A segment titled “Jack Abramoff: The lobbyist’s playbook” showed to Naïve Americas something that has, is and will continue at the highest levels of politics in our country.  When you are not a politician you might be faced by business situations in which you are privy to some information that could make you money called “insiders trading”.  For example, if a company is about to purchase a second company, making the stock of the second company be worth much more that its current value, and based on this information which is only known to top executives, you go and buy stock on the second company, you have the opportunity to make a nice profit in a matter of hours or days.  The laws of the United States of America forbid such behavior to typical Naïve Americans.  As a deterrent such actions are punishable by several years in prison.  BUT if you are a politician passing laws that will make a company’s stock go up in price and based on such information purchase stock and after the law is passed, sell it at a profit (insiders trading), you do not have to worry.  The law, made by and for politicians, does not consider your unethical and immoral actions as a crime.

During the 60- Minutes segment, Democratic and Republic politicians were asked if they had profit from “insiders trading”.   Most of them denied it.  Some acknowledge it by stating that for them it is not unlawful.  This is why 99% of politicians leave office millions of dollars richer that when they were elected.

About a decade ago, I was looking into doing business with countries in Latin America.  One of the forms I obtained from the US government to consider expenses for tax purposes had an entry labeled:   Bribes.  It is considered common business practice in Latin America to bribe politicians as part of regular business.  Of course, in the USA no one would ever consider bribing politicians.  We have laws that make legal all types of bribes placing our politicians on the top of corruption.  The only difference is that we make it legal.

I know of a couple brothers in the Twin Cities area that paid off politicians to move the location of Interstate 35 in order to have it pass by their property considerably raising its value.  During the 60 Minutes segment, it was mentioned, a politician that knowing that a road was going to be built, purchased land at discounted prices and after he made the new road pass by his new property, he cashed in a nice profit.

Not sure if the 60 Minutes segment brought up something new to most Naïve Americans, but politicians have been taking advantage of their position since the USA became an independent country.  With time, politicians have made huge advances in power allowing them to make millions of dollars in office while many Naïve Americans part of their constituency have, are and will be loosing their jobs.  I guess we called this the American way of life.

Next time you are going to the polls, make sure that the politicians you are electing are less prone to corruption.  Try to push current politicians to change the law making it a crime to take advantage of their political status.

The Naïve American

++++++++++++++++++++++++

Interesting data

PERCENTAGE INCREASE IN NATIONAL DEBT

REAGAN        (1981-89)    189%

BUSH #1              (1989-93)    55%

CLINTON              (1993-01)    37%

BUSH #2              (2001-09)    115%

OBAMA         (2009-11)    16% thus far

Source:  U. S. Treasury Dept. 

++++++++++++++++++++++++

When I read the message a flag was raised in my mind.  How convenient that all Democratic presidents did so well controlling spending which curtailed the national debt.  As usual, when something looks so good something is typically wrong.  The best was the last line that indicates the source for the data in the message:  U. S. Treasury Department.

As you already know the Naïve American tends to align with the Republican creed but also likes several concepts from Democrats and to top it all has ideas that are not welcomed by either Democrats or Republicans.  The reason for this is that the Naïve American is an American and not a career politician serving the American Royalty.

The message had two points of interest.  The first one is that all things written are not true.  The fact that the message started that the source for the data came from the U. S. Treasury Department does not mean that it did or more important that it was massaged for political reasons (which apparently it was).

Naïve Americans have grown accustomed to believe any thing that is in writing specially if it comes from the Internet.  Wikipedia is based on an assumption that its contents will gravitate to the truth by eliminating what is wrong in favor of what is correct.  This is a fallacy.  On some occasions it works but in many it does not.  It depends on what is being written and who is writing it.  Most of the people that have the knowledge do not bother maintaining Wikipedia.  They tend to document their knowledge in papers that in general are still confined to be accessed by a very reduced group.

As a simple example, last year a set of books for k-12 were published by a company in Texas.  After a few months several errors were discovered.  When the authors were questioned about their fact finding methodology they responded that all their research was based on the Internet.  Obviously the data was incorrect.  The masses were wrong and the educated people in the subjects of interest were correct.  Remember Galileo, the world was wrong, he was right.

Now to the specifics of the electronic mail message I received.  I spent a couple hours searching government web sites for the actual data.  When you try searches, look for the actual sources.  Web sites who are URLs are in the “.com”, “.net”, or “.org” need to be scrutinized when they present data.  For government sources, use web sites that are in the “.gov” domain.

