Not sure why president Obama gives his administration such high grade, I would give him an F.  The reason for this is that nothing has changed in the USA that has the potential of improving the current state of affairs, which includes the economy.

What we have seen is some tax breaks on April 15^th.  The average tax refund per family averaged $2,500 US Dollars.  What can a family of two parents currently unemployed with two kids, a mortgage, car loans, credit cards, medical and possibly education expenses do with $2,500 Dollars a year?  I guess it can help the monthly unemployment benefits that add up to a little over $1,000 a month.  The sad reality is that unemployment does not cover the living expenses of most Naive Americans currently unemployed.

Perhaps unemployed Naive Americans can get construction jobs and stop receiving unemployment.  That way their education and work experience could be tossed out the window and they could start working on construction projects at a lower pay rate.  This could be done for a while and then, when the US government runs out of money, …  The infrastructure construction jobs proposed and currently being funded do not produce goods or services that may provide revenue for Naive Americans or the US, unless some politician has the idea to add tolls to all the roads to raise money to pay for unemployment and the construction workers.  What kind of illogical thoughts are these?

Closing the facility in Guantanamo and hopefully leaving Cuba for good might help if the embargo is also lifted.  Cuba is in need of good and services.  The problem is that the rest of the world is also in interested in providing such goods and services, which every day in the US we continue to outsource and globalize.  Besides, Cuba has no money and they rather deal with China and Russia than with the US.

Almost every day in the news we learn that the executives of some financial company did something unethical and / or illegal.  This appears to be normal behavior of American Royalty.  What happened to the politician that allowed by law for AIG executives to get bonuses from bailout money?  Nothing.  What happened to the moneys?  Nothing.  Nothing has CHANGED.

The only glimmer of light in the past few weeks is the possibility for some reform on credit card companies.  That is a start but it is just a palliative.  What we need are deep changes in our society and help to small and medium size businesses.  They make America.  The large companies should not be allowed to grow so large and when they fail should not be bailed out.  The US car industry has been loosing ground because of their doing for decades.  The President should watch some 30, 20 and 10 year old movies.  Thirty years ago automobiles on the roads were almost all American.  He should then stick his head out a window on the White House and count how many domestic and foreign automobiles are at a time on Pennsylvania Avenue.  Why should Naive Americans bail out companies that have miserably failed for decades and they will continue to do so until they disappear?

American automobiles are going the way of the dinosaurs as televisions, watches, radios, and most other industries have already done.  What the current administration needs to do is to IMMEDIATELY concentrate on helping small and medium size businesses that produce (not import) American desirable goods and services and in the LONG RUN change education.  Building roads and railroads will not solve this serious problem we are currently in.

The show was mostly based on the 2008 book, The Shadow Factory by author James Bamford.  The show poses the question if the National Security Agency (NSA) could have prevented the terrorist attacks on the US that occurred on September 11, 2001.  I strongly recommend to all Naive Americans to watch the show and if so inclined to purchase the book and reach a conclusion.  I would like to state that the conclusion that any Naive American will reach is completely subjective based on the opinions and reduced number of facts presented during the show.  At this point I have not read the book yet.  Might stop later today by Barnes and Nobles if the temperature climbs from the current -5F.

It is interesting and important when making a decision to make sure one has the actual facts.  In most occasions Naive Americans base their decisions on opinions and likes, not in actual facts using basic logic.  One can see this behavior in action during elections.  Candidates are chosen into office for all the wrong reasons.  Politicians, who tell us what we want to hear, should not run our country, but they do.

If and when you watch the NOVA show and perhaps read the book make sure you put on your thinking and logic cap.  Apparently the NSA had very good information on al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and the terrorist group that conducted the attacks on 9/11.  So why did such important information was not conveyed to the CIA or FBI?  Apparently the legal reason is that each organization has different jurisdictions and is not able to share information with others.  This and the fact that every Naive American has rights, and in order for the government not to monitor my important and private conversations with my wife regarding what is for dinner this evening, or with one of my sons regarding the color of the iPod for my granddaughter’s upcoming birthday, may disregard the fact that thousands of fellow Naive Americans were killed, millions of Dollars of property were lost, and billions of Dollars and jobs were lost in the aftermath when the economy took a dive.  I guess the rights of some Naive Americans come before the rights of others.

