The arts are an even better barometer of what is happening in our world than the stock market or the debates in congress.

Back in the days when the market was a kind of secular god and all the world thrilled to behold the amazing powers of private capital the idea of privatizing highways and airports and other bits of our transportation infrastructure made a certain kind of sense.

Smart businesses do not look at labor costs alone anymore. They do look at market access transportation telecommunications infrastructure and the education and skill level of the workforce the development of capital and the regulatory market.

One already feels like an anachronism writing novels in the age of what-ever-this-is-the-age-of but touring to promote them feels doubly anachronistic. The marketplace is showing an increasing intolerance for the time-honored practice of printing information on paper and shipping it around the country.

Regardless of age regardless of position regardless of the business we happen to be in all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.

Situational unawareness in the private marketplace or on the battlefield will cost you your livelihood or your life. In the Age of Obama however such willful ignorance is a job prerequisite. The less you know the better.

I'd like to talk about free markets. Information in the computer age is the last genuine free market left on earth except those free markets where indigenous people are still surviving. And that's basically becoming limited.