Hope this blog finds you and your family doing well.

Most Naïve Americans and in general the United States of America as a country continues to collapse.

Yesterday evening my wife and I watched Dateline on NBC.  The first (hour) segment dealt with the absurd war your predecessor, president Bush thanks to the vice president at the time, Mr. Cheney (a.k.a. defense contractor), promoted an impossible to win war in Afghanistan.  I believe you have been in office for about year and a half and have not lived up to any of your presidential campaign promises.  Naïve Americans should understand that the promises came from a politician and should not expect them to be fulfilled.  Most Naïve Americans do not appear to be too smart when it comes to politics.  Perhaps they are and voted for the democratic candidate based on promises made behind the scenes by the Democratic Party to special interests groups (i.e., unions).  As usual the common Naïve American was left out in the rain.  So far you have not delivered a single CHANGE but the USA needs to put up with another two and a half years of your administration.

The report on Dateline showed how the Taliban killed and injured dozens of Naïve American soldiers deployed in Afghanistan.  I happen to have military background and when I saw the location of the camp, immediately the idea crossed my mind that the soldiers would not be able to make it in such location.  It took a few days and dozens of dead and injured young Naïve Americans for the Army to close the new camp.  If I am not mistaken, during your presidential campaign, you promised that the arm forces deployed overseas fighting absurd wars would be brought back home.  If I am not mistaken you even had the audacity to provide some rough schedule to bring back home our troops.  Nothing like that is happening.  The USA will never under no circumstances will destroy the perceived enemy in Afghanistan.  The Soviet Union failed and we will too.  Perhaps you need to change your military advisors with people with common sense and no special interests.  A personal question Mr. Obama, do you happen to have stock in companies that manufacture weapons?

A few minutes ago I read on the web an article titled “China pushing the envelope on science, and sometimes ethics” by the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/27/AR2010062703639.html).  The article contains a picture of Zhao Bowen (not John Wayne) a 17-year-old Chinese scientist.  This Chinese (not Naïve American) teenager was part of a scientific team that last year cracked the genetic code of the cucumber.

If you have a chance to read the article, the change in science and education has been quite radical and fast.  A few years ago most people, excluding this Naïve American, believed that uneducated China would always be there as a source of cheap labor.  Today China has not only surpassed the USA as an economic and military power but is already stating to show super powers in the scientific arena.  So what is left for the USA?  I can tell you, we have a plethora of lawyers, politicians, business, sales people and CEOs, which are not able to provide a single good or service desirable outside the USA.  Not sure if you Mr. Obama or your elite team of advisors needs the example that my son and I used to describe global economy to my ten-year-old granddaughter.  She does not understand economic theory (if such a thing exists), but she can tell you that our economy the way it is going will not be able to make it.  On the other had, she fully understands how China is growing and will continue to grow.  I know she is on summer vacations.  If you need an economic advisor I believe we could arrange her to meet with you.

I fully understand how incapable your administration could be if something unexpectedly was thrown at you.  I am referring to the 60+ day fiasco with BP in the Gulf.  It does not take much to figure out that if you are slow to react to an unexpected problem, the problem will destroy you.  The issue is that after two months there is no clear and absolute resolution to the oil spill.  Given that you and your administration lack of engineering and scientific background, you are handling the issue like a politician.  Millions of wild life specimens are and will die before the problem is resolved.  Millions of Naïve Americans will loose their jobs and hundreds of thousands of small businesses with go under.  I guess your green initiative should provide those Naïve Americans with new well paying jobs funded by the few taxes paid by the few Naïve Americans that are able to hold a job.

Following is some food for though.  Please take the amount of oil being spilled in the Gulf by the BP oil well and think of it coming from a flotilla of oil tankers sunk in the Gulf by Osama bin Laden.  911 was caused by a handful of airplanes hitting very few targets and it created a serious problem for the USA.  I guess Tony Hayward BP’s CEO is better dressed and more influential that Osama bin Laden so all is and will be well.

America is sinking and you and your administration have not done a single thing to solve the obvious problems.  All we have seen is additional useless bureaucracy in the economic and healthcare front that are making it harder for most Naïve Americans to get ends to meet.  Hopefully these few words will motivate you and your administration to wake up before things get past the point of no return.  I fully believe we are almost there.  When we pass such point, there will not be enough CHANGE to make a difference.

