation, I'd start with the U.S. Copyright Office and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
The Republican term for "library" is "Communist bookstore". After the bearded hackers and makers start showing up I'm sure they'll start calling libraries the "urban commune and homeless shelter".
No, they're still rich kids because they wear cardigans instead of hoodies, drink lattes instead of 40s, use iPhones instead of pagers, ride bikes instead of the bus, and have aspirations of working an office job rather than being a famous rapper or baller.
Or they are a single parent working two jobs, living paycheck to paycheck, trying to do what they can to better themselves, but in the meantime don't have the money or patience to deal with $34.50 overdraft fees after the bank auto-debited their $15 monthly service fee a day earlier than expected. Banks are horrible services to deal with if you actually NEED to use ALL of your money before the next payday.
A person in this scenario, if they are going to have a cellphone anyway, could save a lot of time, money, and hassle if they could reload a prepaid debit card on the go with a mobile deposit app. If the debit card fee is less than $15 each month, and if mobile deposits were free, this would make such a service worthwhile and cost effective for millions of people. If they could make transfers to other mobile users without using a card or check then that could be even more useful. I could definitely see this appealing to lots of college students working part time jobs to scrap by.
Slashdot Mirror
The downfall of the USA will probably look a lot like the collapse of the Soviet Union during the 1990s, with break-away republics, terrorist insurgencies, and the rise of corruption and organized crime. But it won't happen until the rest of the world, or at least China, drops the US dollar as the default reserve currency, starts trading global commodities with an alternate currency, and stops buying US debt as if it were a "good investment". But the implosion could instead be an explosion if the US feeds its dwindling resources into its military like Germany did to keep its people working during the Great Depression. The US military has been "stabilizing" just about every region of the planet for the past 60+ years. The US occupation of its old enemies never ended and the US just kept redeploying its forces to avoid the short term economic damper of dealing with ex-soldiers returning home with no job prospects. Protecting "US interests" abroad had some marginal return back when US companies ran rubber and banana plantations in third world countries during the 50's and 60's, but now the US is footing the bill enforcing Pax Americana while Chinese corporations are buying up natural resource producing real estate around the globe like it's a game of Monopoly without fueling massive navies, corps of marines, or strategic air commands.
So there will probably be only one of two scenarios: 1. The US will see Chinese hegemony over resource rich third world countries as a threat to its "security" and launch World War III to substitute national pride, glory, and unity to cover for the lack of economic opportunity. or 2. The US will sell off it's navies and air forces to the Chinese so that China can better patrol and protect its third world holdings. In either event, after the dust settles the US will probably split into a number of very different nation-states. You will see the emergence of Greater California, which will encompass most of Washington, Oregon, and Nevada. Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio will be abandoned and eventually annexed by Canada. Greater Texas will grow to take in states from Florida to Montana. New England will become a commonwealth nation allied to Canada, while remaining areas become smaller isolated buffer states between Texas, California, and New England. There will probably be conflict between Texas and Mexico after Mexico closes its borders to illegal US immigrants fleeing to Mexico for safety and job opportunities. Some element of the former US will continue to play a role in world affairs, just like Russia and the UK do today, but they will probably be "leading from behind", while India, China and Brazil call the shots. During all of this change and turmoil the UN will probably continue to meet in New York City.
While mining may sound exciting, the first business on the moon will probably be off-planet banking. Just incorporate your business in the Sea of Tranquility, set up a Dark Side irrevocable trust, and manage your on-moon account remotely from anywhere in the universe. With no court system, no law enforcement, and no way to serve process, what better place to store your electronic currency? And by electronic currency, I'm talking US dollars, British Pounds, Euros, Yen, etc. Bitcoins have the potential to be held and transacted anonymously, but all currency these days is electronic. And the moon can't be any worse than Cyprus.
Rare earth elements are old news. Youngsters these days want rare moon elements.
