Are we going to die from it?

I admit, that for a while I doubted that the recession was real. There is no point denying it, since I wrote about my doubts in this very blog. I thought that the media was feeding us stories about recession in order to make sure that a Democrat wins the upcoming presidential election. Well, the recession is very real, although I still believe that the media has a role in making it bigger than it actually would have been. A lot of what is going on is psychological, especially on the important level of consumer spending. Consider than in Michigan, one of the states most severely impacted by the recession, the unemployment is at 10 percent. That is about 4 percent more than the pre-recession level. However, the change in consumer spending is several orders of magnitude greater than the change in unemployment. A friend of mine told me that her business fell by 50 percent - this in relatively affluent Ann Arbor, which is faring much better than the rest of the state; in other places the predicament of small businesses is dire.

Since 95 percent of Michiganders did not see a change in their employment status, what accounts for this profound pullback? In large part, I think, this is fear, driven by the incessant barrage of bad news coming from the media. Having heard the phrase , "since the Great Depression" (as in: "The biggest drop in market capitalization since the Great Depression", "The worst holiday shopping season for retailers since the Great Depression", etc)  half a dozen times per day, an American consumer, like the groundhog, hides back in his lair, ensuring that winter will last longer than hoped. Not surprisingly, the fear of recession will make the recession worse.

Why do the media do that? Mostly it's because that's what the media is about: they cling to the idea that only bad news sells, so they'll whip it up for as long as they are able to get people's attention. If there are multiple ways to tell a story, and multiple angles from which to look at it - you can rest assured that the most frightening angle will be presented to the readers or viewers. I also suspect that the election plays some role still: having succeeded in getting Obama elected president, the jubilant media would like to ensure that any good news about the economy does not start coming while Bush is still in office, so that his "legacy" remains as dark as possible. After all, it is bad enough that the war in Iraq appears to be pointing toward success, so the public's attention must be driven away from that, and toward the bleak state of the economy. It will really be interesting to watch whether the tone in the media starts shifting toward more optimism in the later half of January... I do hope that it does, and not because it will prove my point, but primarily because it may help us heal. The media's role so far has been akin to a relative from hell visiting you while you are sick with a bad flu, and telling you stories about avian influenza, and how many people die of flu each year, and the complications you may end up with, and how you had infected many of your coworkers, so now everybody hates your guts, etc. Would it be nice if they told us, for a change, that everything will be alright, and that we've overcome much worse in the past? Is it too much to ask?

World to Israel: surrender, already!

Now that Israeli bombs started raining on Hamas in Gaza, the world has sprang into "action": there are condemnations, calls for a "ceasefire" from world leaders, even demonstrations (yes, in Europe, too - big surprise, huh?) in support of the Palestinians. The "world" had been conspicuously silent when Hamas were firing rockets into towns and villages in Israel. Never mind, that those rackets were clearly intended to hit anything and anybody: children, hospitals, schools, homes. Hamas did not even try to pretend, let alone make an actual effort, to aim at military targets. (Of course, the "world" understands that: after all, these are crude rockets, a far cry from the sophisticated weapons in Israel's possessions. The Palestinians can't be held to the same standard, can they? It's like when a maniac runs into a preschool while being chased by police, and starts swinging a chair. He cracks the skulls of a few kids, but then the police open fire trying to kill the guy, and a bullet hits a kid in the leg. Wouldn't you expect the maniac to walk free while the policeman would be dragged through courts and spend years in prison for shooting a child? That's a normal state of affairs in Western societies, the standard way of thinking about such things. )

Just like the US after September 11, Israel is making the grave mistake of responding to terror, of hitting back. That's when the paper-thin veneer of sympathy evaporates, replaced by outrage and by a steady stream of media interviews with assorted "experts", who tell us that this is only going to make matters worse. It will make the terrorists stronger, increase the anger in the muslim world, blah, blah, blah. What's the alternative? The experts don't really say, but one can guess that they would like to say, "Give in, do what they want, and hope for the best. The only way to deal with terrorists is to appease them. They will win, no matter what. Stop wasting your energy fighting them."

