…the only cereal that is shot from guns… is the only cereal that comes in the shape of animals…Live from New York…. If you live outside the United States it probably does not mean much to you that television signals are changing from analog to digital. If you live or watch television in the United States, you probably read of the change streaming across the bottom of your screen, and hear of it every news cast.
There are converter boxes available, and the Government is issuing coupons to save you some of the cost of buying a converter box, so you can go on watching television on the television set you now have. There is a slight hitch though.
The government it seems has ran out of allocated funds to issue coupons to those who are asking for them. Not much of a surprise with all we have going on in our country these days.
A famous economist by the name of Milton Friedman wrote a small book about economics some time ago. It is an easy read, so I read it a few years ago in an effort to understand a little more about economics. One of the ideas Friedman wrote is government exists partially to do the will of business.
Some CEO’s, including the creator of AIG must have read the same book as he spent a large portion of his time as CEO speaking with and otherwise trying to influence members of the House and Senate.
Apparently it worked; his company became the largest of its kind in the world before he was dethroned in the early 2000’s. He was not shy about letting others know how he spent his working time; he felt it was a CEO’s obligation to garner the favor of government.
In case you are curious about my very first few sentences, they are jingles from cereals that may no longer exist. I do not remember the names of the cereals, but the jingles remain. Such is the power of advertising and its effect on us.
Television is really one big advertisement glued together by programming of dubious value. Television networks exist for advertising dollars and would prefer the programming be as brain dead as possible. Television Network Executives prefer their audience to be both brain dead and receptive. The happier, and more thought free you are the more receptive you are to advertising. Sitcoms exist for this reason.
What possible reason could the Government have in subsidizing the cost of digital to analog converter boxes? A rather interesting reason I think. The answer is twofold. One reason is – as Friedman pointed out – Government is to do the will of business offset by the will of the people.
Big Business such as television networks and big companies need their message piped uninterrupted into as many homes as possible without any kind of break in the schedule. Television Networks and Big Business depend on having Joe public sitting in front of his television being saturated with as many commercials per hour as he will sit still for.
Unfortunately since the early 1920’s when the government of the United States (at least) spent untold amounts of money converting citizens from a save and reuse culture into a spend and replace culture.
Now Government needs uninterrupted advertising too. What would happen if Joe public went even a day without hearing that whatever he has or owns is perfectly useable does not need replacing with a newer version of the same thing?
The economy would go from its current sad state to a complete stoppage if Joe Public realized his six month old cell phone and four year old car did the same things his one year old cell phone and ancient eight year old car did. Joe Public would then reason a phone is a phone and a car is a car.
Cereal is made of a types few grains with appropriate sugar and texturing added. Cereal today is the same as it always was, just new names, packaging, and jingles. Most everything we use day to day we sell or give away for a new version of the same thing.
Imagine for a minute television without advertising. Would we actually pay money to watch Saturday Night Live? How would we know which cereals, or cell phones were the best? We would be lost, or would we?
I once mentored an elementary school boy named Pete. Pete came from a very poor family. His father had left the family, and his Mother had no skills to earn anything more than minimum wage. I was watching a news channel this morning on the state of the economy. There was a woman being interviewed who had not worked for a year. Her prospects of finding a job are not looking good. She is running out of money and hope.
There is a classic book, The Grapes of Wrath. It is the saga of a family during the mid west dust bowl, and the great depression in the first third of the last century. The family lost almost everything due to the misfortune They traveled to California from camp to camp looking for field work. They were beaten down and plagued by bad luck throughout most of the book.
Another classic book along the same genre is, The Good Earth. The Good Earth is a story of a successful Chinese family whose fortune and fame take a terrible downturn. While the Grapes of Wrath took place over a few years, The Good earth was about decades of family struggle. The characters in both books are so downtrodden and beaten to the ground, one would think they should just lie down and die.
Lying down and dying from misfortune may work in the world of theatrics; in the real world life is not so generous. Being born is hard, so is dying. Between those two states there is no choice except to keep on living. Even if living is a daily struggle, there is no other option. Which brings me back to Pete and what he was doing post Halloween some years ago.
Pete, like almost any other kid went out and got his share of Halloween candy. This is where the likeness between Pete and other kids ended. Pete suddenly had some money when I met with him one week. Not a lot, maybe thirty-five cents. For Pete, that was more money than he had seen in several months. Curious, I asked Pete where he was getting money from.
Pete told me his Halloween candy was the source of his income. He had hidden his candy away for a few weeks, until most of the kids were out of candy. He took his stash out and started selling it to the other kids for anywhere from a penny to a nickel for each piece of candy. With that money Pete was buying more candy and little packets of lime flavored salt and reselling them for a few cents more than he paid. Pete soon planned to start selling juice drinks and perhaps candy bars if his customers could afford them.
