Whether these changes are good or bad depends in part on how we adapt to them.  But, ready or not, here they come! 
  
1.  The Post Office .  Get ready to imagine a world without the post office. They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to sustain it long term. Email, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped out the minimum revenue needed to keep the post office alive.  Most of your mail every day is junk mail and bills. 
  
2. The Check .   Britain is already laying the groundwork to do away with checks by 2018. It costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to process checks. Plastic cards and online transactions will lead to the eventual demise of the check. This plays right into the death of the post office. If you never paid your bills by mail and never received them by mail, the post office would absolutely go out of business. 
  
3. The Newspaper. The younger generation simply doesn’t read the newspaper. They certainly don’t subscribe to a daily delivered print edition. That may go the way of the milkman and the laundry man. As for reading the paper online, get ready to pay for it. The rise in mobile Internet devices and e-readers has caused all the newspaper and magazine publishers to form an alliance. They have met with Apple, Amazon, and the major cell phone companies to develop a model for paid subscription services. 
  
 4. The Book . You say you will never give up the physical book that you hold in your hand and turn the literal pages. I said the same thing about do loading music from iTunes. I wanted my hard copy CD. But I quickly changed my mind when I discovered that I could get albums for half the price without ever leaving home to get the latest music. The same thing will happen with books. You can browse a bookstore online and even read a   preview chapter before you buy. And the price is less than half that of a real book. And think of the convenience! Once you start flicking your fingers on the screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in the story, can’t wait to see what happens next, and you forget that you’re holding a gadget instead of a book. 
  
5. The Land Line Telephone . Unless you have a large family and make a lot of local calls, you don’t need it anymore. Most people keep it simply because they’re always had it. But you are paying double charges for that extra service. All the cell phone companies will let you call   customers using the same cell provider for no charge against your minutes. 
  
6. Music. This is one of the saddest parts of the change story. The music industry is dying a slow death. Not just because of illegal downloading. It’s the lack of innovative new music being given a chance to get to the people who would like to hear it. Greed and corruption is the problem. The record labels and the radio conglomerates simply self-destruction. Over 40% of the music purchased today is "catalog items," meaning traditional music that the public is familiar with. Older established artists. This is also true on the live concert circuit. To explore this fascinating and disturbing topic further, check out the book, "Appetite for Self-Destruction" by Steve Knopper, and the video documentary, "Before the Music Dies." 
  
7. Television . Revenues to the networks are down dramatically. Not just because of the economy.  People are watching TV and movies streamed from their computers. And they’re playing games and doing all lots of other things that take up the time that used to be spent watching TV.  Prime time shows have degenerated down to lower than the lowest common denominator.  Cable rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about every 4 minutes and 30 seconds. I say good riddance to most of it It’s time for the cable companies to be put out of our misery. Let the people choose what they want to watch online and through  Netflix. 
  
8. The "Things" That You Own.   Many of the very possessions that we used to own are still in our lives, but we may not actually own them in the future. They may simply reside in "the cloud." Today your computer has a hard drive and you store your pictures, music, movies, and documents. Your software is on a CD or DVD, and you can always re-install it if need be. But all of that is changing.  Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all finishing up their latest "cloud services." That means that when you turn on a computer, the Internet will be built into the operating system. So, Windows, Google, and the Mac OS will be tied straight into the Internet. If you click an icon, it will open something in the Internet cloud. If you save something, it will be saved to the cloud. And you may pay a monthly subscription fee to the cloud provider. In this virtual world, you can access your music or your books, or your whatever from any laptop or handheld device. That’s the good news. But, will you actually own any of this "stuff" or will it all be able to disappear at any moment in a big "Poof?" Will most of the things in our lives be disposable and whimsical? It makes you want to run to the closet and pull out that photo album, grab a book from the shelf, or open up a CD case and pull out the insert. 
  
9. Privacy. If there ever was a concept that we can look back on nostalgically, it would be privacy.  That’s gone. It’s been gone for a long time anyway. There are cameras on the street, in most of the buildings, and even built into your computer and cell phone. But you can be sure that 24/7 "They" know who you are and where you are, right down to the GPS coordinates, and the Google  Street View. If you buy something, your habit is put into a zillion profiles, and your ads will change to reflect those habits. And "They" will try to get you to buy something else. Again and again. 
  