Following are my results, which tend to contradict the findings of the original message:

Public Debt                                           

Year   GDP-US $      Public Debt-total       President

       ($ billions)       ($ billions)

1981   3126.8        1028.94              Ronald Reagan

1982   3253.2        1194.08              Ronald Reagan

1983   3534.6        1435.74              Ronald Reagan

1984   3930.9        1656.85              Ronald Reagan

1985   4217.5        1906.35              Ronald Reagan

1986   4460.1        2208.67              Ronald Reagan

1987   4736.4        2396.41              Ronald Reagan

1988   5100.4        2577.4               Ronald Reagan

1989   5482.1        2769.63              George Bush

1990   5800.5        3037.15              George Bush

1991   5992.1        3346.41              George Bush

1992   6342.3        3678.95              George Bush

1993   6667.4        3937.03              Bill Clinton

1994   7085.2        4152.58              Bill Clinton

1995   7414.7        4240.59              Bill Clinton

1996   7838.5        4397.03              Bill Clinton

1997   8332.4        4569.33              Bill Clinton

1998   8793.5        4546.48 *            Bill Clinton

1999   9353.5        4504.97 *            Bill Clinton

2000   9951.5        4350.21 *            Bill Clinton

2001       10286.2             4339.5 *            George Bush

2002       10642.3             4617.62              George Bush

2003       11142.1             5070.00              George Bush

2004       11867.8             5571.79              George Bush

2005       12638.4             5940.88              George Bush

2006       13398.9             6264.07              George Bush

2007       14077.6             6665.24              George Bush

2008       14441.4             7862.85              George Bush

2009   14119         9439.1               Barack Obama

2010       14660.4             10851.19            Barack Obama

2011       15079.6             12496.86            Barack Obama

As you can see every single year the debt has increased.  One can always hope that given that the 1981 US dollar was stronger than the 2011 version, President Obama is not doing that bad.  If you do believe this last statement, I have a bridge in Brooklyn, New York that I would like to sell you.

In conclusion, do not believe what you read until you check the source and the data on which claims are based.  This is just a simple rule followed by scientists all over the world.  Second, when something is so good to be true, it probably is not.

The Naïve American

COMMENT

The Naïve American received a comment that is worth mentioning.  The blog states that the National Debt has been going up continuously.  This is not exactly the case.  As you can see in the table in this post between 1998 and 2001 presidents Bill Clinton (D) and George Bush (R) managed not to increase the debt for a whopping period of four (4) years.  As you can easily do the math, it would have taken hundreds of years to pay of the debt!!!  One should also consider what the economy was doing at the time.  In the past decade or so, due to globalization (also known as:  passing all manufacturing and design to China eliminating American jobs to make a few additional dollars in profits to pay for huge bonuses to the American Royalty), the GDP will continue to shrink causing the debt to continue to grow.  Elementary logic!!!

After the speech, the GOP had a chance to comment (attack) what Obama had said.  Representative Paul Ryan, R-Wis appeared on national TV to let us know that Democrats want to spend more and have not been able to create new jobs.  Ryan’s demeanor while reading his speech was considerably better than Obama’s.

Now lets get to the bottom of what needs to be done which has nothing to do with what was said during any of the speeches.  To set the tone we need to recall the visit from China’s president Hu Jintao.  During the visit two interesting things were clearly stated.  First, China does not want to hear the USA tell their country what to do or not to do regarding human rights.  In other words, Hu Jintao told the USA to mind our own business.  As we all know the USA has been forcing our believes and way of life (including capitalism) to all countries in which for business reasons there is some type of gain for American businesses.  Second, China will continue to design, manufacture and sell their products all over the world including the USA.  American businesses may want to sell to China, but that is not going to happen.  For example, China is going to design, manufacture and sell airplanes to compete with Boeing (USA) and Airbus (European).  China has somehow acquired / developed stealth technology for combat airplanes.  Not only that, but Embraer (Brazilian) is not going to build a plant in China because of the business repercussions.  This important fact was, is and will be ignored by American companies who do not care about what happens in a few years with the USA as long as they can get higher dividends next month at the cost of dozens, hundreds or thousands of American jobs that will never return.

So lets get back to what politicians from both parties (Democrats and Republicans) said last evening.  The only way to improve our economy is to design, develop, manufacture and sell our own products.  That is not going to happen.  American businesses (American Royalty and Wall Street) are only interested on the bottom line.  In other words, what the market bears.  What happens to the people and the country is not part of Capitalism.  As long as I have my money who cares about the rest of Naïve Americans.  All decisions are made based on business reasons ignoring moral and ethic ones.

About seven years ago, my sister, wife and I were driving in rural Indiana.  We landed in Indianapolis and rented a couple vehicles to drive to a small town to attend the wedding of my youngest son.  It was a warm summer afternoon and cornfields with luscious plants were all over.  As we drove for hour and a half the conversation took a turn into Globalization.  That is a word no longer in vogue.  Globalization meant to move production overseas (to China and India) in order to reduce the retail price of products and at the same time increase profits for the company producing the product and the company selling it (primarily Walmart and Sam’s Club).  At that time many American companies were furiously moving manufacturing and design overseas.  It was considered a poor business practice not to do so.  In addition there were tax benefits and ways to shelter some of the income overseas.  A win-win-win situation.  American companies would close their plants in the USA and build them in China.  Chinese people (not Americans) would manufacture the goods while learning and keeping some copies at their disposal to reverse engineer without the years of experience and hard intellectual work.  The products would then show up at retailers who could increase their sales volumes because the products were lees expensive.

