Continuing Collapse of the Music Industry

Via Ace.  Not quite ready for big posts yet.  Here's a quick one that caught my eye regarding the continuing collapse of the music industry.  This chart from Business Insider shows that the amount of money the average person spends on recorded music is less than any time since at least the early '70's (the chart doesn't go any further back).

There are lots of other good charts tracking the music industry (all bad news for people in it).  People aren't buying as much music, and when they do, they aren't buying albums anymore.  I can vouch for that, and I probably still buy more music than most people.  Back in the '70's, I would buy an album a paycheck, and albums still cost about half what they do now, and I was making less than 1/10.  I'm not necessarily saying I spent my money wisely!

Not saying whether it's good or bad, it's just the way it is.

Update On The Looming Financial Crisis.

(This is a short, happy post that is not well done.) The Republicans have failed to live up to their promise of tackling our "unsustainable" budget. It is politically impossible to make meaningful cuts without promoting massive social unrest ,look at the protest in Wisconsin, and threatening the social cohesion of our nation--the words "social unrest" come from a Congressional Budget Office's report and recently alluded to by our Treasury Secretary in his statement below. This is from the HotAir blog(they both link to the real news story),

The House rejected a measure cutting an additional $22 billion from the Republican spending bill, as conservatives ran into a wall of opposition from the GOP establishment over the depth of reductions to federal funding.

The amendment backed by the conservative Republican Study Committee failed, 147-281, but not before putting the GOP spending divide under a spotlight on the House floor. Authored by RSC chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the proposal would have dramatically reshaped an appropriations bill that already slashes federal spending by $61 billion over the next seven months…

Ace has a nice post and video that goes well with the disappointment that those that put their faith in the Republican party's promises to make some serious reforms. The Republicans have failed to make even their small 100 billion cut that even if enacted would have been ineffectual in solving the nation's looming budget crises and instead cut 60 billion from projected spending increases, not actual spending cuts. They have been dishonest in selling their proposed budget cuts and could not even vote to pass them. As Ace states "The GOP is dead to me". And even these modest cuts will likely be reduce after the Senate gets through with it. The point that I am trying to make is that no political party is willingly or able to make the necessary budget cuts and reforms to entitlement programs that are necessary to avoid the looming budget crisis. The status quo of our Nation's financial situation is simply not sustainable and there is no party that is doing anything about this fact. Who said that things are unsustainable?

The Treasury Secretary recently stated before a Senate hearing that the proposed budget is unsustainable because the interest on the debt will eventually rise to 844 billion dollars. This is the reason Admiral Mike Mullen recently stated that national debt is the biggest threat to our national security, a warning repeated by Hilliary Clinton. Tim Geithner also states that the proposed budget does not make the necessary cuts because it is politically impossible.

"'Forty cents of every dollar we spend we borrow, and in 20 years from now, all the money we have in revenue is going to go to pay the debt -- Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Nothing left for the national defense, homeland security, etcetera,' said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who appeared with Durbin. 'We are spending money that we do not have. Even the Social Security payments, we do not have. We're borrowing that from the Treasury,' said Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., who was on CNN with Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y."

The point of this short post is to show that there is a very real financial crisis that is knocking on the door. The sources that state this are not simply talk show host opinion, but rather this is coming from our elected officials, Treasury Secretary, the leader of our military, and the Congressional Budge Office. Seismic , titanic, and very painful cuts need to be made in entitlement programs that are simply politically impossible to make without affecting the "social cohesion" of the Nation and won't be made until the crisis is already upon us. Either way, if the necessary reforms are made or things continue as they are, a very serious financial crisis is headed our way. With this level of debt, America and the world has lost its ability to absorb shocks to the system such as natural disasters, economic shocks, wars, or a possible negative turn of events in the Middle East. With the ability to absorb the financial cost of such shocks, they will have a more pronounced effect on America and the world. Are you mentally and financially prepared for this? Or is your head still in the sand or you have your hopes misplaced with the Republicans and the Tea Party?

Protests

So lets tally up all the recent protests and revolution attempts (some successful, some pending), and feel free to add more if I leave some out:

Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Iran, China, and Libya.

I have no real clue what to make of all this. I just figured we should start some dialogue on it now.

