The right knows it got screwed by globalization.

The left still thinks it will work for them. At least the educated left, in control of the Democratic Party. These professionals and high-earners believe that change can happen just as long as it doesn’t affect their wealth too much, that they can ride this horse into the future via a bit of compromise and that the problem is Trump.

WRONG!

It’s not the mainstream Republicans who believed in Trump, as a matter of fact, they anointed Jeb Bush. And now that Trump is actually President, they’re aligning with him, knowing that their party has been taken over by the rank and file, who’ve been left behind in the last forty years, and are looking for hope.

Hillary didn’t embody hope, and neither does Biden. They’re just more of the same. And that’s not gonna work anymore.

I’d say we’re in uncharted territory, but that’s only true of the establishment, believing it is safe in its power, that money rules, and only the most experienced get to steer.

Oh, don’t tell me about the evangelicals, or the racists, sure, they’ve been enabled by Trump, but the reason the real estate developer won is that he spoke to the disenfranchised. Someone must be responsible for their drop in income and living standard. Make it the immigrants. Make it the left with their welfare state. Make it anybody but themselves. Which is kind of weird, since the Republican ethos is individual responsibility.

On the left, the intelligentsia in charge has contempt for everybody sans a college diploma, and is so busy arguing identity politics when a slew of voters just want to put food on the table. This is another thing the Democrats don’t understand. When you’re starving, the cuisine doesn’t matter, any food will do. Once your belly is full you can debate what’s coming from the kitchen.

So the issues of the left are protection for the religious freedom of Muslims and more jobs for women and a greater focus on rapists. Of course these are all good causes…BUT THEY DON’T RESONATE WITH THE RANK AND FILE! It’s not that they don’t have opinions on these issues, it’s just that they’re dealing with bigger ones, like the loss of their jobs. They want someone who’s going to give them hope for the future. Trump might have lied, but that was his promise. Furthermore, Trump was speaking English, as opposed to arguing about trigger warnings, getting so caught up in what is right and doesn’t negatively impact any special interest group that the message ends up broad without bullet points.

But that’s the way the leaders of the Democratic Party want it.

Everybody wants to stay in control, nobody wants to lose their job. Meanwhile, the Clintons have gone on to become fabulously wealthy after losing their gigs, and there’s not even a sufficient safety net for the blue collar worker. OF COURSE it’s the right that wants to eviscerate the safety net, but the left can’t get its messaging right, it’s too busy infighting, too wimpy to put one foot forward. So, the blue collar Democrat votes for Trump, at least there’s a possibility of change.

But the left is afraid of alienating potential voters. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?? Trump supporters will kick and scream, but Democratic voters will think the party has a backbone, whether it succeeds in getting rid of Trump or not. Certainly Nancy Pelosi is a brilliant politician, but she’s using an old playbook, the younger generation wants a voice, the younger generation wants CHANGE!

This is what oldsters cannot fathom. The anger, disillusionment and debt of the youngsters. All boomers can do is excoriate millennials. You’ve read it, they need hand-holding, positive reinforcement, you can’t say anything negative to them. This has become the perception, is it any wonder that the younger generation is disillusioned?

Now if you’re a professional golfer, you play to win, you go for it, because once you lay up, play it safe, you lose your edge and you never know when a competitor will get hot.

But the Democratic Party refuses to play to win. Whether it be combating the right or running a candidate who is going to push the envelope and institute change.

Biden’s strategy is to run out the clock. To say nothing until Election Day, and have all the anti-Trumpers vote for him. That’s not a recipe for success, that’s a recipe for disaster. Whenever you play it safe you lose, can you say Kerry, can you say McCain?

And the Democrats always point to McGovern’s defeat. Saying if you run too far left you’ll lose, the center won’t accept you. But that was back in ’72! Furthermore, society was much less tribal back then, even though we still view it as the hippies versus the rednecks, the political division was not as great as today. And ALMOST NO ONE was excited about McGovern. He was not a dynamic speaker, some of his positions were good, but you didn’t want to go door to door convincing people. The goal was to defeat Nixon instead of pushing the envelope and delivering what the country needed.

People are excited about Elizabeth Warren, and Pete Buttigieg. And that goes a long way.

People say Warren can’t win because anybody with money abhors her. But the truth is, MOST PEOPLE DON’T HAVE MONEY! And an election is decided by the rank and file, not the elite.