In actuality the quality of good has dramatically dropped since manufacturing was shifted from the USA to China.  I have many personal examples of this.  Allow me to comment on just one.  At home my wife and I have a DeLonghi coffee maker.  We purchased the unit last summer.  The previous machine, from a different manufacturer, lasted about a year.  During the past few weeks I have had to dry up the counter in the mornings before using the coffee maker.  It leaks water from the base.  Sometimes I have to tilt the unit for it to drain.  This is completely unacceptable.  My family comes from northern Italy.  That is a very industrialized part of the country.  DeLonghi is headquartered near Venice (Venezia).  This model, among others, is manufactures in China (no quality whatsoever).

My wife and I walked down the aisle that displays small appliances (i.e., coffee makers) at Costco in Burnsville, MN.  Due to moral and ethic reasons I do not wish to step into a Walmart or Sam’s Club store.  We turned every single product to read the country where the appliance was manufactured.  ALL, including a different DeLonghi coffee maker model, were manufactured in China.  So what are politicians, Wall Street and the American Royalty thinking on how new stable and well paying jobs are going to be created in the USA when American Companies are designing and manufacturing all their products in China and hiding money to avoid taxes?  More important, what are Naïve Americans going to do when things just worsen in the next few years?  What is going to happen to the USA?

UNLESS things change and they change in the very near future, the USA will be a country with 15% to 20% unemployment.  We will become the equivalent to one more country (probably not like Germany but more like Spain) in the European Union.  The weak Dollar might (chances are that it will) be replaced by a different currency for international trade.  Naïve Americans with less and less skills, thanks to the poor K-12 public education system who wants everyday more and more money but produces results (high school graduates) that rank 33rd in the world.

America needs less government and less spending in order to reduce the deficit.  We need to realize that government jobs do not product good and services (cannot sell them to other countries in exchange of money) that are of no value to the economy.  We need laws to protect Naïve Americans and small businesses from career politicians, Wall Street and the American Royalty.  We need to stop imposing our flawed way of life to other countries.  We should revise the concept of Capitalism and adapt it to the new emerging world in which the USA is number two and China is number one.  Eliminate public education and make Naïve Americans responsible and accountable for their actions.  By working together we may be able to get the USA back to be number one.  Based on the current state of internal and world affairs this endeavor will take two to three decades.

THE SOONER WE STAR THE SOONER WE WILL GET TO OUR GOAL!

The Naïve American

I have received a few invitations but have never bothered connecting to watch such web casts.  My though process is that if president Obama sounds like a preacher and is not coherent or logical on what he has to say, what could come out of the mouth of one of his advisors.

Just before 01:00 PM EDT I power up my wife’s laptop in the kitchen area and connected to the White House page on Facebook.  Set volume and waited.  I live in Apple Valley, Minnesota (CDT) so it was lunchtime.  The idea was to watch the web cast, possibly enter a question or two, and what is more important get some sustenance.

Around 01:15 PM EDT (the web cast was scheduled for 01:00 PM EDT) the program finally got on its way.  During the wait time, many people were entering questions and complaining about the delay.  After a brief introduction, Mr. Axelrod started answering questions.  Not sure how many Naïve Americans were watching the program but questions were flowing at a good pace on Facebook.

There were very few comments (not questions) posted by Democrats who drink the purple Kool-Aid.  There were some comments probably posted by Republicans and / or Independents expressing their opinions about the Obama administration.  For the most part questions were related to the economy, jobs, healthcare, and housing and for some reason gays.

While reading most of the questions being posed it became apparent that Naïve Americans do not think in a rational, logic and educated way.  To understand my comment lets refer to evolution and history.  The oldest records and findings from mankind tend to indicate that the primary concern of humans has always been food and shelter (after keeping alive).  After millions of years humans started gathering in towns and cities and societies started to become prosperous (for their standards of living).  People started to experience leisure time.  That is what prompted people to think about who they were, what they wanted and how to improve on society.  We have to agree that to some extent the process has repeated several times with all great civilizations (currently including the USA).

At the base of all progress is economy.  When people have peace of mind provided by food, shelter and health, things go well.  Security, gays, politics, arts, religion are just some of the byproducts of societies that have reasonable means.  Today we need the huge homes, multiple automobiles, but Incas in South America did not know about such things.  Yet they were prosperous and with time achieved most of the by products of societies.

Today the USA is experiencing a unique economic crisis that was caused by wealthy Naïve Americans who controlled and still control the government.  The issues were cause by outsourcing jobs at all levels and by people (Wall Street and Naïve Americans) interested in making money at all costs.  We also have to take into account unions interested in getting paid as much as possible doing the least amount of work.  In conclusion the world of me, me and only me who worship the Dollar god

The economic crisis in the USA is very serious.  I fully understand that Democrats, Independents and Republicans all have something to say about the economy.  The fact is that none has a solution.  Politicians promise jobs but have no idea on how to materialize them besides creating bureaucracy, which creates more taxes for the lower income Naïve Americans.