I knew then that whether I was there or not, Pete was going to be alright in his life. One way or another Pete was going to be successful and find a way to beat the cycle of being poor. Pete has ‘Gumption’ as an old movie I can not even remember the name of talked about. Gumption made Pete a go getter and a small business man at the ripe old age of eight. I wish everyone whose life is falling apart could have met Pete. One or two hours with Pete, and they would see what a little ambition and creativity with a shot of gumption can do for someone.
I had invented a product that would absolutely keep peoples televisions, microwaves, and stereo components from being stolen and resold, no one wanted it? I could not believe what I was reading whenever a new piece of mail came with a no interest reply! How could a company not want something that would make life better, and stolen electronics worthless?
So I thought, well this idea will make peoples homes safer because it will reduce home robberies. Insurance companies will get excited about this idea, because they want safety in the world, so I started writing them. They were not falling over themselves in eagerness to buy up my idea so their clients could have a better, safer life! What gives, this is a great idea, people will be safer, and millions of dollars in claims won’t have to be paid out? I was at a loss to understand this dilemma. More importantly, where were my [now] million dollars, from this great idea?
Finally it dawned on me. If my idea stopped theft of home electronics products such as televisions, microwaves, computers, and stereos, the manufacturing of these products would slow down because there would be far less demand for replacements. Manufacturing companies were in business to make more of their product, not less.
Insurance companies were in business to make money from burglary and theft, not actually prevent it. With less theft there would be less need for insurance. Insurance company profits would drop.
The crime rate would drop due to less theft, so police departments, jails, and prisons would not need as many people working. A big portion of the regular, and underground economy would dry up because in a few years there would be no person, or place to sell non working stolen electronics items to. No one would be needed to track down burglars, and thieves. A whole sector of the economy would be put out of work.
What a stupid idea I had! What was wrong with me thinking that making the world a safer place, and preventing theft would be a benefit to society? Here I was one person trying to destroy an economy that took centuries to perfect! Thousands, if not tens of thousands of people would be without work, and income. No wonder no one was interested in my idea. I was suggesting they all commit fiscal suicide by building something that rarely needed replacement. Only replacement for worthwhile upgrades, and innovation.
There is a lesson here, just not a good one. Perhaps I can build a better mouse trap, it just better not be made so well, all the mice are caught! If I have another great idea, I am going to make sure it is packed with glitz and glamour, but does little for the consumer except part them from their money. It will be a huge success in the stores across the country, maybe even the world! I just need to think of it.
Ever think you have that big idea? The one that is going to make you rich to the point you will be ashamed to tell people how wealthy you are? So much money you will become bored traveling all the time? I thought I had one of those ideas once. It popped into my head out to the blue, like most ideas do, good or not. The more I thought about it, the more excited I became. After a few days, it was getting hard to go sleep at night thinking about the simplicity, and profit potential of my idea. I could not believe someone had not thought of this before. I was going to be rich!
I set to work, finding out how ideas are put on paper, what format was needed, and how much detail I needed to go into. It was a cheap to make, simple idea, so I knocked out about eight typed pages, with a page or two of drawings supporting my idea. Every time I retyped out my paper I would be thinking about how rich I was going to be. This was so much fun! Every day the money I was going to make grew by another thousand dollars.
Finally it was complete. Now the only question was what mega company was I going to share my idea with? Which company was big enough to make it work, able to corner the market before the knock off products started showing up? That decision took the better part of a week. Then I found out I had to create a non interest letter for the company I was going to send my idea to. The way I understood it, it was a letter that generally states that I have an idea, but I am not really interested in it. I think your company might not be interested in it enough for you to request that I send you what I have on paper. Then your not interested design and production staff may evaluate my idea before you decide you may be interested enough to pay me some money for my idea. So far so good? Yep? Okay, off to the bidding wars.
So I sent off my idea to a multinational corporation. Then I sat back and waited. A week went by, then two, three, four weeks, and nothing! On the sixth week, I received a reply from the company addressed to occupant or something else pulled out of the dictionary of non-interest.
Wow, this is going to be good, they are really interested! Dollar signs are rolling through my head by now. Well, they made it clear that they really weren’t interested, and did not appreciate my suggesting they were interested. The second sentence of the letter stated they very annoyed that I contacted them to start with. A third sentence did not exist.
Well, what do I know, they are probably too big of a company to start with. I tried more companies, and they weren’t interested either. All the companies I wrote were only interested in selling more of their products, not taking on new products that would take major manufacturing changes to produce.
Part two tomorrow….
