Of course The Future is not entirely without it's optimists... like Reader #49 from the Pennsylvania badlands:
Siddhartha Banerjee
Oxford, Pennsylvania
June 28th, 2010
10:53 am
Paul,
There is a vast, literally untapped market, especially in Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe of people whose basic needs are not being met - food, shelter, and a little clothing.
If Western political and marketing systems were not so myopic, they would understand that by meeting unmet human needs, they could open up a vast worldwide hinterland of consumption, contain the coming Depression, and hardly least make money.
But for that to happen, a philosophic shift has to occur first. The corporate world here has to augment its search for high margin, high volume markets, admittedly the best of both worlds, with the cognitive capacity and marketing skills to recognize and meet the needs of the low margin, high volume markets hidden in plain sight before them. ***
C K Prahlad called this unexplored economic hinterland, the "Bottom of the Pyramid" market and he said that there was a "fortune at the bottom of the pyramid." One of my intellectual preceptors, the late Subroto Sengupta in India, said that there is a profound "elite barrier" in consumer goods marketing. ***
A century or so ago, James Cash Penney, Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck brought the marketplace to America's hinterland with catalog and direct mail marketing. It seemed an impossible task, but it was done. In doing so, they helped create the American middle class.
Today, if US corporations get into the act, not as carpetbaggers however, by marketing to "bottom of the pyramid markets" that middle class can be saved, the new Depression contained and a little humanity restored at home and all over the world.
Well dang Pennsylvania! Why are you wasting your time writing comments on NYT Op Eds??! What are you waiting on? Get those catalogues rolling out the door already... but don't expect any help from Reader #805 Upstate New York:
JAG
Upstate NY
June 28th, 2010
5:54 pm
The reason the public will not tolerate any more stimulus spending is because they feel that the bank bailouts were not fair. People are angry. The financial industry managed to get a tax payer bailout without meaningful reform.
By not tying reform of the banks to any bailout was the great crime. I still remember when Paulson said that first we will do the bailout and then later we will work on reform. He told Congress that there was no time to put reform legislation in the bailout. I remember how angry I was. I knew he was lying. What was worse, I knew Congress was OK with the lie.
So don't waste your breath Dr. K. People are angry and rightly so. The people have been robbed and lied to by Busch, Paulson and Geitner.
Yes yes... The Haves are angry with the Have-Nots. The Payors are angry with the Payees. The Have-Nots are more hungry than angry right now... but they're getting there.
And when they do, everybody else will get very paranoid and either pay up... or start culling the herd. Either way, the genes will win in the end. Personally I'm betting on the Law of Large Numbers to determine the next "winning" genes.
I mean... after the 8.4 hits the Southern California megalopolis next year... and the Great Plague of 2016 breaks out of the new environmental stew we're cooking along the Gulf Coast... I figure you're going to need the biggest possible spread of genetic bets to come out of the current game on top.
Of course... that assumes that when The BIG Rock pays its visit in 2024, we still have a "top" to come out on. But I suppose in the end... even Rowlbespierre is just an optimist at heart.
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