Spine: The Brave New World

TSB had a dystopian nightmare last night! It was Quixotic., farcical, yet serious. It was in black and white, and it was about a futuristic world called spine. A brave new world, intrigued with science and medicine, yet absorbed with survival. No longer were companies, surgeons, patients, distributors and sales people in control of their destiny. They had become slaves to their master. Their vice was greed, and their master was Wall Street, aka the Toecutter. As a result of our greed, there was a divergent path of social, financial, scientific, and medical progress. I saw the future, a future that was a by product of our industry's DNA. I saw the initial cracks in the foundation of what once was a noble and honorable industry. It became an industry that sought to minimize everyone's ability to earn an honest living, and be equitably compensated for their efforts.

I dreamt that surgeons were no longer doctors, they were now working under cover as silent partners in distributorships across the vast tundra know as the U.S. market, frozen in time, seeking to make as much money as they could, because being a surgeon was no longer an honorable profession. There were no morals, no ethics, no soundness of character. No longer were people hired for their talent, the industry became a nepotistic society. Distributors had became the Road Warriors of the industry, no longer working in a civil society, it was an apocalyptic future in the wasteland of spine products. Outlaw gangs defying social order primarily because work had no value.

It's a couple of years into the future, 40% commissions are a thing of the past. You are working for 15% commissions on top of paying your own expenses. There are more deals than Max Rockatansky could handle. The industry is ruled by violent gangs known as the Nightrider (the Spine Cartel) who have turned the industry into a battle ground of survival. Free markets are nothing more than a state of mind, an opiate to dull your senses. Yes readers, you know what I am talking about because we experience it everyday. It's a world where companies no longer play by rules, they make the rules like paint by number dreams, expecting immediate results, sound familiar Wall Street? How quick can you bring me $3 million in revenue? What surgeons can you buy? Whose business can you steal? Sounds familiar? What could we expect when these miscreants have either forgotten what it takes to build a business or have never built a business?

Yes readers we have become slaves to the Street! Unfortunately, the Street doesn't care about anyone prospering but themselves. It's all about short-term prosperity rather than long-term viability. And then I rolled over, woke up in a cold sweat and realized that it was just a bad dream.