Steve Jobs And The Death Of America


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The Economist looks at the tragic death of Steve Jobs at the age of 56 and sees a reminder of America's broader decline.

Steve Jobs and Apple, of course, represent everything that is still awesome about America. 

Three decades ago, Apple was the project of a college dropout in a garage. Now it's an amazing global corporation that makes products beloved the world around, employs 75,000 people, and is, literally, changing the world.

America needs more success stories like Apple and Steve. But given how the world has changed in the past half-century, they won't be enough to restore the country's economy to its former greatness.

American innovators like Apple and Steve still design some of the world's most amazing products. And, yes, (some of) their employees and their shareholders get rich in the process.

But as the text on the back of the Economist writer's iPod observes—“Designed by Apple in California, Assembled in China—many of these products are actually made elsewhere.

And to those involved in the products' design and the ownership, this seems fine: Keep and own the most valuable part of the production process and let poor Chinese and others do the less-valuable manual work necessary to make them.

But as America as a whole has learned, there's a problem with this:

What you get when you take the process to its natural conclusion is an America composed of a handful of super-wealthy entrepreneurs and investors and hundreds of millions of others who can't afford to buy the products they make.

Yes, vast wealth and profit has been created in recent years by amazing American success stories like Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook. Some of the wealth these companies have created has also been shared by their employees. But, as the Economist notes, these companies together employ only 113,000 people. This is a third of the number that a single American company, GM, employed back in 1980.

Meanwhile, America's largest employer, Walmart, which employs more than 1% of working American adults, pays most of these folks about $8-$12 an hour. And those folks, of course, are lucky to have jobs: With the unemployment rate where it is, many Americans are no longer working at all (And some of them live in tent cities). Most of these folks, needless to say—Walmart associates and homeless, alike—cannot afford to buy the iPhones produced by America's most valuable and remarkable company.

In recent years, inequality in America has hit levels that have only been seen once in the history of the country—at the end of the 1920s, on the eve of the Great Depression. Some American entrepreneurs and investors are coining money, but this success is not being shared by the rest of the country, in which 46 million people use food stamps and unemployment is still over 9%.

You can't blame Apple for "offshoring," obviously: Apple is a global company, and we now live in a global economy. If iPhones and iPads had to be made in America, almost no one would be able to afford to buy them. And there's no easy fix here. But it's no surprise that so many Americans are frustrated.

In recent weeks, frustration about this state of affairs has turned into protests like Occupy Wall Street. And unless America takes steps to fix this problem, one imagines that these protests are only the beginning

SEE ALSO: 15 Mind-Blowing Facts About Wealth And Income Inequality In America

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/lejYvgUEk3M/the-death-of-steve-jobs-as-a-symbol-of-americas-decline-2011-10

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Why Choose Loans For People With Bad Credit

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With the cost of living increasing by the day more and more people are finding themselves in bad credit situations and this can put us under great amounts of stress. The great thing about today's financial world is that unlike years ago when if you had a bad credit rating companies would leave you to suffer and not offer a helping hand, there are now many companies offering us various financial solutions to get us back on track, and this is where loans for people with bad credit can be in your favor...

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The Million Dollar Mystery

NFL stands for "not for long." The average player lasts only 3.7 years in the league. So if a player lasts four years and makes the minimum salary?with the minimum increasing for each year of service?he can expect to make nearly $2 million. Two million dollars!

The median salary for an NFL player is $900,000. And according to Yahoo, some people estimate that 80% of players have used all their money by the time they retire.

Within the last 10 years, current and former NFL stars such as Michael Vick, Deuce McAllister, Mark Brunell, Lawrence Taylor and Travis Henry filed for bankruptcy.

So how does this happen? How can someone blow that much money in that short amount of time?

It's pretty simple, really. Athletes blow money the same way the rest of America blows money! There's no difference!

Sure, they have more to burn through. But what's the difference between a guy who is spending $50,000 a year on a $40,000 income and the guy who is spending $500,000 a year on a $400,000 income? Neither one has any clue how to make a plan for his money!

Too many Americans work their whole lives and have nothing but a Mastercard, student loan, and car payment to show for it. That's stupid!

Maybe you think, Well they are just dumb football players. But some of those football players are smarter than some of us ever thought about being. They had a goal and purpose for their lives?to reach the pinnacle of their profession, the NFL. So we can fuss at them for squandering it all away. But, honestly, a lot of us do the exact same thing.

So before you wag a finger at athletes for burning through millions, take a look at your finances. Turn the spotlight around on yourself and determine if you have flaws in your financial gameplan.

It all starts with common sense?not buying a car you can?t afford, not getting in over your head with a tricked-up mortgage, not piling up debt on credit cards.

It doesn?t make sense to work your butt off your entire life and retire broke. Professional athletes have no excuse for it, and neither do you.

Make a plan, stick to it, and get your life on track financially!

Read about how one former professional athlete made smart decisions with his money and is still reaping the benefits.

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Source: http://www.daveramsey.com/article/the-million-dollar-mystery/lifeandmoney_budgeting

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