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

Over the weekend I was on Skype talking with my sister that lives on the East Coast.  We talked about the Nova program, which she was also able to view.  The First Three Minutes by Steven Weinberg, winner of the 1979 Nobel Price for Physics, came up during our conversation so I ordered a copy on Amazon.

The book is quite interesting and relevant to the Nova show we watched.  Weinberg did a good job by separating concepts and explaining them as simply as possible and separating it from mathematics.  The mathematics is incorporated into a single section at the end of the book.

It is quite interesting to see how human ingenuity and intelligence has been able to come up with different theories about the origin of the universe.  Some of the hypotheses have been corroborated to some extent with science experiments.  Some of the experiments have been conducted on earth while others in space.  This takes us to the point of NASA and the future and role of the USA in space exploration.  Mr. Obama apparently does not see much value in NASA.  Hopefully the next administration will be better educated in order to understand the value of science for our country and humanity in general.

The book has an interesting section, which was written years after the original book.  It provides the author with the opportunity to fill the reader with developments after the late1970s when the book was first printed, to 1993.  The font of this section is quite smaller.  It was hard to read.

Weinberg concludes the book with the following sentence:  “The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy”.  Something to think about.

Enjoyed the book.  It is easy to read.  It is interesting to say the least, how humans have been able to build a model of how the universe was started millions of years ago.

The Naive American would like to comment on the remarks made by Mr. Cheney.

One has to be living in La La Land to believe that terrorists will never attack the US again.  The simple reason is that the foreign policies for the past sixty years or so have alienated every single country we have ever consider our allies.  Today very few countries label themselves as friends of the USA.  Most nations are indifferent and many are completely our enemies.  Yet we continue to bring nationals from countries that do not like the US and label them as refugees.  We need to think on the consequences and not in the instant gratification, which is just a consequence of politicians being paid by the American Royalty through lobbyists.  If you want a different version on my opinion please watch the 2005 documentary “Why We Fight” directed by Eugene Jarecki and be enlightened.

As we all know administration after administration has been spending billions of dollars, which the USA does not have (we borrow money from our master China) to waste on weapons and kill civilians and American troops and not been able to catch Osama Bin Laden which is the number one fugitive in the FBI Most Wanted List of criminals.  Stop and think for a moment…  Yes, something is definitely wrong with the way the USA and our policy dealing with terrorists.  The only way to stop terrorism is to change our policies and become friends with our fellow human beings, which just happen to live on other countries.  Until such change is made, terrorist will attach us over and over again.  Think of the implications of a terrorist attack if it happens in the near future.  The USA will plunge in an economic spiral that will never recover.  That would mark the end of the US dollar and our way of life.

For the second point, Mr. Cheney congratulates Mr. Obama on spending more money in Afghanistan.  Recall who was Mr. Cheney before, during and after being the Vice President.  He is a defense contractor, which Naive American elected, in the same ticket as Mr. Bush.  No wonder why he will always we happy prolonging a war that the USA will never win.  We might (by a miracle) be successful in a battle in Afghanistan, but the war is impossible to win.  The reality of Afghanistan is completely different than the one for the US.  Nothing will change until after we change our ways.  As long as we continue to attempt to bully our way of life on other countries and people we will be at war and exposed to terrorists.

I just got back from a business trip.  It is incredible the infrastructure and people that works for TSA.  It is so simple to bypass their security measures.  On the other hand in the not so distant future we might (will) have to undergo strip searches to justify the additional waste of funds in something so foolish as the TSA.

Naive Americans need to think on the future of our society and country.  At the rate we are going in the not so distant future we will be competing with third world countries.

Early this morning I checked the news and read a few articles regarding last night’s presidential speech.  I kind of liked the structure of an article by USA Today (http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2010/01/obamas-promises-verbatim/1).  I am taking the bullet points from the speech and commenting on them.

Bank Fees.  The only thing that will happen with this approach is that banks will pass them on to their Naive American consumers.  This is just a cost of doing business.  Bank fees, not a good idea.

A jobs bill.  Unless you are planning on creating additional bureaucracy (such jobs are paid by tax payer moneys which are in a decline and do not produce desirable goods or services) that will keep on destroying the US economy how are such jobs going to be created?  Are Naive Americans going to build roads and install green house equipment in business and homes for people that cannot afford it or is the government going to subsidize the purchase of Chinese equipment to offer low paying jobs to Naïve Americans?  A jobs bill, not a good idea.