And Buttigieg spoke truth to power, and is continuing to coast on his statements. How SIXTIES!

Bernie Sanders is Curt Flood. He broke the reserve clause. In this case Bernie demonstrated how many people were disillusioned with business as usual, but the fruits of his efforts will probably be reaped by those who follow in his footsteps, just like Curt Flood opened the door but didn’t profit financially the way the resulting free agents ultimately did.

But when it looked like Bernie would win, Neera Tanden and the rest of the Democratic Party were up in arms, they had to undermine him, make it so he couldn’t win. THEY DON’T GET IT, THEY ARE THE PROBLEM!

Bernie still could get the nomination, although it doesn’t look like it.

Beto was a one hit wonder.

Harris doesn’t have enough of a C.V.

You’ve got to give Warren credit, she’s been preparing for this fight for decades, unlike the wankers who are running even though they know they’ll lose. She was a law professor, of bankruptcy. And now the entire country is morally and economically bankrupt. The rich have all the cash, seventy percent of adults possess eight percent of the wealth

The Wealth Detective Who Finds the Hidden Money of the Super Rich

AND THEY KNOW IT!

The right is rallying around the flag, the American Dream, a past era that was not that good, and today the odds of moving up the economic ladder are better outside the U.S. than they are inside the country. Sure, it’s all subterfuge, but the left doesn’t counteract this message for fear it will be labeled socialist. Just because the right keeps yelling about the evils of government and taxes doesn’t mean they’re right. It’s an issue of messaging, unfortunately Frank Luntz is on their side.

But this is the problem with impeachment, with all of the left’s positions. So fearful of pissing some potential voter off, they pussyfoot and say nothing, and allow the right to define the debate.

I just don’t get it. In an era of smartphones, the left wants to go back to rotary dialing. You embrace change, you don’t deny it. And this avenue is wide open, because Trump keeps promising to preserve the past, the jobs in coal and other dying industries, and it’s just not happening.

But when you tell a coal miner that a woman gets his gig and that all men are rapists he throws his hands in the air and votes Republican.

I’m not saying I’m against affirmative action, but if there’s more than one college to go to, the loss is not as great as if you didn’t get into UCLA and then you have to perform manual labor.

And even on the broad issues the left’s messaging is screwed-up. People are truly afraid the left will take away their guns. Let’s speak the truth…THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN! Why can’t Democrats say that instead of living in a fantasyland. Yes, many people are one issue voters, and if they think someone’s gonna take their gun away, they’re gonna vote Republican.

So the Democrats have to anoint a progressive candidate. Even if he or she loses. Because it’s just a matter of when. Because it’s gonna get worse, the rank and file are gonna have less, and they’re gonna be even more pissed about it. Now is the time to throw the long ball. And it needs to be a team effort. Whoever is nominated, all Democrats must rally around that person. But no, they’ll continue to bad-mouth them even after they’ve got the nomination.

The problem is the media is detached. We live in a country where it’s impossible to know what’s really going on. No one can watch all the movies, never mind the TV shows. You can’t listen to all the records… We’re in an era of change, and if you believe you can solve the issues via an old paradigm, you’re dreaming.

Bill Clinton played the sax.

Joe Biden has hair plugs in an era where the follically-challenged shave their heads.

Let’s see, Biden is gonna promise us bell bottoms, breakdancing and beer? The truth is beer consumption is down, the younger generation doesn’t cotton to it. But no, the Democratic Party wants to play it the same as it ever was.

There might be revolution in America.

But it’s got to happen in the Democratic Party first.

Sprint sucks.

This is how the Democrats get it wrong, ruling by theory instead of practicality.

Sprint is going to continue to fade. What happens when it goes bankrupt, then is its spectrum auctioned off and ends up with AT&T or Verizon anyway?

This is like Warner/EMI… The European Union and Impala were so worried about this concentration in the music business. Then EMI goes bust and most of its assets end up with Universal and the Vivendi company ends up with half the overall market share. This is just? This is progress?

In theory, concentration is bad, it offers fewer options to the public, it augurs against price drops. But you can’t deal with mergers with a knee-jerk approach.

Antitrust law has taken a backseat. It should be applied more frequently. But the wankers in the White House and their minions ended up letting Facebook buy WhatsApp and Instagram, creating a singular monopoly in social media, but a reduction of four carriers to three in wireless communication is too much?

