In 1975, manufacturing accounted for about 20% of the United States’ economic output, or gross domestic product, about the same as in Germany today. Since then, U.S. manufacturing’s share of GDP has slid to about 12%.
In 1975, the U.S. budget deficit was a manageable 1% of the economy, about the same as Germany’s now. Last year, the U.S. deficit was about 10%.
American families in the 1970s and early ’80s typically saved about 10% of their take-home pay, about the same as in Germany today. The U.S. savings rate these days is in the low single digits.
Germany has the economic strengths America once boasted- LA Times
Some great articles coming out about why America is really in decline, like this one and the previous on manufacturing in the NYT. Getting to the root of the issue is the only way to really fix our issues.
We are fueled by consumer debt and drunk on cheap Chinese goods. Something has to change as math will catch up with the US at some point (might already have) if we don’t.
The whole article is really interesting. The craziest part is that Apple employees (through contractors) over 700,000 people in China to make this stuff. That is around a 1/2 of the US population.
When Barack Obama joined Silicon Valley’s top luminaries for dinner in California last February, each guest was asked to come with a question for the president.
But as Steven P. Jobs of Apple spoke, President Obama interrupted with an inquiry of his own: what would it take to…
Wow
The Lions Mane Jellyfish is the largest jellyfish in the world. They have been swimming in arctic waters since before the dinosaurs (over 650 million years ago) and are among some of the oldest surviving species in the world.
The largest can come in at about 6 meters and has tentacles over 50 meters long. Pretty amazing when you think these things have been swimming around for so long.
They have hundreds of poisonous tentacles that it used to catch passing by fish. it then slowly drags in it’s prey and eats it.
That is terrifying.
never ever.
(via dpstyles)
Today a company called Card.io launched it is a mobile payment app that instead of using a dongle like Square it uses the camera to take a picture of the card.
When Square launched I was surprised that they were not utilizing the camera as a alternative method to capture the card and wrote about that here. I have always thought that the dongle was a little crappy.
It will be interesting to see how Card.io does, I think at this point beween the dominance of Square and the incumbents like Verifone, it is going to be a tough market to crack.
Many of you have asked, so here’s what’s going on with me.
WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE
- 8/1979: Born. Grew up in CT, built a killer eraser collection, fell in love with computers.
- Left college to start a company. Fell hard. Fled to India for 3 months.
- Started 2nd company. Learned to be an adult. Fell in love with NYC.
- Moved to SF, discovered burritos & some of my fave people on Earth.
- 9/2011: Got diagnosed with Leukemia!
- Cried. Went through 3 cycles of chemo. Hurt. Thought hard about what I want out of life. Grew up a second time.
TODAY
… After over 100 drives organized by friends, family, and strangers, celebrity call-outs, a bazillion reblogs (7000+!), tweets, and Facebook posts, press, fundraising and international drives organized by tireless friends, and a couple painful false starts, I’ve got a 10/10 matched donor!
You all literally helped save my life. (And the lives of many others.)
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
Tomorrow, I’ll be admitted to Dana Farber in Boston for 4-5 weeks.
First I’ll get a second Hickman line to allow direct access to my heart (for meds and for nutrients if I’m not able to eat). Over the next week, the docs blast my body with a stiff chemo cocktail to try and eradicate all traces of cancer cells. In the process, the immune system I was born with, and my body’s ability to make blood, are destroyed.
Next Friday, I get my donor’s stem cells by IV. I start on immunosuppressants to prevent my body from rejecting them (I’ll be on them for 12-18 months). For these weeks I’ve no immune system, so I’m severely vulnerable to viruses and bacteria. My hospital room and hallway become my world.
Meanwhile, the stem cells make their way to my bone marrow and, with some luck, start producing platelets, red blood cells, and white blood cells. At this point, my blood type changes to the blood type of my donor. And my blood will now have my donor’s DNA, not my own.
This is science fiction stuff. I can hardly believe it’s even possible, and there’s lots of chances for things to go wrong. It’s frightening.
AFTER THE TRANSPLANT
Recovery to a new state of “normal” takes about a year, but there’s a few storm clouds hovering:
- My immune system is new, like a baby’s. I’m prone to getting sick.
- Just as with any organ transplant, there’s a chance of rejection. Except in this case, it’s my blood that’s the foreign body, and it touches every organ. They call it graft-vs-host-disease and it can cause health issues and organ complications for the rest of my life.
- Successful transplant or not, Leukemia can relapse. Stubborn mofo.
Overall, 75% of AML transplant patients survive year one, 50% make it through year five. My odds are a little better since I’m young.
THE GREAT NEWS
I’ve got a long road ahead. But I’ve got a donor & amazing family & friends. A few months ago I didn’t have many options. Today I have a plan.
I am alive. I start tomorrow. Wish me luck!
Thank you.
Amazing story of the real power of the Internet
(via fuckyeahamitgupta)
On MLK day, I decided to take my kids to the Chabot Space Center to explore and take in one of their amazing planetarium shows. As we were getting seated, our baby, who is notoriously fussy, was doing what she does. Kind of whining, kind of talking, kind of screaming. As parents do, we were…
This is a great post about parenting. The over coddling thing is something that does worry me and I think about it as we raise Oliver.
Watch this all the way through… wait for it… wait…
This is one of the reasons why we at Shelby.tv have blacked out our site today to protest SOPA / PIPA and why I am attending my first ever public protest.
I am going my part. For the kittens, cats, koalas and GOATS!
Save the Internet!
Best SOPA/PIPA protest page out there.
I was trying to find a small company in New Jersey called NU-EZ Finishing. If you search “nu e-z finishing corp” in Google, it takes 5 pages of going through all of these crappy scummy SEO aggregator sites to get to their actual website, www.nuezbindery.com.
The reason their website is so buried is because they are obviously not a internet company so their website is not optimized for search.
It is just a glaring example as to how these SEO aggregation sites are ruining search. I wish Google would focus less on social and more on the real technology battle that they need to fight which is to keep search relevant.
Great headline by Kevin C. Tofel.
HP killed the TouchPad way too early. RIM will apparently kill the PlayBook far too late. They need to kill it right now and focus. But they won’t.
Agree. This needs to be stopped, focus on building kick ass phones. Once they have that working again then you can play follow the apple.
Security breaches are now a fact of life, on Sunday Zappos became the latest victim. If Iran can hack into a Top Secret US Drone and land it, then you have to consider that there is no safe place in the cloud for your info. If the hackers really want it they seem to be able to get it.
Which has me thinking that security going forward is going to have to do a lot more with physical separation from the net rather than smarter fire walls/encryption/etc.
What a awesome chart. It would be nice to see a aggregate worldwide smartphone number on it as well. But the point comes through, things have shifted.
Still skeptical that we’re entering a new ‘wave’ of computing? Check this out…
A second view into the history of personal computing
via @asymco @parislemon & @jtaschek
