Sound investment advice

Here’s some sound investment advice for you.
If you are looking for some companies to invest in, seek out those who make hearing aids and companies involved in auditory health research.
Hearing, or the lack thereof, is going to be a huge medical issue in the coming years. First of all, you have the baby boomer generation reaching an age where hearing naturally declines.
This is the same generation that has blasted its eardrums with boom boxes, rock concerts, Walkmans and iPods. Couple that with a current generation that is deafening itself with car stereos and the aforementioned iPods and you have yourself a tide of demand that is about to come crashing down on the auditory health industry.
It both saddens and angers me whenever a car comes by with its stereo blasting so loud that it not only vibrates the house, but it overpowers every other sound in the house.
(In fact, as I write this, a car is passing by my office with its stereo so loud I can hear it plain as day.)
I know from experience what these people are doing to themselves and it’s not pretty. In fact, it’s maddening.
I was an avid hunter back in the early ’80s. It was not unusual for my ears to be ringing for a while after each blast of my shotgun.
It was an irritant at first. But the duration of the ringing kept getting longer and longer. It has now been ringing nonstop for 27 years. I was 16 the last time I heard absolute silence. About a fourth of my hearing is gone, replaced by the constant ringing.
The condition is called tinnitus and it affects millions of people. Given what I see and hear, it’s going to affect millions more very shortly. I don’t blame anyone but myself for my problem. But I sure wish someone would have warned me about the consequences of shooting a shotgun without hearing protection.
The thing that really angers me about these stupid people who insist on having everyone for a three-block radius listen to the same crap they listen to in their vehicles is the fact that they are doing the same irreparable damage to their ears.
It’s so unnecessary.
It’s so uncool. They may think they’re hot stuff with their powerful stereos, but they’re really very stupid – or at the least they’re ignorant.
Unlike the short, quick blast of a shotgun, the stereos are now cranking out much higher decibel levels and for a much longer duration. The human ear was not designed to handle that much noise and certainly not for any length of time.
The damage these people will suffer – and yes, they will suffer – is permanent. The ringing distorts what you hear because the hair-like structures in the inner ear are gone. They cannot pick up sound vibrations anymore. Volume doesn’t help you hear any better. It’s a matter of clarity.
If someone talks to me and they mumble slightly or have slurred speech, I can hear them just fine in terms of volume, but I cannot understand them because I can’t hear the full range of speech. I can hear parts of words and I kind of fill in the blanks for the rest of what I think is being said.
My wife tells me that her grandfather and I have carried on lengthy conversations where what one of us is talking about is completely unrelated to what the other is saying. (I think that sounds more like marriage, but that’s a different story.)
Using a phone is a whole other adventure. I cannot hear much of anything on the phone in my left ear. Phones often distort and limit sound, making it hard for me to hear what is being said.
These are the same problems people who are blasting their car stereos and iPods will have. If anyone you know has a habit of listening to loud music, please be kind enough to share this warning with them, especially if they are subjecting young children to the noise as well.
And while you are at it, take some time to research companies on the Internet who are developing technologies to aid the hearing impaired. Believe me; they’re going to be making a fortune in a very short time.
I believe anyone who will shell out thousands of dollars for their music and sound systems will quite willingly fork over tens of thousands of dollars to try and get back what those sound systems have taken away.
I know I’d give my life savings to the first company that comes up with a hearing device or surgical procedure that stops the ringing of tinnitus. And so will millions of others.