The current state of being with the extreme right of the Republican party has gone beyond sensible social and/or fiscal conservatism, into puratanical idiocrity. In a recent discussion on NPR on the topic of abortion (yes they are still harping on this topic) Republicans are now holding all of Planned Parenthood, Health Care reform, and Family Planning services up by threat of de-funding, unless all possible use of any funds for abortion are completely eradicated. They take this to some of the most extremely convoluted logic possible, to include indirect connections between the existence of clinics themselves making profits, and using those profits (not Fed funds) to pay doctors, who might provide an abortion.

The premise is simple minded enough: They do not agree that abortions should be provided to women, thus, any tax funds they contribute cannot be used to fund activities that might in some way fund or cause to occur an abortion.  This is a ridiculous premise of course, assuming that we must all agree to every line item of every federal expense in order to allow it to be spent, or program funded. I offer some of my own:

I absolutely disagree with our military presence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Japan, and Korea – thus I call for all military spending be stopped and de-funded, including the closure of all suppliers to the military, and all supliers to those suppliers.

I have no kids, never have, nor ever will. For the most part, I don;t even like kids. Therefore, I demand the elimination of property taxes on my home and business that are used for the education of children, as I derive no benefit from it.

I absolutely disagree with all farm and food subsidies, and subsidies of crops grown to create fuel. This is market interference that distorts the economy. Thus, I demand that all subsidies by shut down immediately, including food programs that assist the poor and needy – this is just the price they must pay until we can sort all this out.

I absolutely disagree with any public funding of any religion, in any way. Thus, I demand that all tax breaks for church activities, and tax deductions for donations be eliminated immediately, as they are indirect subsidies to church activities, which is unconstitutional.

I do not support forced expansion of our political ideology, in any way. Therefore I insist that all spending on foreign aide that directly or indirectly funds the expansion, promotion, or education of democracy in any way, cease immediately.

I do not believe in globalization of the market, and feel that corporations who export our jobs overseas are destroying our working class and middle class, and eroding the growth of individual pursuit of well being, growth of income, and pusuit of happiness for profits earned on the back of communist exploited labor. Thus, I demand that all corporate tax breaks on earnings, directly or indirectly derived from importing products rather than manufacturing them here, be rescinded, and that all assets of corporate leaders who close factories here to open them in exploitive markets be siezed and sold off to pay for all unemployment caused by their profit greed behavior.

I completely disagree than corporations are individuals, thus demand that all supreme court justices who voted to give corporations this status, and the freedom to contribute unlimited funds to political candidates, be removed from the court immediately, and that the entire judicial system be shuttered until every decision is approved by me.

I disagree that Marijuana should be controlled differently than alchohol, thus demand the closure of the DEA until it is made legal.

I do not support the intrusion of the DOE in controlling enegry use behavior. The prices of energy and its availability should be the only market controls of activity. If I want to drive a 5mpg car and pay $25 a gallon, then that should be my right, thus I demand the DOE be de-funded immediately.

I disagree with the inclusion of the word “God” on our money, as this is a direct violation of the constitutional separation of religion and state, so demand it all be burned and replaced immediately.

You get the picture… Governments are collectives that must operate in turbulent waters often including issues that are not always widely accepted and or popular. The founding fathers did not want mob rule, as we have it today, which is suggested by the silly notion that one issue can be used to hold an entire program hostage. We don’t vote on every single issue, nor do we have a right to veto line items within the total work fo the government. We do, however, have the power to put in office representatives who, within the framework of the constitution, represent our views and make decisions to suit the collective population as a whole.

If the puritanical freaks want to destroy productive programs to support singular line item issues, then so be it. In two years we will all have our shot at dumping them in the ditch. The victories of the Tea party and puritans in 2010 are going to be very short lived if events continue to move as they are today. From Republican governers attacking labor unions, to the attack on Health services over abortion, the insanity of the ultra right could not be more glaring and obvious. This small cadre of noisy, moronic, simple minded, religious zealots  must eventually be flushed from our public governance, or we risk failure as a nation. There are serious issues in front of us, from the decline in personal income, the escalating cost of energy, the soon to be catastrophic collapse of our social contract with the elderly, and our loss of strength as a leading nation in technology and wealth – while we are being robbed blind by Republican supported corporate thieves. Abortion is a moot point when the country is tanked by ignorance and failure to act on truly important and critical issues before us.

At some point, the degradation of our personal well being by the actions of the few loud radicals amongst us will need to end. Hopefully we can stem the tide before it’s simply unrecoverable. At some point the divisiveness and entrenchment we have in play now will become so strong, and the country so divided in unsupported rhetoric, that recovery will be impossible.  So, head off to that picket line demanding some singularity be focused upon at the cost of larger issues if you will. When you have a moment, give a thought to those you are damaging in the process, and what you might do one day if your own financial position or way of life is found to be the target of another equally loud and obnoxious group.

The contention in the conversation was that my complaints of Chinese quality were unfounded. First, it was proposed, the Japanese supposedly went through a similar phase, and look at them now! That my concerns over the impact on US manufacturing and product quality overall, not to mention our economy, are like the paranoid concerns over Japanese intrusion in the 1980′s, which turned out to be over-stated.

I could not disagree more… now that I have had a few nights to let this sink in. Her’es why:

In 1974, a pack of buddies and I had the opportunity to take  apart a Gen 1, 1972 Honda Civic. The car had been crashed, and the idea was to extract the motor and front drive gear out of it to put into another silly project (which faded). There was the typical American boy comments and jokes about tin can quality and how the Japanese product was inferior to American iron… until we tore the car down. The jokes fades as we discovered the clever lightweight engineering the car employed. The motor was far more sophisticated, with overhead cam and cast header, and electronic ignition, compared to the iron block pus-hrod antiques our own cars had on board (still mostly remaining in production today by GM and Ford).  We found the little Civic not as much tin can as very smartly designed, using as little as possible, with obvious precision, to make a tight little car that was more like a Timex watch than it was the massive tractor based hardware we were driving – except for one of us, who was driving a 1970 Datsun 240Z – which we all coveted.