Apparently after 9/11 President Bush, under an executive order, authorized some of these agencies to monitor electronic communications (i.e., e-mail, phone, satellite, voice over IP, etc) not only outside but also inside the USA.  This means that the government is currently able to find out that some Naive American this evening is planning on cheating on his wife with the young and sexy receptionist from work.  Please keep in mind that current statistics show that one out of two marriages in our society end in divorce.  Big Brother is not interested, one way or the other in addressing this social problem; the US government is only after the bad guys.

The reader should appreciate that there are billions of conversations and messages conducted and exchanged between phones and computers every day.  Super computers running very sophisticated and constantly evolving algorithms attempt to select conversations and messages that should be reviewed by humans.  Chances are that in general most if not all messages are stored for a relative short period of time in case they are needed for cross-reference.  After that, they are deleted, which lends me to believe that my plans for Valentines Day are safe from Big Brother.

It does not take too much to figure out that terrorists are not using words like:  “blow up”, “bomb”, “explosives”, or “kill” in their communications.  This compounds the task of monitoring and sifting through huge amounts of data to get to the relevant one.  Point in case, with all the billions of Dollars spent by NSA, the USA has not been able to catch the single individual who master minded and ordered the 9/11 attacks.

So, are Naive Americans safer today than before September 11, 2001?  Is the spending the billions of Dollars by the NSA worth what the Naive American is getting in return?  Are some of the technologies being developed for the NSA applicable to products used or to be developed for use by Naive Americans?  Should the CIA, FBI and NSA work together sharing information when dealing with threat on the US or Naive Americans?

The answers to the above questions would probably generate more questions than actual answers.  Most of the information and technologies are SECRET.  One way or the other, technology and some high end jobs are being generated by the operations conducted by the NSA.  This should have a small but positive effect on our economy.  Hopefully President Obama and NSA officials are not considering outsourcing the development of technology and jobs to foreign countries in order to save a buck or two.

From http://encarta.msn.com the definition of:

Deceive:  Transitive verb; intentionally trick or mislead somebody: to mislead or deliberately hide the truth from somebody.

The reader should note that the definition has nothing to do with legal terms used in a court of law (note that Naive Americans use the term “court of law” as opposed to “court of justice”).  The definition is simple and direct.

From the same source on a closely related word:

Lie:  Deliberately say something untrue: to say something that is not true in a conscious effort to deceive somebody.

Lie:  Be deceptive: to give a false impression.

As one can easily rationalize, unless you are an attorney, that deceiving is the same action as lying.  Well perhaps you do not have to be an attorney to arrive to this simple conclusion.  It appears that our entire society has embarked in a deception voyage, which does not appear to have an end in site.  If you disagree, then as mandated by this site, let’s review some examples, which might help one, arrive to the proper conclusion.

I was shopping for groceries over the weekend and among other items, was in need for fruit juice for my grand daughters.  I picked up a pack of “Northland 100% Juice Cranberry Pomegranate” http://www.northlandjuices.com.  I have to confess that the kids liked the juice.  Before tossing the first empty container, I took a look at the ingredients.  You can do the same by going to the Northland web site.  They list them there.  For your pleasure and enjoyment and more important, to make a point, the list follows:

100% juice from apple, grape, pomegranate and cranberry juice concentrates (filtered water, juice concentrates), vegetable color, natural flavors, citric acid, fruit extracts (grape skin, blueberry, pomegranate, cranberry, red grape & apple), ascorbic acid (vitamin C), vitamin A palmitate, vitamin E acetate.

First and most important, I am confident that the good folks at Northland have made sure they follow the law as to what they are allowed to print advertise.  As mentioned above, my grand daughters like the product so my wife and I will purchase it again when the time comes.  That said, lets take a look at:  100% represents the whole.  There is no room for absolutely anything else.  In this case 100% juice also contains things that cannot be passed or confused by juice.  Perhaps this is just wording and I might not have achieved the mastery of the English language as the people that wrote the labels.  If you look the main label on the front of the container is reads:  “100% Juice Cranberry Pomegranate”.  I believe it should read:  ”Apple Juice” and in small size font:   ”including some cranberry and pomegranate juice”.

If you watch TV at all, you probably have watched repeatedly ads for Plavix www.plavix.com.  If you have not, the web site has a milder ad.  Plavix is a prescription drug aimed at reducing your chances of having a heart attack or stoke.  If you were somewhat experienced (not to say an older folk) you would probably feel compelled to call your primary physician and explore the need to start taking this drug.  If you do so, make sure you read and discuss with your physician the disclaimers.  In my opinion they do a better job to discourage a Naive American from taking the drug than the commercials.  But that is just my opinion.

