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Jim Magay |
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By the time you read this Mitt Romney will/will not be the Republican opposing President Obama in November. By then more important things will have been decided.
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No, I’m not referring to Iran and their quest for nukes, nor am I thinking about the titanic struggle between Jesus and God this Saturday night (of course that would be Tim Tebow versus Tom Brady in the playoffs). Actually I’m referring to the fact that the icon of empty calories, that unspoilable cellophane wrapped delicacy, the Hostess Twinkie, may be on its way out!
You’ve most likely read the news that Hostess has filed for bankruptcy (again) as the demand for healthy (or at least what appears to be healthy) snacks grow. In a country where obesity is now a major health concern, diabetes a scourge, and white bread consumption down over 20% since the Millennium, snack makers are shifting to yogurt and granola bars. We are forsaking sugary drinks for healthy (and expensive) bottled water.
But Twinkies…those harmless little fluffy things, they can’t be that bad…can they? Each and every one has 150 calories, 4.5 grams of fat, and what the heck is the sugary cream filling made of? My guess is recycled industrial waste, but that’s just me. We are testing the indestructible nature of Twinkies – 11 years ago on the eve of the New Millennium we buried a time capsule containing many artifacts of the day – including several pristine packages of the sweet in question – we’ll check them out around 2025 and see how they are doing.
So, switching gears slightly - how will as a country we be doing by 2025? As imperishable as a Twinkie? If you listen to the politicians, they all have THE answer (each one different) to future prosperity. It would be nice to know which one is right, I’m sure they can’t all be wrong, can they?
Just like Twinkies, we are caught up in the global forces of our times. The middle class is being decimated as much by changing trends as by any political ideology. The middle class is dwindling because middle class jobs have disappeared. Not just shipped overseas - although that is some of it - the jobs are just gone. There’s not a big need for buggy whip makers, typists, or bank tellers anymore. These used to be jobs that a person with a high-school education could do and make a pretty good middle class living, and now those jobs are gone.
Historically, we've seen the same thing happening in the office. In the 19th Century, a person who had readable, attractive handwriting and could do basic arithmetic could get a decent job as a clerk. Then, starting late in that century, the handwriting began to be replaced by typewriters, and later still the arithmetic started to be done by adding machines.
And the same is happening in retail. Cashiers and salesclerks and stock-boys and other apparatus of retailers are going to lose their jobs, along with the folks who work at the mall Orange Julius and video arcade. And that is seriously bad, and totally predictable, and totally not affected by the yo-yo’s running for president.
So we ECPs need to innovate, innovate, and innovate some more just to survive. Can we do it? Stay tuned, if Twinkies make it ‘till 2025, maybe we will also.
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