Tag: Robert Reich

Our VHS future

Beta was more superior. Yet VHS won out.

The market (in this case, movies on tape) dictates the terms. At the present time, it wants all things mobile. In other words, our knowledge and skill set need an upgrade (But I thought technologically, Beta gave crisper resolution!?!! Sorry Sony.)

While on tour for his book “After Shock”, Robert Reich mentioned on Charlie Rose that despite Obama’s ability to synthesize every one’s opinion earlier in his campaign, he now fails to connect the dots i.e. to tell a narrative of America’s vanishing middle class.

Silicon Valley has reinvented itself once again, this time, into a Mecca of clean tech (just about time, because Chinese IT companies are forming clusters in TX to compete against India’s counterparts right in the heart of America) and mobile/cloud/social network (zynga-like). Between Detroit, Disney and Dell, America can still do it, with better choices and better counsels.

Again, the global market will decide winners in each group (VHS 2.0) and don’t be surprised if it might not be you, even when your mother thinks you are her most beautiful baby.

I have heard of re-engineering, reinvention, and recession. Then we came up with soft power, thought leadership and self branding.

Meanwhile, all attempts to dress up old concepts won’t mean a thing to the lady in Las Vegas outskirts who is the last on the block to stay in her house. Or the Lonely tenant in Miami condo high-rise.

I notice a significant drop in day laborers in Orange County. And I heard rumors that Vietnamese in CA now migrated en mass to Houston, where housing is more affordable, and unemployment rate lower (in the early 80’s, the movement was reverse due to Texas oil crisis). The story of Vietnamese immigrants in America is tied so much to the rise and fall of technology companies in the Bay areas (electronic and chip industries). As soon as those jobs got shipped overseas, America’s immigrants decide to go home (after Indian IT professionals who went home to India, or Vietnamese American applying for Intel recent facility in Vietnam). After all, the future belongs to automation or hybridized version therein.

It’s market demand which dictates supplies, including labor supplies. First shipping jobs overseas, then automating the marketing side of the equation. I have blogged about migration movement, automation and death of the salesman. In doing so,

I stumbled upon a narrative. It’s America’s. It’s the new America, whose future is staked upon its choice to go Beta or VHS, metaphorically speaking. And it has nothing to do with Beta’s superior resolution. As of this edit, it is facing a choice to arm to send boots to Syria. Soft or hard boiled? Since when it is easy to be King of the Hill? Good luck to those who “think out of the box”, instead of getting out of it altogether.

P.S. Fareed Zakaria‘s article on TIME featured “How to restore the American Dream”. At least, he listed a few pointers worth considering e.g. “benchmarks” which are take away from other countries’ policies. After all, other countries have tried to reverse engineer the American way of life for decades. Upon CNN 30th anniversary, I saw an ad for Singapore. When CNN started out in Atlanta, Ted Turner couldn’t even conceive its network celebration would be underwritten by Singapore, then an emerging country. One must wonder about its 40th, if there will still be a Cable News Network. What a struggle between television and telephony. The jury is still out for whoever can be on the go, with better softwares.

Continue reading Our VHS future

Defunct fast

Fast food companies got fast funding last week: Wendy, then BK.

For the past two years, I have stopped by BK twice, each time, for the buy-one-get-one-whopper-free deal.

We will look back to this Recession as a house-cleaning era, when BK might mean bankruptcy, or Burger King.

HUD Secretary was interviewed on Capital Connection this weekend. However articulate he was, the housing sector and homeless prevention program have room for improvement.

Winter is coming. And I know a thing or two about volunteering to help the homeless.

The vicious cycle of not having a permanent address to receive the assistance checks.

(Just like many of us who were just above the poverty line, wishing sometimes we fell below it to qualify for assistance).

In fact, right after the interview, the show went on with latest poll figures showing voters’ discontentment i.e. intention to switch from coffee to tea.

I have seen change at work, from hot war to cold war, from RCA to Apple. (BTW, Ritz was acquired by Marriott, Rolls by Tata, surprising?)

Where is Bob Dylan? The time, they are a changin!

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich put it well in this weeks’ NY Times Op Ed  that unemployment is structural (top percentage of wealth earners get to keep more than ever before, leaving the shrinking middle class unable to afford life they are capable of ). Super Frugal instead of Super Power. US turns Britain i.e. less action in world affairs (can’t afford it to spread defense funding every where). It’s fitting that a new domestic infrastructure overhaul bill , Obama’s Great Society, is announced on this very day.

When still at Penn State, I tried both Burger King and McDonald. At the time, I did not know better, so I liked Mc Fries. BK , meanwhile, offered me bigger burgers for the bucks.

I did not know at the time that Hardees was home of then defunct Burger Chef (just like Arby’s now absorbs Wendy “where’s the roast beef?”).

American business landscape witnesses all sorts of consolidation: oil, airline, telecom, fast food industries, car rental and car companies.

Telecom executives are now pitching cars. “May the best car win”, push-talk advertising (from former Nextel exec).

Somehow I wish to hear from the other side of this prolonged Recession, “May the best worker rise”. The rest can join in Network-like protest: ” I am mad like hell, and I won’t take it any more”. I am glad for blog, for Web 2.0 and whatever invention that comes next. It shows human are still in charge, despite the forces that try to keep them down.

As a book’s title, let’s have the audacity to win. Not to keep the status quo, but to be true to forms. After all, each of us exists for a reason. Mine is not different from yours: a shot at life and an invitation to prom. That’s all. But these days, the barriers to entry seem enormously high.

Thanks to all the structural impediments  and bills that came due, one won’t hear “Happy Labor Day” from 9.6 percent of the population for a while. Let’s fade in “Monday is Happy Day.” instead.  How I wish we could bring back the innocent 50’s, and yelp! Grease.