Following suit, Mr. Axelrod did not take a single question that was remotely related to the economy.  He talked just like his boss president Obama.  The web cast reminded me of the movie “Spies Like Us” with Chevy Chase and Bill Murray.  In specific the scene where Chevy Chase is explaining something (who knows what) to some reporters.  Yes, Mr. Axelrod and Chevy Chase in that movie acted quite similar.  The only difference is that Chevy Chase (just a movie) was funny while David Axelrod (real life in the collapsing USA) was not.

If you get a chance, log on to one of the web casts from the White House on Facebook.  They are completely useless and a waste of time.

The Naïve American

Last evening the local news reported that president Obama is going to be stopping in Minneapolis for a political rally.  He is endorsing several democratic candidates for the senate and gubernatorial races.  I guess the USA is doing so well in all fronts that our president has nothing else more important that would require his complete and undivided attention (e.g., economy, education, industry) so he prances around the country promoting career politicians.  I wonder who pays for the time (i.e., president, secret service, police, etc, etc, etc) and materials (i.e., fuel, maintenance, etc, etc, etc) spent campaigning for the Democratic Party.  This is just one more indicator of how politicians are not held accountable for their actions.  They promise what Naïve Americans want to hear (CHANGE to go back to the way of living in the 1950’s) which is impossible to deliver due to the enormous amount of poor decisions that have been made during the past fifty some years.  It is a fact that politics, religion and sex are just irrational subjects that tend to cloud the minds or typical Naïve Americans.

A week or so ago I sent my blog titled “Gubernatorial Race 2010 in Minnesota” to the four TV stations and the campaign headquarters of the three gubernatorial candidates.  Not a blip in the news, which would indicate, some concern about what needs to be done; just politics as usual.  I did notice that as we are approaching Election Day, some of the political candidates for some of the different positions (i.e., governor, senate, etc) have started to talk about two most important points that need to be addressed:

- Jobs

- Education

What politicians are starting to promise are jobs and better education.  Golly, they finally figured that those are the most important (and pretty much the only) issues among thousands that are afflicting our communities, states and country.  The problem is that politicians do not fully understand the issues and their ramifications and, what is more important, they do not have a clue how to address them.

More, better-paid and sustainable jobs should be first in the agenda because it could be achieved in a relative short period of time (1 to 2 years).  Jobs need to be for services and goods that are desirable inside and outside the USA.  For example, opening Starbucks coffee shops in each corner, which would provide minimum wages for a huge number of Naïve Americans, is absurd.  The idea (and jobs) is not sustainable and the only long-term effect is an increase in the deficit by having to import larger amounts of coffee.  As bad as this idea is, compare it to building roads, railroads, and airports.  They provide jobs for a reduced number of Naïve Americans for a relatively short period of time while not generating a single dollar in revenues.  I guess Naïve Americans think that raising taxes can solve any and all problems.  Look at what is going on in Europe.  In a few years we will be living that reality in America.

On the other hand, developing and producing technically rich products and services, employing Naïve Americans, that can be sold in the USA and abroad would start the economical recovery process.  A simple example can be found in automobiles.  Audi, BMW, Mercedes Benz and Volkswagen are four German companies that design, produce and sell vehicles all over the world (including the USA).  These highly desirable cars are produced in Germany.  Do you recall that in the 1940’s the USA and many other countries fought and almost completely destroyed Germany?  How is it possible that today very few people in and outside the USA buy inferior makes (e.g., Chevrolet, Chrysler and Ford) but are willing to pay extra for quality German engineering?  Germans have the well paying jobs.  Americans have a huge and growing unemployment and trade deficit to show of for the poor decisions made by incapable and incapable CEOs and career politicians.

The other hot point is education.  For some reason Naïve Americans in Minnesota have the completely wrong idea that education was and is better than any where in the country and world.  A political ad on TV blames the current governor Tim Pawlenty for the problems with education.  Hold on for a second and analyze what politicians are saying.  On one hand in the few years that Pawlenty has been a governor, education has been an issue.  How can this be given that Minnesota has such a good K-12 education?  One also needs to consider that the USA (INCLUDING MINNESOTA) is ranked 18^th worldwide in education achievements.  The fact is that in the USA (INCLUDING MINNESOTA) since the 1950’s our education system has been collapsing.  K-12 is just a very expensive daycare for families whose spouses work and / or do not want to deal with their kids during the day.  Nice modern buildings, nice school buses, free or subsidize meals, sports, extracurricular activities, nurses, etc, etc, etc.  Nothing of these has to do with good and effective teachers, homework and higher scholastic achievements from those other eighteen countries that spend less and achieve more that the USA.

The problem is that all candidates need to endorse the union of schoolteachers.  The union has about 70,000 members paid with taxpayer’s money.  If you take families and relatives of people involved in teaching, then it is easy to figure out that there are around 500,000 votes if a candidate offers increase in wages to teachers not making them accountable for their failures.  You have to agree that the common denominator in America is the lack of accountability.  Schoolteachers and politicians are not accountable for their failures (can you see the common thread)?  Take that same flawed set of concepts and procedures to small and medium size businesses.  If they produce mediocre and expensive products and services they will go bankrupt and close shop.  The same should have been said about our automobile industry but Obama provide them with taxpayer’s money to prolong their death.