Job loans and tax incentives.  Not sure from where the $30 billion which you are planning to use came in the first place.  Given that the US economy is in shambles that money must have already been loaned to us.  I guess delaying repayment would be OK if small businesses are the true recipients of the funds.  In the history of America small businesses have always provide the source for innovation and growth that we have been accustomed to.  The government should treat small businesses that have ideas, products and services that are desirable not only in America but also worldwide, as saviors and gods.  Innovation and wealth does not come from large companies.  It comes from acquisitions of small businesses by large ones.  The Obama administration needs to provide huge amounts of funds in the form of grants, loans and tax incentives to create new and to help grow small businesses.  That said I am not referring to small businesses that just sell goods manufactured in foreign countries (e.g., bike shop, car dealer, etc) or simple services (e.g., restaurants).  Job loans and tax incentives might be the first good idea of the Obama administration, but do not hold your breath on the implementation.

New Wall Street regulations.  The regulations that have been past are completely ineffective.  What is needed are new, effective and simple laws that will put caps on what Wall Street is doing.  For example, cap the total compensation of all executives to the same salary as the president of the USA.  Bonuses must come from stock of stockholders approved by the board of directors and all stockholders.  This way the pressure to perform will be there and bonuses will not be given to incapable executives.  Most executives are business and accounting majors who have not an idea on how to develop and sell desirable goods and services.  Get rid of them.  New Wall Street regulations that way you have them, not a good idea.

Energy programs.  I do not know if you or your staffs of advisors understand the energy issues in our country.  The main energy issue is with oil and gas we purchase from other countries.  For each Dollar we pay in energy to a foreign country we get back a few dimes with goods and services we export.  This is why we have trillions of Dollars in our trade deficit.  The electric car is the only proven, feasible and available technology, which will improve our economy in a foreseeable future.  The issue is that major corporations hire lobbyist that have paid off and continue to pay off career politicians to kill such a great idea.  Other sources (e.g., fuel cells, natural gas, etc) are extremely more expensive for the Naïve American but have huge benefits to car and oil companies.  Your energy programs, not a good idea.

Education.  Education is one of the pillars for the success of any country.  That is what made the USA what was a few decades ago.  Since the 1950’s education in our country is getting worse by the minute.  The K-12 schools have turned into expensive day care organizations paid by taxpayers.  The main issue is that this has been going on for so long that most Naïve Americans are not capable to understand what is going on.  To pot it off we have unions which hire lobbyist to pay off career politicians.  On the next level we have colleges that are teaching Naïve Americans skills that are not in demand in a high tech economy.  The courses and degrees offered by most universities have been declining through the years.  Just stop at campuses in universities and you will see that for the difficult degrees (i.e., science and engineering) enrollment has declined and most students are foreigners.  Why would someone spend considerable time and effort to find that most well paying jobs are outside the US?  A major overhaul in the education system in this country is needed.  Nice buildings and better-paid incompetent teachers do not help produce better professionals.  Education as you propose, not a good idea.

Healthcare.  In the past few months Naive Americans have heard enough of your preposterous plan for healthcare reform.  What we need is a system that is free for all Naive Americans.  We need to get rid of healthcare insurance companies.  We need to make accountable healthcare providers and companies (including drug manufacturers) to make sure they are properly compensated for their efforts but do not enrich themselves (high executive salaries and bonuses, high stock dividends) at the expense and suffering of Naive Americans.  Simple and clean law could address healthcare reform in a very short period of time.  Healthcare as you propose, not a good idea.

Debt and deficits.  Freeze on government spending is a must.  The problem is that national security spending is out of control.  When you have a bomb proof truck that costs a million Dollars that can be disabled with a $10 Dollar explosive charge, simple math is against us.  Wars only benefit the companies that make weapons and equipment used by the military.  War does not produce benefits for the Naive American.  War just brings pain.  You are proposing to get a bipartisan fiscal commission of career politicians paid by lobbyist to address this issue.  How could that work?  Debt and deficits as you propose to address, a bad idea.

Government and election reform.  This is not a simple task.  You are proposing career politicians paid by lobbyist hired by well-funded special interest to address the issue.  I am starting to think that my two-year-old grandson has better ideas than you do.  The simple approach to this issue is to outlaw any and all political contributions.  Outlaw lobbyist.  Make accountable organizations, individuals and politicians for accepting bribes and punish them with ten years of mandatory prison for each offense.  Problem solved.  Your proposed Government and election reform, one more bad idea.

