Forgotten Millions Still Matter

Divided families, dwindling finances, foreclosed homes, totally jobless – that’s what life has meant for millions of Americans from 2007 to today. Yet for the employed, especially politicians in Washington, not much has changed.

Turn on the TV news today and you see little about the jobless and underemployed – 13.7 million and 8.3 million Americans, respectively. It might be argued our leaders care more about the Mideast and the federal budget deficit.

The April edition of Reader’s Digest offers the ugly truth about the greatest economic collapse in United States since the Great Depression of the 1930s:

“More than half of all U.S. workers either lost their jobs or were forced to take cuts in hours or pay during the recession,’’ RD says. “The unluckiest suffered prolonged unemployment, bankruptcies, or foreclosures, which are now at 65-year highs.”

The icing on the cake, by way of New York Times Op-ed columnist Paul Krugman, is simply this:

“More than three years after we entered the worst economic slump since the 1930s, a strange and disturbing thing has happened to our political discourse: Washington has lost interest in the unemployed.

Difficult To Escape

“It might not be so bad if the jobless could expect to find new employment fairly soon, but unemployment has become a trap, one that’s very difficult to escape,’’ Krugman says.

“There are almost five times as many unemployed workers as there are job openings; the average unemployed worker has been jobless for 37 weeks, a post-World War II record.

Krugman, professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University, asserts our nation is well under way to creating “a permanent underclass of the jobless.”

How can that be?

Krugman, a Nobel Prize winner in economics, says part of the answer may be that the jobless tend to stay that way, and those who still have jobs are feeling more secure than they did a few years ago.

Layoffs and buyouts spiked during the crisis of 2008-09 but have fallen since then, perhaps reducing the sense of urgency, Krugman says.

The U.S. economy now suffers from low hiring, not high firing, so things don’t look so bad — as long as you’re willing to write off the unemployed and underemployed, according to Krugman.

Closer To Home

Take, for example, a former employer of mine, Gannett Co. Inc., the largest publicly owned newspaper publisher in America.

Under CEO Craig Dubow, GCI has eliminated 20,000 jobs since 2005 -- nearly four of every 10 employees, according to the Gannett Blog, an independent daily journal about the company.

It’s not a stretch to believe a good number of those former Gannett journalists remain unemployed or underemployed. And keep in mind this is just one of many industries slammed by the recession.

The Great Recession was a cold slap in the face for many of us who enjoyed the 1990s boom, when technology advances and soaring stock prices offered unlimited potential – even a hint of early retirement, or at least a secure one.

The Bitter Pill

Today’s reality is quite another matter. Even so, millions of unemployed and underemployed should not simply be written off because it’s politically convenient to have them fade from the spotlight.

For those among us who survived the recession relatively unscathed, good for you and your family!

But while you continue to enjoy the fruits of your labors, please take a moment to remember the less fortunate, your former co-workers.

Urge your elected officials to do the right thing by enacting a “real” jobs bill that puts people back to work permanently, not in some temporary make-work (pork) project.

Stealing some lyrics from the Police song, “Invisible Sun,” nobody should be relegated “to play the part of a statistic on a government chart” and why should they?

Let's all keep that in mind as we move forward and out of this mess, together.

Ken Cocuzzo

Men Battle Great Depression

While it may be true that women are at higher risk for depression than men, the pendulum may be swinging the other way, especially when seen through the prism of the Great Recession.

Men, especially those in middle age, got clobbered. Some found themselves without work for the first time in their adult lives. It was a shock to the system, from which many have yet to recover (and, sadly, some may never recover).

Men who worked hard for two or three decades, with no break in employment in their chosen profession, were tossed aside as the recession deepened and its lingering pain widened.

Employers, fighting for survival, dumped loyal and veteran male employees who found themselves suddenly unemployed and ill-prepared for the financial and emotional fallout. They were sucker-punched and saddled with piles of debt.

In some homes, women, for the first time, became the primary breadwinners for their families in a stark reversal of traditional gender roles.

Inside Your Head

With serious social and cultural changes, men appear to be at increasingly higher risk of developing depression, notes Dr. Boadie Dunlop of Emory University in Atlanta, in an editorial in the British Journal of Psychiatry.

When the psychiatrist began recruiting subjects for a depression study, he enlisted the help of local sports radio shows, and was surprised by the tremendous response he received — from men, reports Alice Park for Time.com.