What Naïve Americans need to do is ask their favorite candidates to explain in detail how they plan to create new, sustainable and well-paid jobs.  How are they going to improve on education, which will be reflected with the achievements of our youth in the next 10 to 15 years (long past the tenure of most career politicians)?  We also need to make politicians accountable for their false promises.  There is still hope for Minnesota and the USA (less after the elections) if we act right now.

In conclusion, Naïve Americans need to ask politicians to explain in detail how are they planning to promote new and sustainable jobs and how are they going to improve on education.  If the answers are no taxes for small businesses and higher pay for schoolteachers we need to vote for a different candidate.  For the candidate that describes a possible plan, we need to make them accountable.  After their term ends, we need to make sure that the promises were met.  Promises have to be quantitative (e.g., unemployment will go down from 10% to 5% in four years with new sustainable jobs, not with government jobs paid by taxes).  If the candidates do not meet their goals, Naïve Americans must never again vote for such career politicians.  This is the only way to eliminate them and move Minnesota and the USA forward.

The Naïve American.

There are three contenders (or should we say pretenders) for the opening being left by Mr. Pawlenty. 

These are:

Mark Dayton (Democrat)

Tom Emmer (Republican)

Tom Horner (Independent)

The three are career politicians.  They tell the public what they want to hear which is:  If I get elected the economy in the state of Minnesota will improve.  More jobs will be created.  K-12 education will be the best in the country and the world by paying educators what they deserve.  Will also improve on higher education.  Will reduce taxes to the working class and will make the rich pay their fair dues OR will raise taxes just enough to greatly improve on the life of Minnesotans.  Will create well paying jobs that we are / were accustomed to.  Please note that this is just a summary of what all the career politicians are all saying.  The same absurd and ridiculous messages are being repeated over and over again in an attempt to lure as many Naïve Americans to vote for them in November 2010.

The educated and somewhat intelligent Naïve American might stop for a second and think how these three candidates are willing to spend considerably more money on their campaigns that what they are going to receive as compensation for being elected governor.  If you are seeking for a job that pays X dollars in an expected number of years (four in our case)  you would never, under any circumstance spend nearly X, X or 10 times X to get the job.  It does not make sense.  When something does not add up, one needs to see though the false promises the realities of life.  Whoever gets elected will have to pay back with interests all the moneys that special interests groups have given them to plaster the state with signs and saturate the media with negative adds regarding their opponents.

If Naïve Americans want a change and I do not mean from a Republican to a Democrat career politician, we need to make our government accountable.  Today most (not to say all) politicians make false promises.  There is no consequence to their false promises.  What The Naïve American proposes is to make accountable career politicians for their promises, which will have an impact on their actions if they want to be re elected or move on to become the next president of the United States.

I am a computer scientist / computer software developer.  I have worked for small, medium and large size companies.  I have owned several businesses so I have a rather clear and simple understanding of how things should and can be done.  In computer science there is something called software engineering.  Lets amuse us with some of the simplest engineering concepts and see how they can be applied to our career politicians.

When any software development project is considered, one must come up with the expected benefits(s) and associate how they are going to be evaluated.  This is completely out of the scope of costs.  Costing is of prime importance to businesses unless the government, providing billions of Dollars, so they do not bankrupt and close, can protect them.  In our country and in most parts of the world, when a business is not profitable they simply close.  This never happens with governments.  They just raise taxes and continue on the down spiral.  The only ones affected are in the case of the USA, Naïve Americans like you and me.

When politicians define a goal, they never provide ways to measure success or failure.  For example, president Obama reformed the healthcare system but so far less Naïve Americans have insurance and the cost of healthcare has gone up by around 20% when comparing statistics before and after the reform.  The USA does not need such type of failed healthcare reform.  Politicians love it because Democrats will claim they reformed the healthcare system and Republicans will claim that the reform was a complete failure.  It is left to Naïve Americans to figure out the outcome and most important to pay for it.  The USA is no longer in a financial position to pay for too many things.  Our national deficit is huge (China owns our country) and there is nothing in the near or long term horizon that provides the slightest indication of an economical recovery.

There are ONLY two (2) items that will help Minnesota and the USA as a whole.  These are:

1) Dramatic improvements in our economy achieved by production of desirable worldwide goods and services designed and produced in the USA by Naïve Americans which should be initiated by small businesses.

2) Dramatic improvements in our K-12 and higher education, which will lead to the creation of new small businesses with well-paid jobs.

Please note that gay rights, sport arenas, increases in welfare benefits, increases in social security benefits, benefits for illegal immigrants, etc, etc, etc will NEVER solve an issue, they will just create longer-term serious problems.  Temporarily increasing benefits to unemployed, stopping foreclosures, raising or lowering taxes for some brackets of our population are just the means to achieve the above two mentioned goals.  Once the goals are achieved we can freely discuss how to provide additional services to Naïve Americans and hopefully reduce taxes for all of us.  As a side note, The Naïve American firmly believes that the USA government should provide FREE BASE HEALTHCARE SERVICES to ALL LEGAL Naïve Americans (no buts, ifs, then, else).  If our government is not able to offer such simple benefit (and we all know the government does not) then it has miserably failed and we have the obligation as US citizens and legal residents to take action and induce a change.

