It's fine to work yourself into a lather over the antics of one political subgroup but both parties are avoiding the titanic problems of America in decline. Today: the shrinking middle class. As my partner said during our dinner discussions, Americans are going to have a lower standard of living.
Though they are nothing compared to the cratering of education, the environment, and health care, two bellwethers are the steep drops in book buying and moviegoing. In 2011, North American audiences bought only 1.28 billion movie tickets, the smallest number since 1995's 1.21 billion. (It's worse, because the combined US + Canadian population has grown by 55,000,000 people.) You might say smaller box office leads to increased rentals but for millions of viewers on flat-rate plans like Netflix, more renting does not generate more money.
Even with BookScan, the adorably old-fashioned publishing industry has no idea how many books were sold in 2011. The most recent figures available end with October, when year-to-date total sales were down 18% for adult hardcovers, down 16% for adult paperbacks, and down 33% for mass market paperbacks. The 131% increase in e-book sales does not erase the physical book losses.
One thing that isn't declining in America, CEO pay rose 27% to 40%.
If you're interested in trenchant analysis of the current/coming crisis, consider Morris Berman's Why America Failed: The Roots of Imperial Decline [Kindle
Once again, my fine feathered BandofThebes I am going to take you to task for including only the Kindle link to ebooks, as I believe that Amazon is part of the problem. Here is why I choose to support Barnes & Noble Nook books (other than B&N being a past employer): first and most importantly, sales of Nooks and Nook Books help keep open the doors of the B&N physical bookstores through helping the company remain viable; when a Nook ereader is in a physical B&N store, one can read any B&N ebook for up to 1 hour per sitting, with no limit to the number of books one can read. The Nook will even keep your ebookmark for future sittings. This helps to draw customers into a physical bookstore and encourages wide-ranging browsing and reading, and there is nothing like being in a bookstore (or library) to foster book-reading habits; Nook users can also lend books to other Nook users, encouraging sharing of finds and tastes - one is more likely to read a book, oh writer-of-blogs, if someone you know and/or trust has recommended that book, which of course leads to further book reading. Amazon has gone down another path, where they actually reward their customers for not buying in a physical store and possibly even more damaging to retailing using their customers to collect data on competitors http://www.pcworld.com/article/245584/amazon_will_pay_customers_to_skip_brickandmortar_stores.html
By all means continue to supply the Kindle link to books you are mentioning, recommending or reviewing, but supply the B&N link, too.
Posted by: Steve N | January 05, 2012 at 11:42 AM