“We were really impressed with the number of men coming in with depression related to employment or marital conflict,” Dunlop says.

Where Jobs Went

The Great Recession of recent years brought some of those issues to a head, he says, as downsizing and high unemployment highlighted the death of manufacturing and labor-intensive jobs, which have traditionally been held by men.

About 75 percent of the jobs lost in the downturn belonged to men.

Innovations in technology (think online news instead of print news), as well as outsourcing (think overseas TV set manufacturing) to countries where manual labor is less expensive, are compressing this sector, forcing more men than women out of work.

With men culturally shouldering the role of primary breadwinner for their families, unemployment hits men particularly hard, as their self-esteem, an important factor in depression risk, is often contingent on their role as provider.

Socially, Boadie says, despite many high profile cases of men admitting to depression, such as veteran broadcast journalist Mike Wallace (left) and actor, comedian, writer and film producer John Cleese, it's still difficult for most men to acknowledge feeling overwhelmed and out of control.

“To be depressed, to feel overwhelmed and not motivated to do things, are signs that have had the stigma attached to them of mental weakness,” Dunlop says. “And men traditionally have felt that they should just overcome them and snap out of it.”

Close To Home

It’s not reassuring to think the world has passed you by, especially if your career of three decades required you stay focused on breaking news.

As a veteran print journalist, my job was to report and edit the news, to be the eyes and ears for the public and provide an unbiased daily account of relevant and timely information.

But with the Great Recession, I found myself on the other side of the story and caught an economic riptide as the some of biggest newspapers in America, including my own, downsized practically overnight.

Journalism careers, mine included, ended abruptly and without any meaningful closure. I became a modern Rip Van Winkle, though I never slept. I merely blinked and suddenly what I did as a print journalist was no longer valued or wanted.

Did I take it personally? Yes, at first. But I later came to realize it’s all part of a natural order of things, regardless of your job or profession.

From My Notes

For the more fortunate among us, big trouble never really lands on the doorstep; it’s always the other guy who gets nailed. But for many of us, it never quite works that way.

My new attitude is simply this: Be prepared, flexible, and the best you can be at whatever you do – whether that’s mopping floors or signing big clients.

And, most important of all, never let your work define who you really are, what you bring to the table. That’s your call!

Ken Cocuzzo

Don’t Take My Pen Away!

Advances in technology often bring excitement, entertainment and engaging social connection into our daily lives. But there’s a dark side to dumping aging tech: the ever-higher consumer cost for new gadgets.

Surely you must have some of these dinosaurs: pre-recorded cassettes, CDs, vinyl albums, VHS tapes, computers running Windows XP (or earlier), “dumb cell phones” – the list goes to infinity and beyond (my apologies to Disney-Pixar's Buzz Lightyear).

Some of these things were thrown over the side simply because something newer, flashier and different came along. We may have grumbled while shelling out more dough for these “improvements,” but we did it anyway to stay ahead of the pack or keep up with neighbors, family and friends.

And what became of the old-tech items? Did we recycle them, or did they wind up taking valuable space inside our homes, where they were jammed into dark closets in hopes of one day re-emerging for use? Worse yet, they may have gone to the landfill.

Our options are narrowing by the day, and now cassettes have been officially consigned to the technology graveyard, where bulky analogue TVs were interred after sleek digital flat-screen TVs dazzled us.

The New York Times reports the 2010 Lexus SC 430 was the last model to offer a cassette deck as an option, writes Dick Eastman, who blogs on computers, technology and genealogy. (My last car with a cassette player was a 1996 Saturn).

For the 2011 model year, no manufacturer selling cars in the United States offers a tape player either as standard equipment or as an option on a new vehicle, according to the Times.

“Actually, CD players are also on the way out as they are being replaced with hard drives containing MP3 files as well as by MP3 players that connect via an external input jack,’’ Eastman says. “It is now cheaper and more practical to plug your iPod into the automobile's stereo system than to carry tapes or CDs.’’

I have tons of cassettes, CDs and vinyl records gathering dust in my house. As each was replaced by something else, I told myself I needed to keep up with the times and tech changes. But to whose benefit?

Putting aside durability, quality, and portability issues, there were practical considerations such as the cost of converting my favorite music from the earlier format to the new format.

