As IF Times

Source: Enough votes to remove Confederate flag, survey shows

I blame Oprah.  Who knew that our dysfunctional society was chock full of offensive and insensitive symbols representing oppression of virtually every subset of society? The confederate ‘stars and bars’ flag is claimed to be a symbol of  slavery and oppression from a long bygone era and as such should be eliminated from public display.  Hmm.  In Oklahoma, a monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments is also targeted for removal because of its religious symbolism and therefore offensive to some.  For those not familiar with the Ten Commandments, they describe some of the most basic rules about living in a society; practical things such as not killing others, not stealing etc., perfectly reasonable (to most) and not the exclusive purview of those with religious leanings.

We recall the manufactured outrage over the Washington Redskins name last year when apparently people could barely live with that offensive label.  Somehow they have.  The Outraged and Offended racket (O and O racket) is coming into full bloom with the aid of sensationalist and ratings hungry media and of course the usual endless cast of litigating lizards.

Virtually everything we can think of these days is a Rorshach test of sensibilities, like people seeing evil messages in a bowl of alpha-bits. One can easily interpret the Apple logo as one which represents evil and sin as in the bite taken from the apple in the garden of Eden.  Years ago, the stars and moon in the logo for Proctor and Gamble was interpreted as symbolism for witchcraft and paganism.  What about Underwood devilled ham with the red guy and the pitchfork on the can?

It’s so easy to be offended by something these days that if you can’t find something that offends you, you’re not trying hard enough.  What is most interesting is the bullying aspect of those who are offended by a given issue.  That is, if you don’t agree with their views, you must be a hater.  What if you really don’t care?  Why isn’t that option B? So if you don’t really care about gay marriage, you’re a homophobe.  If you don’t recycle, you’re a polluter.  If you don’t eat organic chickens, you are contributing to cruelty.  If you don’t buy fair trade coffee, you are contributing to oppression in other countries.  Somehow, the self righteous  who universally have IPhones don’t seem too concerned about the sweatshop conditions that exist in the countries that manufacture them.  Or the designer clothes that they wear.

Of course, some people have legitimate claims to be offended.  For example, the husband of Joyce Mitchell, the woman who helped the two inmates escape from a New York prison has every right to be offended since he was actually targeted to be killed in the original escape plan. But, even he forgives his wife.

Unless you happen to be a basket of kittens, you are going to offend somebody and something is going to offend you.  Suck it up. You could be living in the African sub Sahara where you can be offended by a lion trying to eat you.  Let’s be practical and  be offended about  things that really affect us; such as media stupidity and body odor.

link Facebook Inc NASDAQ:FB Market Cap Surpasses that of Amazon.

When you review the top stock market darlings over the past year or so, (with the exception of Tesla Motors ) one common theme stands out conspicuously.  The high fliers are companies tied to “social networking”.  Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, LinkedIn and of course the recent $19 billion dollar acquisition of What’s App. All of these are companies are expected to be advertising bonanzas for ad sellers to their websites.  In many respects, Google and Apple are also tied into social networking.

In essence, these stocks are extending the high school experience and capitalizing on it in ways never before imagined by the cool kids.  They are gossip stocks, preying on people’s apparent need to know what everyone else is doing.  Everyone has become Gladys Kravitz.  The difference is that now, the circle of snooping is much larger and someone gets paid to allow people to snoop.  Imagine this same business model in a time before the internet if you wanted to snoop on the activities of football captain “a” with head cheerleader “b”.  Your best pal would spill the beans, but before doing so, recites an ad to have a Coke or buy a Chrysler.

This is the core business model of the gossip stocks.  The companies all provide a means to socially interact among other people digitally, since typing letters on a small screen is the most natural way to communicate.   In order to do so, you have to navigate billboards that advertise purses, shoes and electronics as well as virility and baldness cures.  The billboard people pay untold millions of dollars to the gossip companies for providing the eyeballs.  Someone’s very smart…or maybe not.  I’ve never heard of anyone making a purchasing decision based on a banner ad on their Facebook page, but then again, I’ll have to check that on Twitter.  Don’t people just ignore them?  Aren’t they like the toss away fliers you get when entering a Costco?

It’s amusing to survey a brief sampling of the total market capitalization of some of the best known American corporations and compare them to the high flying gossip stocks.  First, we list the gossip stocks:

Facebook   105 billion dollars

Twitter   30 billion dollars

Zynga   4 billion dollars

LinkedIn  23 billion dollars

Now some notable well known corporations:

Google   404 billion dollars

Apple  468 billion dollars

Exxon 416 billon dollars

IBM  199 billion dollars

Coca Cola  163 billion dollars

Microsoft   315 billion dollars

McDonalds  96 billion dollars

Kraft Foods   32 billion dollars

General Motors 58 billion dollars

With the exception of perhaps Google, the companies listed in the second grouping have been around for decades, have deeply rooted infrastructures, employ armies of people and produce some of the most well known and consumed products in the world.  These dinosaur companies are on their way to becoming eclipsed by the new gossip industries.  It may be only the beginning.  Imagine what happens when someone invents a way to communicate merely by voice.