Sincerely yours;

The Naïve American

As we all know April 15, 2010 came and went.  I used Turbo Tax to generate and file electronically my return for the past year.  It appears, each time it gets more confusing; what is going on?  This is a panacea for politicians to get from Naïve Americans as much as they can to pay for their lavish life styles while helping curtail the tax burden of their political supporters.

There is so much Naïve Americans can and will take.  I am not associated with the Tea Party movement, but my tip of the hat.  Naïve Americans need to promote CHANGE in as many fronts as possible in order to slow down the fall of the United States of America.

I was reading a short article in the April 10^th edition of The Economist titled “The Joy of Tax”.  It is interesting to note that the federal code tax in 1913 was about 400 pages long.  Can you imagine fully understanding 400 pages of tax code, which are completely arbitrary in the sense they do not follow any logical or physical model?  Well, things just started to get worse from that point on.  Today the same document is about 70,000 pages long.  An average textbook contains about 500 pages.  Then in average to be proficient in tax law one needs to be proficient in about 140 books.  Most Naïve Americans have never read 140 books!  Very few have read 140 textbooks.  This fact tends to illustrate the complexity of taxes in the USA.

The main questions should be, why are taxes so complicated?  The simple and correct answer is to benefit special interest groups.  Our federal government could do with no more than 10% of the taxes we Naïve Americans pay if our government would cut waste.  Of course this will not happen because special interests pay (contribute, the proper corrupt term we now use) politicians and they have to answer to them.

The article also mentions an interesting statistic.  It takes about 3.8 million skilled workers tiling full-time, year-round to handle the paperwork and electronic forms associated with paying taxes.  Some Naïve Americans (mostly democrats) are of the opinion that this is good because it employs people.  The problem is that there is no beneficial end result to the economy of the USA.  What type of desirable goods or services does people involved in taxes have to offer to the world economy?  NONE.  It is just a waste of time and money that could be used to promote small businesses to create skilled jobs to develop / produce / manufacture desirable goods and services.

As I always say, one should NEVER generalize.  Not all (but most) politicians are a problem.  Ron Paul (R-TX) wants to eliminate the IRS.  Any Naïve American with some degree of intelligence should agree with such measure.  Take the 3.8 million skilled workers wasting their time working on taxes a year.  Lets assume that each skilled worker gets paid $60,000 a year.  If this is the case, then one needs to add about half of that salary in benefits and other associated costs (i.e., office space, telephone, etc).  We now have $90,000 per individual multiplied by 3,800,000 workers, which equates to 342,000 million dollars a year.  The estimated population of the state of Oregon in 2009 was around 3.8 million, which included seniors, adults and children.  Imagine if all that population was working year round in tax related jobs for the IRS.  What a waste of TIME and MONEY!

As the United States of America continues in the downwards spiral, hopefully more and more Naïve Americans will decide to elect those few politicians that may induce a POSITIVE CHANGE for our country.

A very loaded and interesting question.  If you ask children they will tell you that the president, Mr. Barack Obama at this point in time, runs our country.  The president is elected through somewhat twisted method, but that is how we elect our president.

For most Naive Americans the president is just a figure (puppet) that follows the suggestions of his political party.  So far so good because a Democratic president, like Barack Obama should follow the principles and ideology of the Democratic Party.  The same could have been said of the previous Bush administration.

A considerably less number of Naive Americans fully understand that career politicians that listen and receive legal bribes (political contributions) from lobbyist run the country.  In turn lobbyist work for wealth individuals and corporations that do not care about Naive Americans or the USA.  They just worship the US Dollar.

Today the US Supreme Court has eased on restrictions on corporate campaign spending.  This means one and only one thing, lobbyist will be able to provide larger bribes to politicians.  This is really bad news for the USA.  Our current economical situation is just the result of the American Royalty (wealthy individuals and corporations) making an extra Dollar and destroying the US economy and industry.  The serious problems we are facing today were primarily started during the Clinton administration.  Do you remember globalization?  Well we got it and as a result the Dollar is becoming weaker, our trade deficit is in the trillions of Dollars, a huge percentage of our goods are manufactured abroad (mostly in China), as far as energy is concerned, we depend almost completely on oil from the Middle East.  You know how the countries in the Middle East love the USA (ha ha ha).

