Nine Shift

When do corporations become bad for people?

When do corporations cross over from serving customers to taking advantage of them (us) ?

NineShifter D.P. Lubic wrote a comment earlier this month that asked, in part, "Are large corporations obsolete? Are they, or at least some of them, too large to run effectively? Do they need reigning in?"

What do you think?

Last week Netflix, which was conquering the movie rental world by providing people with reasonably priced services and customer-friendly policies, crossed the line from good-to-bad.  At least in the view of 600,000 people, who dropped Netflix in protest over the doubling of prices overnight.

And Google, whose motto is "Do no evil," is defending itself before government entities in Europe and the U.S. over doing lots of evil.

So when does a company cross over from giving customers a good deal to taking advantage of them (us) ? Is there a metric (dollar sales; acquisition; ownership) for determining it ?  Tell us what you think.

The Future of the Post Office

Does the U.S. Post Office have a future?  Really? 

Years ago, we outlined a plan to make the Post Office relevant for the 21st Century:  delivering packages, like groceries or other local shopping items, two to four times a day to people who could then shop even locally online, saving tons of time and money with the same day postal deliveries. 

Only the Post Office has the infrastructure of local offices and personnel to do local package deliveries the same day.

But for now, it looks like the outdated Post Office business model will continue to decline, if not collapse.  Politicians cannot even decide to close 3,700 post offices in towns so small they just are not feasible.

Here's a photo of the Post Office in our summer home town of 200 people. This post office is TOO BIG to close, so it was not even on the list of 3,700 possible closures. 

America in Decline: Are Americans Wimps?

What do you think? Are Americans wimps? I say Get over it Americans. Yes, you are going to make 25% less money; your standard of living is declining 25%, your benefits are being cut 25%.  And yes, you have to pay 25% more to revitalize your country and your nation’s future. 

  Unless you are in the bottom 25% of society, Straighten up.   You don’t need two cars, a huge house, cheap gas that destroys the world, big buildings, steak, and 200 tv channels.  Adjust your lifestyle.  You can be just as happy with 25% less. In fact, you won’t even notice a decline in lifestyle. You will probably like a simpler lifestyle.  But for cryin out loud, stop your wimpering “what about me?” whining.  Get over it.  Get on with it.  What do you say?

Photo: Rainbow outside our cabin this summer. Americans can 'have it all' with 25% less money, there's something even better than a pot of gold over our rainbows.

The Beginning of the End of Suburbia

NineShifter Deborah C. Hoffman of the City of Culver, Virginia, sends more evidence that our prediction about the decline of suburbs is now happening.

The Atlantic did this good story on it.

Here's the new data the story reports:

The AP's Jonathan Fahey reported last week that the utility company research consortium, the Electric Power Research Institute, projected that residential electricity demand would drop over the next ten years. "From 1980 to 2000, residential power demand grew by about 2.5 percent a year. From 2000 to 2010, the growth rate slowed to 2 percent," Fahey wrote. "Over the next 10 years, demand is expected to decline by about 0.5 percent a year, according to the Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit group funded by the utility industry." That's due, in part, to the decrease in the median size of new homes in recent years. The average size of a new home in 2010 is nearly 130 square feet smaller than in 2007.

NineShift is now predicting that in 2012 statistics will come out showing that overall suburbs are at a standstill, not growing overall. 

Of course, some suburbs are already in retreat.  There will be a some, but not many, new sub divisions built.
Again, overall, suburbia goes into decline from 2013 onward. 

Even our local union organizers have a college degree

Over a beer, I asked six or seven young union organizers, I mean thugs, whether they had a college degree. All of them did. And these were young men, the distinct minority of college graduates.  Even young union organizers understand the value of a college degree.

 

He explained the 21st Century

For NineShifters only, and Willie fans, today is Willie's 25th birthday.

He has been responsible for explaining the 21st century to thousands of people through our books, speeches, webinars and articles.

Here's a picture of Day One.

Infrastructure Does Not Equal Roads

Oh No, not roads! No!!  When economists and politicians mention the word infrastructure, it is almost always followed by the word roads.  This is exactly what America does NOT need.

The End of Auto Age is 2020, less than ten years from now.  Gen Y is not driving, even without trains; and aging Boomers will soon start to drive significantly less, making roads less traveled and financially unsupportable.

So spending money on roads is now is both wasteful and deadly. The U.S.A. can no longer afford either.

What kills more Americans, invading Iraq or building more roads?  Answer: Roads
What creates more jobs, building roads or building trains?  Answer: Trains.
Which will be more used in 20 years, roads or trains?  Answer: Trains. 

America, falling behind the rest of the world in the 21st century, is running out of both money and time.

America in Decline: No Teamwork

  Football analyst Jimmy Johnson makes an insightful comment on the decline of organizations and countries.

  I usually read sports commentators for entertainment value only. But here’s an exception. Jimmy Johnson (boo), who coached the Dallas Cowboys (boo) to 2 Superbowls, makes a really good observation and then includes America in the lesson.

   “The downfall of successful organizations AND COUNTRIES  (my emphasis) in the past is it’s always been about the individual and not the team,” Johnson said.  “When you have the ultimate success, then all of a sudden everybody in the organization says ‘What about me?’” he notes.  Everybody started to be a little bit self-centered.   Everyone wanted more money. Everyone sought personal gain rather than team  (or national country) gain, Johnson observed. 

   This observation is good Mr. Johnson.  Very good.   

Intellectual Idiots and the Value of a College Degree

   The big craze right now is for college educated people to diss the value of a college degree. All these people of course send their children and grandchildren to college. But they tell everyone else the cynical and totally defeatist recommendation that college - - the absolute key to prosperity - - is not good anymore. 

   This is the best way to plunge America downward- - criticize the solution.  Yes, college is too expensive.  Yes, it’s a boring grind. But the value of a college education is higher than ever. To suggest otherwise, is intellectual idiocy, compounded by hypocrisy.

   Thumbs down on Heidi Shierholz, a labor market economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal research and policy center, for her distorted study; and thumbs down on Steven Greenhouse of The New York Times for publicizing it.

   Yes, college graduates aren’t making as much as they used to. But so is everyone else. College graduates still have unemployment half of other people, still make much more than other people. And the worker shortage is still with jobs that require a college education. 

   Dissing a college degree is like a financial advisor saying being a millionaire isn’t the same as it used to be. True, but it’s still financially better than having less money. 

NineShift Goes to Randolph: Part III

Then we go to the high school and meet with the 15 or so high school teachers. This is advertised by the principal and superintendent as the tough crowd. But even, or especially, here they are working hard on these issues.

  And yes, there is push-back on our prediction and recommendation that teachers not grade based on behavior.  But the math teacher is questioning the value of homework, and has statistics on grades with and without homework.  So he’s thinking about diminishing the role of homework.  And others are thinking hard about not grading based on behavior.  One teacher has a very smart boy who gets very high ACT scores, but is not “motivated.”  She wants him to succeed, she understands why it is in society’s interest to have him go to college. She has worked hard to help him, she will keep working hard to help him.  

All of them really want their students to succeed, and to help them succeed. It is obvious. It is heartening.  It is positive. 

Change this month, this semester? Maybe not.  But it’s just around the corner.  It is very exciting to see K-12 teachers so close to taking the next step, and so open minded about what is in the best interest of their students.