Showing posts with label Free Enterprise Good or Bad?. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Free Enterprise Good or Bad?. Show all posts

Sunday, 20 August 2023

Technology now Displacing Entertainment Writers. Who is next?

Another Case of the Rich Getting Richer

I was just catching up on some of the details behind the writer's strike in an article by Todd Holmes. See below if you are interested ++.

Quite honestly I really don't have a lot of sympathy for the business side of Hollywood. In my opinion actors, producers / directors, studios, and celebrities in general have always been overpaid for what they do. Some so-called celebrities have essentially done nothing but indulge in porn, get "caught" on video, and then make millions from it. Others became celebrities merely spreading gossip about other celebrities.

However none of it would happen without the creativity of writers. I suspect their future is dim. The same thing happened in the music industry. Studios made fortunes on the talent behind the music - writers, vocalists, and instrumentalists - for decades. In the end, just as they are doing with movies and TV, studios turned to streaming content. Royalties began to plummet.

I interpret this as just another example of owners trying to make more profit through technology, automation, and now A. I. Welcome to free enterprise. It should be called "unbridled exploitation." The rich have always gotten richer on the backs of the poor whose poverty then increases.

We have been exploited by: the oil industry; the pharmaceutical industry; the gun industry; the real estate industry; the fashion industry; or the food industry to name a few? Notice the consistent use of the word "industry." As an adjective, industrious means hard working. Hard work is supposed to result in reward - for the hard workers. Too often it does not.

You would expect people at the top to be clever enough to realize that the energy which keeps enterprises and obscene incomes thriving is jobs and workers. If these continue to disappear who will buy the goods and services? Who will fill the stadiums and theatres or purchase new vehicles?

My immediate conclusion has to be that those at the highest levels - the "haves" - just don't care. Bigger profits mean bigger executive salaries, They have enough money to live wonderful lives until they die and then it is no longer their problem.

Average people do not push back enough - myself included. We take the increases and the job losses. There are things we can do about prices (not so sure about job loss). After all if a company can make something cheaper they can sell it cheaper. They just don't. Shareholder and executive incomes increase instead.

Over and over we keep watching the movies. We keep attending the sports events. We keep idolizing the celebrities on screens, fields, and rinks. We keep buying the clothes, the fuel, the phones, the large TVs etc. We are guilty of APATHY.

For one or two weeks we could car pool and take public transit - however inconvenient that is. Then watch the drop in gas prices. We could refuse to go to any live sports event. Then watch the ticket prices fall. We could keep our current phones, TVs, and cars that are still perfectly functional. Then watch the new item prices fall. We could vacation at home; put alcohol consumption on hold; put meat consumption on hold etc.

But we don't and corporations know it.

History is the great teacher. Nations and societies have been destroyed when the masses were forced to take matters into their own hands just to live. We are headed there. Smash and grabs and other forms of violence are one small indication that it is already happening. People are living in the street. Food banks have become the norm. Very few can afford a home or even rent.

Are there any avenues of hope? Perhaps a few.

1. Many should forget general college or university degrees unless they are targeting a particular profession. There will always be a lot of high income jobs in the trades. What is more important, status or a job? The wealthy will always need you to fix or renovate their homes. Natural disasters mean thousands of homes and infrastructures must be re-built.

2. With the environment becoming so destructive, there should be a ton of jobs as we fight it by electrifying the economy, in particular the car industry. Obsolete industries will require years of effort to be shut down cleanly and permanently.

3. Nurses and teachers are in very short supply. The pay is good.

4. Think about history. Gas engines virtually obsoleted steam engines and the horse and carriage trade but the new industry employed millions of people. FM radio replaced AM and thrived. Jetliners replaced most propeller commercial aircraft and created a new industry. Cell phones have almost totally replaced land lines. Somehow society managed to continue.

As a final thought, necessity is the mother of invention. People should consider a business themselves. Find something you enjoy doing and do it. There are very few employers upon whom to rely. They will use you and dispose of you.

You could always write a blog but I haven't made a dime.

#thebrewsterblock

Sunday, 21 May 2023

Self-destruction of Free Enterprise

 How long will Capitalism last?

If you read the title or heading of this post and then Google any similar phrase you will find how difficult it is for a blog like this to compete for readers. The search engine(s) discover hundreds of millions and sometimes billions of hits on similar topics.

It seems safe to conclude however that there is a clear divide here. You are either a pure unfettered Capitalist who exists to attain as much wealth as possible with zero regard for consequences, or you are a "Socialist" - especially in America. 

Later I will reference an interesting and eye opening article by John Horgan in Scientific American on the same topic. Although it and the documentary it features are frightening, they also require some reading. That is a big problem which I continually face. Today's average citizen no longer wants to read more than a Tweet. They want funny entertaining platforms like TikTok or Instagram. This topic is too big for a Tweet. Most will probably leave this post before the end but I hope you read on.

Trends are indicating that Free Enterprise Capitalism as we know it will self-destruct. It will happen right under our noses because those who are most negatively affected are too apathetic to take action. As well the very wealthy who control politicians will use all of their wealth to preserve the status quo. They will be long dead when any apocalypse occurs. Remember the phrase "History repeats itself!"

There have been many great revolutions depending upon how you define them:
Russia 1917 - 1923; French 1789 - 1799; American 1785 - 1783; Mexican 1910 - 1920; Spanish 1936 - 1939; Chinese 1949 - present day; Greek 1821 - 1829; Cuba 1953 - 1959. Some empires like the Roman and Greek and many dynasties lasted for centuries. Look at those dates - this has been happening for a very long time, not one or two generations.

One thing to notice with all of these is that the common people - the workers and have nots finally had enough. Death became a risk worth taking for their descendants and to finally punish those who had all the wealth and kept it for themselves. Another thing to note is that none of this happened overnight - it took many years of battle and carnage. T
oday I fear that those years are not far away .

I could cite the Industrial Revolution as the worst of all. Despite the comforts it has given many modern societies, others still struggle to merely survive. Once more, a few at the top have learned how to use industrialization to become obscenely rich, despite what it has done to our physical world and its environment. Also remember that after the environment declines to the point that most of us will not survive - and it will - the rich will prevail. They can afford to move and to buy or simply take the necessities of life from the rest of us.

So is there any hope? We have two choices.

1) Some will attempt to repeat history through a violent revolution. In America, why do you think so many want to keep their assault rifles - to shoot ducks?

2) The rest of us have to get off our asses, do the research, and vote. Start watching and reading something meaningful for a change. TikTok and Instagram are not going to fix this. YOU have to vote out the bad guys and vote in the good ones. This is the one thing missing in most of those eras mentioned above - the people didn't HAVE a vote.

Stop wasting yours.

#thebrewserblock

PS: Here is a link to that article, It mentions a documentary on Netflix that I will certainly watch. You should as well.