That same year was the year my grandfather clocked his 100,000th mile on his 1966 Datsun 520, a quirky little pickup that was a gas to drive, and never failed him once. He was always as small car guy, so was my dad. Grandad was a retailer of Crossley cars back in the day, my dad owned VW Beetles. The reputation for Japanese car quality here, is based on the perception that cars need be large and heavy to be of quality. Japanese cars then and now, are neither – thus are considered by some to be of poor quality – little tin cans, and all that. Same noise surrounds the motorcycle industry, where Jap bikes simply kick the snot out of US and Euro bikes. While the chatter is that Japanese bikes are like Bic lighters, a lot of heat but short lived – this is unfounded as well. Yes, they are made from lighter, thinner, less thick metals and more plastic than a Harley. That is meaningless. Well maintained Hondas, Kawasaki, Yamaha, and Suzuki motorcycles have proven to be just as durable as any other. You just need to keep in mind that a lightweight 1000CC 4 cylinder twin overhead cam engine, running at 13,000RPM, making 200HP, will require more attention and care than a 60HP, 1,400CC 2 cylinder push-rod engine with a 5,000RPM rev limit. This is the theory applied to trucks and tractors vs. F1 cars. A tractor will last decades without major overhaul, while an F1 car demands more care and will need complete replacement each season. This is not a quality issue – it is a purposing issue. In the motorcycle business, where we buy and ride for fun, Japanese bikes simply dominate the market. They are fast, light, fun, and amazingly tough. I know this from riding my first Yamaha 80 in the 1960′s, through Yamahas, Hondas, and my favorite Kawasaki’s, including a 79 Kwacker 650 in my garage now being converted to cafe racer. In fact, a 1972 Kawasaki z1 900 today has a resale value greater than a 1972 Harley Davidson… and can kick the stuffing out of a brand new V-rod today.

In reality, most Japanese product has generally been of very high quality. In 1974, the Honda Civic was awarded Car of the Year by Road Test Magazine, and in 1980 again by Motor Trend, for their quality, and overall value. The concern I, and others, had in the 1980′s was not that the Japanese were going to take US manufacturing out with low low exploitive labor rate product.. it was that due to their more efficient use of materials, and a small advantage on labor rate, coupled with their ability to produce superior quality – was a very real threat. Books were written about how they were doing this. Today, legacy quality systems like Kaizan, and Lean Design, remain at the core of quality systems. The GE innovated 6th Sigma system (rating accomplishment in “belts”) is founded on this 1980′s evaluation of Japanese quality. At a time the US was making the Chevy Vega, and Ford Pinto, when American Motors were hiring LSD victims to design their junk (Pacer anyone) – coupled with the escalation of fuel costs making 10mpg lead sled gas hogs obsolete, Japan was sending us fuel efficient cars that were affordable, and proving very reliable. While US manufacturing was distracted by the Viet Nam war and social chaos from a corrupt political system, Japan was sending us better cameras, faster motorcycles, low cost high quality watches, and our heads on a platter. The concern was not that we were facing a country bent on exploiting us as a consuming nation, but that we as a nation who prided itself on quality and product innovation – were being put in our place by the Japanese. Even Germany was struggling at the time. Even the coveted BMWs and Mercedes of that time (1907′s through 1980′s) suffered from poor quality and rust. The British chose that period to take themselves out by attempting to continue to export lightweight cars, with none of the quality of the Japanese at the time. A 1970′s VW too was a ptrry ratty mess, using an engine platform that was literally antiquated, in cars of questionable build quality.

What stopped the Japanese from completely decimating US, German and English production was not quality failure… it was capacity, labor, raw materials, and economics at home. They simply built a market that they could not continue to expand and support – so prices had to go up, and their focus became more fine. Today, this continues, with the dominance in many markets, supporting trillions in US consumption. It also includes miving manufacturing to the US and elsewhere, putting displaced US workers back on the job. Further, underlying all of this is a Japanese culture that supports quality, honor, and pride in workmanship. They also employ consultive communicative design processes, which means when customers offer criticism, they respond with improvements.

The concern with Chinese imports is a consistent, seemingly irreparable commitment to cranking out volumes of low grade, low cost commodities, with minimal quality control – to flood markets into submission. This, coupled with a massive population to exploit by its communist government… and the character of the Chinese threat is an order of magnitude different than that posed by the Japanese. Chinese products have been imported here since the 1930′s, and in some sectors, was founded on quality – like porcelain wear. However in the time it took the Japanese to move from obscurity to dominant quality player (roughly 20 years), the Chinese have only expanded exploitive low cost manufacturing as their core value add. Quality has remained consistently a lower priority across the board.  The flooding of low grade commodities into every sector of the US market has created a decline in expectations of customers, a devaluation of quality as a core value, and a depreciation of manufacturing asset value of every country in the world.  What the Japanese and Germans have brought us in escalating quality, durability, and engineering expertise, and the US has brought with productivity and consistency… the Chinese are slowly but certainly eroding into a market filled with cheaply made, short lived, poor performing product, shipped like tidal waves into every market. With this, complete market segments have been removed from the US landscape, with no hope of recovery. Clothing, shoes, small appliances, house-wears, school supplies, small electronics, watches, jewelry, books, printed materials, drywall, power tools, machinery… with each year we ignore this erosion of value of our own productive population, they are lost to permanent unemployment.

You can correct quality and productivity problems, as long as there remains a market one can derive profitable sales from. This was how we responded to the intrusion of German and Japanese imports, and attracted them here to manufacture good to be exported. Combating an intrusion of low-low priced goods that demands use of labor rates that cannot be met here, with masses of products sold to retail channels so cheaply that replacing returns can be absorbed.. leaves us defenseless and vulnerable. If the countries exploiting this situation do so with a philosophy that places greater emphasis on domination at all cost, over delivery of product value, there is little we can hope for.  China has made it clear they intend to sell here everything they can, while maintaining high defensive walls against our selling back to them.

The exploitation of cheap labor is as old as the industrial age. It is an inevitable process of commerce that one will seek the lowest cost avenue to reach highest investment return. For this reason, any impact on the home market, it’s people, and general economy are only important as a need for a buying market to support sales. Out current economic condition is the result of this exploitive cycle. We have been exploited as consumers willing to dig deep debt holes to buy more junk than we need to keep corporations earing at the highest levels of profitability. We have been exploited as sheep who will support our own destruction to protect an open market that is designed to deliver to us less, to move out money into profiteer pockets. We are being exploited by a government who maintains a warring stance to support corporations who profit from such acts, to protect countries and raw materials that will be used against us in future exploitation. We are being sold a bill of goods that any effort we make to protect our own productive population is an  act of protectionist treason against the constitution and free market system of capitalism that feed us all.