America is getting closer to a full collapse.  We need to make changes in mostly all sectors in order to start a gradual change in direction before we become a third world country.  What fueled America in the past were innovative small businesses.  Today we have lethargic large businesses being bailed out with taxes paid by Naive Americans, managed by incompetent people (wealthy CEOs) who make huge salaries and to top it all demand even larger bonuses.

What are the chances that our president will be able to make a CHANGE?

The Naive American

If you go to the Lowes web site (www.lowes.com) next day delivery has a caveat.  It is only available for in-stock major appliances.  So what are the chances that the appliance you decide to purchase is in stock?  Do not know that answer but in the past six months my wife and I had to replace the washer and dryer (the motor in the washer burned) at home.  Purchase them at Lowes.  Lowes did not have the appliances in stock (what a surprise) so it took several (not next day) days between the purchase and delivery.  Lowes does not hook up gas appliances.  They are able to plug in a cord to a standard electrical outlet.  That appears to be the extent of free hookup.

A few months later our refrigerator was making noise.  My wife wanted to find out how much a replacement unit would cost.  We stopped by Lowes and went through a similar process with a sales representative.  Once again the delivery would be several days after the purchase.  We decided not to replace a new refrigerator at the time.

Not sure how Lowes and for that matter most other major appliance stores (i.e., Home Depot, Sears, etc) can get away deceiving potential customers as they do.  I guess that is the way to do business in America.  Naïve Americans get excited with the models at the showroom and tend to ignore the false promises that led them in the first place to stop by a store searching for a new appliance.

Home appliances used to last decades.  Today they are manufactured to last a few years.  The reason for this is that manufacturers (most of them in China) design appliances to break in a short period of time so they can sell Naïve Americans a replacement in a very short period of time.  Companies have quality assurance departments that work in conjunction with designers to test the life of different parts and estimate how long should they last.  The game is to make sure all parts last for a minimum time so the Naïve American is led to believe that a quality product has been purchased but appliances start breaking down after a few years hinting the owner that it is time to replace the unit (standard tear and wear we are told).

I guess that is the American way.  We live in a consumer society.  Products should not last too long.  They need to be constantly replaced.  I have observed this phenomenon with different coffee makers in the past five to six years.  I brew every day two cups of coffee.  Coffee machines from different companies (so far all are manufactured in China) do not last more than a couple years.  In my opinion a coffee maker, with proper care, should last at least ten years.  I as a consumer would like to decide on a newer and fancier model when I am ready to purchase it, not after a couple years (if lucky) when the unit breaks down.

This brings me to an interesting point.  Hardware designers are able to design products that break after a period of time forcing the Naïve American to purchase a new one.  What about software?  Well-designed software does not break.  It just works.  The only hope for well-designed software is that with time, the requirements of the user or the specific industry (e.g., automotive, medical, etc) change enough so a new version of the software must be considered.  This might not be as reasonable as one might imagine.  Software manufactures are constantly adding bells and whistles to their software products in order to lure new buyers, but the majority of users tend to use the same set of features version after version.  You know what I mean if you use a word processor package (e.g., Microsoft Word).  I have been using Word for about twenty years and probably use one to two percent of the current features.  With time I have purchased newer versions of Word because older versions do not work on newer versions of the Windows operating system.  Perhaps having a monopoly is the American way.

So what should software manufactures in our consumer society do to get recurrent revenue?  Adding feature just for the fun of it does not appear to be a feasible option.  Developing high quality software does not appear to be a good business.  Would like to hear your comments opinions on this issue.

Hope you and your family had a nice holiday.  Naive Americans know that you had a nice holiday on the East Coast while most of us were unemployed or in the process of loosing our jobs.  Yet your administration spent several million dollars on your vacations / holidays.

As you are aware during the month of December 2009 businesses cut 85,000 jobs and unemployment is still around 10%.  I live in the City of Apple Valley, Minnesota with a population of about 50,000.  If the entire population of Apple Valley (it includes youngsters and elderly) would have been laid off last month it would still be less than what actually happen.  I can anticipate your comments.  85,000 in a country with a population of about 304 million is just a drop in the bucket.  The answer sounds reasonable so I will like to add that the lives lost in the 9/11 attack and the ones lost in the foolish wars we have embarked in the last few years (i.e., Afghanistan) are nothing but a drop in the bucket.  Mr. Obama the economic recovery plan your administration has put together could not possibly work and so far has not.  It has just deepened the hole from which our country has to emerge.

