TIME TO UPDATE AMERICA'S FAT CAT ICON

I like to observe the cultural icons we've created for our 

national conceptual shorthand and deconstruct them. Like 

this one for instance, universally understood in America to 

signify a rich, exploitative capitalist. It's a hold over from the 

J.P. Morgan image at the close of the 19th century: The 

banker's striped trousers. The upper class silk top hat. The 

expensive Cuban cigar. The overfed corpulence indicating 

piggish, I-scarf-up-more-than-my-fair-share behavior. The 

white handlebar moustache signifying that it took time to 

accumulate a fortune. No Mark Zuckerbergs, Bill Gates or 

Steve Jobs overnight billionaires in their 20's back then. The 

only ham-handed element to assure everyone gets the 

message of the icon is the money bags. How long will we 

keep this image? It's already been 120-130 years. Cultural 

touchstones like Aunt Jemimah and Betty Crocker have 

been modernized. Will this kind of update happen to the rich 

capitalist icon? If so, what will he look like in the year 2100?

SO HOW'S THAT MAGIC OF THE MARKETPLACE THING WORKIN' OUT FOR YA AMERICA?

"The energy market is not like most other markets. Indeed, 

the economics of alternative energy are such that private 

investors, left to their own devices, are bound to underinvest 

in it, since the considerable social benefits - cleaner air, fewer 

greenhouse emissions - accrue to EVERYONE, not just to 

direct customers. That means that the economic rate of 

return is significantly less than the social rate of return. 

Despite the immense size of the energy market, as of 2005 

spending on energy R&D accounted for just 2% of total 

spending on R&D in the U.S. This creates an opportunity for 

the government to add value by investing smartly, just as it 

can add value by spending money on education or 

infrastructure, other areas where the social returns are 

greater than the economic ones " - James Surowiecki, 

Columnist for the New Yorker Magazine's Financial Page

"COME TOGETHER" - John Lennon

Bank consolidation over the years that has created the 

monster behemoths that extort the middle class into paying 

whatever fee they dictate. (click on the graphic to make it 

larger....just to be clear, I mean you can make the graphic        

larger, not the outrage).

"YEAH....BUT FOR ME IT'S DIFFERENT. IT REALLY IS. SERIOUSLY. NO. WAIT. I CAN EXPLAIN..." - AYN RAND

Revealed in the "Oral History of Ayn Rand" by the founder of 

the media department at the Ayn Rand Institute: In the end 

Rand was (secretly) one of the parasites she despised. Eva 

Pryor (a consultant to Rand's law firm of Ernst, Cane, Gitlin 

and Winick) verified that on Rand's behalf she secured Social 

Security and Medicare payments which Ayn received 

under the name of Ann O'Connor (husband Frank O'Connor). 

Pryor said, "Doctors cost a lot more money than books earn 

and she could be totally wiped out" without the aid of these 

two government programs. Ayn took the bail out. Throughout 

her life she said it was wrong and weak for everyone else to 

do so..

DON'T TOUCH ME THERE

The August issue of Motor Trend magazine reports that in

December, Volkswagen will desperately attempt to counter its 

steep recessionary slump by releasing an upscale, eight 

cylinder model. They plan to market it heavily in the United 

States using none-too-subtle sexual innuendo. This limited 

edition car will be called the 2015 "Tailia". Volkswagen's

advertisements will attempt to lure potential buyers with ads

featuring male and female supermodels plus a SLEEZY

double entendre declaring: "This winter be one of the lucky

few Americans to get their hands on our powerful new Jetta

Tailia." These Teutonic bastards have no shame. None

whatsoever. Nada.

OPEN THE GATES TO GREATER JOBS - A MICROCOSM OF OUR NATIONAL STRUGGLE

The great debate of the digital age, i.e., the struggle between Apple's IPhone (with it's "private" apps usable only on IPhone) and Google's Android (with universal apps that stand on any platform except Apple's) is a reiteration of the Mac versus Microsoft PC struggle of the 1980's, and most surprisingly as I just realized today, a kind of microcosm of the competing liberal (more control, better and safer experience for all) versus Conservative (let 1,000 flowers bloom and the competitive bloodletting begin because the consumer will benefit) world views. Is it better, as Apple believes, to tie the hardware, software and content handling into one tidy system that assures a simple user experience and higher quality control? Or is it better to give users and manufacturers more choice and free up avenues for more innovation by creating software systems that could be modified and used on different devices? The benefit of a "closed" Mac platform is control. But Microsoft and Google have a specific belief that "open" is the better approach, because it leads to more options and competition and consumer choice. As Bill Gates has said: "Most of the improvements in PC's came because consumers had a lot of choices, and that will someday be the case in the world of mobile devices. Eventually, open will succeed. In the long run, the coherence thing, you can't stay with that." Steve Jobs believed in "the coherence thing." He noted that "Google says we exert more control than they do, that we are closed and they are open...Well look at the results - Android's a mess. It has different screen sizes and versions, over a hundred permutations. I like being responsible for the whole user experience. We do it NOT to make money. We do it because we want to make GREAT PRODUCTS, not crap like Android." So today I asked myself where we are at this point in time? Where does America stand today, digitally speaking? As of today, APPLE (with its focus on control and a high quality experience versus Android with its focus on profit and choice) is the most innovative, most successful, most influential, most profitable corporation in the entire world. Apple products are universally acknowledged as the standard of excellence world wide. It is breathtaking how the archetypal digital struggle and the archetypal political struggle can be so amazingly similar!

THE JUNIOR MOMENT

We all use the ever popular "Senior Moment" to describe an older person forgetting something (particularly as in losing his train of thought smack in the middle of talking). When this happens younger listeners often look knowingly at one another and smirk out a patronizing "had a senior moment, did ya?" Well, how about introducing the concept of the "Junior Moment." This could be the instance when a mature individual has provided a younger person with some life lesson advice, which the younger person has ignored and then when the younger person subsequently falls prey to the thing about which he was warned, claims (in order to avoid an "I told you so") that he was never warned. In this instance, observing seniors could look knowingly at one another and smirk out a patronizing "having a junior moment, are ya?"