Pretty soon, instead of complaining about the 1%, we'll be complaining about the Moonites who possess the majority of the universe's wealth.
I have to agree. And the most successful business types I've known were engineering drop-outs and wash-outs.
You raise some interesting points. But how is an aspiring engineering student from a working class family going to know any of this? It's not like STEM majors are known for having a whole lot of free time to look into these sorts of strategic career matters. Such strategizing is what business majors are taught to do. So maybe we should expect our engineers to take some more business classes? Given that engineers will be interfacing with people from business backgrounds on a daily basis, I don't see why more engineers aren't pursuing business minors and networking with their business majoring peers. Unfortunately, it is all too easy to go with the flow and excel within the engineering academic environment, only to flounder when trying to make entry into industry.
But an engineer with an MBA - now we're talking!
We occasionally get black ice here in Texas. But most often it will be patchy ice, and overpasses will be frozen. So there are millions hitting the road presuming they are driving properly for the conditions, then hit a patch of black ice they couldn't see or anticipate, and they skid out. I've driven in such conditions, but success was largely in part due to the fact I was one of the few souls on the road.
Helping out and pulling through together is for Hippies and Commies. That was me on the phone, and it was a very important call. I lead the claims department for a major health insurance company. One of my junior managers was about to approve three separate claims for surgeries that I didn't think were necessary given the age, health, and occupation of the covered patients. I saved the company over $100k in that one call. Given that the economic benefits of my actions will eventually trickle down to you, you should be thanking me for letting you direct traffic that night. Oh, and I have an MBA, so I don't think I'm an idiot.
I can get more traction from snow than I can from the layer of ice left behind after the plow pushes through. So bring SALT, SAND, or stay out of the way.
Why was this even the mayor's call? Decisions like this should be made by someone in an engineering or public safety role. That individual should have the technical qualifications to make such a call. If an engineer, they should be licensed. Appointing the right person to this post should be a political position - which is what mayors are for. Making up-to-the-minute calls on technical matters that affect the safety and welfare of the citizens should not be a political decision. Remember the Challenger shuttle when the person making the call was told to "take off their engineering cap and put on their manager cap"? Have we learned nothing?
After a technically competent official has made the call, it should then be the mayor's responsibility to make the announcement and coordinate his staff to deal with the situation, preferably following a written procedure designed for just such an event.
The research was funded by the no-limit hunting lobby. "Unrestricted hunting doesn't wipe out entire animal populations - climate (and legislative) change do!"
Actually, the 1% don't really have anywhere near the same level of power and influence as the top 0.01%. Those are the ones we should be worrying about, right? In all seriousness though, I think the reason for this whole debate is that we have an entire generation that was told "we're all in the same boat", then we were told, "OK, we're in different boats, and some of us have luxury motor yachts, but a rising tide floats all boats". But when the tide flowed over to the Yacht Club marina, and didn't come to the fishing wharf, we were told that the economic benefits would trickle down, as long as we got an education. So now we have the most educated generation of Americans ever seen, and still the luxury yachts are rising much faster and further than the research vessels.
When education wasn't enough, we were told that we needed to invest and grow our savings. In fact, if we didn't buy stocks inflation would eat our savings and we would be left behind. So we did, and lost it all in the dotcom bubble. Then we were told we couldn't go wrong with real estate, but if we weren't owning we would be left behind and forever priced out of the chance to own a home, which is the biggest investment a family can have, right? The so-called "experts", those with Ph.D's, those leaders of think tanks and industry associations, those in-house consultants working for the news outlets - they all sold us a bill of goods of higher education, 401k's, and home equity. They told us that moving up economically was not a zero sum game. But reality is that financial success is reserved for the pop stars, Ivy League grads, "qualified investors" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accredited_investor), the charming, attractive, well-connected schmoozers, those born into it, and those married into it (see "schmoozers"). For everyone else, it is not enough to just work hard at school and at their jobs or small businesses. You have to make sure to never get married, never have kids, and never get sick. Then you might get by and not find yourself greeting people at Walmart or passing out fries just to carry you through "retirement".