RTP's New Sponsor

It is official. College Pro has hired me as a Franchise Manager. My territory will mainly be Troutdale, Gresham, and East Portland.

I have a lot of training to do and a lot of marketing as well. I will start lining up employees fairly soon.

If there are any readers out there who need a painting job done, just give me a call. We provide a service with a smile. With the housing market the way it is, there has never been a better time to invest in your home. Next summer inflation will have hit hard and gas prices are said to hit 5 dollars in 2012! Who knows what kind of effect that will have on all markets. Why wait?

503-810-3555

I never put you on hold.

The Devolution Of America's Society.

Compare the three music videos below to see the devolution of our society being manifested. It began with Elvis shaking his hips and has led to simulated sex music videos of today and rock stars jumping around on stage in disjointed and contorted manner. Our grandparents were in an uproar over Elvis and his shaking hips and said that it would lead to far worse. Notice how the music in the Spears video mimics the beat and rhythm of sexual intercourse. I like Allan Bloom's observation in his book "The Closing Of The American Mind" on music in American culture:

Picture a thirteen-year old boy sitting in the living room of his family home doing his math assignment while wearing his Walkman headphones or watching MTV. He enjoys the liberties hard won over centuries by the alliance of philosophic genius and political heroism, consecrated by the blood of martyrs; he is provided with comfort and leisure by the most productive economy ever know to mankind; science has penetrated the secrets of nature in order to provide him with the marvelous, lifelike electronic sound and image reproduction he is enjoying. And in what does progress culminate? A pubescent child whose body throbs with orgasmic rhythms; whose feelings are made articulate in hymns to the joys of onanism[ withdrawl of the penis in sexual intercourse so that ejaculation takes place outside the vagina; coitus].or the killing of parents; whose ambition is to win fame and wealth in imitating the drag-queen who makes the music. In short, life is made into a nonstop, commercially prepackaged masturbational fantasy.

Is there any connection between the deterioration of our culture and and the deterioration of our nation? I think the two are very closely connected on a very deep and fundamental level. This is why complaining about the current state of our nation and the world is pointless as it does not address the root cause: the deterioration of our culture. Unless the American culture is changed on a very deep and fundamental level the direction we are traveling won't change. (On a more serious subject of our nation's finances, "Nominal debt will peak in 2013 at 106 percent of the economy before dropping to 105.2 percent in 2015 and 2016, though only if the economy booms." The Republicans are not doing anything but talking, and being deceptive, about addressing the very serious situation our nation's economy is in.)

Where are You From?

If your last name comes from Europe, North America, Argentina, China, Japan, India, or Australia, this cool website will track it down.  Zeroing down on Robinson in England, shows the name is most concentrated in Northeastern England around Durham and Nottingham, and is generally fairly concentrated throughout northern England and North Ireland.  Decoy's wife, Candy Cane, found her last name very concentrated on the southern tip of the main island, Honshu, in Japan.

Melkor and ToeJamm will find that they are mainly from north England.

A Good Sign

http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2011/02/09/gop-announces-first-round-proposed-spending-cuts#

This article from Fox News shows a sign that the GOP in power is doing what we wanted them to do. I'm not sure what will come from all this or if anything will even happen but it does tell me that our elected republicans are doing what they ought to do.

"Never before has Congress undertaken a task of this magnitude," said Rogers in a statement. "The cuts in this CR will represent the largest reduction in discretionary spending in the history of our nation."

QE 2, Inflation, Unrest In Egypt, And Inflation Is Under Reported In America.

(I don't have time to do a well written post.) There is major unrest going on in Egypt. I don't know all of the causes and won't try to explain all of them and I won't try to predict what will come out of the unrest in that region of the world. I will focus on how gut-level economics, the recent expansion of the money supply by the Federal Reserve known as QE 2, and the resulting inflation are contributing to unrest in Egypt. The unrest in the Middle East in driven in part by the world-wide inflationary policies carried out the various governments of the world and shows what the end result of such policies are.

According to this article from Big Government dot com, the recent Quantitative Easing or digitizing/printing of money to help pay for the Nation's debt has contributed to unrest in Egypt.

Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke launched a second round of Quantitative Easing (QE2) in October, following over a year of growth in the economy at a robust rate of over 3%. Most analysts pooh-poohed QE2 as an insufficient economic stimulus to create enough inflation to reduce unemployment. I warned that QE2 was like pouring inflationary lighter fluid on the world and then lighting a match. With food inflation now running at 15% in poor countries, the Middle East is just the first area to burn, but fire is smoldering in much of the world and other fires will break out soon.

QE2 is a program by the U.S. Federal Reserve to inject $600 billion of U.S. dollars in the financial system by repurchasing an equivalent amount of U.S. Government bonds. Once the money is paid to the former bondholder, they deposit the cash in banks. Banks take deposit dollars and leverage them by 6 to 10 times creating $3.6 to $6 trillion in credit. Given that the Gross Domestic Product of the U.S. economy is only about $14 trillion annually, it would impossible to immediately purchase 25-40% of the entire economy. Consequently, the reality of Quantitative Easing is that the money will be invested in the stock and commodity markets. The theory is that the financial assets rise on the huge inflows of QE cash, investors will feel wealthier and go to the malls and the car dealerships to 'shop till they drop'.

The problem with theory is that QE2 money quickly drove up commodity food prices around the world. This price rise is barely noticeable to Americans who only spend 10% of their personal income on food for three meals a day; but the impact of food inflation is devastating the over half the world that spends approximately 50% of personal income on food for two meals a day. The 15% QE2 induced commodity food price increase has reduced the amount of food poor people can purchase by almost 1/3.

The riots and revolutionary activity burning down Tunisia, Yemen, and Egypt are about gut-level economics. Do you think Americans would riot and throwing out our government if we were forced to cut back to eating 1 1/3 meals a day? Once riots start people in cities hoard food to survive and becomes dangerous for farmers to transport food. This is exacerbates food shortages and drives prices even higher.

Unemployment was modestly declining and inflation was flat before the Fed’s August announcement of the new stimulus, as shown above. That trend remains in place as QE2 has not significantly reduced unemployment. The only success of QE2 in U.S. is a 20% in the stock market the last six months.

When the Credit Crisis hit in 2008, the Middle East country of Dubai was the first financially leveraged nation to suffer a debt crash. Since that time; Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Spain and others are also suffering a similar fate. QE2 leveraging of worldwide commodity food prices has sent the Middle East into flames. With the price of a barrel of oil hitting $100 dollars and food prices accelerating, those flames will spread.

So it appears that inflation that was exacerbated by the recent fed action are contributing to global unrest. Corn ethanol has also driven up the price of food.

Inflation here in America as measured by the government is about 1.5 % over the past 12 months, this number excludes the cost of energy and food. But according to "Dr. Doom"/Marc Faber it is actually around 5%.

'I guarantee you … the annual cost of living increases are more than 5 percent, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics is lying,' Faber told CNBC at the Russia Forum in Moscow.

'Mr Bernanke is a liar; inflation is much higher than what they publish. I would imagine for most households it’s between five and eight percent per annum in the United States and in Western European countries maybe a little bit lower but also around four and five percent per annum,' he said.

In addtion, Faber said high food prices, which have sparked political unrest in Egypt, would next cause turmoil in Pakistan.

'You may not have the problem in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates because there the governments can heavily subsidize food if they want to, but I’m particularly worried that what has happened in Egypt will happen in Pakistan,' he said.

Asked whether Pakistan would indeed see an Egypt-style uprising, he said: 'I think that will be the case.'

'I think Egypt is a reminder to people that politics and social events and geopolitics have a meaningful impact on asset markets,' Faber said, adding that what the world was currently witnessing was 'a wake up call where the US outperforms emerging markets for a while.'

'That doesn’t mean that the US goes up. It just may go down less than the others,' he said.

Turning to the global economic recovery, Faber said the West was bottoming out and recovering, which meant the global economy looked 'OK' for the next six months.

But 'we’re all doomed in the long run,' he said.

'We have to realize it’s an artificial recovery driven by ultra-expansionary, monetary policies and also ultra-expansionary fiscal policies.

In other words, the deficits of governments are huge and that will lead down the road to renewed problems,' he said.

This social unrest in Egypt is the result of a world-wide inflationary policy. The poorer nations are feeling the effects now, later it will be the wealthier nations.