Once again, the ads, literature, etc, etc, etc regarding Plavix are following established guidelines by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but many Naive Americans might be “deceived” into taking a drug that might easily be avoided by proper exercise and nutritional habits.  Yes, I know, it is easier to take a pill and ignore the rest.

Speaking of pharmaceutical companies and taking pills, last weekend, as usual, I watched “60 Minutes” on CBS.  There was a segment that called my attention.  It is relative common knowledge that a glass of red wine (yes, red wine, not an apple) a day helps reduce heart deceases.  It appears that there is a substance in the skin of red grapes called resveratrol that is believed to be the reason.  One of the two founders of the startup company that is in the process of developing a pill that concentrates the substance (probably in synthetic form) stated that a single pill contains the equivalent of 1,000 bottles of wine.  A standard wine bottle typically holds four glasses of wine.  I can clearly see how the conclusion came about by observing French people drink thousands of red wine bottles a day for years.  As long as the startup company continues to follow the scientific approach and is able to reach to the proper conclusions, all is well.  I have to congratulate the founders for their hard work.  A pharmaceutical giant recently purchased the start up company for about three quarters of a billion US Dollars.  I believe we will soon be watching ads on TV instructing Naive Americans about the benefits (and side effects) of this new drug.

This Naive American calls on fellow Americans to reflect about the consequences of what we say, how we say it, and what we do not say.  Deceiving people will sooner or later catch up with our society.  At this rate perhaps some Naive Americans might stop believing on what career politicians, preachers, business people, etc, etc, etc tell us.

Earlier today, I was browsing on the web at different GA aircraft.  I am a member of the Aircraft Owners and Pilot Association (AOPA) www.aopa.org.  As a benefit one receives a couple aircraft oriented magazines a month.  On my Internet Explorer (IE) browser I have booked marked most companies that produce GA aircraft.  When I get the pilot itch, I visit several of the aircraft related web sites (it is nice to dream).

Given the state of the economy in the US, the information on a few web sites I visited early today called my attention.

Eclipse Aviation (www.eclipseaviation.com), before filing for bankruptcy protection in November 25, 2008 used to employ about 900 people.  Eclipse Aviation is based in Albuquerque, NM.  Their claim to fame was introducing the very light jet (VLJ) category of aircraft into the industry. With two engines and seating capacity for five or six people (depending on configuration), they cost less than the most inexpensive business jet planes now in service.  What called my attention was the founder, Vern Raburn.  Back when, Vern joined Bill Gates as one of the first employees (employee #18) at Microsoft Corporation.  He served at Microsoft as President of the Consumer Products Division and was responsible for the company’s entry into the retail channel.  This Naive American founded Eclipse Aviation which designs, develops and produces an innovative product and in so doing provides jobs for about 900 people, mostly in the US.

Perhaps you have not heard of Eclipse Aviation because they are a rather young entry into GA and have not produced many aircraft yet.  Now Cessna Aircraft Company (www.cessna.com) might be a different story.  This American company is based in Wichita, Kansas.  It employs world wide about 15,000 people.  Not sure how many are Naive Americans.  Cessna main products are general aviation aircraft.  Although they are the most well known for their small, piston-powered aircraft, they also produce business jets.  I particularly like the Cessna Grand Caravan.  Cessna is owned by Textron, which produces many aviation related products.

In a larger scale, most Naive Americans know about the Boeing Company (www.boeing.com) with about 164,000 employees worldwide established in 1916.  Boeing was founded in Seattle, Washington and is currently headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.  Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997.  Most Naive Americans have flown in a Boeing or a McDonnell Douglas commercial aircraft.  Boeing is one of the largest U.S. exporters in terms of sales.  Boeing is an American company designing and manufacturing products in the USA.  What more could we ask for our economy.

Not sure if you fly or have flow Continental Airlines (www.continental.com).  Continental operates Continental Express and ExpressJet (www.expressjet.com), which service smaller airports.  Northwest Airlines (www.nwa.com) based in Eagan, MN (I live in the Twin Cities Area of Minneapolis and St. Paul in Minnesota) uses Mesaba and Pinnacle to service small airports with reduced traffic.  I have flown dozens of times in aircraft from Continental Express.  Continental Express flies Embraer ERJ-135, Embraer ERJ-145 and Embraer ERJ-145XR aircraft.  According to their web site, Continental Express has a fleet of 205 planes and ExpressJet 30.  So who makes these ERJ jets?  Embraer.