Disaster response.  History has proven that the USA is not prepared for disaster response.  Each time something happens we find more and more flaws.  We need to come up with simple and relatively fool proof mechanism to prevent and if they do happen to aid Naïve Americans in stress.  Before just throwing money it would be best to evaluate what we have today, eliminate issues and then come up with mechanisms to help us with nuclear and bio terrorism.  That said I would like to bring up a simple idea that is used in good engineering.  Go after the cause of the problem, not the side effects.  For example, if the hard disk in your computer system is failing, do not start modifying the software to address the failing disk symptoms, change the disk.  In the 1940’s the world (with perhaps two exceptions) loved the USA.  Since then most countries dislike the US and many are just plain enemies.  Today we cannot count with the fingers in our hands enough countries that are truly our friends.  We all know the reasons for this.  Instead of addressing them we declare wars that kill innocent people.  Disaster response, as presented, not a good idea.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.  This is a touchy and politically loaded issue.  If you have served in the military you probably have a better opinion as I have.  Our country at this point in time has so many long term serious issues that are rotting our society to its roots that issues with gay people is like saying that you are on your death bed and are discussing the color of your sheets.  Bringing this topic us appears to be just a political maneuver to get support from lobbyists.  Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell a completely irrelevant issue at this point in time.

Immigration.  Completely in agreement that our immigration system is broken.  We need incentives for intellect to come to the USA to study, create small businesses and hopefully to integrate and make America their home for them and generations to come.  That is more important that putting up a wall and spend resources patrolling the borders.  If people and companies do not offer jobs to illegal aliens then the problem is solved once and for all.  If the government does not provide a single benefit to illegal aliens then they will not want to be in the US.  America needs to bring in the best of the world for them to integrate and make their lives here.  Immigration a good idea but so far the implementation has been poor to say the least.

In conclusion Mr. Obama rehashed promises that were used in the presidential campaign but that have not become reality in over a year in office.  What America needs are CHANGES to the core.  If we do not do this we will continue to fall into the abyss.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Naive American

As I grew older (not sure about the wiser part) I came to the realization that the political system in the USA is no better and perhaps worse than in most countries.  We have managed to legalize unmoral and unethical practices.  Not only that but corruption is very well entrenched in business activities (more on this on a future blog).

Lets take a look at how we do a few things in America.

Elections.  When political election time comes around we start seeing advertisements for career politicians that want to get elected / reelected (looking or trying to maintain cushy job with no responsibilities or accountability).  Somehow there are many Naive Americans (with little or no qualifications) that are able to raise considerable amounts of political contributions (bribes) to get elected.  In general, salaries and benefits for the elected officials are substantial higher than what they typically earn working on their initial chosen profession (e.g., dentist, business administrator, wrestler, actor, etc) but are nothing when compared to the funds spent attempting to get into office.  I guess companies and wealthy Naïve Americans (in some cases nationals from other countries as was the case with Mrs. Clinton in the past presidential election) contribute not wanting something in return (ha ha ha).  Are we in La La Land or the USA?  All the immoral and unethical practices associated with elections are completely legal in our country.  Similar practices in other nations are associated with sheer corruption by the same career politicians.

Politicians.  Who are most (never say all) politicians?  They do not tend to be people with high education or managing from inception (more on this on a future blog) successful practices / businesses.  It appears that most people turn into politics when they are not successful in their private lives.  Most politicians go into politics and after a few years somehow they start doing well for themselves or for their families and friends.  How strange that they were not able to realize themselves in their chosen professions (yes it is that call from who know where to serve the country).  The job of being a politician should be quite rewarding given the fact that once they become a politician, they do not want to return to private life.  Politicians have no accountability.  When they fail miserable (most do) they just excuse themselves and promise CHANGE.  Try the same approach in the business world and they will find themselves out of a job in weeks or months.  The difference is that there is no accountability in politics.

Laws.  Politicians are behind the laws that are put together and then passed.  For some strange reason laws are not passed individually but in sets.  Doing so has two main advantages.  First no one is able to understand what is in a bill (not even the people who authors them) so politicians write laws that benefit lobbyist (American Royalty) and destroy the USA.  The second advantage is that politicians hide their personal interests (the interests of organizations and individuals who bribe them through lobbyists) by voting for the main subject of a bill but hiding hundreds or thousands of payoffs in the rest.  This is why bills are not written in less than a dozen sheets of paper.  Do you know how many pages are in the Health Care reform being promoted by the Obama Administration?  Over a thousand.  Rest my case.

Wars.  How can it be possible that our country is most of the time at war?  There is a documentary “Why We Fight” that attempts to describe and show why America likes wars.  The logic (which appears to be quite solid) goes something like this.  Large companies in the USA are in the business of making weapons and supporting the military.  Such companies / contractors earn in the billions of dollars a year when the USA is not at war.  When the US is at war spending approaches or exceeds a trillion dollars a year.  There is way too much money lost when we are not at war.  Because of this simple fact, politicians with the help of lobbyist are convinced that a war in Afghanistan will somehow make America more secure.  The matter of fact is that security has nothing to do.  The Dollars is the guilty party.  This is due to the fact that politicians can easily be bribed to the point of committing funds that we do not have (the USA is in a huge deficit) and lives of Naive Americans that are killed and many wounded in many occasions will have scars for life.  And all of this because?  Because of incompetent, immoral and unaccountable politicians.  Does Vice President Cheney ring a bell?

