Just a few musings, here, I'm not going to link articles or anything.
Re: the "Me" generation, which one are we talking about? Reason for me to ask is that I generally understood Baby Boomers (so-called) were perceived as such. Yet, people in their twenties, for who marketers are trying to find a name (I heard them called the Echo generation. Why? Because they drive Toyota Echo(es)? I've no idea) have been described as even more self-centered.
The apple in their parents' eyes, coming up in a time of children worship.
Interestingly, on the political end, polls have consistently shown young folks in the US to be firmly behind the invasion of Iraq. Older people weren't so swayed.
What's the disconnect?
Maybe the draft had something to do with it, I don't know. But it'd be interesting to see what effect a reinstatement of the draft would have on the Echo(es)' stance on US foreign policy. I don't think we're close to that, however.
The fact is, we have a definite problem with critical thinking, with analytical thinking in this country. I'll get to the original topic of discussion in a bit.
I think I'll use the company I used to work for until two weeks ago as an example. First, one of the main criticisms aimed at Bush's foreign policy has been decisions based on 'beliefs': that US troops would be welcome as liberators, that Iraq could be 'freed' and secured with less than 200.000 US troops and 30.000 allies, that Saddam Hussein HAD those weapons, etc.
Call it wishful thinking, unwarranted optimism, whatever.
My point is American business to an extent suffers from the same thing.
The company I worked for in financial services managed a little over $1 trillion in assets as of the end of 2000.
They (particularly the CEO) decided to expand by purchasing companies established in other markets. This at a time when the so-called internet bubble was already busting.
They continued this 'strategy' until late last year, and at very great cost.
Some of the newly acquired companies have had to be sold at a loss, and revenues dropped by 80% in just one year.
So the company is now 'restructuring' itself, the CEO, who until last year kept saying the economy was picking up steam and going strong while selling his stock like a madman, has now been fired.
Culture...
It's a word that's commonly used in business, the corporate culture, the culture of a company, their values...
Well as you know, when a Western employee has to train his/her replacement from India or China, whatever, he/she has to take mandatory 'cultural sensitivity' classes to ease the transition.
I'm not sure why: those guys drink beer in titty bars just like we do, but anyway...
Take two companies, an up and coming 25 year old company and an older, well established 150 year old company on either coast of the US.
The 25 year old company purchases the older company and proceeds to merge their culture by having the board members play a life-size game of hopscotch cum monopoly, wearing colored shirts as if on a playground in preschool.
Ain't this fun? A lot of them didn't think so, and those who didn't quit started working at separating the two. Right off the bat.
Innovation...
With all those security concerns, student visas are a very long and difficult process. If, say, we lose 100.000 potential students to another less restrictive country, the next Big Idea(s) will be lost to us.
That's part of the economic dimension of the War on Terror (so-called).
Our advantage is crumbling.
The bottom line is I think we (collectively in the US) either cannot or resist seeing issues and planning for them well before we're bitten by them. The economy depends on the movement of money.
Contrary to other countries were people tend to hoard their money, Americans believe that circulating it creates wealth. Which it does, but for a handful only.
That's how we 'missed' Al Qaeda's true threat. Until it grew from a $50 million to a $50 billion threat, we didn't truly see it.
As for politicos, they don't see much past the November 2 election. Hell that's pretty much all they've been
really working on for the last two years.
