After reading thousands of words about Steve Jobs stepping down at Apple, I’ve decided that MarketWatch’s Jon Friedman put it best: Jobs “stands as the greatest manipulator of popular culture in history” possessing the ability to convince people to buy expensive stuff that they don’t need but feel that they can’t do without.

Amen to that.

I’ve swallowed the Jobs’ pitch hook, line and sinker. My family has gone through an array of iPod shuffles/nanos/touches, MacBooks, iPhones over the years. The aging iMac desktop, which has already greatly outlived predecessor desktops from Hewlett-Packard and IBM, remains computer central in the basement of my home.

I doubted the wisdom of the iPad, but have become a big fan.

Did we need all this stuff? Of course, not. Did all the stuff deliver on their expectations? Of course.

Mighty H-P realized the folly of competing against the greatest showman of the electronics world, pulling the plug on its TouchPad after a mere two months. H-P now benefits by the glaring media spotlight on Jobs and Apple, which diverts attention from its messy withdrawal from the PC business and expensive acquisition of British software house, Autonomy.

If only Steve’s sales magic could be bottled and shipped to Washington. As the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks near, one recalls President Bush’s call to “go shopping.” We really could use those shopaholics today. There is a desperate need to bolster consumer spending to stimulate the economy and encourage Corporate America to tap its multi-trillion dollar cash hoard to put people back to work. As President Obama finally “pivots” to job creation (Where have you been, Barack?) with the announcement of an infrastructure program next month, he could use a couple of sips of the Jobs elixir.

Good luck to Steve and all of Apple.

(Image: Wikimedia)