In designing software one always needs to come up with a set of measurable goals.  Goals such as good, best, fastest do not cut it.  They are not measurable.  We need measurable goals (e.g., these N operations should run 50% faster on the same processor as they do in the current version, the program should use 50% less memory that the current version, etc).  Requirements are then tied to the goals and the goals are then measured.  If measurements fail then the goals have not been achieved.  This is one of the many software engineering concepts that can and should be applied to our political system because they are easy to define and check.

What Minnesotan Naïve Americans need to do is ask the candidates first and then wait for the results at the end of their terms.  Each candidate should promise an increase in non-government sustainable and well paid jobs.

For example, I (replace with the proper career politician name Mark Dayton, Tom Emmer and Tom Horner) promise Naïve American Minnesotans to increase from the current yyy percentage of small business that produce worldwide desirable goods and services to zzz percent (zzz being larger in absolute value than yyy).

Another promise would be, I (replace with the proper career politician name Mark Dayton, Tom Emmer and Tom Horner) promise Naïve American Minnesotans to reduce the employment from the current 10.5% down to 6.5% with sustainable and well paid (non-government jobs paid with taxes) working for small, medium and large companies that produce desirable worldwide products and services.

Just one more example, I (replace with the proper career politician name Mark Dayton, Tom Emmer and Tom Horner) promise Naïve American Minnesotans to increase the percentage of youth finishing high school, being admitted to accredited mathematics, science and engineering schools and receiving degrees by at least 10% during my tenure as governor of the State of Minnesota.

All of the above examples are simple to define and easy to verify their outcome.  All three career politicians may use similar or better sets of numbers, but when their office ends the promises should be measured and results should be published so the next time any of these career politicians attempts to run for office their records will show they are just empty and false.  The burden then falls on Naïve American voters to make sure no one will ever cast a single vote for any politician that fails.  If we do, then all what is happening today with Minnesota and in general with the USA should be blamed not only on career politicians but also on Naïve Americans that compromise our future in order to get something for themselves.  For example, I will vote for such candidate because my labor union has financed a candidate who in return will raise our salaries at the cost of higher taxes while the many Minnesotans go homeless and have little to eat.

The Naïve American is sending this blog to the three gubernatorial candidates and to the main TV station networks in the Twin Cities (ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC) area in order to see if there is any reaction to the simple ideas proposed in this blog.

Will let you know if any candidate or any TV station embraces the ideas here presented and actually attempts to improve the well being of Naïve Americans in Minnesota and in the USA.

The Naïve American

The issue this time appears to be tax relieve for the middle class.  Apparently Republicans are blocking an extension on reducing taxes up to what is considered middle class income.  That is about $250,000 per household combined.

This is clearly a political maneuver by the Republicans to get more people dissatisfied with the current administration in order to get additional votes for the next elections.  Not sure when politicians will understand that the USA is no longer able to withstand such games.  The price of gold is on a record high.  Exchange of the Dollar compared to Euros is low.  These are symptoms that our economy is in bad shape.  Our government needs to provide Naïve Americans with a feeling that things are going to improve.

That said, providing tax breaks for the lower and middle class is just a palliative.  America is on its way out of being a supper power / economy.  The American empire is declining at a fast rate.  There are so many issues that attempting to address one or two will not be enough.  A drastic, dramatic and total change needs to take place.

Naïve Americans should support changes that will help the economy.  Tax breaks will provide additional time.  Tax breaks will not help at all to solve the issues.  America needs to start producing services and goods that are desirable worldwide.  History has shown us time and time again that small businesses have made America what it is (was).  Large businesses typically buy small to medium businesses to grow and keep up with technological changes.  In very few occasions large company have introduced new ideas and concepts that have changed the world.  As a handy, simple and relatively recent example is Facebook.  A movie about its history has just opened.

Hopefully the tax breaks extension will pass and be extended.  Hopefully the Obama administration will provide big money and incentives to small businesses so they can grow, hire people and provide goods and services desirable all over the world.

The Naïve American

What is wrong with the US Government?  We have a constitution and a set of amendments that provide us freedom of speech.  By continuing to enhance the:

Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994

Pub. L. No. 103-414, 108 Stat. 4279

the US Government is expanding more and more its ability to spy on unsuspecting Naïve Americans.

Naïve Americans need to understand the technology and how it has been used and may be used to infringe on our rights.  Then and only then one can one fully understand what career politicians want and what they can get from it.

If you are a Naïve American not educated in encryption and its history, then you might think along the following lines:  “I have nothing to hide.  I am a law-abiding citizen.  I do not see why should we should not allow authorities to monitor our communications so they can catch terrorists and criminals and prevent harm to our fellow Naïve Americans.”