Embraer has become one of the largest aircraft manufacturers in the world by focusing on specific market segments with high growth potential in commercial, defense, and executive aviation.  Embraer develops and adapt successful aircraft platforms and judiciously introduce new technology whenever it creates value by lowering acquisition price, reducing direct operating costs, or delivering higher reliability, comfort, and safety.  As a result, their aircraft provide excellent performance with day-in and day-out reliability, while being economical to acquire and cost-effective to operate and maintain.  Embraer provides a superior product package, with comprehensive aircraft and after-sales support for parts, services, and technical assistance.

Embraer is a Brazilian company.  Brazil is a Latin American country, which was removed from the list of developing nations a few years ago.  By the way, Brazil does not import oil, the US does.  Embraer currently employs more than 23,509 people, 87.7% based in Brazil.  Not too many Naive Americans are sharing the wealth produced by this company.  Embraer designs and manufactures commercial jets, executive jets and defense systems

Embraer was Brazil’s largest exporter from 1999 to 2001 and the second largest in 2002, 2003 and 2004.  Embraer currently has the third largest yearly delivery of commercial aircraft and the third largest workforce (behind Boeing and Airbus).

The Naive American invites you to visit their web site www.embraer.com and learn more about the history of the company.  Learn how the government of Brazil helped Embraer become a reality.  In a couple days our president-elect Obama will be taking office as the 44^th US president.  We all remember his slogan: CHANGE.  It seems to the Naive American that CHANGE means to start learning what other countries are doing with industry in order to generate well paying jobs and apply them to the USA.  Since the early 1950′s the US has been on a path of dissolution.  President Barack Obama, make good on your promises and induce a CHANGE in America!

Two items to consider with the Wikipedia approach are:  [1] the knowledge of the masses is not always correct and  [2] what the article touches on, most individuals might contribute some information, but very, very few would constantly maintain it.  As the referred article describes it “… The bulk of the changes to the original text, then, are made by a core group of heavy editors who make thousands of tiny edits (the 1400 freaks). …”

For an example of incorrect information in Wikipedia regarding CAS / FCS, in the period between 1990 and 1992 John Canessa while working with different Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM) software came up with (invented) a different metaphor for storing data.  The logic behind the technology is as follows.  Humans need cues and mechanisms to help them locate data in disk(s) attached to computers.  File systems allow users to organize data in an inverted tree structure starting from the root.  The leaves in the tree are the actual data files.  Each file in a file system has a unique file ID and occupies a well define location on disk.  For ease of use, humans limit the number of files in a folder.  The names of folders and files, including their extensions, are usually assigned mnemonics for the type of data they hold.  All of this is done in order to help us humans locate data files.

Computers are not bound by the same rules.  As far as a computer is concerned, all files in a file system could be in a single container / folder and given ascending numbers (i.e., block number).  The idea behind CAS / FCS is to have at the application level a unique name associated with the contents of the file.  The CAS / FCS could then implement a coat check metaphor in which the client presents a Global Unique Identifier (GUID) and the CAS / FCS system returns the associated data as a file or a stream.

Independent to storage, application layers already make use of database engines to keep track of metadata.  They have done this for decades since the invention of database engines.  The only change to support a CAS / FCS is to replace the field that holds the path to a file (e.g., a deed, invoice, radiology image, car loan application, the 05:00 PM news on May 22, 2008 among others), which could change in time (e.g., the disk was replaced for a NAS and given a different network path), for a GUID.  A GUID needs to contain more than a sequential number in order to allow it to be unique in multiple distributed Direct Attached Storage (DAS), Network Attached Storage (NAS) or Storage Area Network (SAN).

The reader should note that Content Addressable Storage (CAS) and Fixed Content Storage (FCS) are different acronyms for the same type of technology.  The CAS / FCS technology is intended to store data that does not change (fixed) in time.

In May 1992, then professor at the Laboratory for Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Ron Rivest published the “The MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm” Request for Comments (RFC).  In a nutshell, a MD5 digest is a sequence of 32 bytes generated by a mathematical procedure performed on the actual contents of a data file or stream.  The MD5 algorithm when applied to the same data always returns the same digest.