So next time that you watch the news regarding any facet of our political system, pay close attention to what is really going on.  We have legalized corruption and are as bad as any third world country.

Allow me to copy some of the text from the article which one can get full access to by using the following link:  http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aU5yV7oBvwR8

“Attending tonight’s event will be some of the Wall Street executives who have been on the receiving end of the administration’s criticism, according to the New York Times. The fundraiser is co-hosted by Orin Kramer, a partner at an investment fund, the newspaper reported”.

“This year, as Congress drafts new financial regulations, employees at securities and investment companies have given more money to candidates and the political parties than any other industry, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group”.

“Morgan Stanley has long been a major political giver. Its employees contributed $3.7 million for the 2008 elections, fifth among financial companies, according to the Center for Responsive Politics”.

Tonight (October 20, 2009) Mr. Obama (the president that touted CHANGE in his presidential election campaign) is going to attend a $30,400 US Dollars per couple fundraiser organized by Orin Kramer, a partner at an investment fund.  As a Naive American I am quite puzzled by having the president of the USA attend a fund raiser organized by a member of the group that caused the financial meltdown which affected millions in the US and abroad.  This same president is talking about reforming that industry.  Is there something wrong with this picture?  The guilty party (of the financial meltdown) is providing funds to the president because …

But the people attending (also known as American Royalty) this event are not the only ones providing moneys to the Democratic Party (Mr. Obama is a member of the Democratic party), investment companies in general have been donating (bless their hearts) more money than usual to democratic politicians in return of ???

Morgan Stanley, another company whose executives in part caused the economic meltdown that has left millions of Naive Americans without jobs and homes is contributing right and left to the same Democratic Party.  Do you see something wrong with this picture???

Not sure what Naive Americans think is going on in our country.  It appears that the president has to answer to the Democratic Party who put him in office and the Democratic Party has to answer to the contributors who caused the economic meltdown.  So how is CHANGE going to occur ???

A few minutes ago I visited the White House web page (www.whitehouse.gov) and saw one of your pictures while visiting Cairo.  Looking good.  Hope your visit will result in positive improvements (CHANGES) to the US.

I would like an answer to one and only one question from the Naive American.  Before I pose it allow me to briefly provide some background and motivation for it.

A few weeks ago I was reading an article on the BBC on-line (http://news.bbc.co.uk) which called my attention.  The article was based on an interview of a woman that I will call Jane Doe.  Jane actually lives in Washington State.  For many years, Jane used to work as a mechanic in the aerospace industry.  I believe she worked in a Boeing plant.

As you well know, because labor unions, Jane was making very good wages for a person with her education and skills.  Unions raise manufacturing costs, which force employers to outsource and lay off Naive Americans.  Years ago Jane got laid off from her well-paid job.

A few months later, having many expenses including a mortgage, which is impossible to pay with unemployment benefits, Jane was lucky enough to get a job in the local government.  Given that the government does not produce many desirable goods or services her wages were quite less than while a mechanic, but she was able to make ends meet for a few years.

It was not until recently that Jane got laid off from her local government job.  Apparently Jane will be loosing her house in the near future.

The reporter interviewing Jane asked her to comment on the future.  Jane was quite realistic on her response.  Things are not looking good for her or for Naive Americans in general.  Most manufacturing jobs have left the USA and will never come back.  As the population increases, less well paid jobs for people with two to four year degrees will be available.

Changing the subject from Jane Doe to when I was growing up, I recall a joke that I saw in a magazine.  Perhaps you have run into a version of it.  Picture on the background a white board with some mathematical equations.  On the left side is a student wishing to get a passing grade on the subject.  On the right side one finds a perplexed professor trying to make sense on the answer provided by the student.  As you look closer into the math, a cloud is pictured with the following label:  “… and then something happens…” and the correct result is displayed.

I would like to modify the joke by replacing the student with you Mr. President, the professor with Naive Americans, and the mathematical problem with the simple question: “What CHANGES are you going to make in the US?” to get to the expected and correct answer “Stable economy as it was many decades ago“.  So far Mr. Obama, you and the rest of politicians and advisors always evade the difficult yet realistic issue that there is no well thought plan on how to solve the economical problems for us, our children or generations to come.

Please respond to the Naive American with a reasonable and realistic plan, not just a magic cloud, which will allow the USA to get from were we are to were we all would like to be.  I sincerely hope you prove me wrong with your response.

Yours truly,

The Naive American