This all appears to be fine.  Then reality shows it ugly face.  Our government is made up of career politicians that are bought by special interest groups.  They all answer to the American Royalty that pays lobbyists to explain / tell them (not the Naïve American voter) what needs to be done.  American Royalty contributes to political campaigns and gives career politicians books, speeches, and consulting jobs as some forms of payment for their services.  Do you think for a moment that Barack Obama had enough time to write a book about his life and get the associated royalties?  I do not know who you are, but I have worked on a couple books in my lifetime and it takes a lot of time and effort.  There is no way that any president of the USA with their full and long schedules could be able to write and edit a book.  So how could Mr. Obama write a book and collect the royalties?

Do you recall the days of president George Bush when he and his administration scared us to believe that another 911 was on the works and we had to invade Iraq and Afghanistan?  Fear is a common tool used by the US Government to justify their special interests to Naïve Americans.  Today the Obama administration is using the same technique to scare us and led us to believe that allowing the government to spy on Naïve Americans is OK with the pretext that more terrorists will be caught.

Now getting back to freedom of speech, during the last months of Martin Luther King’s life our government was spying on him using what technology allowed at the time.  Yes, his phones were being wiretapped.  I am not sure what Martin Luther King did or did not do but for the African American community he has become a hero (not a criminal or a terrorist).  Our government at the time made use of wiretapping which is the equivalent of what today the African American president Barack Obama wants to facilitate on the Internet.

Every time the government wants a law to be passed they use any and all available means to convince and if needed scare Naïve Americans to back up their ludicrous ideas which tend to hide their hidden agendas.  Do not be surprised if you find out that politicians in power against opponents have conducted unlawful wire-tapping in multiple occasions.  Of course Naïve Americans find out about such activity very seldom.  Cover-ups are of importance in order to keep the masses of Naïve Americans under control.

I would be surprised to find technically educated Naïve Americans that would support this updated law to wiretap the Internet.  I am sure that government paid scientists; engineers and politicians would be the only ones in favor of such absurd laws.

When you send a letter over regular mail through the US Postal Service, you expect no one will read it.  If you do not care, then you could send a postcard.  No one would suspect of a Naïve American of using letters and envelopes instead of using post cards.  The Internet should be treated alike.  We should be able to send data in confidence.  You might not be technically savvy at all but today when you send a message on the Internet with or without attachments there are may individuals that are able to read and keep copies of what you are sending without anyone knowing.  Messages on the Internet do not leave marks on an envelope when they are tampered with.  At home your ISP has access to all your information.  At work the system administrator has similar access.

If you send an unencrypted message or store unencrypted data many people (not just the government) are able to tap into your personal data.  If you are like me, just another Naïve American that has nothing to hide, then my will, family photos and movies, bank statements, personal letters written to my kids, wife, and friends can be read, stored and use against me by all system administrators in the chain between my computer and the recipient.  This is really bad.  To top it all, president Barack Obama wants to ban encryption, which today is the only way to avoid other people from reading or viewing our personal information.

So next time you hear about tapping on the Internet and disallowing Naïve Americans to use encryption to protect our privacy against system administrators, other Naïve Americans and our government made out of career politicians paid by special interest groups; think about what has been done, what might currently be going on and what will be done against our privacy rights.  Who knows, that casual fling with a coworker, communications between corporate employees exchanging proprietary and secret data, communications between an attorney and their client, or just a simple compliment to a coworker taken out of context might be used in a court of law against you.

I invite you to read other blog entries regarding privacy at the Naïve American web site.  You might be interested in some of the books regarding cryptography and privacy.  A starter might be Pretty Good Privacy.  Find out how the US Government spies on Naïve Americans at all levels.

The Naïve American

One of the headlines on Google this morning is labeled “Obama Puts Jobs on Labor Day Agenda”.  Apparently Naïve Americans had enough of Obama, his promised Change and Democrats in general.  There are several seats in Capitol Hill coming up for re election and the polls appear to be leaning towards the Republican side.  Obama being a career politician has to follow orders from the American Royalty.  He needs to convince Naïve Americans that Democrats in power will help solve the problems in the USA (ha, ha ha).  If you believe this you need to educate yourself by reading books on American and World history.  The American Empire is collapsing (like all other civilizations have) and the only thing we can do is to attempt to slow down the process as mush as possible in order to soften the fall.

President Obama mentioned that the US economy is moving in a positive direction, jobs are being created; they are just not being created as fast as they need to, given the big hole that we experienced.  Stop for a second and think about this absurd statement made by a career politician that serves the American Royalty.

The facts are that the US economy is NOT moving in a positive direction.  The only to achieve this is to reach a point in which the US is producing services and goods that are desirable all over the world.  Every day we see in the news and in our communities that small, medium and large size businesses are closing their doors.  This is happening because our production costs are high compared to other countries and the innovation and quality of our services and products is reaching all time lows.  Nobody wants to buy American made products.  Just look around.  Most products that are offered by American companies are manufactured and starting to be design abroad.  The quality of our products is very low.  Things do not last what they used to and their prices are going up.  This is causing millions of Naïve Americans to loose their job.  Now, explain to me how building roads, fixing railroad lines and building new airports is going to help America to produce services and good that are desirable all over the world?