And you hear all about the digital divide. People who can’t afford computers and high-speed internet, those who live in rural areas outside of range, but the agitators are willing to let there be two tiers of wireless service, based on how much you can pay?

Sprint is a joke, its only good feature is its cheap plans. And the plans can’t go down to zero, with free iPhones, there must be some revenue, never mind profit. If the service was any good, people would be flocking to Sprint in droves.

As for T-Mobile… They’ve made something out of nothing. Outside the metropolis their LTE availability, availability of signal at all, is squat. Sure, T-Mobile gained market share by offering low prices, but without a robust 5G network, its customers would end up living in a tube-based village in a flat screen world.

When something becomes a commodity, there will be concentration. Hell, Samsung makes flat screens for Sony! Because the margins are so bad.

But don’t expect Verizon to sell access to its industry leading network to its competitors. The network is its marketing advantage. As for AT&T, sure, it’s improving, but if the company didn’t have a legacy name, it too would be in the crapper.

Sprint owns valuable bandwidth. It’s just that it lacks the cash to build it out. And to be a real competitor in 5G, T-Mobile needs that bandwidth. Not all mergers are bad.

Sure, price competition could wane, to customers’ detriment, but how is propping up a fourth-rate service rejected by consumers an advantage?

I won’t switch from Verizon. Unless it was literally proven there was a better service.

Meanwhile, everybody complains that there are few options for high-speed service in the home. One cable provider and you’re lucky if Verizon FIOS is available in your neighborhood. Don’t even talk to me about DSL, it’s the Sprint of home service. But with 5G, there will be competition in the home, and isn’t it better to have more options than fewer?

People will tolerate bad connections out in the wild, believing it’s the nature of wireless communication, but they’ve never been overseas, where you get a connection everywhere! The truth is American networks are just not that good. But if you don’t get good service in your home, where you’re watching TV, you complain ad infinitum. So, a crappy 5G system is a nonstarter.

This left wing position bugs me. It’s the same one that says we need to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. Sure, if you want to pay $3,000 for a flat screen. Or you’re Apple, trying to build the Mac Pro in Texas where they can’t get enough quality screws.

These people put out of work should be trained for new jobs, or else the U.S. becomes a second-class economy. Our strengths are intellectual property, tech. But then we have an Administration so afraid of immigrants that it refuses visas for those working in Silicon Valley, forcing them back to their countries where they create startups and competition.

That’s right, there’s ignorance on both sides of the aisle.

As for those on T-Mobile presently, happy with their service, wait until they actually get improved service, of the standard of Verizon or AT&T, they will be wowed.

You don’t know what you’re missing until you experience something better.

But in this brand-oriented world, everybody is convinced that what they own is the best, and marketing is all about subterfuge, you can’t figure out what’s best from the ads.

So this is a merger which must go through, even though John Legere’s team stayed in Trump’s hotel. Fine them, but don’t blow them out of the water.

Meanwhile, this is how business works. It’s built on favors and illicit activities. Sure, police it. But don’t live with your eyes closed, disinterested in digging deeper to find out the truth, how the world works, even if elements are abhorrent to you.

You can’t run the world on emotion, you’ve got to run it on truth. Just because your heart says one thing, that does not make it true.

In theory mergers, concentration, are bad. People lose jobs. Sometimes prices go up. But if the factory closes its doors completely, that’s even worse. As for going against economics, Trump keeps saying the jobs are coming back but the truth is these companies have shareholders and must make a profit, so Carrier exports jobs and Harley-Davidson builds overseas and…

You may want it, but that does not mean you can have it.

And if you put up too many artificial walls, you destroy the marketplace.

Unfortunately, this is a merger that must be approved.

THE SOCIETY Official Trailer

I never read “Lord of the Flies.”

That’s high school, you try not to read what you ultimately wish you had. All those books they make movies on, by Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, you wanted to avoid those in high school, actually, at my high school you didn’t even have to read them. But we did read “Moby Dick,” although our teacher did let us skip chapters, before he was accused of assault and sexual harassment, which I never would have predicted, you never know what goes on inside people, but that’s what keeps life interesting, it’s what’s below the surface that intrigues you, the struggle is to pierce the veil. And, just so you know, there’s a quid pro quo, if you don’t share, other people won’t either. It’s a mutual thing. Then again, there are oversharers, why do you think it’s my job to hear the minutiae of your life? I want a report, not a brain dump of all your anxieties.

