Crane's Corner

Remember when a mobile phone was just a phone you carried---not a combination phone, camera, dictation device, video recorder, jukebox, post office, navigation system, hand held a-t-m, tiny tv, miniature movie studio, radio, shopping center and world wide web delivery.It wasn't all that long ago...that an outfit called Palm...brought us something new---a hand held little gismo called the p-d-a or personal digital assistant...that morphed into the blackberry---which proved humans could become addicted to teeny tiny circuit boards, silicon chips and colorful letters and numbers, when nerds from all over the world joined forces in fortress like labs in a northern california exburb that became known as silicon valley...and figured out how to hook all those teen tiny pieces of metal and plastic and bring them to life. Into the 90's Palm and Blackberry fought for market share, apparently paying little attention to a small appliance and tv company in South Korea and a re-invented nich computer company, that was starting to develop a line of products to enhance the digital experience of it's small but fiercely loyal customer base. Over the next 15 years, technology developed at warp speed---and the basic idea of the pda as crafted by Palm and Blackberry was....how say we say it---enhanced...by Apple...and a growing spectrum of Asian players...LG---HTC and Samsung...Before you knew it the crackberry was becoming the black and blue berry battered..by innovations from that asian trio and the dominance of apple with the I pod..I Phone...and I Pad....Palm...never could play defense and despite the investment of new technologies from HP...weakened into an also ran. Thus...the cycle of innovation and obsolesence in which most of us...trade up to a new hand held circus of ciruitry...and of course the wireless providers feed into it---dazzling consumers with the latest array of aps, that for many are making such standard lifestyle equipment as a the camera..alarmclock and wristwatch...

Like those two cartoon spies who've been gaming each other for years in Mad Magazine...it appears the 800 pound guerillas have been getting ahead..by playing dirty...each accussing the other of patent infringement...First Apple slammed Samsung for a billion...then Samsung slammed back...convincing trade regulators some of the technology in recent I-Phones and pads..was taken right out of the Samsung recipe file---and can now longer be sold in a leading wireless store.

It's hard to say whose the villian and whose the hero here...but one things certain..the cia...the kgb and the mossad have nothing on the apple and samsung spy guys...because the are billions at stake in the mobile arena...and while there are a million aps available for the I's and android..they haven't devloped one for greed.

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Maybe you play the stock market, maybe you don’t. But if you’re looking to put your money into a growth industry, here are a few ideas: Bran flakes, Adult diapers, Hearing aids, Eyeglasses and vision care providers, Retirement homes, Rocking chairs, Motorized wheel chairs, Lazy boy recliners and couches, Pillows and blankets for napping, Denture makers, PoliDent and dental adhesives, Prune juice.

You see where we’re going here. The government suggests if we don’t wrap ourselves around a utility pole on the interstate or fall prey to some other unforeseen violent event, most of us will live to or into our 80’s - maybe even longer. That’s the good news. Here’s the bad. The Wall Street Journal reports almost 60 percent of us will not be ready to retire at 65 or 70, or perhaps ever. Fify-seven percent of Americans have less than 25 thousand dollars in savings, excluding their homes. Although with 21 percent of all American homes worth less than the purchase price, that’s not any for many. A new survey also finds we’re becoming resigned to the idea of working till we drop with only 28 percent of respondents convinced that someday they’ll have enough money to retire comfortably and it’s something of a vicious cycle. American Express began doling out the first worker pension plan back in 1875 and it wasn't much of a gamble. The average worker only lived to the ripe old age of 50, but today with the average American male odds on to hit the late 70's and women outliving them more often than not; pension liabilities are becoming an unforeseen financial headache for big business. It's estimated to be a combined 97 billion dollar liability which may explain why so few companies offer anything more in the way of retirement help than a 401k match. Making things worse, the big mortgage industry meltdown ate up a lot of the money responsible companies tried to sock away, not to mention scrambling the nest eggs of responsible long range planning workers.

When FDR and his social engineers mapped out social security, they had no idea that people would live so long. The average American barely made it past 60 in the depression days, and one prominent doctor told me the government has itself to blame in a sense, because after World War II, it launched a national war on smoking and as people kicked the habit or never picked it up, the rate of coronary and cancer deaths plummeted and the life span went up...and up and up.

So why are so many of us in such a cash crunch? Well, wages have been close to stagnant while expenses for housing and clothing, gasoline and food are all higher. We live longer but we need our pricey prescription drugs and from malls and big box stores to the internet, there are so many more options for our shopping dollars. And that money we were saving for a rainy day or a nice retirement - well you have to see Hawaii sometime. Then there are college tuitions, braces for your teenager and on and it's not impossible but if you're approaching 50, you'll really have to start putting the bucks away if you want to outlive your money. Depressing thought you say?

Well consider this: in places like Afghanistan, Zambia, Chad, and Zimbabwe nobody starts worrying about money and the golden years. Just before 50 - or even a few years after according to the life span tables - they're already dead.