You continue to push your renewable / green energy plans to get Americans back to work and help the economy.  I do not know who came with such a preposterous plan.  For the current and foreseeable future alternate energy technology will not be able to replace other sources of energy (i.e., coal, nuclear and oil) and if and when they do in the next few decades how many people do you estimate will be able to work on such technology?  There might be a few thousand good paying jobs for the design engineers but the way things are going all the equipment will be manufactured in China.  What would be left for Naive Americans is to install and service Chinese units.  What a way to promote the US economy!

I have been quite busy designing and developing software in the past month or so.  Have had no spare time to write blogs.

Last year one of your economic advisors Warren Buffett acquire additional railroads.  I have not had the opportunity to meet Mr. Buffett in person.  He definitely has skills to generate personal wealth.  Not sure what the implications of his business ventures have been for Naive Americans, but that set aside, have you interpreted what he is stating?

Allow me to enlighten you with an educated guess.  The logic goes as follows:  In the not too distant future (less than a few years) the dollar will have to devaluate.  Our growing (thanks to you) trade deficit will sooner or later catch up with the USA.  When that happens a gallon of diesel fuel made by American refineries with imported oil from the Middle East will sky rocket.  I would estimate it to be about $10 a gallon.  This will represent another blow to our always-declining economy not to mention what will happen to the trucking industry.  Given that little is being manufactured in the US (Did you hear about China becoming the first producer of good in the world passing Germany?) most goods being imported will arrive by ship (less expensive) on one of the coasts.  Trucks will be used to move containers from the maritime terminals to railroads (very short distances, less trucks, less truckers, less jobs).  From railroads connecting the US (they are already there, they only need to be properly maintained) they will be shipped throughout our country.  When they arrive to their destination, containers will be moved by truck to local distributors, which will ship them to stores or consumers.  The use of Internet commerce will continue to grow in an attempt to cut household spending.  So what is the message broadcasted by your most respectable economical advisor?  Not good!

We need fundamental changes in most aspects of our country, from economy, to education and politics.  On several occasions you have mentioned that you have read about the Great Depression in our country hopping to get a better understanding and ideas on how to deal with the present situation.  Knowledge is good if and only if is able to produce new effective ideas.  Otherwise it is just a waste of time.  I would like to suggest you and your advisors start reading about the French Revolution.

Going back to your presidential campaign, Naive Americans would like to see CHANGEs.  So far your administration has failed miserably in providing them.  Hopefully you will meditate on this blog entry and come up with at least a handful of good ideas.

Best regards;

The Naive American.

www.NaiveAmerican.com

Today is Saturday October 31, 2009 (Halloween).  It is around 10:00 AM EDT and chilly (37 F) in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul in Minnesota.  No grandkids this weekend.  I guess ‘Jaws’ (a miniature pinscher my wife and I are dog sitting for my oldest son) will not be wearing his lobster costume this evening.  My granddaughters got it for him thinking they would be going trick or treating with us this year, but this weekend the girls are with their mother.  That is the life of kids of divorced parents.  Jaws should not be growing any more.  The costume should work for next year.

I will be working at home on and off over the weekend.  I just took a break from work and checked the news on Goggle.  There was an article “Federal stimulus created or saved 24,000 N.J. jobs, White House says” (http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/10/federal_stimulus_created_or_sa.html).  The reason it called my attention is because this past week in the news there has been lots of ‘publicity’ from the White House stating how well the US is doing thanks to the efforts of the current administration.

I fully understand that most Naive Americans do not want to see reality.  It is ugly and we do not want to make CHANGEs (do you recall this word Mr. Obama?) to the status quo because changes relate to work and some immediate pain.  It is a lot simpler to blame American Royalty and politicians for what is going on and then swiftly demand from the government (run by politicians) to fix our immediate problems without looking at the grave and inevitable consequences.  As far as the government is concern, who cares, Naive Americans will forget who caused what and we will vote for the Republican Party candidate when we realize that Democrats took America for a ride.  The story just repeats (Democrats or Republicans) while our country becomes weaker and weaker.

The article deals with two main issues that your administration does not seem to comprehend or, more realistic, does not want to address because of the implications to the Union of Teachers and American Royalty.  Allow me to explain.

None of the jobs that have been kept or created are sustainable.  They are just charity (welfare).  Building roads and additional government does not create goods and services that the US can sell to other economies.  They just consume money that has to come by increasing taxes on Naive Americans.  My nine-year-old granddaughter understands this simple concept.  Perhaps your administration would like to hire her to provide economic advice.

