The Apple and the Worm

     This article is about the all familiar Apple corporation and its future as the leader in the smart phone and tablet market. As we all know, Apple has recently released the iPhone 5s and also the 5c, which comes with a friendlier price tag and a variety of color designs. Some of Apple's biggest competitors are Microsoft, with their windows tablets, Google, and Samsung.
     The author of this article asserts that China is the world's largest smart phone market, and has many devices that are being made by manufacturers that didn't exist when the iPhone first came out. According to the author, this competition isn't going to stay confined to Asia. Rather, it is going to bloom in the future, and eventually Apple is going to whither down and become nothing but 'just another brand' to choose from at tech stores.
    None of this seems to bother Apple's Tim Cook too much though. He explains that in there are splits in all markets in the world of technology. Its inevitable. The main difference in the unavoidable schism of the smart phone market is that most of the competition is about price and that is their only ability to achieve demand for their products. He continues that Apple's intention is to be an "upper end" company and with making a quality product that offers the utilities people need comes the upper end price tag.
     Apple has still acknowledged the ever growing market of cheaper competitors with the release of the iPhone 5c, which is less expensive and thus more affordable to a larger market of people. And with Apple's army of stalwarts world wide, the company is probably going to continue to stay on top for a long time.

U.S. Default

     This article is about how the possibility of the United States defaulting on its debt sometime soon. As we all know, the United States government has shut down. This is happening for the first time in 17 years, which would have been back in 1996. The government shut down means that a majority of the government offices and agencies have closed and its employees are not working, however critical agencies and services are still operating.  This is all coming from congress's inability to make come to decisions over things such as the debt ceiling and the Affordable Healthcare Act.
     The deadline to raise the debt ceiling before we default is October 17. Default simply means failure to pay the debt (in this instance). The the ceiling is not raised, we would no longer be able to repay the debts. This sort of situation could be very bad for the U.S. economy, which is already very fragile. Back in 2011 during a similar situation, the U.S. credit ratings were damaged. This has a ripple effect which can result in volatility in the stock prices, and reduce the confidence of small businesses and consumers.
     Of course, in an economy like ours, the confidence of our businesses and consumers means everything. In our free market system the consumer influences much of the direction our economy takes, and the government serves as protector, regulator, and as the treasury. Obviously these days the government has pretty much dropped the ball. And if congress (and the rest of them) can't get themselves figured out soon, then the government is dropping the ball on its own foot.