“The Society” is based on “Lord of the Flies.” And at this point, even I know what “Lord of the Flies” is about, even though, like I stated above, I never read it.

We were watching “Patriot,” on Amazon. Although it was difficult, because we constantly ended up getting the chasing its tail circle. I’ve come to believe this is Amazon’s fault, not my ISP’s, because it doesn’t happen as much on Netflix.

Now “Patriot” is one of those rare series where the second season is better than the first. The whole series is whacked. It’s just the first season is slow. But you’re invested. And there are some famous actors, and I love the fat Luxembourg detective who looks like Hercule Poirot, but the truth is you don’t have to watch “Patriot,” hell, at this point it looks like there may not even be a third season.

So we needed a new series. To binge.

That’s the only way I will watch, and I will keep saying it until HBO and Showtime and the rest of the cable outlets get the message. I can’t wait a week for an episode, to the point where I have a hard time remembering what happened the week before! And you fall behind and give up. You’re just not part of the zeitgeist.

But when you can binge…

Dedicated fans finish new seasons in a day or two, they’re just that eager.

Casual fans could take a year. These series are time bombs, just waiting to be detonated, and when you see a good one, you tell everybody you know about it. It’s yours, for a while anyway, unlike with HBO, sure, you’ll have water cooler moments, but you won’t own it.

And no one is talking about HBO shows off season.

But Netflix series?

But the media industrial complex doesn’t like it this way. The media industrial complex wants all the hype and then the potential boom to happen in a matter of days. Why not spread the publicity out over time?

But these are the same idiots who take full page ads, billboards even, to hype shows for Emmys. This is kind of like states fighting for filming, offering different financial packages. Why are you giving the papers and magazines all this money? It could be better spent.

So we needed a new series to watch.

I don’t invest my time unless something is recommended by a blue chip source, or the internet tells me it’s great.

But there are very few great series out there.

But you have a yearning to binge.

And I don’t want to watch that which I’m familiar with. I lived through the Central Park 5 story, I don’t have to watch a miniseries about it. Same deal with Chernobyl. Which they changed anyway. And people believe the falsehoods. It’s not only the press that gets things wrong.

So I’m researching and I find this series “The Society” on Netflix. It’s got 82 on the Tomatometer. I live by the Tomatometer. The film industry hates it, it wants us to be rubes, investing our time and money in bad products.

But 82 is usually not enough.

But I couldn’t find anything higher than that that I wanted to watch.

Anyway, everybody but the parents die, and the kids are left alone, how will it turn out?

And the first thing I noticed is none of the cast members were familiar. Like “90210” back in the day. Yup, on that show they got all the faces the Big Three networks rejected. But now that there’s so much production, almost everybody is new, it’s kinda strange, we’re used to looking for familiarity, to prove that it’s just a television show.

And this is definitely a television show, if it were on network I almost definitely wouldn’t watch it.

But nobody else is watching it, I didn’t see any hype in the media, so I could go where no one else risked going, I could own the experience.

Then again, it’s summer, and this is when these unheralded Netflix projects percolate and become monstrous, because kids are home. So maybe “The Society” will ultimately triumph.

Now Cassandra, the #1 girl, who is going to Yale in the fall, theoretically anyway, bugs everybody else, she takes charge, she’s a know-it-all. And she bugs me too! And the question arises, how should you behave in a group? I’m not good at staying silent.

But Cassandra’s little sister rang true from the first note, she stood out. Then I read in “Vanity Fair” that she’s the new It Girl, or at least hot actress, she’s in this, “Big Little Lies” and “Pokemon Detective Pikachu.” I can see why, she’s got it.

Now Allie chafes at being the little sister, and takes risks her sibling will not. Sound familiar?

And boys will be boys. I’m not one of those boys, but some are, Felice asked why boys act this way. I think it’s herd mentality, they want to be accepted, they don’t realize they’re jerks.

And the relationships!

You know that’s a main element in teen projects… Who is gonna stay with who? Actually, one of the best moments is when Allie professes her love for Will and…

You always wonder whether to tell someone how you feel about them. If they don’t reciprocate, it changes the relationship forever, not in a good way.