Even if I found a cost-effective option for music transfer, how would I find enough time to sort through and “upgrade” vast collections?

Perhaps the greatest example of change for the sake of change is Microsoft’s Windows operating systems for PCs and laptops.

One can certainly say XP (three service packs later) is a much better system than the breakthrough Windows 95, but what about the crash-prone Millennium, dull as dishwater Vista, and now the non-compatible Windows 7?

We all understand the need for profits, but must we tolerate the greed that says you can sell consumers on the notion of tech improvements while offering only incremental advancements?

Let’s face it, most of us could continue on Windows XP if Microsoft chose to refine and improve the aging system still used by many homes and businesses.

But there’s no real incentive for the company; it can't make piles of money off previous technology. Microsoft, and its shareholders, would love it if we all dumped XP, like yesterday's newspaper (still read one?).

The sad fact of living in our tech-hungry consumer-based society is that new is not necessarily better, just more expensive and complicated. Like good writing, simplicity in tech is doable and desirable, just not always at the top of the product list.

Forgive me for cutting this post short: I have to look for a new ribbon cartridge for my electric typewriter – yes, I still have one, and it works!

Ken Cocuzzo

Tech May Melt Plastic Money

Even with more than 180 million credit card users in this country, there are major technology changes which could render plastic money less desirable if not obsolete, according to industry experts.

Apple reportedly is adding a new level of tech in its new iPhones and iPads that enables consumers to swipe their cell phone in front of a reader for purchases.

A Near Field Communication chip inside a phone would allow the device to be used this way. Apple would have direct access to your bank account, and the process would work the same as a debit card.

The new Apple tech, scheduled for release in April, could change the way consumers purchase retail goods. Even so, some forms of this tech are now available to consumers.

One app is in credit cards with PayPass, a feature that allows credit card owners to tap and pay, or have it on a keychain. PayPass was released in 2005 and companies, including McDonald’s, use the technology, but it’s still in the context of a credit card.

Also, there are some smartphones with NFC chips, such as Nokia’s C7, which debuted in late 2010.

Other Nokia phones also have the chips, but the software isn’t functional yet for consumers. When the software is released, you’ll be able to upgrade your phone.

State of Market

There are several apps right now which envision smartphones replacing old habits.

For example, you can now have your boarding pass on your smartphone instead of getting a hardcopy pass with your credit card when you arrive at the airport.

And Starbucks has a new app that enables you to purchase drinks using your smartphone instead of cash on your credit card.

NFC Tech Security

If you lose your smartphone, is there a way to freeze your account?

Apple can not only locate your phone through GPS, but it can shut down the application remotely.

Further, the user will need to have password protection to help prevent hacking into the phone’s files and other sensitive data.

Who Will Benefit?

If the NFC technology connects with the public, Apple will likely benefit the most since it will become the new middleman for banking and transactions.

Apple wouldn’t have to pay processing fees to other credit card companies, as it does now when you make an iTunes purchase.

How it will affect business owners?

They will have to purchase the device to accept payment through an iPhone (the same way businesses have to purchase the device that accepts PayPass).

So, while consumers may be onboard and ready to start using their iPhone and iPad for mobile transactions, they may be limited by how many businesses actually accept this form of payment.

Consumers will benefit because of ease of use.

When the iPad debuted, many people liked being ahead of the tech curve. Consumers also might see benefits and loyalty programs evolve because the phone would be a one-stop shopping hub.

No Perfect Solution

Someone can hack into your smartphone without you knowing it, and there’s also the risk of losing your phone and its sensitive data.

It’s possible some people will spend more by downloading music or other apps. They already have your credit card number, and charges of 99 cents can really add up.

What Lies Ahead

WMB doesn’t envision NFC tech as something consumers are going to adopt en masse.

We don’t see credit cards becoming obsolete. We view the new tech as just another and easier way for people to buy goods and services.

The tech, however, could evolve into the new norm, with credit cards serving a back-up role.

WMB also believes this new tech may be the prelude for electronic currency, a much more convenient method than traditional coin and paper.

TechMan

IBM: Tech May Change Us

While predicting the future is a risky business, many technological advances envisioned long ago are becoming today’s realities.

IBM, in a document called “Next Five in Five,” identifies technology innovations that could change the way people work, live, and play.