Earlier this week my wife and I went to Macy’s at the Mall of America to exchange a pair of Rockport shoes that lasted less that three weeks.  The shoes were manufactured in China.  We looked at shoes and got a pair by ECCO.  They were also manufactured in China.  Because of this we spent a few minutes looking at other shoes and clothing.  Most were manufactured in China.  We did not find a single item manufactured in the US.  So, is your stimulus package working or makes any sense?  Again, if you wish to have the correct answer my nine year old is available.

The second item that came up from the article is that in N.J. the moneys from the stimulus will help to continue employing 13,777 union teachers.  Have you taken a look at our public education system and what is coming out of it?  We are educating masses of Naive Americans that do not understand science and math.  What type of industries is the USA going to fuel in the not so distant future with Naive Americans with liberal arts degrees?  I was going to suggest asking my nine-year-old granddaughter because I am afraid she does not understand this issue yet.  Once she is in her mid twenties she will understand but it will be too late for her and the USA.

So Mr. Obama, keep wasting money in programs that do not CHANGE the US.  Sooner or later the world will seek a different currency than the Dollar and millions of Naive Americans will have no other recourse than beg for food and help.  Perhaps China will send our way some table scraps (not likely).

Enjoy the day and have fun with your wife and kid’s trick or treating this evening!

Best regards;

An extremely concerned Naive American

www.NaiveAmerican.com

I am sure you have read the news about the increasing unemployment in our country.  As soon as the “Cash for Clunkers” program finished the artificial slight economical improvement disappeared.  What were you expecting to happen?  Today in the news we are able to read, from democratic senators, that things could be worse if the stimulus packages (i.e., financial institutions, automobile industry) would not have been implemented.  On the other side of the table we have republican politicians telling Naive Americans that the democratic president failed once again.  I fully understand that career politicians so not care about much but their own well being so what they say should be completely ignored.  What cannot be ignored is what is going on with the economy and the increasing numbers of unemployed Naive Americans.  So what are you going to do Mr. President?

As more and more Naive Americans loose their jobs and are not able to pay higher taxes, how do you and your advisors plan to pay for unemployment benefits?  It does not take an intellect higher than a ten year old to figure out that Naive Americans will need shelter, clothing and food while they are out of work.  Unemployment benefits are not a cure.  They are only intended to address a temporary condition.  The problem is that since the past fifty years (going now to sixty) the USA has been in a downward spiral in many fronts.  The Naive American calls this the fall of the American Empire.  What is interesting to note is that in the same time period the number of millionaires in our country has increased.  Why do you think this has happened Mr. President?  The answer is simple; the American Royalty has been buying politicians via lobbyist and have been passing laws to destroy the USA.  By destroying engineering and manufacturing very few people in the US are able to benefit from the savings obtained from outsourcing jobs to other countries.  The only ones that benefit are the very few people and families controlling medium to large size companies.  Those individuals (The American Royalty) are getting paid in the dozens of millions of dollars a year while their companies are collapsing.  As companies collapse, more and more Naive Americans are being shifted from the middle to the lower economical class.  The middle class is disappearing in the USA.  This can bring a huge and serious problem that can explode at any moment.  Mr. Obama, you have mentioned that you like to read about past US presidents.  I would suggest you reading about the civil war in the United States.  Unless you really fulfill your promise of CHANGE, something serious might happen just under your nose.

I would just like to touch on your heal5thcare reform plans.  Are you starting to understand why healthcare reform is a great idea but the time is not right.  You first need to solve the economical problems affecting our country.  Then you can move to address education and last but not least healthcare.  All of these sectors have similar problems in that they have, currently are and in the future will be caused by the American Royalty.  The CHANGE that you promised for the Naive Americans is not going to happen unless you first change what is wrong with companies whose executives make money destroying the America.  This is not going to be an easy task.  Chances are that you will go down as one of the (if not the) worse presidents in the US history.  This statement is based on the fact that you were elected president because of the efforts of your political party who responds to the American Royalty.

What we need is a quick boost on all small businesses that develop products and services desirable by Naive Americans and more important by the world.  American Express has a nice advertisement on television.  They claim they are helping small businesses grow and helping bring prosperity.  The businesses they show are:  a bicycle shop and a bakery.  That is not the kind of small businesses the USA needs.  What we need are companies that design and manufacture low to high tech goods that can be sold outside the US.  This will generate new jobs and will start bringing the trade deficit down.  As long as we continue to buy everything from China and China has no interest in buying things from the US our economy will just continue to go down.

