Selling My Books on the Streets of Brooklyn 7/30

Thanks to Jack, employee of the Chase Bank at Bay Parkway and 85th, who bought four thrillers to read on his long commute home to Queens. He goes through one every few days. I was relieved to see him, fearing he had lost his job. Just back from a two-week vacation, he had the readjustment blues, a feeling I knew all too well in my days working the trading floor, especially before the introduction of the hand held computers that made the job so much easier. Prior to that we had to clap to get the attention of the people at the podium, who relayed the trades we were reporting via telephone to others sitting at computers. It was frustrating and nerve-wracking when the market was busy. These days the market has evolved to where 80% of the trades occur on computers, leaving out slews of middle men. I would guess that 80% of the employees at One North End lost their jobs. Sometimes progress is painful. A lot of good people, especially those over 50, have had a tough time adjusting. Conservative pundits have dubbed this type of occurrence as the "creative destruction" of capitalism. One of the best and most easily understood examples of this is what has happened to the music industry. For years vinyl records ruled, then eight-tracks and cassettes improved the delivery, then CDs did it even better, and now the digital revolution has allowed consumers to pick and choose songs from an incredible catalog at a reasonable price. We can custom make CDs for our cars, or download thousands of songs into the marvel that is an IPOD. We can eliminate the filler that characterized so many albums, or even download an entire album - freedom of choice. And the sound is wonderful, at least to my ear. Those who complain it is too compressed must have supersonic hearing. Then again, they may be full of it. I once viewed a PBS program wherein experts were asked to pick between different delivery systems. They were as often wrong as right. As a society, we have to hope that this creative destruction will always yield good results. So far its track record is outstanding, despite the roadblocks the criminals in Washington put in the way. In my view, they are more dangerous to an economy than any other factor. A lot of record shops have closed. There is a sadness in that, but the alternative is infinitely better.
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