But what happens when only the top 1% of the 10,000 congressmen dominate the discussion, set the agenda, and influence the rest to vote as instructed.
Primaries draw in the political extremists, and campaign financiers are not likely to be soccer moms. There is no "moderate" party, and ordinary, mainstream, working people just don't have as much time, understanding or motivation to get involved that early in the game, nor is there any grass roots drive to form any sort of "moderate" or "mainstream" movement. The only thing that has materialized has been even more polarization by the emergence of the radial Tea Party and Occupy movements. Yes, this is a problem, but it is systemic of mass democracy, a problem which is compounded by mass media. Mass production, commercialization, and industrialization are what separates the 1% from the 99%. The vision of our founding fathers was for the most important decisions of governance to be decided at the local level. But how can we return to the local level where small voices can still be heard in this age of globalization, interconnected technology, and national - even international - job mobility and relocation?
Please tell me which was the last fair election when this wasn't the case.
Not to mention the value of being able to ask someone in the group for help. There are a lot of software geeks and hardware geeks who would love to build a robot - just for the fun of it - but often lack enough skill in either the software or the hardware to be successful. Working together they can both accomplish their own unique goals more effectively. Combined with community gardens, open source software projects, shared work spaces (co-working), peer-to-peer communications, peer-to-peer lending, Wikipedia, etc. it seems like no matter how much power our corporate overloads may gain, people in our society keep finding ways to progress further into a more communal and collaborative society.
If it saves you money, empowers you (from the domination of conglomerates), gives you freedom of choice, serves as a creative outlet, gives you a chance to help others, nurtures the development of new skills, potentially advances the state of the art (OK - I know that's a stretch for this example), gives you satisfaction, helps you connect with other like-minded people, or opens up a new revenue stream, then why the hell not?
I think there is still a fear among industrialists, and those believe their economic well being is dependent on the profitability of industrialist, that 3D printing will eat into the spare parts business (where a single component of a 10-20 component product can cost more than 50% of the retail price of a replacement product), and possibly also those businesses that thrive by charging consumers $100 or more for a product that is nothing more than a small collection of lose parts manually connected together in a span of one to ten minutes, often by the consumer themselves when labeled "some assembly required".
As a taxpayer I'd rather fund local libraries that get the masses off the streets, educated, literate, potentially productive and even entrepreneurial. If I was going to cut bloated government bureaucracies that are not essential to the freedom or security of our nation, I'd start with the U.S. Copyright Office and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
The Republican term for "library" is "Communist bookstore". After the bearded hackers and makers start showing up I'm sure they'll start calling libraries the "urban commune and homeless shelter".
We might have to resort back to more hostile means to "unfriend" each other, which as been the only useful feature FB has brought into my life.
No, they're still rich kids because they wear cardigans instead of hoodies, drink lattes instead of 40s, use iPhones instead of pagers, ride bikes instead of the bus, and have aspirations of working an office job rather than being a famous rapper or baller.
Or they are a single parent working two jobs, living paycheck to paycheck, trying to do what they can to better themselves, but in the meantime don't have the money or patience to deal with $34.50 overdraft fees after the bank auto-debited their $15 monthly service fee a day earlier than expected. Banks are horrible services to deal with if you actually NEED to use ALL of your money before the next payday.
A person in this scenario, if they are going to have a cellphone anyway, could save a lot of time, money, and hassle if they could reload a prepaid debit card on the go with a mobile deposit app. If the debit card fee is less than $15 each month, and if mobile deposits were free, this would make such a service worthwhile and cost effective for millions of people. If they could make transfers to other mobile users without using a card or check then that could be even more useful. I could definitely see this appealing to lots of college students working part time jobs to scrap by.
If you're too old for the job then brush up on your Hindi and re-apply. But be ready to take a 60% pay cut, no vacation, and 80 hour work weeks.