Bottom line is simple. Each year, we have fewer choices as to where the products we pay for come from, while fewer of us each year are employed to add value through conversion of raw materials to product. Each year we are seeing our tech jobs move to Asia, our engineering jobs to India, and our working class experiencing a lower standard of living than prior generations. The idea that we should ignore all of this in support of a free market system – is preposterous. This market is not free at all, it is a fixed game supporting the free-for-all profit taking of massive corporations, who now see us as a secondary market. We’ve been down this road before, when manufacturers were so draconian in their treatment of labor here that labor unions were spawned, and labor laws created to stem the tide of destruction.

In the 1980′s we faced a manufacturing power that had products and lessons for us to learn. These improved us here, with a more focused effort on quality and ingenuity that we have built the most productive working population on, who delivers excellent value in quality and price.

In 2010 we face a manufacturing power that has contempt for us as people, who see us as consuming cows, who are paying our manufacturers to abandon us here. This, while delivering to us ghost products, that look like what we want, but are facade junk that is short lived and poor performing. We cannot defend ourselves from this. We can’t go back to domestic exploitation of labor, we’ve seen how corporations wield that power. We can’t devalue our own economy to level the playing field overall, as this will crush those already burdened with the mess we’ve made for ourselves by not managing the dynamics of the trade balance now.

I have no faith at all that Chinese product will ever be of the same quality as that made here, in Germany, Italy, Spain, or Japan. I have seen very little indication that we will see anything more than an expansion of the exploitation, more shoddy junk from stores, and continued erosion of our home market as a result. With each market turning into 100% made in China, the options to find products of quality to stem the tide of landfilling becomes less and less viable. This removes any pressure to resolve quality issues, and simply presses the low low prices strategy further, until all you can buy anywhere is non functional, super-cheap junk, trinkets parading as actual product.

2010 is not 1958, it is not 1980… We face new challenges today from two countries (China and India) that out number our own population by a factor of 7, with exploitable labor forces we cannot hope to compete with. Because of this, we must redress our consideration of the dynamics of free trade, and deploy controls that allow us to support our own people, our working class, and establishes an expectation for quality that supports R&D, without handing an unfair advantage to thieving corporations that will use any protective legislation to rob us blind. This is a huge and critical challenge, requiring new thought and new approaches. Failing any attention to this will result in our eventual failure as a nation.

Most interesting, is the population of voters who support this activity as the true free market. Victims of the corporate thieves, crying aloud to give the criminals every chance to improve their game. Founded on the promise that one day we may all be rich and desirous of lowest possible tax rates, the pirates scam us on every level. Yet, as in any pnzy scheme, any robbery, and hijacking… the only people who profit from this gracious-nous are those who run the game. Make no mistake about it, we are being gamed. Not only are we victims of the big con, we are being robbed by professionals, who pay other professionals to develop even grander schemes with which to make what yours… theirs.

When are we going to wake up? How many cities of abandoned manufacturing plants do we endure? How many people on the unemployment roles, how many lost in the system no longer counted do we accept as reasonable? How much further down the income scale do we allow ourselves to slide under the threat of imports? How much more are we willing as individuals to sacrifice while reading about how phenomenally rich they are  getting on our backs? Just exactly how much do we want to hand these corporate gas bags, before we realize that we are being duped, scammed, and robbed?

Let’s look at a contemporary issue – tax breaks. First of all, let’s get over the baloney about rich people spending saved taxes in any way that will build wealth for anyone else. They do not invest here in the USA as a rule. They take their money and build factories oversees, where they can exploit low cost labor to get rid of our own “over-priced” local labor. They use their money to buy congressman to protect their positioning, to keep us from controlling their outsourcing our middle class into oblivion, and to lobby for tax breaks, so they can invest more oversees, close more factories here, and exploit more labor in countries where corrupt governments whore their people out for kick backs and under-table deals. The wealthy do buy American – old cars, expansive mansions designed with little taste, filled with opulent and pretentious crap of no meaning, that supports a very very small population of specialists. The only trickle down one is likely to experience is when one is called at 2:AM to repair a broken toilet by the privileged who feel it their right to demand such service.

Set aside the bull argument about wealth redistribution. This is a marketing scam that sounds right, but isn’t. Ignore also the idea that the founding fathers envisioned a country where ones wealth is protected by government… that is not only baloney, it is simply factually incorrect. Our founding fathers financed this country out of their own pockets. They saw the wealthiest as being the most responsible for supporting the government, and the responsibility as nation builders. While their has always been a balancing act between the necessity of government at some level, and the desire to run free of government, there was never a point in the founding of this country when the founders saw the working class as principle financiers of government and supporters of the wealthy. Yes, we have far too many entitlement programs in place. Most are necessary due to the way we treat our elderly and our underclass, while allowing our corporate leaders to create conditions in the labor market that destroy upward mobility. We as a nation have failed to build a culture of caring for those less fortunate than us, failing to provide a place where the elderly have a productive place. We as a nation have allowed the corporate thieves to drag out working class wages down, while providing ample opportunities for unreasonable and irresponsible indebtedness that make it impossible for anyone to survive hardship – which is guaranteed to occur, either from loss of job or aging.  As long as this is our approach, there is no choice but to take from those who can afford to pay in order to avoid a growing proportion of our population from falling into third world status.

The first step away from redistribution of wealth is simple – reduce the disparity between those who have it all, and those who have no hope of getting anything. This starts with a healthy, well supported, growing labor market. A market that encourages skills development, craft perfection, and productivity participation. This can only happen if we have a place to sell our product, which means restriction of competitive forces that push our own labor out the door in favor of a higher profit from exploitation. Is this protectionist? Hell yes it is. The notion that we cannot employ such policy is antiquated. At no time very in the history of the USA have we faced such enormous masses of low cost labor, hungry to sell us cheap goods to enrich their own wealthy and ours, at the cost of our own employment. Asia as a whole outnumbers the population of the USA by SEVEN to ONE.  They need money as much as we do, and will do what they can to get ours wherever they can. For every individual here in the USA employed, there are seven in Asia alone in a position to work for less to do the same job. Just as we have a military to protect ourselves from intrusion of hostile military forces, we need legal and trade protection to keep us from being destroyed by an even larger force – low cost exploitable labor that displaces our own workforce.

