The first dealt with the amount of savings that would be made (in the order of billions of Dollars) if our government decides to replace the use of Dollar bills with Dollar coins.  The savings are based on the replacements costs of the One Dollar bills.  As far as consumers is concerned, there is little, if any, impact on carrying one Dollar bills or one-dollar coins.  I am not a young pup so my habits may differ from the younger generations; nevertheless, I typically use a credit card for most (with few exceptions like the occasional lottery ticket which must be purchased using cash) of my purchases.  My wife and I try to keep the card with a zero balance so we pay it in full each month.  A nice feature of using a card for purchases is that at the end of the month you get an itemized list of purchases.  If I use such approach, I would assume that most Naïve Americans would be fine with using coins instead of bills.

So why the switch is not a reality?  The issue as usual is special interests.  One has to consider the companies involved in providing the materials (i.e., ink, paper, plates, print press, etc) for the One Dollar bills.  We also have to consider vending machines.  Most are configured to accept bills.  Few are ready to accept one Dollar coins.  As usual, special interests pay off politicians and who cares about then Naïve Americans that got them elected in the first place.

The second story relates to wealth distribution in our country.  Statistics show that the top 1% of the population has grown richer by a factor of three while the remaining 99% has become poorer.  Something is not working at all in the USA.  Naïve Americans claim that we are free and live in the land of opportunity.  That may be correct for a very reduced minority.  The majority of Naïve Americans are experiencing tough economic times.  On one side one we have Republicans, which do not want to raise taxes because they will reduce jobs.  Not sure who came up with that twisted logic but it appears that millions of Naïve Americans believe it.  On the opposite corner we have Democrats who wish to raise taxes to pay off unions so they can be elected to office.  What about the majority of Naïve Americans?  Most of us do not benefit with Republican or Democratic governments.  We need to elect a president that is not Democratic, nor Republican but American.  Of course such candidate does not exist.

At some point in time in the very near future, the top 1% of the population, which are the ones that control politicians, need to realize that some changes are needed if we wish to preserve our way of life.  When I say our way of life, I refer to the economic climate of the early 1950’s.

Hopefully a few Naïve Americans in the top 1% will come to realize the gravity of not inducing a change and will put some money and effort in helping our country.

The Naïve American

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About ten years ago he moved to the Twin Cities looking for a change and to be close to relatives.  He worked at a local casino and at the international airport.  He then found a job at a Walmart store in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul in Minnesota.

Joe worked five days a week.  His schedule changed now and then.  Most of the time he worked over weekends.  He would get up early in the morning to make sure he had enough time to get to work on time.  He was never late.

A few weeks ago Walmart start cutting his hours and shifting his schedule.  Given that Joe has been a loyal Walmart employee for several years, his current salary is somewhat higher than of new employees (or associates as they are called by Walmart).  Joe is quite desperate at this time looking for a new job because with no more than twenty hours a week he is not able to pay his bills.

Most Naive Americans are aware of the economic condition in the US and around the world.  What most Naive Americans do not understand is that American Royalty created the crisis.  It just happens that the Walton family who is the largest shareholder of Walmart and Sam’s Club are part of such American aristocratic class.

Walmart lobbied for vendor companies to outsource in order to reduce their manufacturing costs while maintaining their profit margins selling at a discounted price to them.  Walmart helped companies reduce their costs by moving manufacturing offshore.  So who benefited from such approach?  Well, consumers that shop at Sam’s Club and Walmart did.  Who paid for the lower prices that made huge profits for Sam’s Club and Walmart?  Most Naive Americans.

As manufacturing jobs fled the US at an accelerated pace, more and more Naive Americans lost their jobs and had to look for new lower paying jobs.  The condition got so bad that Sam’s Club and Walmart lobbied for an increase on the minimum wage in the USA.  Walmart did not care about what they were paying their employees but they reasoned that by increasing the minimum wage they would increase their revenue.  Most people that shops Sam’s Club and in particular Walmart are lower income families.

Lately Joe experienced a couple personal issues.  His mother passed away a few months ago.  In the past month or so Joe’s hours at Walmart were reduced from five to three days.  It appears that due to the additional stress (and to some extent his genetics) he developed a case of type II diabetes.

The question that all Naive Americans should ask our government is how the road construction and lately rapid trains will help Joe in any way shape or form?  The answer is quite simple.  Those projects that will cost the USA billions of Dollars will not help Joe and millions of other Naive Americans.

Last week, on the evening news on April 15, reports from protests in many cities around the US showed some Naive Americans protesting against taxes.  The interesting this about such protest was the tea party theme.  This is how the USA came to be by rebelling against the British.  If things continue to go the way they have been, sooner than later we might have some type of massive protest in our country, which will have serious repercussions for all Naive Americans and the world.

We need to put pressure on all politicians to take immediate action (or quit) to induce CHANGE.  The American Royalty has to go!