Speaking Of Disruption

I now charge my iPhone and iPad with the same cable.

Don't ask me what I'm supposed to do with all my old Lightning cables, but that's exactly the point, the EU was concerned about waste and mandated the use of USB-C. It's convenient. I only need to bring one charger on the road.

Which brings us back to today's big news, of the EU fining Apple for its App Store rules. I don't want to get into the merits of the case, but I will say for the past two decades it's been the EU standing up to corporations, looking out for the little guy, which is you, in case you didn't know. This is very unlike the U.S., where antitrust laws are bandied about but rarely enforced. Furthermore, the new antitrust majordomo, Lina Khan, is depicted as a laughable pariah for constantly trying to stop corporate behavior and mergers. Even though she's the most experienced person to hold this job in eons. Doesn't she know, in the U.S. you get to do what you want, you can't stand in the way of "progress"?

Then again, we live in a country where many want the IRS hobbled, which is like cutting the police force if you want to reduce crime. You can't complain about the national debt and tell the nation's big revenue producer that it should do its job with ancient PCs and untrained workers while at the same time cutting the rich slack.

But ain't that America. What is practical, what we see with our own eyes, is denied.

A story starts to build to the point where many accept it as truth, and then the nation falls behind further.

Like electric cars. After a cold winter with charging issues (and the devil is in the details, it was not as bad as depicted, most people were unfamiliar with charging techniques and non-Tesla charging infrastructure has been abysmal) there's been an endless drumbeat in the media how people don't want electric cars, how they're a failure. GM and Ford are pulling back.

That'll show the lefties who believe you can legislate desire. The people don't want those damn electric cars, so there! If you buy one you're a chump.

But that just means you're not paying attention to China.

All this bloviation about America First is not only about defense. China is now an electric car juggernaut, even Tesla has trouble competing. As for price...electric cars are cheaper than gasoline ones! And new models are released in as little as a year. Because the Chinese manufacturers threw out the rulebook, they're not doing it like the Americans or the Europeans. They're modeling automobiles virtually. Furthermore, they're installing more chips than cars need and filling them with over-the-air updates after the cars are produced, shipped and purchased. The Chinese know new cars are all about software, whereas in the U.S. it's about how big your SUV is, to enhance your macho, come on, the truckmania in the U.S. has always been about the size of your penis. Look at all the men who have their wives driving monstrosities during the week so they can tool around in them on the weekends and parade as big swinging dicks.

Ain't that America, it's all about fashion, not the nuts and bolts, the building blocks. Hell, you're gonna be a sports star, an entertainer... A fiction sold to the underclass that is always being screwed.

But in China they know it's about what's on the inside. Sure, the exterior is fashionable but cars have flipped, they're becoming less like fashion statements and more utilitarian. What's the difference between all those Model 3 and Y's? They all look the same to the outside observer, it's what inside that counts. Kind of like your smartphone... Most people can't even tell if you've got the latest model or one five years old. They look the same, it's just what's inside that counts.

So in today's "Wall Street Journal," there's an article about the Chinese electric car juggernaut:

"How China Is Churning Out EVs Faster Than Everyone Else - Once laggards, Chinese carmakers are stirring envy—and fear—in the global auto industry": https://shorturl.at/fiCO1

That's a free link and you should read the article, it's much more informative than TikTok, never mind "Billboard."

You see life is about where you're going, or as Wayne Gretzky so famously put it, "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been."

But in so many walks of American life, people are skating to where the puck has already been. Like this fiction that we can return to the not so great to begin with 1950's. Time only marches forward, those who try to hold back progress are ultimately left behind. Hell, we no longer live in an overwhelmingly white country, own it, don't protest against it.

Yes, America is great in so many ways. But in so many other ways it is falling behind. Just like our do-nothing Congress, that can't agree to pay for money already spent, that can't agree on almost anything and therefore achieves almost nothing, our systems are gummed-up. Except for some technology companies leapfrogging society unchecked because the government can't understand what they're doing.

But this doesn't stop the EU, it gets its hands dirty, it just doesn't hold grandstanding hearings that have no ultimate effect.

And speaking of where the puck has been... That's the essence of today's American music business. Formulaic. Still geared towards terrestrial radio. As if nothing has changed since 1995.

It's an American mind-set I tell you, we've gone from an innovative, can-do culture to one stuck in the mud. Progress is abhorred because someone might lose their job. Hell, in law school they teach you how to think and analyze, because the laws themselves always change.

And I haven't practiced law in decades. But my father was right, it was a good background, especially when Napster came along.

But today you go to a law school that fudges statistics to entice you to attend, saying there are more high-paying jobs than truly exist, so you end up with debt you can't pay.

Things changed. If you're thinking of going to law school today... Don't, unless your parents are paying, only if you can graduate debt-free.

People think they have a job for life, that nothing can change.

Tell that to the supposed Big Three of yore, who were skating along in a dominant position until the Japanese came along and ate their lunch. First Japanese cars were a joke, now...if you want the best built, longest lasting automobiles, that's what you buy. GM's market share never recovered, and never will.

In America we're invested in the past, so many are afraid of the future. We're isolating ourselves based on emotions, demonization of the opposing party, arguing about the petty while avoiding the big issues, never mind politicians spewing falsehoods to confuse the public, to make them misunderstand the truth and vote against their own interests.

Thank god for the EU and the Chinese. They're doing the work America used to do. I hope it still can, but it requires a rethink, a moon shot, a coming together to tackle big issues like we did in the sixties.

But don't you know the sixties were an anomaly, a bad era of drugs and youth excess?

Well, no. JFK rallied the nation behind the space program, to catch up with the Russians. Biden tries to prepare for the future, mandating the manufacture of electric cars, and he's excoriated. I mean you can't even lead if you want to!

And the sixties were responsible for the Beatles and Woodstock and questioning authority. Today, many people want more authority, they want an authoritarian government!

It's time for America to get it together.

But we ain't got no leaders.

And private equity controls the parking meters.


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