One has only to look at the condition of three countries to realize our fate. England, who has completely lost its industry to foreign powers, has frightening chronic unemployment, and a continued erosion of its capacity to serve its own needs. Then we have France, who saw the end coming too late – moving toward socialism and communism to avoid the inevitable. Then we have Germany, who simply refused to allow itself to be crushed by the intrusion of foreign wears, who have maintained an active and growing manufacturing environment that encourages craft and tradesmanship, as well as science and technology. There is another we might look at – Rome. In the face of crushing financial disaster, they chose to maintain their wealthy elites, and allow their “people” to be crushed by intruders. In the end, thats all there was… and end. Australia too has trade protection policies, as do every one of the countries the corporations who prey on us use to en-richen themselves at our expense. There is no free trade with China, India, Malaysia, Germany, or Japan. All trade with these countries are restricted and regulated. Yet here, we consider trade restriction as somehow bad for our country? Yes, when every country we use to devalue our own workforce has restricted trade, while we have an open door policy, trade restrictions are bad. We need trade restrictions of our own to avoid the inevitable – which the last 30 years has proven in vivid living color.

We need to take control away from the corporations, now. The first step is another bad word in the pirates log – Boycott. Boycotting imported products that could and should be made here, like computers, cars, machinery, furniture, and clothing is a bid first step. Second, research into the corporations who are of foreign registry, like British Petroliem, who pay no taxes here, yet exploit our resources, is another. Then, look into the corporations who have systematically shipped our workforce oversees, like Ertl toys, Schwinn bicycles, Tecumsa motors, Sears Craftsman, and retailers like Walmart who dilute domestic value by low low pricing strategies founded solidly on importation of cheap products to dominate market share.  Then, look at the corporations who pay bonuses to their executives as they close facilities here to move overseas.

If we continue on the path we now travel, there will be little hope of future recovery. The economy is in yet another hole because we are blindly allowing the pirates and thieves to run the show. We need to wake up and stop pandering to them, stop accepting their paid marketing and lobbying for their own selfish interests, and look forward to what we want this country to be. This means waking up to the fact that hard work should pay, that artisinship, craft, and tradesmanship should be a highly valued asset, that the health of the largest possible population is worth more than the wealth of a few elites at the very top. We need to wake up to the fact that we are being gamed by professionals, who profit from selling us the story that their wealth is our concern.

How long will it be before we wake up? I am not hopeful. Currently, we have a population of future victims protecting and supporting the criminals that will eventually destroy them. We have a screaming silly lump of voters who actually believe that the government should be destroyed to allow the free market to thrive – while ignoring evidence that in the last 30 years, where the free market has indeed thrived, the working class has declined, the middle class has been crushed, while the largest growth in class is at the very bottom. Bleet and chant all you want, but the system as we know it is a failure, and the corporate leaders are the ones responsible. Take them down, and we take down the lobby influences that have created a government hostile to its own population.

How long? Likely never. Only when we have been gamed and played out will it likely be redressed. By then, we will be powerless to affect real change.

Humans are junkies for stuff. The more we have around us, the better we ares supposed to feel. I believe we do have a fear of loosing stuff we care about, or having a favorite thing wear out and not be replaceable. Unfortunately, the marketing gurus have latched on to this. First, they fuel the addiction by flooding us with stuff to collect and stack around us. Second, they provide us so much of this cheap crap, that we set aside our love of quality and design in favor of cheap junk that barely satisfies the intended need. This allows us to avoid the risk of loosing something we care about, or having some favorite thing wear out. Better an endless stream of junk we don’t care about, that we can toss without concern when it fails, than to pay for something we eventually find priceless, that wears out. Marketers want us to buy the same thing over and over and over. They give us reasons to do just that – new models with added features, new styling, fresh colors, bigger advertising… etc… Wrap ourselves in piles of short lived, low performing junk – it’s the American way!

What better way to make something new than to jam it full of micro-processors, flashy blinky lights, digital readouts, and other such nonesense? Wrap all that in some shiny plastic and we have a winner! The design teams making these things will tell you about all the wonderful advancements in technology, and how surveys tell them these things get great response from focus groups, etc… Let’s not forget that the personality-less Hondas, Toyotas, Chevy’s, Fords, Hyundais, etc…. are all products of expert design teams, given the horrid assignment of developing the least risky product ever in the minds of consumers, trained for decades now to suspect anything with real style, or who fear actually choosing something they like, lest someone judge them. Better to own something that puts the dog to sleep than something that someone might not like. We’d rather be boring than controversial, seen as a spot in the dull gray fabric of humanity, than a star shining amongst the flat landers.

I personally have had my limit of gadgetry. I have a Corvette that at 25,000 miles has had to have driver and passenger side control modules replaced, has regular issues with stuck electric window regulators, intermittant door lok control, a battery sucked down from security system drain. The mechanics of the car are flawless, the gadgets are crapolla. This goes for my BMW 325is, which regularly has some warning or another on the dahs, that eventiually goes away, or requires the car to restarted – more gadgetry. Meanwhile, our older 318ti, with minimal doo-dad load, has had virtually no issues in 70,000 miles – except for one electric window regulator failure, something we have had issues with on viurtually every car we have owned at one time or another. I guess the general population has gotten so lazy that cranking a window is considered a deal breaker.
I’d love to have the ability to buy a car today without all the junk crammed into it. Manual windows, manual door locks, and toss all the phony marketing farf key without a key junk, witness protection brother is watching electronic interfaces, and a stereo that sounds great without including a super computer processor. I’d trade all the garbage any day for a car with personality, light weight, and simplicity in maintenance. I;d prefer time be spent on the design, the feel of the machine, and the ergomics. In other words, fire half the electrionics engineers and replace them with creative designers. Put more into molds for interesting shapes and great tactical components (like plastic that is no plasticy), and seats that don’t rock on the computer controlled, security interfaced, memory modules interactive junk rails. Just give me the old school lever adjusters on a rigid mechanism – more mechanical expertise, less electrionic wizardry controlling bad quality hardware.

For the designers out there who need to infuse every project with video game mind-warp virtual reality, I offer that there needs to be more time spent on hard reality, and less on the ether and magic of computer games in product design. The development of cheap made-in-China hardware  controlled by made in Taiwan computer dood-daddery results far too often in product that is poor in function, complex for no reason, and short lived. When the failure of one $1.90 relay requires a customer to replace a $1,200 door control interface module, their is no value, and no coolness. When the failure of a $0.05 chip causes a failure of an entire $3,500 engine control module, someone might want to reconsider the sense in this obsession with gadgets.

