Today, where ever you are, stop and take a moment to reflect on what happened seven years ago today in Manhattan, at the Pentagon, and in the rural hills of Pennsylvania.

I was living in South Carolina at the time, and woke up to my roommates crowded around the television. The North and South Towers had already been struck, and we watched in shock as the media announced that this was a deliberate attack, and that more planes might have been hijacked.

Then the news reported that the Pentagon was struck, and all hell broke loose.

In quick succession, the South Tower collapsed, Flight 93 crashed into the fields of Pennsylvania, and then the North Tower collapsed.

My friend burst into tears when we learned that it was Flight 93 that had crashed. Her father was supposed to be on that plane. By some stroke of luck, or grace of God, he and his friends (who were in New York to play a softball tournament) did not get on that flight.

I remember crying… and thinking, “What do we do now?”

I remember calling my mom. Phones were patchy, sometimes you could get through, sometimes you couldn’t. Everyone knew someone who was missing. My mom’s friend was contracted for work at the Pentagon, and it wasn’t until two weeks later that we learned he was safe, and had taken a vacation that week.

We were the lucky ones, and today we remember all who lost their lives to those horrific acts of terrorism. We remember the brave rescuers who rushed into danger and saved lives and lost friends. We remember the fathers who frantically called home just to hear the voice of their child one last time.

We remember our innocence… and our anger.

This is not something you forget or get over. It never should be.

Please take a moment today to remember.

I invite you all to leave your thoughts and prayers.

When Starbucks (NasdaqGS: SBUX) announced on July 1 it was closing 600 U.S stores, Big Media played it up with an apocalyptic gusto. The Starbucks meltdown was portrayed as divine retribution for our yuppie excess — the Angel of Doom descending on every street corner in America where BMW owners doubled parked for their $5 White Chocolate Mocha Frappuccinos.

Take a look at the chart, and you’ll see that SBUX looks like a massive cardiac arrest…

But there’s a much bigger part of the story that, in fact, Starbucks played down. Like a good corporate lap dog, Big Media ignored this important piece of news — depriving investors of a key piece of market intelligence that could make Starbucks a good long-term play.

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Budweiser and Busch are as American as camo seat covers in a F-150.

Yet a hostile offer by InBev SA (Brussels:INB.BR) on Anheuser-Busch (NYSE:BUD) is about to show us that the star-spangled King of Beers is up for play because it ignored emerging markets.

When you look at the dynamics behind the InBev bid, it’s important to see America as a diminished player. The headlines tell you that the economy is dismal. What Big Media rarely tells you is that smaller, developing economies are kicking our butt. American companies that count strictly on the U.S. for revenues are destined for the rustbelt of the future — or a foreign buyout.

Analysts have been badgering A-B for years that it relies too heavily on the U.S. — one of the slowest growing beer markets in the world. A-B has buried its head in the sand as InBev and other competitors have pushed into high-growth emerging markets.

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First it’s Japan, and now India. 

When Toyota announced its first annual profit drop in nine years, it pointed to the U.S. as the culprit. Then, in the same breath, Toyota acknowledged a stronger shift to emerging markets like China, Latin America and the Middle East. That was on May 8th.

Four days later, India outsourcing tech giants Satyam Computer Services (NYSE: SAY), Infosys Technologies (Nasdaq: INFY) and Wipro Technologies (NYSE: WIT) are giving the U.S. the bum’s rush as well.

In a May 12th article in the India Times, the three major IT outsourcers, which have a combined market cap of $52.7 billion, said that they’re moving on to emerging markets as the U.S. “lurches towards recession in the wake of the subprime crisis.”

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