But why I’m writing this, the question I want to ask, is are you a hoarder or a sharer? Are you gonna grab on to everything that’s not nailed down in order to survive, or are you going to share with your brethren and ultimately find out there’s not enough. Although many times, a solution arises before your hoard dissipates. Like after the earthquake (and in my world there’s only one, back in ’94, I still haven’t recovered from it), when my local market was closed and I stocked up with peanut butter and jelly at the minimart, just in case… But the power came back, the stores reopened before I’d depleted most of my stash.

Better safe than sorry?

But if it’s not only you?

We’re not deep in the series. And this is one I’m not really recommending either, but somehow it’s hooked me, I’m invested, I want to see how it all plays out.

That’s the power of story.

That’s the power of Netflix.

This is the modern world.

Ben Sisario:

A Billboard No. 1 Is at Stake, So Here’s an Album With Your Taylor Swift Hoodie

Counting CD and track sales is like toting up the number of feature phone purchases. We live in an era of streaming and smartphones, why does the music industry insist on holding on to the past?

This is how hip-hop ended up victorious, by moving online, by embracing Soundcloud, by using the new tools and giving away product in the process.

But no, the music industry still sells CDs and files, even though most people no longer have a CD player, they don’t even come in cars, and Apple killed the iPod.

Actually, Apple was famous for killing old formats. Killing ADB for USB. Leaving out the floppy drive. Steve Jobs did not worry about the complainers in the background, he just soldiered on.

And now Apple is the most valuable company on the planet, or close to it, depending on the daily stock market.

Ironically, the present Apple killed the 20 pin port for Lightning, even though every hotel room had that connector built into the room radio, and even switched to USB-C on the new iPad Pro, but…for some reason, their Music app still works with both files and streams, which makes it confusing, which Jobs abhorred. It was supposed to just work, be easy, require no manual, but I still can’t figure out how to make sure my search is of streams not files, and it makes me reluctant to use the app.

Steve Jobs. Everyone says he was anti-streaming, all about sales.

Believe me, Jobs would be behind streaming today, making it even more convenient, because Jobs was willing to admit he was wrong, and change and leave the past behind. But many musicians still refuse to believe streaming has won, it’s been demonized, it can’t be sold after the show…it’s like bitching you can’t sell standard transmissions when even Formula One cars have no clutch.

And the internet/tech works on a different ethos than the traditional music business. The facts are real, and the war is even more intense. Record companies can always depend on their catalogs for revenue, in tech it’s purely what have you done for me lately, and if you haven’t done anything, soon you’re no longer a player. Can you say Blackberry and Gateway and…

Streams can be quantified. They’re harder to fake. Of course people are always trying to scam, but there are algorithms to check that too. Ah, the glory of the machine.

In other words, it’s easy to add up how many streams a track has. They’re even visible on Spotify and YouTube. And streams are raw consumption, a true judge of popularity, whereas if something is sold, you don’t know how many times a purchaser listened to it. Furthermore, with streams you get paid forever, while with sales, it’s one and done. Do you want to invest in yourself or sell out now and forget your future?

The “Billboard” charts have been manipulated from day one. Sure, SoundScan added some truthiness, but still, shenanigans were prevalent.

And “Billboard” could change its chart overnight.

Then again, what makes the “Billboard” chart worth anything anyway, their special sauce? Why do you need Nielsen to tote up what is easily seen online?

So what you’ve got is a trade magazine, servicing the trade.

So, there should be no attention paid to “Billboard”‘s numbers.

But they’re distributed by media outlets as if they mean something, when the truth is they don’t mean anything.

Sure, it’s all about the add-ons, but who was the wanker who approved this to begin with? What are we counting here, marketing efforts or music consumption, this needed to be nipped in the bud.

And “Billboard” could have done it, but NO, it was afraid to piss off the labels and the acts, who do very little advertising anyway, “Billboard” is now a consumer-facing product, why does it keep one foot in the past? Hell, why don’t you pay fealty to retailers, Best Buy doesn’t even sell CDs anymore, not that I’ve been to an outlet in years, why, when there’s Amazon.

We need to wave a wand and immediately go to streaming totals to determine popularity. Leave all sales behind. That’s how Steve Jobs would have done it!

But the truth is the labels like it this way, they kick and scream as they add tchotchkes and manipulate the chart themselves.

Hell, the government nearly eradicated the Mafia, but the music business is still run like organized crime. These are public companies, why so much subterfuge?