Let’s give the electronics and hyped up marketing smoke and mirrors a break, and look hard at the principle that is always applicable – Keep It Simple Stupid. Design is the path to freedom from drudgery and marketing department fed fervor for crap. What has happened to the profession of design? Seems to have been replaced by the double edged sward of product death – Marketing departments demanding “features” to sell, coupled with Accounting departments constantly wringing every last penny out of cost structres. The results ahve grown to be cheaply made, overly complex junk that is short lived, poor in tactile feeling, and mindane in style to make itthe most widely acceptable. That’s not design at all, that’s just sad.

I WAS once a Republican, a believer that we as a people should be empowered to pursue our happiness unfettered by federal intervention, in a truly free market. This was at one time the ideology of the party. While it continues to spout these ideals as its rhetoric, it has utterly failed to support them – while embracing other ideology that I absolutely degree with. It has become a party of white anglo-saxon protestants bent on forwarding conservative religious views as policy. 

I find the current struggle of the party to regain its center difficult to watch. Rather than recognize that its failure is based soundly on its current core ideology, clearly voiced so loudly by its yard dog Rush Limbaugh, the yapping of the narcissist Ann Coulter, the simple mindedness of Sarah Palin (and others of this breed).  The fact that it is now giving open support to the voices of these overly vocal pundits – rather than really listen to them and realize how far beyond reality they have become, how damaging they are to the party itself and its future.

The people of this country do not want the Democrats to take over their lives, to spend and build the government, to spend us into debt for generations to come. The people of this country do not want to have their lives controlled by the government. What the people do want is relief from the tyranny and theft of the past 30 years, of the greedy practices of the corporate entities, the idiocy of 30 years of inept CEOs, of the oppression of the religious right, and of the lies and deceit that has so clearly defined the past 30 years. The failure of the Republican party is in its lack of recognition that the people are so decidedly sick of its failure to fulfill its promises, they are willing to risk socialist ideals to put a wall between themselves and the corporate greed and lack of social conscience the Republican party has come to represent.

In my opinion, the only hope for the Republican party is to:

• Establish the party as the most clearly focused on truth above all, open communication, and reduction of the federal government at all levels.
• Shed its connection to the religious right in no uncertain terms – restate and support the separation of church and state as real policy – stop pandering to this radical sect and stop putting its ideals at the front of the party agenda.
• Separate itself from all subsidies at all levels, regardless of corporate affiliation. Take the position that no federal intervention is welcome, for any reason. This includes shutting down all aide to corporations at any level, including rejection of, and objection to all federally funded grants, research and price reduction subsidies.
• Establish the party as a representative of individual choice under the protection of the constitution above federally imposed regulation. This includes all levels of personal religious and moral choice within the bounds of civil law. This means taking the stand that abortion, the death penalty, and teaching of the origins of man are to be decided upon by individuals and communities, and not federal courts.
• Establish a sustainable position on gun regulation. This means supporting an amendment that realistically recognizes that the right to arms and the need for civil order require recognition of some limitations to both as necessary to create a sustainable environment for all citizens, to be free from the threat of crimicals with weapons.
• Recognize that energy conservation is a key national security issue, that we must look beyond exploitation of the earths natural resources, and that energy security cannot be obtained as long as we ignore excesses in consumption. This includes recognition that fuel efficiency standards, energy regulation, regulation of oil imports, and limits on increases in production are an essential part of our national security.
• Embrace environmental protection as a right and responsibility that can only be orchestrate through efficient and conscientious federal oversight. This must establish that the air we breath, the water we drink and grow food with, and the land we tend are our legacy to humanity, and it is our responsibility to protect and keep them, with as little impact as possible.
• Recognize that the cost of health care is having a severe and unacceptable impact on the working class, and that this issue must be resolved. This issue has proven that the free market is unable to and unwilling to solve the complex issues involved, that without some guidance and/or governance, it will not be satisfactorily corrected. If there are truly solutions beyond socializing healthcare, then present them and put them in place. Otherwise, stop putting rhetoric over the health of those who pay the ultimate price.
• Recognize the government’s past promises made in Social Security and Medicare, and acknowledge that these promises have value. Propose solutions to the issues facing the country in the costs of continuing to support these programs, and stand by those solutions. However, recognize that ignoring the impact of the inevitable changes involved is unacceptable, and must be fully considered and resolved without resorting to purposeful lies and deception otherwise.
• Cut ALL spending, eliminate all ear marking, pork, special projects, and local/regional federal spending on all levels. Be the first party to rebuild a budget based on balance, not on pandering, lies and pork.
• Put a stop on all policies placing the United States as police force to the world, projection of its political strengths beyond the basic protection against direct attack by other NATIONS, and stop the effort to control global ideology through force. This includes stopping the “war on terror” as a fallacious waste of human, political, and financial capital. Stop all use of the military except in direct defense of the nations direct interests and the interests of its allies when requested. Stop all wartime rhetoric and the antiquated view that war resolves anything beyond the killing and destruction of the innocent.
• Cut military spending by 70%, and establish a sustainability specification for all new purchases of weapons and equipment to avoid continual hemhoraging of capital into obsolescence cycles as a coproate hand out unfounded in the free market.
• Stop all support of international trade that captializes on exploitation of impoverished nations at the cost of American workers, that devalue our own effort to protect the environment and our resources by outsourcing to countries who do not share these underlying ideals. This does not mean protectionism or forcing ideals on others, but does include restrictions of free trade with those who do not share this approach.
• Stop lying, stop lying, and stop lying. The party must stop faking its interest in people while obviously favoring the elite and corporate interests. The lie has been exposed, and now must be resolved by turning away from the policies that treat individuals as disposable sacrifices to the corporate greed and growth. The best way to stop lying is to stop doing those things that one must conceal and lie about.
• Build a new leadership core that looks into the future of humanity through profitable commerce and cooperative interaction between the needs of a free people and the needs of a free market in balance. Project a new vision of the future, and turn away from the past. Recognize that in the last 100 years of industrialization, we have learned many lessons, including those that prove that our current direction is not sustainable.
• Re-establish the core reasons and actual rational behind the need for smaller federal presence, in balance with the need to govern corporations, and make the message clear, reasonable, and logical. Remove all rhetorical falasious logic, pandering, marketing spin, and campaign sloganeering, and simply communicate to the population. Stop treating the people of this country like children who must be talked down to.
• Stop positioning the party against what the Democrats do and don’t do, and start building a position on superior ideas and process that is self evident. If the ideas need to be contrasted with those of the other party to make the case, they are too weak to be of value to this country. Put the party in the leadership position that is irreproachable, in stead of simple minded argument based on what the other side is doing or not doing. Make that obvious by offering a stark obvious contrast in desirable ideals and recognizable solutions without deception of marketing hype.