In the case of Isreal, giving Hamas what it wants means that the Jews would all have to pack and move out, leaving Isreal to Palestinians. What sane society would agree to follow that kind of advice? This is all the more infuriating that were the Palestinians to overrun Isreal and commit genocide, it would most likely draw only timid verbal condemnations from the world, mild in comaparison to the outrage generated were an Isreali plane to drop a bomb on a school in Gaza by mistake. Now we keep hearing complaints about a "disproportionate" response byIsreal. What would be the "proportionate" response? If the Israel fired rockets indiscrimantely into Gaza, without any pay attention to what they hit? Oh, this would be decried as a barbaric act, a medieval "eye for an eye", so unbecoming of a modern, democratic  state. In other words, no matter what you do, you are always in the wrong. Lesson: do what you think is right and don't give a damn about the world's opinion.

Dis-service

It is shocking how much the culture of customer service has deteriorated in some industries in just a decade or so. Sure, the recorded voice will tell you, "Your call is important to us", while placing you on hold, and the person at the other end (once you get connected to a real person) will apologize for the inconvenience you experienced, but in many cases it is just a veneer on a very rotten material. Not in all cases, because there are still examples of great service: recently I had a problem with Amazon.com's website and called the phone number for help. The recording told me that no representatives were currently available and asked me to leave a phone number, so that they could call me back. I did leave a number and a few minutes later received a phone call from a person who then proceeded to resolve my problem. It truly was a very positive experience.

Airlines, on the other hand... My very recent trip was a reminder of why I started to hate flying. From an exciting and somewhat exhilarating experience, flying has transmogrified into this experiment in how much humiliation and bad service can customers endure. For starters, I was shocked to discover that the airline I fly the most is now charging $15 per checked-in bag! I was not warned about that (my last flight had been in June) when I purchased the tickets online. Had I known, I would have packed smaller toiletries and avoided the 5 oz rule. At the airport I was facing the choice between throwing out my toothpaste, deodorant, and a couple other things, or paying the $15. I chose the latter, although mad as hell.

I don't even want to mention this humiliating circus of taking off your shoes, pulling out your laptop, putting all your toiletries into a quart-size ziploc bag, etc. You can't really blame it on the airlines - it was a bunch of mass-murdering fanatics plus an overreacting government, whom we got to thank for this. However, was I really naive to think that maybe these 15 bucks, plus the fact that more people would now try to squeeze their luggage as carry-on, would result in shorter waiting at the carousel?  Yes, I was very naive. So, the airlines decided to start taking more of our money, without giving us more in return?Interesting.

There is also this not-so-new idea of no longer serving food on flights, but instead, selling boxes of junk food. At first they were still giving away these tiny bags of pretzels, but that apparently proved too expensive, so no pretzels or peanuts for you, unless you pay $5. Next step - and I'm sure it is coming - charging a buck or two for the sodas. This is going to be a tad problematic, because we've been told that it is crucial to drink enough liquids during long flights, so initially they will get away with this by offering bad tasting water for free. However, that will soon be taken away and you, "our valued passenger", will be on your own.

When I think about it, it is not a terrible idea per se, this charging for everything separately. If I don't like airline "food", why include it in the ticket price? Same with hotels: I don't watch TV, so I actually would be grateful if they took it out of my bill.  What I don't like is the sneaky, arrogant way they are doing it. If you fly only a few time a year, like I do, you're going to be shocked by increasing cost and deteriorating service. It's like seeing a patient with incurable, slow-growth cancer every couple of weeks - each time you are shocked by how much he changed.

I know, the times when people dressed up before a flight, when the smiling stewardess brought you food and goodies, and real silverware, are not coming back. But how about bringing back some dignity and choice? If they don't want to offer free food, maybe they can sell decent meals instead of these horrible packages of junk? Let me buy a salad, but don't price it at $25 a bowl, please.

What about leg room? I obviously can't aford (or I am not stupid enough) to pay the horrendous prices for 1st class tickets, but I would probably pay reasonable amount for a little bit more space, so that I don't feel like a sardine in a can for 4 or 8 hours. How is this possible that in a country as entrepreneurial and competitive as ours, nobody has yet come up with an idea to beat the airlines at customers service? It's gotten so bad, that I would not really take a lot. Not even real silverware.