The first commercial application of a CAS / FCS was named Diverse Storage Manager (DSM) by the inventor and Directed Storage Manager (also DSM) by his management.  It supported on-line and near-line media in the form of Magneto Optical Discs (MOD) in a Hewlett-Packard (HP) automated library.  The CAS / FCS was supporting a Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) medical archive at the Radiology Society of North America (RSNA) 1993 show in Chicago, Illinois.

In 1994 John Canessa founded Software Engineering Corporation (SENCOR) www.sencor.com.

In 1995 John Canessa called a few times Leonard M. Adleman, at the time professor at Stanford University, one of the founders of RSA and contributor to the MD5 algorithm, to get his insights on the uniqueness of the MD5 digest.  Dr. Adleman responded as a true scientist by stating that, for all practical purposes, generating the same MD5 digest for two (2) different documents was mathematically highly improbable, but possible.  Because of this the CAS / FCS software products since then developed by John Canessa always had a unique identifier in addition to a hash value (i.e., MD5 digest).

In 1996 SENCOR spawned a marketing company by the name FileLink with the intent of selling products based on the SENCOR CAS / FCS technology.  FileLink and later SENCOR showed DICOM archives at RSNA boasting the second generation of CAS / FCS technology.

In March 1998 Ron Anderson wrote an article titled “Storing Smart Saves Space” in the now defunct Byte Magazine (www.byte.com).  The article described the operation and technical advantages of a CAS / FCS system.

In the late 1990′s FileLink was approached by EMC (www.emc.com) to license / purchase the rights to the CAS / FCS software Backup and Archive Manager (BAM).  Management was not able to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement.

In the late 1990′s Paul Carpentier and Jan van Riel, while working at a Belgian startup FilePool, coined the term Content Addressable Storage (CAS).

By the year 2000, SENCOR had implemented a few commercial products to process car loans, manage video for broadcasting, and managing video clips for investing purposes using CAS / FCS technology.

In 2001 EMC acquire FilePool whose main product became the Centera platform.

In May 2003 John Canessa submitted to the Network Working Group an Informational draft titled “Fixed Content Storage (FCS) Application Programming Interface (API)” (http://www.watersprings.org/pub/id/draft-canessa-fcs-api-00.txt).  At the time it represented the third generation of the CAS / FCS technology.

The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) www.snia.org finalized the first pass on a C programming API for CAS / FCS using XML named “Information Management – extensible Access Method (XAM) – Part 2: C API Version 1.0 TECHNICAL POSITION July 9, 2008″.

John Canessa is about to start work on the fourth generation of the CAS / FCS technology.

The information here presented differs from what is currently posted on Wikipedia when one searches for “content addressable storage” (do not include the double quotes).  John Canessa will be updating Wikipedia in the next few days so readers can use this example to give objective weight to what was stated in the article referenced in this blog.

For some reason the Naive American tends to believe any and every thing that is printed.  When reading something, always check the source.  Never trust a single resource.  The driving force behind these blogs is to always be objective.  This of course is easily said than followed.  The Naive American is a subset of the human race.  For some reason humans tend to be easily persuaded by politicians and sales people.  Perhaps we act like that because we want to believe on what is being sold to us.  In the case of Wikipedia, we could always use it as the single source for all references.  This makes it easy on us because we can then avoid the time and effort it takes to fully research a topic.  The drawback is that it might not have the correct information.

We all live in suburbs of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.  We know what winter is like.  Some days one is out and about with temperatures dipping in the low -20′s with windshield of -40F degrees.  As I am writing this entry the outside temperature in Bloomington, MN a few blocks away from the Mall of America, is a balmy 9F.  At least the sun is shining and the wind is from the West.  Yes, we pay attention to the weather in this part of the country.

Yesterday my wife and I were looking for jackets for my oldest son and one for myself.  After driving to different stores we finally settled with a couple North Face jackets.  The selection in stock was not too broad.  We should have gone on-line and order the jackets directly from www.nothface.com.  The selection is complete but one has to wait a few days for delivery.  I guess we were somewhat anxious to get over and done with our last shopping for the holidays.