Of course, we all know that NONE of this will happen.

This might be a perfect opportunity for an “Independant” party to get its act together and offer a real alterantive – unfortunately, its just another clown act with no direction either. In reality, the only thing that keeps the Republican party from evaporating outright is the fact that they have become the party of the extreme religious right, whuch has experienced 3 years of freightnening growth, and no other credible parties have emerged. This is not an act of media oppression – it is the sad fact that the ideas and efforts of the alternative parties have been as poorly executed and are as poorly defined as that of the Republican party today, thus making all of them noteworthy in their lack of clear and credible message. Blaming the media for outing poor views, lies, deceptions, and failed policies is silly. Present good ideas, credible solutions, and opposition founded on facts not hype and lies, and the media will come around. In the meantime, get used to the beatings – whining about the treatment will accomplish nothing, and just makes the GOP look that much more pathetic.

We now see that an economy built on the exploitation of consumer credit to mortgage their homes to buy short lived products of little value has no legs. It’s time to abandon this approach and rebuild our approach to the use of material, waste management, energy efficiency, and value as a whole. A market built on solid foundations of conservation of cash, credit, energy, natural resources, and environmental impact is the future we need to put in place.

This means we will need to fire the profit hound CEO’s and find new ones who understand these principles. We need leaders who understand that churning the market without end to feed greed, has no future. The world cannot withstand this on any scale, and our current market situation proves that. We need to flush the federal system as well. Politics of change rhetoric are just more of the same, as we are now seeing. We need leaders that bring us up to the future, not patch up a failed system with cash bandages and more debt. We need to end the idiotic “conservative” lie, as there is only one conservative interest, as we can see clearly – to feed the greed at the top, at the cost of ALL else. We need leaders who understand that we can participate in a global economy, not by tearing down our values, but bringing the cost of our values and our consumption in line with reality, while building up the values of our trading partners. Our purchasing power is now used as a tool to tear our values down as a country, we need to use it to build up the values we covet with those we do business with. We need to stop the paradoxical relationships, and put stop irresponsible corporate and financial entities from putting us at risk for their own gains.

We need to look to becoming the leading edge of efficient buildings, efficient transportation systems, of efficient communities. However, we need to stop the marketing of this with environmental sloganeering, putting everything at the feet of singular causes that may fail the test of time  – like CO2 emissions, as using this as a singular cause risks everything on a scientific community that has proven itself to be unreliable (Global Cooling anyone?). We need to embrace conservation, environmentally conscious energy sources and behavior, and waste stream management, not because we face the end of humanity, but because it is the right thing to do. Behind this simple reasoning are thousands of reasons to do much better on every level of our interaction with this planet and others that occupy it.

As we look ahead, we must realize that our future has change written all over it. Not the political rhetoric version of change we hear from campaigners and those that wish to use this language to control us… we need real change, change in the way we appraoch our economy, our use of capital, and our aproach to consumerism, and our approach to government and its role in our lives. Now is the time to rethink the principles that got us here, and begin to design a new future that has legs, a strong back, and real propects. The path we have been on for over thirty years now has failed, the project needs reworking like any good design project. Time to create an all new iteration, incorporating lessons learned and some new thinking. Time to design a new future!

Imported products throttle unrestrained profiteering and monopoly building that arises from closed markets

Left to its own, an unregulated  free market protected from the intrusion of competitive forces beyond its domestic borders generates another exploitative behavior – price gouging and monopoly building. The was played out in the late 19th century, when severe import tariffs stopped the flow of imports, leading to runaway price inflation. This is the foundation upon which protectionism gained its reputation as destructive. Corporations exist for the purpose of creating wealth though optimizing profits. When protected from competition, this comes in the form of higher prices – whatever the market will bear. With the opportunity to use imports, wealth building comes in the form of exploitation of cheap labor abroad.

We suffer a form of domestic protectionism now, that actually fuels the exploitation and devaluation that occurs from imports. The interesting paradox of this is that the restriction of immigration restricts domestic access to low cost labor, which leads to artificially high labor rates here. In reaction to the unrestricted immigration of the turn of the century, which depressed wage rates to intolerable levels, we enacted restrictions to immigration to ease stress on the working class.

At the turn of the 20th century, new thinking was needed across the board. McKinley and Roosevelt introduced the government into the system as direct regulator, starting with the suit against JP Morgan, ending his railroad monopoly. Immigration, tariff reform, monetary policy, and labor laws enacted during the opening of the 20th century form the foundation of our current import/export, labor, and taxation of commerce today.

Industry and commerce are not social activities, they are profit activities. Business is not about doing what is good for people, it is about making money for its owners and stake holders. If that can be done with no competitive influence, profits can be maximized by raising prices. For this reason, any protective policies that do not include direct oversight and regulation of profiteering and pricing, will lead to failure. If foreign competition is allowed to enter the market with lower cost goods from cheap labor, industry here must be allowed to participate through importing its own products as well, or domestic industry and commerce will be dominated by imported low cost goods. Without regulation, this will be the end result, regardless of corporate ownership, as we are seeing today.

There will never be a condition in the world where labor rates will be universal. There will always be low cost labor from somewhere. In the foressable future, this constitutes the largest populations on the planet, and will be used to produce goods at lower cost. Blocking this from our own market will not protect labor here, it will burden those employed with escalating costs and restricted supplies of necessary goods. If we leave the door open to unrestricted imports, as we have for the past 20 years, labor here will be under constant pressure, and continued decline, to compete with the supply of lower cost products from elsewhere.

The balance between the interests of consumers, labor, and corporate profit making requires careful and direct regulation. The competing interests of these entities makes self regulation impossible. In fact, businesses need protection from one another that imports provide. For example, the cost of production tooling in the United States has become and impossibly large barrier to entry for new entries. The use of Chinese manufacturers – who often provide tooling at a reduced rate, or free, as part of a supply agreement – has created new opportunities for emerging new businesses that would otherwise never have a chance. For consumers, the continual lowering of prices on the most common commodities also makes room for spending on new products that would otherwise not be affordable.