Tipping point

I'm out of town, staying in a hotel, eating out, and so once again I'm confronting the issue of tips. There is something about this convoluted scheme of handing out "gratuities" to some people that irks me. Now, I'm not a bad tipper. I usually give more that 15% in restaurants, and leave 2-3 per day for cleaning my hotel room. I'm kind of used to it, so it doesn't irritate me very much, although it's the whole idea I'm really against. First of all: why do we tip some people, and not others? Is it because they provide "direct service" to us, like the waiter who interrupts my meal three times asking cheerfully, "How's everything?", and refilling my Diet Coke, event though I never asked for it and still have three quarters of it left? Well, how about that kid in the store, who bags groceries and wishes everyone a good day? As far as I know, nobody's giving him tips...

Is it becuase they have such lousy wages that we have to give them tips, so that they can make ends meet? There is some thruth to it, of course. I worked as a waiter myself, and the salary I drew was about half the minimum wage. The tips more than made up for it. But heck, if we did not tip the waiters, the restaurant owners would have to pay them better wages, not? I know that many waiters would not like it, becuase some are taking home pretty good wages in those tips, most of those tax-free.

Again, what about other people who are gettig shitty wages, like security guards or supermarket cashiers? Why are the waiters, taxi drivers, and hotel maids more deserving of our generocity? Or is this becuase in our egalitarian society we now consider the act of serving us, taking our hair out of the shower drains, making our beds, wiping our tables, bringing our food, somewhat demeaning? And the tip is supposed to take the edge off our guilt somewhat? But aren't there other, even more "demeaning" jobs that are not to receive gratuities?  Say, the lady at the cleaner's, who takes our sweaty, smelly shirts to wash and iron them?

I can't see good logic behind it, and so it irritates me, like one more annoying social convention without merit. I frankly try to avoid places and situations where I might be expected to tip. For eating out, I prefer the self-serve places, where you order and pay at the counter. Some of them are actually nicer than many restaurants, like the Wildflower Bread Company I found in Sedona, AZ. However, and this pisses me off to no end, in many of thes places you can spot jars with a label "Tips" at the counter. (Some try to look lighthearted with their "Feeling tipsy?" labels, and those are especially annoying. What, you put a shot of whiskey in my coffee??) This is really no different than panhandling, except that it happens indoors. What am I supposed to tip for? I will stand in the damn line, will pay for the coffee myself, will take it to my table, will put sugar and cream in it, will put the cup in the wastebasked when finished... Hell, maybe I should get a tip for all this serving I'll do??

I don't mind paying for things, even giving money away for charitable causes, but this tipping charade I'd much rather do without.

Quote of the month

"I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views." - Barack Obama, presidential candidate 2008. Could he really be that honest?

Fearmongers

How long we have been subjected to the incessant talk about recession? A year? More? I have this unfortunate habit of listening to NPR in the morning, while eating breakfast, and then at dinnertime, so I have had plenty of exposure to the not-so-subtle message that we should all be very afraid. They have been laying it pretty thick, really. They've brought in economists, who confirmed time and again that things are so bad, they hadn't seen it that bad in their lifetimes... If it's not a recession yet, it's for sure just around the corner. Heck, they've been feeding us stories about the Great Depression! (So it's not about Recession anymore... It's the Great Depression we're staring in the face!)

What's with this fear-mongering? I know that the US economy is not doing great at the moment, and that the housing crisis is very real. But why do I hear glee in the voices of NPR reporters emphasizing the negative? Whenever there is good economic news, it's always followed by "but.." or "however..." It's approching parody, like the recent headline that read: "Gas prices are falling and why this not such a good thing." Sweet Jesus! We've been talked to ad nauseam about how the high price of gas is straining the economy, with SUVs clogging the dealearships, carmakers laying off workers, food prices going up, etc, etc. Now, when the oil prices seem to be showing a downward trend, we ought to be worrying that it is not a good thing after all! What the bloody hell?

The naive explanation is that "good news is no news" and that the media simply has to feed on bad news, and if there isn't any, it'll create it. However, I think that there is a deeper layer to it, and his name is Barack Obama. The media is so invested in having him win the presidency that it uses all tricks at its disposal to promote his candidacy, short of telling us straight to vote for him. I'm certain the talk of recession is a part of it. The more we're scared, the more we will be willing to embrace the "change" Obama is promising. There is very little doubt in my mind that, should he win, the word "recession" will quickly disappear from the media's coverage of the economy.