The innovations chosen for the recently released fifth annual list are based on two criteria:

Major trends emerging in society and the marketplace; tech under development at IBM laboratories, and technologies that have the potential to make innovations possible.

Here’s what IBM’s Next Five in Five sees on the horizon.

Better Batteries and Power Use

Advances in transistor and battery technology will allow electronic devices to last about 10 times longer than today. In some cases, it might be possible to eliminate batteries.

IBM is developing batteries that use the air to react with energy-dense metal. If perfected, the result is a battery that is lightweight, powerful and rechargeable.

Another possibility, according to IBM, is the possibility of battery-free electronic devices capable of being charged using a technique called energy scavenging.

In this process, simple physical movement is used to charge the device. To accomplish this, the amount of energy required by each transistor is reduced.

To this end, IBM is developing III-V semiconducting nanowires to stop “leaking” in the transistor’s off-state.

Display in 3D

As 3D and halographic cameras get more sophisticated and miniaturized, it’s becoming possible for people to interact with other people and with data in entirely new ways.

This is being enabled, in part, through the use of “telepresence.’’

The continuing explosion in the number of Internet-connected devices will possibly jam networks. In five years, network providers will develop new technologies to deliver 3D and other services.

Networked Sensors

Sensors will be in a vast array of devices. These sensors will be continually interrogating the environment.

It will be possible to wirelessly collect this data and analyze the environment in real time and in ways not currently possible.

Smart Commuting

Commuters will be able to quickly access personalized recommendations to help them get them where they want to go in the fastest time possible, according to IBM.

Transportation agencies and city planners will be able to proactively design, manage and optimize transportation systems capable of better handling ever-increasing traffic flow.

This new capability will be based on more than just monitoring data collected from sensors in vehicles, roads, toll booths, bridges and intersections, and from traffic reports and weather conditions.

IBM is developing new mathematical models and predictive analytic technologies.

They will serve to analyze all possible scenarios that can affect commuters and enable the development of adaptive traffic systems.

Such systems will teach traveler patterns and behaviors, and provide them with greatly improved real time safety and route information.

Waste Heat Management

Technological innovations will enable waste heat, currently dumped by computers into the atmosphere, to serve useful purposes.

To accomplish this, IBM is developing a novel network of microfluidic capillaries that attaches directly to each processor. The capillaries bring water to within microns of a chip.

By having water flow close to a chip, heat is efficiently removed. This ensures the processor operating temperature remains below the allowed minimum.

The removed heat can consequently be used to heat a building. This technology also serves to reduce the carbon footprint of the computer.

What We See

WMB believes each of these technologies has enormous potential, and we’re anxious to see how each evolves into direct benefits or indirect advances.

Doubts persist about predictions? Consider the longevity of Moore’s Law, first put forth by Gordon Moore in 1965.

Moore, co-founder of Intel, noted the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits had doubled every year since the integrated circuit was invented.

He predicted this trend would continue indefinitely.

Though the pace has slowed a bit, data density continues to double about every 18 months – the current definition of Moore's Law.

Time will tell on IBM’s Next Five in Five.

 TechMan

Paid Content Versus Free

Popular thinking in traditional print media, including newspapers, held that Internet users would opt for free over paid content. Who could disagree with that logic?

So, many papers gave away their content online while revenue from the print format shrank slowly until the recession years shifted the losses into hyper drive, with layoffs, buyouts and closures the end result.

But surprise: Nearly two-thirds of U.S. Internet users have paid to download or access online content such as music, movies or news articles, according to a survey.

The Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project found 65 percent of those surveyed said they paid to access or download some content, the global news agency afp.com reports.

The survey – which included phone interviews with 1,003 adults in the continental United States, of whom 755 are Internet users – offers hope for the Internet as an economic cash cow despite widespread belief that viewers only seek free content online.

A running debate between free and paid is what kept many papers (including my former employer, The Star-Ledger) from moving quickly toward a pay-wall system. The ancient print business model had no sections for an evolving digital format.

Still, the Wall Street Journal embraced the wall early on, and the New York Times is heading in that direction.

Today, even with your local paper, you might see a few graphs online before a screen prompt suggests you subscribe to receive the full story electronically. For many papers, regardless of size, the pay wall is now trending as a fact of life in a struggle for survival.

“The Internet has become a viable distribution channel for a variety of online content, especially in the era of broadband,” the Pew report said.

