This article should make us Naïve Americans stop and think about what is going on with the economy in the USA and what can we expect for it to ever recover.

GE is not the only American company that manufactures (primarily in China) and sells goods and services outside the US and keeps part of their income as not taxable due to the fact that it is generated outside of the US.  As a matter of fact it appears that most (if not all) Fortune 500 to Fortune 1,000 companies follow suit.

A few months ago the founder of Facebook was asked how is it possible that billions in Dollars in revenues are not taxable.  The answer was that Facebook does not make tax laws it just follows them.

So first lets see if we can figure out what is going on in the USA.  The wealthiest American companies are avoiding paying billions of dollars in taxes, which could solve most if not all the deficits currently faced by most states.  Those same companies have eliminated millions of jobs for Naïve Americans that are in need of help.  The key is that all the companies follow the American tax laws.  So why do we have tax laws that allow for this to happen?  The answer is quite simple.  The American Royalty (top executives in those same companies) pay lobbyist and politicians to write tax laws that allow them to avoid paying taxes.  Lobbyists are legal in the USA.  In other parts of the world they would be considered unlawful to have special interests lead government elected politicians.  We Naïve Americans call it corruption when we refer to foreign countries (i.e., Libya, Iran, Mexico, etc, etc, etc).  We Naïve Americans call it politics when it happens in the USA.  Talk about double standards!!!

One may say that in the USA it is illegal to pay politicians.  Yes it is.  But when politicians are hired to do nothing with huge salaries and bonuses AFTER they leave office in compensation for services rendered to corporations and the American Royalty, then all is well.  We call it the American Way of Life!!!

So who cares about what is going on?  The American Royalty gets away with huge salaries and multi billion dollar bonuses when their companies move jobs overseas and their companies do not pay taxes.  Stockholders get higher dividends when the companies skip on taxes and reduce costs by eliminating American jobs.  I believe that is called globalization.  So stockholders are happy with their companies not paying taxes and eliminating American jobs.  Politicians are happy because they get their bribes (I am sorry, I should not refer to their compensation for passing laws that allow it as bribes but as … Not sure what other words should I use ) and legal because the American Royalty made sure that is the case.

In conclusion, a small percentage of Naïve Americans (less than 1%) benefit from the widespread corruption (sorry again, laws, business and political climate) in our society.  So what happens to small to medium size businesses and to the rest of Naïve Americans?  Good question.  I am not going to take a stab at answering.  I refer to all Naïve Americans to read some basic history and see how so many great civilizations have risen and ALL collapsed.  You can be sure they did not plan on collapsing.  They just ignored the signs and did not care to make the necessary changes to prevent it.

If you are in a position that can induce change please consider what is going to happen to our country is we do not react and implement the necessary measures.  We are falling behind in so many fronts that our country might soon we listed with the countries that today are under developed and plagued with corruption.

The Naïve American

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

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

The idea appears to be quite simple.  Black people will vote for a black president no matter what a failure his administration has been so far.  Go to churches, barbershops and beauty shops.  Not sure about the audience at those places.  No though out plan that might produce results.  This type of speech appears to promote segregation and racism (you are black so you must vote black).

Last week in a small town in Minnesota the editor of a small newspaper decided to include some jokes to fill in a section.  Apparently the jokes were copied verbatim from the Internet.  One of them made the TV news in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

I did not bother looking up the exact joke.  I believe it is not important.  Apparent, as the joke goes, someone bought some shinning robots to be used as cadies at a golf course.  In order to avoid unwanted reflections which might bother the players, the new owner painted the robots black.  The result was a disaster.  Of the set of robots, some called in sick, some decided to collect unemployment, and one of them though he was the president.

The joke itself might be funny but that was not the point.  During the news broadcast several people from the town which is 98% white were interviewed for comments.  Some did not wish to comment.  Some thought it was poor taste (very politically correct) but one spoke the truth.  He stated that the joke should not have been printed.  That type of joke is to be told in private to friends.  This statement meant that discrimination is here (has not gone away) and is building up.  Naïve Americans just want to be politically correct (hypocrites) who think and act differently to what they say in public.  Sounds to me like politicians.

Earlier this summer my wife and I were walking the dog.  We ran into a neighbor and stopped to chat.  She make a racial remark / joke about a black poodle.

I do not have black friends.  I have some African American acquaintances.  Some appear to be color blind, at least while the crowd is mixed.  Some like to crack racial jokes making fun of whites.