There is a precedent: remember the 1992 election, when George Bush the Elder was defeated with "It's the ecomomy, stupid!"? Back then the media whipped up the bad news about the economy, to almost immediately change its tune after Clinton's victory. It's as if the election magically cured whatever was ailing the US stock market. It's the same screenbook, different actors.

However, I do wonder if they are not going to overplay their hand this time. I can't be the only one who's noticing the pattern here. And there is also a different pattern that manifested itself in past elections: the media thinks that the American electorate is stupid and can be easily manipulated. Yet time and again they've been proven wrong on that score. I'm fairly positive it will repeat itself as well. Unlike the media, I have quite a bit of trust in the voting public.

Evil DRM

I have always believed in paying artists for their work. This included, of course, music. Except for a short-lived "lets give it a try and see what the fuss is about", I did not participate in peer-to-peer sharing. Early on I signed up for the subscription-based Musicmatch, and was pretty happy with it, occasionally buying songs and creating compilations for listening in my car. Obviously, I did not expect that I will end up feeling like a total sucker, thanks to that evil scheme that must have been concocted in the devil's head: DRM (Digital Rights Management).

I had misgivings about it from the very beginning; initially. Musicmatch restricted transfer of purchased songs to a limited number of instances (5 or 7 in a lifetime, if I remember correctly). I was not planning to buy an MP3 player any time soon, but I had a laptop and a desktop, which I used to replace every 2-3 years. This meant that only after two replacement cycles I would no longer be able to transfer my music to new machines. What then? Luckily, this was amended later and I could only have 3 "active" devices at any time, but I could "deactivate" a device, and transfer purchased songs to a new one. This looked like I could keep moving the music I owned from one computer to another for as long as I lived.

I had no idea that the licenses for my songs were tied to the service I bought it from: Musicmatch. So when Musicmatch was acquired by Yahoo!, I faced the real prospect of losing the ability to transfer my songs, unless I agreed to move to the new service, which would then continue to provide the licenses. I did move and for a while everything seemed fine, except that every now and then the DRM system used by Yahoo! would stop recognizing my ownership of certain tracks and would force me to re-license them. This was but the first circle of the DRM hell...

A few days ago I found out that 40 of my songs were no longer showing as licensed... My attemtp to re-license them produced errors that Musicmatch was no longer available... This, many months after I transfered my subscription to Yahoo! and all my songs to their DRM system.  What the bloody hell?? When I contacted Yahoo! customer service, the answer I received was that since these songs had been purchased from Musicmatch, they could no longer help me with licensing... Musicmatch no longer existed.

Well, I knew that! So I argued that I transferred to Yahoo! and expected Yahoo! to provide licenses for these songs, as I had been promised. This generated a response that "it does not matter where you transferred them. It only matters that they were purchased from Musicmatch". This is just too f..d up to comprehend! Imagine buying a CD from your local music store. This CD will play only for as long as that store remains in business. A new chain takes over the store and agrees to keep allowing you to play the CD, if you continue to buy music from them. Then, one day, you still have your CD in pristine condition, but it stops playing. You complain and hear, "Sorry, but you bought this CD from someone else. Can't help you".  If that's not getting screwed, I don't know what is...

So I feel like a total idiot for being honest and law-abiding, and getting suckered into the game of Let's Screw the Loyal Music Fans Who Actually Want to Pay Us Money. Would you buy a CD, whose playback depended on the existence of the store you bough it from? Or a car that runs only for as long as the dealer that sold it to you is still in business? You would not even consider such a deal, beacuse that would not be a deal, that would be a con. And that's exactly what was done to me (and countless other): we were conned. 

Now Yahoo! is getting out of the music business and offering its customers transfer to Rhapsody. I'm afraid that this will just push me deeper into the DRM hell, so I think I will decline. Should I reconsider my decision not to be a part of "illegal" sharing?  Well, if the "legal" side of this business means that I'm getting robbed at will, then I think the answer to that is not as simple as I thought it to be.