As we enter the 21st century, we are in need of a dramatic shift in thinking about commerce. We need new controls that build a better balance between free market forces, and social responsibility. We need a greater sense of social conciousness of the imolications of unrestricted and wasteful consumerism. Corporations need to consider themselves part of the fabric of the values we as a nation pursue, and participants in its stewardship – not just profit engines. There is a need to redress the balance of wealth building and social responsibility on a level humanity has not achieved before.

There is no utopia, no perfect state. However, the last 10 years have proved that the revolutionary thinking born at the dawn of the 20th century has run its course, and is in need of redressing. This does not mean we throw it out completely. We simply need new thinking that is as transformational. We also need to make serious decisions about what we will carry forward as our national values, and stop the attack on them. We need to decide if exploitation is acceptable, and for what, and what we are willing to pay to control it. We need to decide what we are willing to pay to maintain a free market, what value we will place on our social interests, and how much we are willing to invest in our environmental health. If we simply carry on as we have over the last 20 years without reform, the rich will get much richer, wages will continue to decline, jobs will be lost at an ever increasing pace to lower cost labor markets, and our values as a nation will be eroded in a continual process of devaluation. We need a process that simultaneously feeds the profit margins of the largest corporations, while supporting our national interests and standards.

Imports serve both as a throttle on corproate greed as well as a regulatory function on wage rates here. Imports offer new opportunities to new businesses, while reducing the cost of commodities, making room for spending on emergin goods and services. Imports also create a balance between our social desires and practical reality. In a closed market, wage rates would likely get out of control, prices for all products would increase dramatically, the rich would continue to get richer, the poor poorer, and our national standards would be set aside to address runaway inflation and profiteering. In a totally open unregulated market, employment will decline, prices will decline so far that domestic competition becomes impossible, and the scale of the global economy will take precident over our small market size over time. Somewhere between the two extremes is a balance, combining careful and deliberate regulation with enough market freedom to allow new business to grow, while throttling the runaway greed that overtakes the largest corporate powers. This requires an enlightened and innovative government, population, and corporate community. Something we have yet to achieve.

The fact that Apple employs twice as many workers outside the USA, while paying less than half the expense for it, is a clear indication that it is exploiting labor markets. The aggregate result is they pay less than 25% of what we earn here. At that, the majority of the wages kept in the USA are likely Apple store employees, a few marketing people, maybe a designer or two – the majority of which fall squarely in the middle of the stagnant wage world. Add to this a few over-paid and bonused executives… This makes the differential with the exploitation based imports very apparent. The employees remaining here are still here for one simple reason – they cannot be eliminated – you must distribute, sell, and deliver the product in this market.

In my article on Devaluation for Profit, the case is made that when imports are used to replace local content, there are more jobs lost than made up by the distribution and sales channel. This is illustrated clearly here in the 1/3 domestic, 2/3 imported labor mix. This approach not only displaces workers here, it creates artificially lower prices with artificially high profits for Apple, all while devaluing the US labor force. The reason these are artificial, is that they are gained through taking short cuts on what we as a nation demand of ourselves, from worker safety and rights, to environmental concerns, to human rights as a whole. Is this really what we want? Is this worth it to get a few dollars off another planned obsolescence tech toy that will soon enough end up in a land fill? If so, then why don’t we just dismantle these values here and be rid of them? It’s obviously costing us jobs – do we care about all these things that much?

Yes, there will be some anecdotal  exceptions of individuals benefiting from the new technology, like programmers for iPhone accessories, and other spot niche market hits. These are small exceptions, not the rule. There are just as many software and game programmers from Japan, India, and elsewhere, so this argument rarely holds much water. The use of these small examples in the corporate press as proof of the positive impact here is just part of the Red Herring fallacy we are asked to accept – to distract us from the fact we are making less, while being laid off – while the elite get fatter and richer.

Here is the underlying reality: The US market is NOT the target it once was. The real effort is in building up India and China to be more robust markets. First we feed them our jobs and our money, then we feed them products they make and of which we own the technology. Can you imagine the watering mouths in corporate board rooms thinking of a market ten times the size of the US market! The US market is but 300+/- Million at best. India and China together are over 4 BILLION. As soon they can get those economies rolling, the US market will become a relic, and less than 10% of their sales of commodities. Even if it tanks into a depression, it will matter not, as the income to those making the wealth will be so unbelievably rich, they won’t care a whit. The green industry and the energy technology markets are all about feeding into these developed nations, who obviously cannot add new power plants indefinitely. We will pioneer the low energy business, the corporations will export that to these countries to get them rolling upward.

The trick is in owning the Intellectual Property. Think about it… if you make nothing, just own a technology, and make a small percentage on sales through licensing, in a market that is over 10 times that of the United States – you can rake in millions, no billions, maybe trillions, and never lift a hand other than to deposit the checks. No unions, no messy EPA hassles. Just kick back, suck on a Mai Tai, and let the money flow! Of course this requires some inventions and such, but that can be imported as well, all that is needed is some venture coin to feed the process and pay the lawyers. If it comes from the home front, cool. If not, not a problem, more engineers graduate US schools, then move back home – to India, to serve the need. IP is today a very hot topic in coprorate boardrooms and the investment universe, because it is where the real money will be made in the future.

Yes, I know its all so much more complex than this… but the underlying reality remains the same.

With the media generally controlled by corporate advertisers, and corporate ownership, there is very little chance that there will be any exposure of this – just more spinning and spinning, a few commercials, and more “news” stories about what Micheal Obama is wearing, and whether the kids are having spaghetti for lunch. Yes, and the panic mongering that makes us all feel just insecure enough to keep going to work every day, and not rocking too many boats – right up to when we get laid off, after loading the trucks to move the factory to some far away land, never to be seen again.

Okay now, to be perfectly clear. This is not a conspiracy. Companies do not meet at the Hyatt and work our all these details. This is just the free market system running itself. With no guidance or regulation, no stewardship, the activity of many companies becomes a concensus process. The government has been directed by its political powers to stay out of this, and has done just that. The result is what it is, and the future, unless acted upon by some force of change, will play itself out – even at the cost of the health of the domestic market.