“The issue of people's willingness to pay for online material has enormous implications for media companies, artistic creators, and others who are hoping to sustain themselves – or grow new businesses – by raising revenues through online purchases.”

In the survey:

*33 percent of Internet users have paid for digital music online or software;
*21 percent for apps for cell phones or tablet computers;
*19 percent for digital games;
*18 percent for digital newspaper, magazine, or journal articles;
*16 percent for videos, movies, or TV shows;
*15 percent for ringtones.

“What was really surprising was that the percentage of Internet users purchasing online content is nearly the same as those purchasing other products and services, such as books and travel,” notes Jim Jansen, the author of the Pew Internet report.

From Where I Blog

As a veteran print/online journalist caught in the riptide of the Internet and the Great Recession, I find the survey’s results encouraging.

What it says is Internet viewers are discriminating consumers who recognize you sometimes have to pay for what you value as essential, regardless of the format.

If you offer quality content at a reasonable price, and back it with a solid reputation for accuracy, educated consumers will buy into your product, return to your website and spread the word.

In our consumer-driven society, it’s all about choices. For some folks it always will be just newspapers, for others a combination of print, TV and online news.

Consumer preferences will determine which formats flourish and which ones fade. The only certainty is change, and tech advances are rapidly reshaping the information landscape.

Consider this: Facebook started in 2004, the same year as the Google IPO, YouTube in 2005 and Twitter in 2006. None of these companies existed in 2000. Just imagine what we’ll see by 2020!

As for me, I practice what I preach at writenowworks.com. If you like this post, please share it.

ChinaWatch: Food, Autos, Tech

Welcome to ChinaWatch, WMB’s digest of news from the country with the world’s second largest economy. Click the links for more info.

What’s On Tap

The Chinese government plans to invest $30 billion in 2011 on water conservation projects, with the announcement made in the wake of Greenpeace report that China's food supply would be inadequate by 2030.

In 2010, China experienced widespread floods and draughts – and the net effect on the Chinese population was severe inflationary pressure on basic food prices.

Additionally, a recent report by Greenpeace concludes China's food supply “would be insufficient by 2030 and its overall food production could fall by 23 percent by 2050,” according to Digital Journal.

As the world's most populous country – more than 1.3 billion people – China has struggled to feed its people without assistance from other food producing nations.

China also faces challenges posed by desertification – as 20 percent of the nation's land mass is currently desert, according to the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. The desertification question is considered China's most important environmental concern.

“We have to accelerate the construction of water conservation facilities as one of the key infrastructures the country needs to secure increasing grain production,” water resources minister Chen Lei says.

Autos Drive Promotion

China will actively promote auto imports over the next five years to help the country restructure and upgrade its auto industry, an official from the Ministry of Commerce says.

Qian Jingfen, in charge of imports at the MOC's Industrial Department, told an auto imports forum in Beijing that the auto import-promotion strategy will be implemented from 2011 through 2015 via corresponding financial, taxation and trade policies.

Qian said China will encourage the imports of advanced auto equipment, key technologies and components of energy-saving and new-energy vehicles in the period, according to crienglish.com.

The MOC decided to transfer to provincial-level government departments its power of granting automatic import licensing of 16 auto components, including automotive chassis, brakes and drive axles beginning 2011.

China's auto sales in the first 11 months hit 16.4 million units and were expected to reach 18 million units this year, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

China overtook the United States last year to become the world's largest auto market by selling 13.65 million vehicles, up 46 percent year on year, while production that year jumped 48 percent to reach 13.79 million units.

Despite the auto sales surge in China, imports of completely built units account for less than 5 percent of market share as world's major automakers set up joint ventures with Chinese partners to satisfy the vast Chinese market.

Flexing Industrial Muscle?

China is targeting growth in industrial output of 11 percent next year, slowing from an expected 15 percent pace in 2010, the official Xinhua news agency reports, citing Li Yizhong, minister for industry and information technology.

Li also estimates that investment in industries under the ministry, including information technology, will rise 19 percent next year, according to Bloomberg News.

The MIIT is targeting a 4 percent reduction in energy consumption per unit of industrial output next year, reports say.

The ministry also aims for an average 10 percent growth in industrial output over the next five years, and a 16 percent cut in energy use and emissions per unit of output, Xinhua says.