I have been listening to the news about Grexit and how bad things are in Greece and in Europe, in general, and I have been pondering about our own situation in this country, the good old US of A.  In addition to pondering, I started looking around to see if I could validate some of the claims being made by people that this could never happen to us, it's happening in Greece and Europe because they have mismanaged their affairs and so on.  Really?

So, Greece's public debt is ~400 billion dollars and the US's national debt is about 18 billion (http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/), but this would not, or could not happen here? Well, pundits will say, yeat but Greece is tiny country of about 10 million  and we are over 315 million, that's why our debt number is much higher, it makes sense, right?

Well, it turns out that according as of 2014 (last year), the per capita public debt of the USA is higher than that of Greece.  Yes, that's right, each one of us owes more money than a a person in Greece. While looking for that information, I also unearthed some other countries with a surprisingly high per capita public debt.  See if you agree with me:


Country Per Capita
Public Debt ($)
--------- ---------------
1 Japan 99,725
2 Ireland 60,356
3 USA 58,604
4 Singapore 56,980
5 Belgium 47,749
6 Italy         46,757
7 Canada 45,454
8 France 42,397
9 UK 38,938
10 Switzerland 38,639
11 Austria 38,621
12 Greece 38,444
13 Netherlands 37,233
14 Germany 35,881
15 Norway 34,910
16 Spain 30,031
17 Finland 29,930
18 Denmark 28,778
19 Portugal         26,770
20 Sweden 25,155

Here is the source: http://www.bloomberg.com/visual-data/best-and-worst/p/countries/japan

LinkedIn is not the same as Facebook, or it shouldn't be!

What is happening with LinkedIn?  

When everyone was creating facebook accounts, I was reluctant to join them.  I wasn't sure I wanted to spend my time updating my hourly social timeline, "now I am dressing my kids, I am on my way back from the supermarket, my dog just bit someone,..." No, I don't think there is anything wrong with it.  If someone has the time and desire to post and someone else has the time and desire to read such updates, more power to them!  I just didn't care to do neither.  Reluctantly, I joined the crowd and after a while, I realized it wasn't so bad.  So, you share personal moments with friends, you tell your cousin about little Johnny's first steps, plus it gives you a chance to socialize for a few minutes a day, why not?

LinkedIn, not that's a different thing altogether, I thought.  It's a "professional" network where people of similar interests meet to discuss and exchange ideas about topics they share a professional interest in.  A place where you can network, meet more people in your field, share technical information, and so on.  And, that's what it was, at first, for a few years.

But, leave it to the social law of the lowest common denominator.  Everything, always levels off at the lowest level it could be, without crashing/imploding, the level of mediocrity.  

It wasn't long before LinkedIn posts started to appear about someone's horse being sick, someone kid starting kindergarten, someone's father celebration their 75th birthday.  Hey, I have no problem with you being proud about any of  these events.  I can understand you wanting to share these events with friends, seriously, I do.  But, do it with style and consideration for people you are connected with.  Do it on Facebook,  whose purpose is just that, to share social type information with your relatives, friends and neighbors.  Let LinkedIn be what it was supposed to be, a professionals network.