Podcast 592-New Era

Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show 62

While the media ‘predicts’ the future of the new Donald Trump Era, I’ve been under a self imposed news blackout. I prefer to see what happens with the Trump before I comment. It seems to me an unpredictable personality as President is going to make it very difficult for pundits to tell you what kind of presidency it will be. Why not just wait and see? I think there are bigger trends at work.

Big Changes

We’re living through the dawn of a new industrial revolution. It seems to me, as everything around us changes government is changing too slowly. Technology is changing work and trade despite all this talk of returning America to 1950’s greatness. The biggest transportation company in the world owns no cars. The biggest hospitality company in the world owns no hotels. One of the biggest retailers in the world doesn’t own that many retail stores. It’s often difficult to determine the difference between a national export or an import.

Most of the jobs lost in manufacturing in the United States have been due to IT not outsourcing. Then there are the markets. One-size-fits-all mass markets are transitioning to mass specialization markets. Many new manufacturing plants will be automated and located close to markets they serve. It’s sad to me that in the midst of all this technology development we have a government designed for the 1950’s. Maybe this is something that will change.

In Podcast 592-New Era Day One-Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show 62 I discuss what we need in the future. It seems to me this is more important than what someone said about Trump’s big speech. As a so called conservative takes power, I want to know whether Big Government Republicans will reduce the pernicious power of government. It seems to me we should be asking ourselves what will be required of us. What do we know? How do we know what we know? How did we learn what we know? Why do we fear competition? Why do some of us we fear change?

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Podcast 590-Ending Met Council Tyranny

Bob Davis Podcast Radio Show #61-Jeff Johnson

Across the country regional councils controlled by unelected appointees are amassing great power over elected town councils, county councils and in some cases state legislatures. The biggest and most expensive of all is the Metropolitan Council, which exerts funding and legal control across the Minneapolis and Saint Paul Metro, up to and including its own taxing authority. In some cases saying no to the Met Council results in a loss of funding, public relations attacks on the offending elected official and his or her town, or lawsuits because, “You can’t say no to the Met Council”.

In Podcast 590-Ending Met Council Tyranny, Bob Davis Podcast Radio Show #61-JeffJohnson, a Hennepin County Commissioner gives a history of the Met Council, a description of just how large the council’s budget is, how many employees it has, the extent of its vast influence in planning and development in the Minneapolis and Saint Paul area. If your town wants state and federal funding for various projects, the Met Council is the conduit for that funding.

At issue is the Met Council’s peculiar view of just what development is supposed to look like, which is decidedly not funding for highways and bridges. The Metropolitan Council’s view of the future is fewer roads, more bike trails and more sidewalks. We’re supposed to ride our bikes to work when it is 5 below zero, or sit in traffic jams of biblical proportions or ride light rail transit being forced through at a cost of billions.

This podcast is a companion to Podcast 501-Mark Korin, which details the trails and tribulation of a small town Minnesota Mayor against the Mighty Metropolitan Council. As Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Johnson explains, the Metropolitan Council’s tyrannical control over towns, cities, counties and even the legislature is becoming a bi-partisan issue. With the advent of the Minneapolis South West Light Rail project and its threat to the peace and quiet of Minneapolis’ Chain of Lakes Parks, local residents are furious at the unelected council’s heavy handed approach.

An agency that began in 1967 as a way to mange water and sewer connections between local towns and cities, and to manage bus lines, has grown into an agency employing thousands and costing taxpayers billions, with its own police force, and the power to tell local administrators and elected officials to pound sand.

Johnson and Bob Davis discuss at least two ways to eliminate the Metropolitan Council’s authority or all together. Johnson proposes eliminating the council and replacing it with a board of elected officials from the area, with a more circumscribed and specific authority.

Bob Davis suggests at the very least, the Met Council’s budget could be deeply cut starting with council members who make over six figures a year, its police force absorbed by county and city law enforcement, and the creation of a separate transit authority. Finally, statutes which coerce local towns and cities to comply with the Met Council’s plans for dense growth, low income housing, bike paths and light rail transit, must be repealed.

Finally, are there enough votes in the legislature to accomplish Ending Met Council Tyranny? Johnson seems to think there is a chance, since many legislators hail from rural, suburban and exurban districts, with residents who have to pay for the Met Council’s grandiose plans, but receive none of the benefits. Moreover, legislators from urban districts in Minneapolis are getting an earful from wealthy Minneapolis liberals incensed at the way they’ve been treated by the Met Council over the Southwest Light Rail Project.

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Podcast 581-Disruption

Podcast 581-Disruption. The 1950’s and 60’s Are Never Coming Back. Disruption is Radical Change with profound effects, usually Permanent.   I’ve tried to determine the root of the feeling we all seem to have that something is wrong. It comes down to a major disruption of our business, industrial, governmental and cultural processes.Podcast 581-Disruption started out to be a podcast about the industrial revolution and the 1950’s in the United States. It’s a theme I return to regularly, especially when I talk about technology.

The Industrial Revolution caused disruptions from the time it began until it peaked in the 1950’s through the 1970’s. We’re in the early stages of a technology revolution on a scale the world has never experienced. I call it the second industrial revolution. It is a technology revolution and will cause profound disruptions.

Some call what we’re living through the fourth industrial revolution. I use the term second industrial revolution because I think breaking the Industrial Revolution into parts minimizes its impact. We’re in the early stages of a disruption as significant as the Industrial Revolution has been overall. What I call the Second Industrial Revolution will have more impact on humans and the planet than the first. The effect of both concepts should not be underestimated.

One of the cultural effects of the ‘turbo’ into the future is longing and nostalgia for the past. The Post World War II period in American History appears to be one of those times when the world could be easily explained, people understood their roles, people of different races didn’t mingle and The United States was number one with a bullet. The problem with this idea is, the late 1940’s, 1950’s and 1960’s only exist in perfection in dreamy memories and pictures of Marilyn Monroe. Pretty pictures, faded with time. A time when ‘everyone’ was working. When small towns were strong, and big cities were booming. Yet even then, the beginning of the decline of one age and the dawn of a new were in the making.

Not all the gifts of the technology revolution are good. The gifts of technology can be used for dark purposes as well. Religions that spread like viruses. ‘Conventional’ war on an unprecedented scale. Surveillance and mind control of populations that are supposed to be free, to the point where they ask for laws to control speech. What seems like a dream to some, will be a nightmare to others.

This revolution will not be stopped though. It will flow around any obstacles put in its path. Much of the texture of the sense some have that ‘something’ is wrong can be expressed in fear and hate. ‘Fixing’ whatever is wrong, means going back to a world 60 or 70 years ago? A world that no longer exists. Much of the industrial revolution is based on centralization. Today centralization is being disrupted to the point of destruction by decentralizing technologies. What do we need to prevail, given these challenges?

Dealing with this change is a question of how we conduct our own lives and ensure our own happiness and freedom.  We’re living through the beginning of the greatest disruption in human history. It might be the greatest age of human beings and this country yet. Saying things change isn’t descriptive enough. Disruption means radical change. In Podcast 581-Disruption-The 1950’s aren’t coming back, when are we going to stop complaining about what is being done to us, and start taking charge of our lives and our world. When are we going to start looking forward and not backward.

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