All we will have that can’t be changed are Memories. 

Posted By Andrew Luck
A Natural Born Person

Posted By Andrew Luck
A Natural Born Person

Posted By Andrew Luck
A Natural Born Person

Listen to Dr. Berwick comment on rationing and “end of life decisions”. He praise the UK socialized healthcare, however, they do not cover women with advanced stages of breast cancer or anyone with esophagus/stomach cancer. Thanks to Psalm 90:10 and the Good Lord I survived esophagus/stomach cancer.

Posted By Andrew Luck
A Natural Born Person

Obama appointed Dr. Berwick yesterday. He advocates healthcare rationing and HUGE cuts in MediCare.

‘Am I the only guy in this country who’s fed up with what’s happening? Where the hell is our outrage with this so called president? We should be screaming bloody murder! We’ve got a gang of tax cheating clueless leftists trying to steer our ship of state right over a cliff, we’ve got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can’t even run a ridiculous cash-for-clunkers program without losing $26 billion of the taxpayers’ money, much less build  a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, ‘trust me the economy is getting better..’

Better? You’ve got to be kidding. This is America , not the damned, ‘Titanic’. I’ll give you a sound bite: ‘Throw all the Democrats out along with Obama!’ 

You  might think I’m getting senile, that I’ve gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly  recognize this country anymore..

The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we’re fiddling in Afghanistan, Iran is completing their nuclear bombs and missiles and nobody seems to know what to do. And the liberal press is waving ‘pom-poms’ instead of asking hard questions. That’s not the promise of the ‘ America ‘ my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I’ve had enough. How about you? 

I’ll go a step further. You can’t call yourself a patriot if you’re not outraged. This is a fight I’m ready and willing to have. The Biggest ‘C’ is Crisis! (Iacocca elaborates on nine C’s of leadership, with crisis being the first.)

Leaders are made, not born. Leadership is forged in times of crisis. It’s easy to sit there with thumb up your butt and talk theory. Or send someone else’s kids off to war when you’ve never seen a battlefield yourself. It’s another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling down.

On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. A hell of a mess, so here’s where we stand.

We’re immersed in a bloody war now with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving. But our soldiers are dying daily.

We’re running the biggest deficit in the history of the world, and it’s getting worse every day! 

We’ve lost the manufacturing edge to Asia , while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs. 

Gas prices are going to skyrocket again, and nobody in power has a lucid plan to open drilling to  solve the problem. This country has the largest oil reserves in the WORLD, and we cannot drill for it because the politicians have been bought by the flea-hugging environmentalists. 
Our schools are in a complete disaster because of the teachers union. 

Our borders are like sieves and they want to give all illegals amnesty and free healthcare. 

The middle class is being squeezed to death every day. 

These are times that cry out for leadership.

But when you look around, you’ve got to ask: ‘Where have all the leaders gone?’ Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, omnipotence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point.

Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo?

We’ve spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to  do is react to things that have already happened.

Everyone’s hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping the government will make it better for them. Now, that’s just crazy.. Deal with life.

Name  me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we  can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would  have believed that there could ever be a time when ‘The Big  Three’ referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen,  and more important, look what Obama did about  it! 

Name  me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debt, or solving the energy  crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence  is deafening. But these are the crises that are eating away at  our country and milking the middle class dry. 

I  have news for the Chicago gangsters in Congress. We didn’t elect  you to turn this country into a losing European Socialist state. What is everybody  so afraid of? That some bonehead on NBC or CNN news will call  them a name? Give me a break. Why don’t you guys show some spine for a change?

Had  Enough? Hey, I’m not trying to be the voice of gloom and  doom here.  I’m trying to light a fire. I’m speaking out  because I have hope – I believe in America . In my lifetime,  I’ve had the privilege of living through some of   America  ‘s greatest moments. I’ve also experienced some of our worst  crises: The ‘Great  Depression,’ ‘World War   II,’ the ‘Korean  War,’ the ‘Kennedy Assassination,’ the ‘Vietnam War,’ the 1970’s oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years since 9/11.

Make your own  contribution by sending this to everyone you know and care about. It’s our country, folks, and it’s our future. Our future  is at stake!!
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Posted By Andrew Luck
A Natural Born Person