Mr. President, the BRIC acronym (Brazil, Russia, India and China) does NOT include the USA.  You can attend as many G20 summits as you want.  The USA is declining and will become a second world county in the next couple decades unless you truly bring CHANGE as promised.

Yours truly,

The Naive American

www.naiveamrican.org

One thing led to another and somehow we started talking about the current state of the US economy.  My two granddaughters asked what were we talking about.  My son took the lead with an example, which might not be only good for a ten and an eight year old but for most Naive Americans including President Obama and his economic advisors.

Due to space limitations I am not going to go in detail on our two hour conversation / discussion / learning session.  I am just going to provide a sample of it.

My son drew an analogy that each house in our neighborhood was a country.  Our home was the USA.  For sake of argument we had a million dollars is cash.  Other homes represented different countries.  Our neighbor to the left was assigned China.  I was assigned the roll of president, my son was a car manufacturer (i.e., GM), my oldest granddaughter ran a business that manufactured car parts, and my youngest granddaughter was a physician.  For some reason my wife just added her comments and opinions.  She did not assume a roll in our economy.  Perhaps she was representing the news.

In our example the car manufacturer used to purchase parts from the small business for about $100 (the example was aimed at kids).  The car manufacturer would sell a car for $1,000.  The money stayed (changed hands) in the country.  My granddaughter could see the physician who would charge $20 per visit.  With time all Naive Americans could purchase a car.  Life was good.  The kids followed up on the idea with some additional examples.

Now the greedy car manufacture (my son) came to me (the president representing politicians at large) and gave me money in the form of political contributions (perfectly legal but complete immoral) for me to allow the car manufacturer to get the cars from my neighbor (China).  My granddaughter lost her job.  She was not able to see the doctor when needed.  In fact she did not have money for anything.  My son (the car manufacturer) reduced the retail price of his cars from $1,000 down to $990.  The difference was pocketed by bonuses and stockholder dividends.  Cars were now cheaper but fewer people in our house (the USA) could buy them.

When my granddaughter needed a different doctor (a specialist) in a different house she was unable to afford it.

We then changed the scope by going back in time some fifty years.  Things were different in our neighborhood (actually in the world).  Our house (the USA) used to produce automobiles, people in our house and other houses in the neighborhood wanted to purchase our cars (and goods).  Money was coming in (no deficit) to our house.  Life was good.

After the exercise my granddaughter asked is the USA would ever be like it used to be.  I answered as follows:  “If things continue as they have been in the past fifty years, the answer is NO.  We need radical changes at different levels for something like that to occur”.

Mr. Obama, could you please take a few minutes to explain this example to your economical advisors and in the near future on one of your economical addresses to the US could you explain how “our house” (representing the USA) would be able to produce goods and services desirable to the rest of “the neighborhood” (representing the world)?

Naive Americans are still waiting for the CHANGE you promised during your presidential campaign.  Without additional sources of revenues none of your proposed programs including healthcare will be successful.  They may be started but in a few years will be bankrupt like the rest of ideas proposed and executed by previous administrations.  Do not forget that bureaucracy does not produce a cent.  It costs billions of dollars a year.  Without revenue there is no hope for our country.

Yours truly,

The Naive American

About six months ago the one in the kitchen sink started leaking.  The leak was coming from the connection between the hose and the head of the unit.  Sadly there was a small leak so we were not able to notice it until we had a water stain on the ceiling on the lower level.  At least the water was clean.

My wife and I shopped around for a replacement faucet and decided to get a similar Delta faucet at Home Depot in Apple Valley, MN.  Home Depot does not install.  They sub contract with a couple local plumbing companies.  After a few days without an operational sink the plumber stopped by and replaced the entire unit including the liquid soap dispenser unit.  All was good.

Earlier this week my wife and I finished breakfast.  I was washing the service in the kitchen sink when a loud noise followed by an interruption on the water flow from the faucet occurred.  I heard some water leaking under the sink.  Immediately I shut off flow on the faucet.