Yesterday after shopping, my wife and I made it home.  Tried on my new jacket.  Definitely The North Face knows what they are doing regarding outdoor apparel.  They have good quality products.  As I was looking at the jackets I noticed the interior label in the back.  Written in French they have the country of origin were the jackets were manufactured, China.  A couple guys in the San Francisco, CA area, started the company about forty years ago.  Do not know the nationality of the two founders (not that it matters), but The North Face is a public American company.  You can read more about the company in their web site.

I did not like to learn that these jackets were made outside the USA (OUS).  I fired up my computer and did some on-line research on the company.  Given the popularity of their products, at least in this part of the country, I was surprised to find out that the company size is in the 201-500 employees.  I seriously doubt they manufacture any of their goods.  It appears they do not own manufacturing facilities or hire employees to make their jackets or any of their products.

The North Face jackets are probably not the most expensive ones money can buy, but by no means they are cheap.  You can get a flavor of their pricing by visiting their on-line store.  I am not privy to their production costs.  I can just make an educated guess, which is completely subjective.  I was talking with some friends a couple days ago.  They have a few retail shops in the Twin Cities area which also sell products manufactured OUS.  They told me that depending on the product, they charge for an item what a dozen to half dozen costs them.  This is why retailers are able to discount items by 50% and still make profits.

Let’s take a look at the jacket.  The design was hopefully made in the US.  The designers might work at a company facility or from home.  Include a very reduced layer of management (which is always good), compensations, benefits, taxes, shipping and what is being paid to a Chinese company to manufacture the goods.  After that we have the cost of advertising and profits.  For the amount of money being generated, just a very small percentage finds its way to Naive Americans.  Both The North Face and the parent VF Corporation (www.vfc.com) are public companies.  I took a brief look at the long list of brands / companies / labels and for the little I know most of the labels are not manufactured in the US.

So the next time Naive Americans go out shopping, I urge you to pause and spend a few seconds looking at what you are buying and were and how it is being manufactured.  About 80% of America’s working force is into services (i.e., accounting, business administration, marketing, sales).  As this trend continues, our inflation and foreign debt will keep on growing to the point that the American way of life will (do not confuse it with might) become a thing of the past.

By the way, I asked my wife to please return the jacket that we purchased for me.  The following day, my son on his own, decided to return his jacket.  It appears that at least in this case, these two Naive Americans walked the talk.

Perhaps we are not that late to make a CHANGE in the US for generations to come!

During the last presidential elections there were a few (very few) entertaining political television ads. I have to label them entertaining due to the fact that advertisements are geared to sell the viewer on something and lets face it, politicians in general, do not have desirable ideas for sale. The ad I have in mind might not have been so good because I am able to remember it but cannot recall the candidate behind it.

I spent a few minutes on-line looking for the ad in question but my search did not return the desired results (sorry about that). Due to this fact I will attempt to briefly describe it. Perhaps the reader has seen it.

The TV ad focuses on a set of about four (4) individuals sitting on the higher end of a titter totter. The expressions on their faces and the clothing they are wearing tend to indicate they are angry representatives of the working class. On the other lower end of the titter totter there is a single smiling overweighed male adorned with jewelry wearing a nice suit. The ad makes it obvious that the weight of the well dress single individual could not possibly hold him on the lower (and controlling) end of the titter totter.

A voice comes on and starts providing the political message. As this is occurring the expression and actions of the well-dressed individual start changing as he starts going up and the group of working individuals start assuming the lower and controlling position. This Naive American got the message loud and clear. The RIGHT CHANGE could only occur if fellow Americans cast their vote for the proper career politician. One could conclude that some branch of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party was responsible for the contents of the ad.

As we all know opinions are subjective (may or may not be correct). In the US we are taught that Americans are entitled to have our own and different opinion. On what we base our opinions is a complete different story. We are made believe that our opinions count due to our corrupt, inadequate and irresponsible legal system. For some reason most Naive Americans believe that a group of jurors (typically with a lower level of education) are able to determine who committed a crime based on the way two (2) individuals (trial lawyers trained to convince people) sell their stories. This may sound absurd but this is how we do it in America.

Remember Christopher Columbus (1451 – 1485)? He came with the idea that the world was round based on a simple physical fact (not opinion) and the rest of the world was wrong. That earth is the center of the universe? That was worse. Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642) came up with the idea that the earth rotates around the sun and because of that he was not only ignored but also prosecuted. Galileo had the facts the rest of the world had just wrong subjective opinions.

