Month: March 2012

As you laugh at those ridiculous predictions from 50 years ago, ponder how today’s predictions will look 50 years from now

Everyone knows those silly predictions from the 1950s are so ridiculously wrong.

There’s the old line about the world only needing a few computers. The quote as it usually provided is mentioned by friend John Bredehoft in his post Why Bad Predictions Happen (the ‘five computers’ prediction).

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” – Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.

John questions who actually made the comment and whether it may have been made in the ’50s instead. Regardless, the point stands.  Do we really need more than 5 of those machines?

Since there are at least five computers in just my home that are more powerful than what was available in the 1950s, we can all chuckle away.  How silly he was.

John suggests we pause for a moment in our merriment:

Continue reading “As you laugh at those ridiculous predictions from 50 years ago, ponder how today’s predictions will look 50 years from now”

Here’s another cliff – volume of first class mail

Although not as impressive as the graph of newspaper ad revenue illustrated earlier, the graph of first-class mail processed by USPS is still a fairly imposing cliff. Wall Street Journal has the graph in their article Postal Cuts Are Dead Letter in Congress.

Peak in about 2001, slow decline through about 2007 and rapid decline since. Volume is about the same as in ’85 or ’86.

Check out that graph and you will see why the USPS has revenue problems.