Thinking Out Loud, Volume CCLXXXIV

I'm not a shopper, but one of my favorite places to visit when I make the trip to Chattanooga is called McKay Books. It is a huge store that sells used books, and you can find a huge selection of books on most any subject at unbelievable prices. (Bill Clinton would be thrilled to know that I purchased his book, "My Life," in hardback for 75 cents.) We went by there this past Sunday afternoon, and when I picked out four books that I wanted to purchase, I had to stand in line for fifteen minutes at the checkout, and they had four cash registers going. I was a small time shopper compared to the average customer, since most everyone I saw was buying more like twenty books at a time. With that in mind, when you first look at it, you might think that a used book store like McKay Books might be a good investment, if they can attract that many buyers, and no doubt the McKays have made a fortune from that business. But I have to wonder what that business will look like in ten years. I believe that books, as we know them, will eventually cease to exist.

I'm not saying that in the next couple of decades people will stop reading....in fact, I believe the opposite is true. It's just that books made of paper may be about to become obsolete, and when that happens we may no longer have a need for bookshelves or even libraries. Modern technology is changing our lives in more ways than any of us could've ever predicted, and if you think we've gone about as far as we can go, I've got news for you: We haven't even scratched the surface. Most of us will live to see scientific advances that we can't even imagine...new breakthroughs that will completely alter our culture and even the way we speak.

Here's another example: How much longer will it be until the U.S. Postal Service is a thing of the past? People don't use the mail any more, compared to the way it was done just a few short years ago. A few days ago, since I had to run by the Post Office anyway, I decided to pick up a few stamps, since I was down to just one. I bought ten stamps. When I got home, I had to ask myself why I had bought so many...it will take me months to go through ten stamps. (I used to buy them in rolls of 100.) It's gotten so bad that the Postal Service is considering cutting back on mail delivery days, reducing service, and raising prices. Do you know what happens when businesses cut back on service and increase prices? They go out of business. Technology has changed the way we live. Fewer and fewer of us are writing checks any more. Most of us don't even receive a check when we're paid our salaries...it's all done electronically. How long will it be until we no longer see a bank located on every other street corner the way we do now? How many of us still subscribe to the newspaper? I don't. We read it online.

When we stop to consider how many jobs will be affected over the next few years by these changes, it will blow our minds. The paper industry will be hit especially hard, which will, in turn, affect an untold number of other industries like loggers, printers, ink manufacturers, etc. The list goes on and on. And yes, I do understand that we are going to have to start thinking more in terms of high tech jobs, but how many of those can be obtained in America? It seems to me that so much of that industry is located in Asia. If we want to continue to hold on to our status as the World Economic Power, we must become more competitive in the field of technology. It can be done, and we have the brain power to accomplish it if we do it right. It just simply boils down to our ability to compete. Capitalism works when we give it a chance.

Preston