You might say, well we have come long ways from the time of Columbus and Galileo, and what is mot important those two (2) guys were not Naive Americans. Do you recall in 2003 listening to Richard Cheney and George Bush making the argument that Saddam Hussein, president and / or dictator of Iraq, had weapons of mass destruction, and in order to prevent him from using them against the US and our allies, we started a war that has cost the lives of many Naive Americans and greatly contributed to the destruction of the US Economy? The fact is that the entire intelligence was based on a false story of an Iraqi national seeking residence in the US. I guess that was an expensive “Green Card”.

It appears that most people come up with subjective opinions based on hear say and the media (television, newspapers and the WWW) and do not wish to seek and take into account the actual facts. In retrospect every single time the reasons for people coming up with wrong opinions could always be traced to the interests of few powerful individuals and / or organizations that wish to control masses of Naive Americans for their own financial benefit.

Getting back to our political ad, we have two (2) very well defined groups of Naive Americans. The members of one set include mostly blue-collar workers, epitomized by the “fat and lazy union auto worker” that want to make more money than they should based on their education and level of skills and work as little as possible. Let’s face it, we all know unions were a fast remedy for the labor issues in the past, but they are no longer needed and should be dissolved. We now have labor departments and unemployment benefits.

The members of the second set are company executives that make millions of Dollars in compensation a year. What could a person do that is so important and so unique when running a company that deserves in return more than the salary of the president of the United States of America? The answer to this question is nothing. Take for example the top management of all three (3) car companies in the US. Combined they make about $100 million Dollars a year in compensation. Look objectively at what they have accomplished with their respective companies in the past decades. All three (3) companies are about to disappear. Their troubles did not start a few months ago with the bursting of the housing bubble caused by Wall Street.

In conclusion the USA is in need of a dramatic CHANGE, which will not be brought by president-elect Obama or his staff. Politicians in this country are part of the problem, not part of the solution. The change must come from every single Naive American, which includes leaders and members of unions, employees and executives. The issue is that without a reasonable and attainable plan, nothing is going to CHANGE.

The Naive American proposes the following plan that is simple to understand and follow, and would facilitate economic recovery.

Politicians should pass legislation that caps salaries for all executives in all companies to $200,000 Dollars a year. No other benefit (i.e., house staff, company car, company jet, company yacht, company house, vacation house, etc, etc, etc), except health insurance would be allowed by law. Vacation time should be limited to a reasonable two (2) weeks a year in addition to all Federal US holidays. If the executive is used to an extravagant life style (which most do) then the spouses should look for a job like most Naive Americans do.

Naive Americans working in companies as white-collar workers should concentrate and dedicate themselves to their jobs by being on time and working hard and smart. Legislation should be passed to cap their salaries and compensation just like executives. This way management and technical white-collar employees would be similarly motivated to work.

Professionals and white-collar workers would have a range with a cap on salaries based on the type of work. This would allow employers to provide the best workers with higher compensation but within reason. The logic behind is to keep costs under control. Companies should be allowed to motivate good employees with stock options.

Naive Americans working on blue-collar jobs would have their wages adjusted and topped by law based on the skill level. It is not possible that a person sweeping floors in a building be earning $30 Dollars per hour with a guaranteed number of overtime hours per month at time and a half. How can the economy of any country keep this up with a working force in which 80% of the population is dedicated to services?

No matter which type of job is performed for a company, employees could be rewarded with stock options at a price set by law as a percentage of the current value of the shares. Stock options should have waiting and expiration time periods. The logic behind this approach is for employees that feel they are not properly being compensated to leave for a different job and most important, for the stockholders to be able to compensate upper management that performs. Could you imagine how greedy stockholders would react by having to dilute their shares to compensate a CEO that in years has not performed?

A word of caution, our Federal Government would have companies heavily taxed when outsourcing any step in the design and manufacturing of goods. This would make the Naive American work hard and smart and not have our government resort to applying tariffs on imported goods. The Naive American needs to allow other countries to fairly complete in a global market with price and quality, not enabling greedy stockholders to continue to destroy the USA.

An alternative is not to CHANGE and continue with the free and unregulated market and watch how the USA continues its down spiral. The Bush Administration, spearheaded by Vice President Cheney, has scarred the Naive American with threats of terrorism in the US in order justify the huge waste in military expenditure and wars. The matter of fact is that Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and who knows which other terrorist group might be out there, must already have figured out that the US will succumb to itself.

We are the enemy!