Racial discrimination will be gone the day that Naïve Americans stop thinking about skin color related issues and jokes just disappear.  An analogy is something my sister and I were talking about last week on Skype.  We were talking about the good educational programs in public television, the Science Channel, and Discovery Channel among others.  She does not watch too much TV, perhaps a couple hours a week.  My wife and I watch about fourteen most of which are educational programs.  The point my sister was making is that she could not understand how people could watch the type of programs shown on prime time on ABC, CBS, and Fox.  Logic does not appear to work well with individual behavior.  People behave differently based on their origin, background and education.  This is why the masses like to watch programs like Dancing with the Stars, Survivor, and CSI, as opposed to Through the Wormhole on the Science Channel.

Discrimination was, is and will be an issue in the USA until people are motivated (by interested politicians) by laws to integrate and see past the country of origin and skin color.

The Naïve American.

Yesterday afternoon I drove my wife to Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota for a routine and schedules test.  All appeared OK.  My wife will hear from the specialist sometime next week.

While at Mayo we noted that the parking ramp was quite empty.  In general patients like to start their visits early on Monday and be done sometime early on Friday.  We have seen this trend during the past twenty years or so.  That said; it appeared there were very fewer patients than usual.

The reduced number of patients appears to be due to the fact that fewer Naïve Americans are able to afford healthcare insurance.  In part this is due to the 10% unemployment in the USA.  Most unemployed Naïve Americans do not have insurance.  Another issue is that the cost of insurance has high rocketed in the past year or so.  It appears that the quality of service (not at Mayo Clinic but at other facilities) has also dropped.  I guess that the healthcare reform by president Obama has been a flop.  This should not surprise most thinking Naïve Americans since the changes were in the wrong areas.  Who cares, Democrat politicians believe they won a battle but the matter of fact is that the USA just got another nail in our coffin.

Changing the subject, yesterday my wife, one of my sons and I stopped for a haircut.  For the past 15 years or so we have been going to the same place.  It was convenient due to the fact that our offices were located in the same building as the hair stylist.  We could get a haircut in about the same time one stops for a coffee break.  We have always been very efficient at work.

The owner of the shop is married.  Her husband was by trade and electrician.  He belongs to a union.  With time he changed positions and became a business project manager for new construction.  He was clearing over $100,000 a year.  Amazing how much could an individual with such education and qualifications make when compared with people that have higher education and whose jobs contribute so much to the welfare of the USA and in some cases to humanity.  The point at hand is that the husband has been out of a job for about year and a half.  His benefits are coming to an end soon.  The union told him that hopefully things will get better in the future but he has to realize that when he finally gets a job his salary will be at least half of what he was used to make.

Naïve Americans have to realize that different forces have skewed salaries in our country.  On one end unions have been getting higher wages for members with less and less qualifications and less performance / results.  The unions would typically negotiate contracts in which the number of units produced by assembly lines would be a fraction of what should be a reasonable output.  Blue collar workers were and probably still are taking advantage of companies.

On the other had, we have CEOs and upper management that makes millions of dollars per year in salaries and bonuses.  No one, and I repeat no one can hold a job whose compensation should be above $250,000 a year.  On TV there is a show in which high-end executives (typically the CEO) show up for work at their companies incognito.  I have never watched a full show.  It does not appeal to me.  I have watched commercials and a few minutes of random shows while changing channels.  It appears that in most cases the CEOs who get paid millions of dollars a year cannot do; far lees appreciate what their employees are doing for the company.  Those same CEOs will and have fired dozens, hundreds and in some occasions thousands of Naïve Americans in order to get their multimillion dollar compensations at the cost of Naïve Americans that actually do a job for those same companies.

An interesting question to ask is “Where are the career politicians while all of this has been happening for decades?”  The answer is quite simple.  They have been paid by those same unions and CEOs in order not to upset the basket.  On the surface and for a few decades the USA has been able to absorb this inappropriate behavior.  In the past couple years we are starting to feel the effects.  America is coming to an end and unless something dramatically is done, the USA will be history just like Russia, the Greeks, Romans, etc, etc, etc.

Finally allow me to get to the subject at hand.  Mr. Obama and his political staff have come up with what appears to be a good idea.  His administration is going to provide about $30 billion to be allocated to small business in the USA.  At this point it is hard to tell how such funds are going to be managed and provided to existing and most important to new businesses.

I will come back in a few months with some experience in the subject and implementation.  Perhaps it will help our ailing economy.  So at this point in time, Mr. Obama deserves a round of applause!!!

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

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.