A Given: DEMOGRAPHICS: Rising non-white population; nation as one of multiple minorities

                Which means: transfer of power is inevitable.

A Fact: INCOME and WEALTH DISPARITIES: record levels, with accretion happening daily

                Which means: the current verbal pushback will intensify.

A Fact: FINANCIAL DISPARITIES overlap with ethnicity

                Which means: race is always an issue.

A Strongly-held Opinion: RACISM is the country’s cancer, with little evidence of remission

                Which means: race is always an issue.

A Fact: the MIDDLE CLASS is earning no more than a decade ago, is shrinking, is angry, and skews white

                Which means its frustration overlaps with every issue above.

A Strongly-held Opinion by many financial professionals: the Federal Reserve, during the decade-long economic upturn from the 2007-08 debacle, has already taken all the pump-priming financial steps necessary to address a recession; what tools remain then is the open question.

                Which means: there could be fragility to asset values even if an actual recession is not severe.

A Fact: America leads in the propensity for individual violence, and, on average,  everybody has a gun.

                Which means: frustration + means = highly predictable bad outcomes.

A Strongly-held Opinion: Western Europe is not substantially different from the United States in terms of having to struggle with an expected reduced secular rate of economic growth; stress related to the assimilation of an immigrant and refugee population while the native-born population is barely at a replacement rate; and the angst of lessened political stability.

         Which means: if one American is distraught, he or she can escape to a location elsewhere in the world but if millions are distraught, there is no logical escape. Thus, all the above sources of change and frustration have to be duked out.

http://Bobhowittbooks.com/?page_id=22

Safety is a priority for me, after the accumulation of wealth that is, and I want control of my time as well. My husband Sigmund, whom I met through FindaMate4.me, put in a spy system at our house which gives me a view of everybody who comes to the front door, or the back entrance, or the garage. It completely eliminates worrying about intruders or neighbors who would bother me with trivial questions, useless chatter, and unwanted invitations.

Sigmund is a psychologist; together, we are working on an AI app which would eliminate the need for people to come to his office. You might say we are testing this approach ourselves. We communicate during the day through podcasts, IM, Instagram, Facebook and texts; when we get home, there is no need to talk.

We bought our house without ever seeing it in real life, the same with our car. We provided the specifications, looked at the alternatives, and made our choices. Amazingly efficient, not having to spend time on these mundane tasks.

Our child was designed and selected from a well-regarded sperm bank (LabBabies.me), and we have been pleased with the outcome. I appreciate the app which tells me when she in the back seat. Her questions can be readily answered by Googling. She is so excited when she receives a ribbon for every game regardless of whether she has done anything right for her little soccer team. I am on my phone while she plays, so the noise coming from screaming parents does not affect me.

Knowing that I will not be having my own kids makes it easier to relax when the ScheduledSex.me app tells us it is time to physically combine for a few minutes.

Raising our daughter is easy with the range of apps available; this is a much healthier process than involving my mother, my mother-in-law, and my grandmother. They are good for walking her and her dog on those days when the hired walker is unavailable from DogsWithBorders.me. Same thing with my daughter’s aquarium; they can clean it if the company guy does not show up.

Toys are all approved by the new Facebook.me app, which indicates when something is appropriate. Our daughter had to turn three before she could get her first smartphone.

I know she is safe at school: there are cameras all around the place and guards at every hallway intersection, as well as outside every door, whether locked or not.  My Free Time.me app gives all the information I need to schedule her out-of-school calendar of commitments.  Books are selected and delivered by McGuffy.me.  

My house is cleaned, as is my pool, by somebody I hire. Same with the lawn. They all come from Outsourcingjobs.me. Recently I signed up for a service which buys my clothes, another great time-saver.  I have not set foot in a bank in many years; the thought of waiting in line to complete a transaction with a minimum wage and limited intelligence teller makes me crazy.

The living room has two smart speakers, respectively called CulturalConnections4.me and Consumer God. The former knows everything about my music and other entertainment tastes, while CG, as I call her, orders from Octopus.me every item needed to maintain a house and a family.

My gym class is a must: because of its high-tech apparatus, I am able to stay “on,” not missing any  information which is important to my job. My healthcare app is linked to my data readout at the gym and I am fine, no problems here. I have no time for yoga; that would require deep concentration and get in the way of the incessant demands of my career, which pays me very well thank you.

My 6am breakfast delivery is right on time from CleanApron.me, as is the fellow from AStrangerWhoDrives.me. My laptop clicks to life immediately when the car door closes, without regard to the blueberry muffin crumbs and with nary a glitch in the informational transition from my smartphone, which has never been off since it was purchased.

I am eager for driverless cars actually. What an advantage to have a computer doing the thinking about directions and traffic, so I can focus on work responsibilities and make money.

My job by the way is to use AI to infuse more data understanding into apps, to disrupt conventional human interactions and monetize the resultant process. Everybody knows that when a person has a question not answered on the website and calls a company or a college or the government – or any organization having more than a few employees — he or she has to (a) work their way through a series of prompts, (b) control the inevitable frustration over lost time, and (c) eventually, maybe, talk to a human — who is inevitably incapable of answering a question that is not on their FAQ list. I mean, is anybody pleased with the customer service anywhere! Disruption through universal AI is a must.

In truth, “The more AI, the Better” is our company motto. When connected to CulturalConnections4.me or Consumer God, that is pure Heaven, a much better circumstance than adherence to stories that are literally centuries old.

Politics and religion, immigration, income inequality, foreign policy? I avoid any discussion of these topics; the time and energy drain would get in the way of my career. Besides, with the rate at which Sigmund and I are accumulating wealth, eventually we will be able to set-up a tax-advantaged foundation to address social issues.

As you can readily surmise from the decisions and thought processes I have outlined, I am able to totally focus on my job. The above apps and their usage logic are all about “.me.”

The well-worn phrase is that there are two things you never want to see being made: sausage and laws.  Today, in contrast, there is a phenomenon which begs to be witnessed: how a 24/7 commitment to soul-less technology and minimal human contact in every facet of a person’s life can be seen as unconnected to multiple life-changing negatives: a majority of employees not positively engaged with the companies that pay them, a high incidence of both legal and illegal drug usage, and a suicide rate that is rising for almost every age bracket.

(Yes, the writer does know the difference between correlation and causation.)

Bob Howitt: 9-6-19