After clearing the cabinet I took a look under the kitchen sink.  Hot and cold water flow on two separate plastic hoses into the valve housed in the body of the faucet.  A valve with a handle are used to open and close flow and mix them in order to get the water to the desired temperature.  The plastic hose goes to an adaptor that is held together by a black plastic clip.  The water pressure was pulling the connection apart and the clip was not able to hold them together.  Water was splashing all over.

Went to Home Depot and after some explaining they gave us a part from a new set so we could swap it in hopes of solving the issue.  Drove back home and swapped parts.  No joy.

Drove back to Home Depot and provided them with an update.  This time we spoke with a different person who sent us back to the resident kitchen expert.  After explaining what happened he suggested for us to purchase the same faucet and have it replaced by the plumber.  They would reimburse us when we returned the defective faucet.  While talking with the expert I noticed that the Delta faucet was manufactured in China.  I mentioned to him that perhaps we should get a different faucet manufactured somewhere else given that the model at hand had too many plastic parts and two different ones have failed in a period of five years.

Faucets used to provide decades of service.  Perhaps is the new manufacturing in China or the current way of developing and producing products by American companies in which goods are designed to last just a few years so the consumer must continue to purchase products over and over.  Some ‘bean counters’ must have suggested such policy decades ago so today American products in general are poor.

Last summer my sister was getting done some remodeling around the house.  I recall her getting some relative expensive German faucets.  She mentioned that the ones that she had looked at from American companies were not worth purchasing.  At the time I thought she just wanted to get something unique and different.  How can faucets not last decades of service?  In the past year my opinion has shifted considerably.

Hopefully companies like Delta will think about what they are doing and change their ways.  Having their products designed and manufactured in China is neither good for the economy of our country nor for their survival as a company.  One of these days we will see faucets that look quite similar to the Delta models manufactured in China but under a different company name.  Such faucets will be the same Delta products with perhaps very few modifications but costing a fraction of the price and competing with Delta.  When all is said and done Delta and the US will both be out of business.

I am a General Aviation (GA) aficionado.  Many years ago I looked into obtaining a private license certificate but at the time I had small children and little time.  A couple decades went by (time flies when you are having fun).  A couple years ago I decided that my two sons were old enough and I tried again.  After the summer season was over things got busy, many changes at work and then our economy took a plunge, so once again I decided to put this endeavor on hold.  Hopefully the next time I try it will be a charm.

I am a member of Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA).  I fully enjoy their two main magazines.  The June 2009 issue called my attention.  The cover shows an Embraer Phenom 100 Very Light Jet (VLJ) soaring over Pennsylvania.  The Phenom is a very good-looking plane.  The main article in the last issue of AOPA Pilot magazine is titled “Thrill from Brazil” by Thomas A. Horne.  I enjoyed reading the article.

What called my attention is that the Phenom is a plane made by Embraer.  The Phenom is gaining popularity all over the country despite the bad economy in the US and in general in most countries around the world.  The Phenom appears to be a very well designed product that has mass appeal in GA.  Embraer is not an American company and their products are manufactured in Brazil.

In that same issue of AOPA Pilot I looked towards the end of the magazine at a section named “Fly By Wire”.  That section lists the companies that advertises in the current issue.  I believe the few American companies left that make VLJ are Cessna and Piper.  They did not advertise VLJ products in this issue.  Perhaps that was by design in order to allow Embraer to shine.

Our government and the poor economy caused by our government and the American Royalty are killing GA in the USA.  GA provides pleasure and rewards to the few lucky pilots that are able to enjoy it.  But most important GA maintains a healthy set of private pilots, which can be called to help in emergencies.  The companies that design and produce GA airplanes are similar to the automobile manufacturers, which we have been hearing about, in the past few months.  Airplane companies design and develop desirable goods and provide jobs to thousands of Naive Americans.  The way things are going with GA, we will soon experience another irreversible setback in our economy when each and every one of the American airplane manufacturers disappears.  The same as with car manufacturers, but at a smaller scale, will be the fate of GA airplane manufacturers in the USA unless something is done to incentive them.

The Naive American proposes our government, which in the past year or so has wasted Trillions of taxpayers Dollars in lost causes, to help out American airplane manufacturers reduce if not eliminate tax in fuel used by GA planes, eliminate all airport fees used by GA and help funding AOPA to promote GA.

Furniture, clothing, computers, watches, radios, TVs, automobiles, etc, etc, etc design and manufacturing has left the USA in order to make money for politicians and the American Royalty.  The way things are going, in the near future, airplanes will experience the same end.