Another irrational comment from our leader is that the USA is moving in the right direction.  We just have to speed up the process.  Once again, putting money that we do not have into building infrastructure will never help.  I fully understand that on the Great Depression that helped the country but those were different times.  The USA was about to peak at that time.  In the 1950’s the USA started its decline.  Since then our country has lost grounds in almost all fronts.

Way too many reforms are needed.  From the political (no politician may serve on more than one office and never be reelected) to the educational (our K-12 has been doomed for decades and our higher education is starting to show problems) and economical (outsource design and manufacturing) fronts, just to mention a few, the USA is loosing grounds at an alarming state.

What we need is money.  I do not mean printing more Dollars to give away to BRIC (China, Russia, India and Brazil) but to immediately boost small businesses that develop products and services that are desirable world wide by dramatically reducing the tax burned and providing low interest loans (not $50,000 from the Small Business Administration which is completely useless) to get Naïve Americans back on track.

Please note that the American Royalty needs to be taxed and their salaries and bonuses need to be limited by law.  But just taxing Naïve Americans does not lead to new and better services and good desirable worldwide.  Increasing taxes to be used to provide for unemployment and infrastructure is like a charity.  We need to teach Naïve Americans to fish, not just give them free fish!  Do you remember a couple decades ago how bean counters and politicians were in the Globalization bandwagon?  Well any individual with a reduced IQ could have been able to figure out that Globalization was a really bad idea.  So why did it occurred?  Well American Royalty (i.e., CEOs, corporate executives, Wall Street) got their instant gratification (i.e., high salaries, bonuses, golden parachutes).  How about the rest of Naïve Americans?  Who cares.  American Royalty got their money.

On the long term, revamp our educational systems not by wasting more money in teacher unions but to improve in the methods used to educate our children and young adults making teachers and students accountable for their acts.

I know the suggestions presented in this blog will never make it because the ideas go against the American Royalty.  CEOs, Wall Street and politicians will never make a change because it goes against their interests.  We will have to wait until the point of no return to experience change.  That will sure come at a very high cost and will put America in the back burner for the foreseeable future.

Lets work together by being less greedy and complacent before it is too late.

The Naïve American

Mr. Emmer has been in politics for a while.  This means he is a career politician.  Our society should not allow for career politicians but for the past few decades it appears that becoming a politician is very profitable.  If you do not believe me just look around.  Most politicians have made their money in politics at the expense of voters.  This is why American in general and MN in particular are experiencing the serious problems.

Lets take a quick and rather superficial look at Tom Emmer and decide if this individual has any qualification to become the next governor of the State of MN.

Mr. Emmer has been a politician for years.  As you are aware, all politicians support their cause by voting in favor of issues that do not align with the people that elected them.  The contrary is also true.  Politicians should vote against proposals that go against the people they allegedly represent.  Mr. Emmer has missed 20% of votes while in office.  This means that he works 4 instead of 5 days a week.  Kind of nice (for him) for a job paid by taxes coming from MN Naïve Americans.

Mr. Emmer has had two (2) Driving While Intoxicated (DWI) convictions.  Apparently he knows better that the rest of Minnesotans and is able to drive and not cause serious problems for his family and other people out on the roads and streets.  His answer to this, “I was young and stupid.”  Perhaps most Naïve Americans have the false believe that people changes.  People do not change.  Circumstances do.  If the same / similar circumstances appear most individuals will repeat their behavior.

I am not going to go about Mr. Emmer’s plans to address the economical problems of the State of Minnesota.  They are as illogical and absurd as the ones from the Democratic candidate.

The attitude and demeanor of Mr. Emmer is not conducting to be elected governor.  To remedy this serious issue a TV ad has been airing the past couple weeks.  It shows his family backing up Tom’s political ambitions.  My first reaction when I saw the ad was what kind of responsible individual would have seven (7) kids in this day and age.  None, one or two kids is what makes sense to have.  When my wife was pregnant of our second son I took drastic measures to make sure we would not have a third child.  It was the responsible course of action thirty some years ago and it is still today.  A person that acts without thinking should make for a good governor ;o)

Last but not least, a political professor at a MN university was interviewed on TV about the ad.  The professor stated that it was a good move by the Tom Emmer for Governor campaign to portray a different, caring and family oriented Tom Emmer to be more appealing to voters.  STOP for a second and think about what is going on.  The guy is not qualified BUT he is PRETENDING to be someone else (softer and caring).  What can I say; Mr. Emmer is just one more career politician.

After seeing what is being lined up for the next elections by both Democratic and Republican parties I have reached to the conclusion that the future for MN is not too bright to say the least.  If Mr. Emmer feels he is qualified for the job he and the people working for him should be directly responsible / accountable for failures to achieve his campaign empty promises and goals.  If Mr. Emmer is so sure he is the right person for the job then he should be liable for his failures (if any).

Mr. Tom Emmer, are you or all / any individual in your political group willing to back up your empty promises with financial and prison terms?  You do not have to answer.  All MN Naïve Americans know the answer.

The Naïve American.