If the alst few months have taught us nothing, they have shown us that just because the rich are getting richer, does not mean they got any smarter. They will, in their zeolous pursuit of profit, act in a manner counter to all of our best interests, while being convinced thaey are not only doing the right thing, but somehow saving us all from ourselves. This is the hubris part, while the narcisistic traits of the top dogs in the bigger corporations leave them feeling very self rightious and indignent that anyone would dare question their process.

A robust value delivery structure includes many layers, each employing a variety of skills and talents. These layers all feed into a layer above, and often to the side of the primary value chain, creating an inter-connectivity within industries that reduces the impact of any one chain failing or slowing.

Our economy is being driven by a process that seeks to extract profit from DEVALUATION over value creation. The difference is lost on those who focus on profit outcome and market share numbers over the buildup of a robust national inventory of value generators. The destruction of the manufacturing sector in the United States, along with the design, engineering, and services industries, is eroding our national capacity and reducing our economic diversity – leading to the volatile state we find ourselves in today. The United Kingdom discovered this too late, Germany has not – that is why the Germans own so many English brands, and still manufacture products shipped around the world – not to mention manufacturing around the world. Once a nation has lost its leadership in this value creation infrastructure, rebuilding it becomes virtually impossible. Others are using theirs as a weapon against our own – fed by our greed and lack of vision.

When the value chain is reduced to a singularity, all supporting layers are devalued and lost, and the chain itself becomes thinner and less robust. The loss of participants displaced are lost, often to the detriment of those channels at either side of the core chain. The employment of a sales/delivery channel only slightly offsets this loss. The result is a weaker value delivery infrastructure, less value in skilled and talented participants, and less opportunity to create new value from innovation.

As other nations have discovered, when the value structure collapses, the increase in sales and marketing, distribution, warehousing, and transportation infrastructure is only a fraction of the losses elsewhere in the chain. In fact, every nation now dependent on imports for a large portion of the product it consumes, has higher unemployment than those nations which have a robust national structure of value creation. The concept that the global market is going to benefit us all is actually a marketing ploy to keep us supporting a process that is devaluing us all as anything but credit card charging feeders of the profit margins of the companies who are selling the story to the world. In fact, laborers, skilled craftsman, and talented designers and engineers, are finding a continual loss of position in the market, while those importing cheap goods from exploited nations prosper at historic levels. One has only to review the recent billions handed to banks and institutions, while the sentiment was to allow three major US employers – the auto makers – to go hungry. This only fuels the movement toward more imports (to replace the supply chain loss when the big three collapse), while handing billions to banks to keep them alive, loaning those displaced more money to spend on those goods. This process is broken at virtually every level, and becoming more hostile to those who fund, and are eventually displaced, by this insanity.

The core issue is not of protectionism for the purposes of blocking incoming value to protect bad business practice here. The issue is to recognize the importance of developing and maintaining a value infrastructure that recognizes the real world impact of the layers involved on all of our lives, and the value of those who live within these layers of the market. Anything less is devaluation of individual contribution in the pursuit of profits. Products that come from external sources, that present a unique value to the marketplace (not just cheaper versions of products already made here) should be readily available. Products originating here, that are supported by the support structure of the marketplace, should be provided a fair environment in which to compete. Products brought to this market for the sole purpose to devalue local production through unfair exploitation (taking advantage of rules we do not live under here) to unfairly compete on price, should be stopped from entering this market – or… We have but one alternative – abolish all standards here that cause us to be uncompetitive against exploitable nations, including labor laws, environmental laws, and human rights protection.

Devaluation for the purpose of profiteering is a short sighted and unsustainable approach. In the end, people are devalued, the environment is compromised, and the customer becomes less able to make purchases.

Devaluation of the network is similar to the acts of pirates and slave holders. Both rationalized their acts in some fashion, from serving humanity in its fight against governments, to producing a lower cost product to meet market demand. Exploitation of nations based on their low wage rates, and lower operational cost of environmental stewardship devalue individual contribution, and the environment. This also devalues the nation’s efforts in human rights, environmental concern, and energy reduction efforts. Meanwhile, federal failure to stem this tide is a clear indication that it has been corrupted by the profit interests of corporations. This puts the nation as a whole at odds to itself, where one side attempts to improve the country as a clean and healthy place to live and be treated fairly at work, and the other side provides a bridge to employers to abandon these efforts outright, and those who benefit from them, by creating a favorable environment to capitalize on nations who do not share our national ideals.

This conflict of interests is slowly tearing the country apart. On the one hand we have the upper income class growing and becoming wealthier than ever. On the other, the middle class is being torn down, leaving behind disenfranchised skilled laborers and craftsman, who find themselves working for less, and deeper in debt, just to maintain a moderate lifestyle. This has all been advertised as “trickle down” economics, where the wealthy supposedly spend down into the system. Unfortunately, what the wealthy spent their new found wealth on were stocks, expensive exotic toys, and purchase of properties on which to build larger homes for themselves. The number of those being trickled down upon has fallen far short of those displaced by the erosion of the value delivery chain they once earned their living from. Simultaneously, the quality of products now available in the market has degraded to throw away junk, where repair is not only unavailable (due to the loss of repair facilities) it is virtually impossible – sacrificed to lower prices and to generate an artificial demand to buy more and more, to support the volume component of the new market chain.

This is a wholly unsustainable process. Our economic condition today show just how volatile it is.

We as a nation should focus on rebuilding the value delivery infrastructure, and stop the devaluation process now. We need a concerted effort on the part of labor to define fairness in the worldwide market perspective, not just on leveraging and force. We need corporations to reconsider exporting jobs, and to work toward building a stronger value chain here. We need a government that can see the larger scope of this issue, to define the difference between value imports that add to the marketplace, and those that erode it.

We also need to stop the silly over-consumption and destructive addiction to throw-away products, look at the total cost of owning and using everything we consume, and refocus on the core values of quality, durability, and usefulness.

This is a lot to ask, and will likely not be realized until conditions have become much worse. At the current rate of economic decline, this may be sooner than we can imagine.

The article made the cover as well

Time Cover Story – December 31, 2008

Here’s a piece of the action:

“This may sound too good to be true, but the U.S. has a renewable-energy resource that is perfectly clean, remarkably cheap, surprisingly abundant and immediately available. It has astounding potential to reduce the carbon emissions that threaten our planet, the dependence on foreign oil that threatens our security and the energy costs that threaten our wallets. Unlike coal and petroleum, it doesn’t pollute; unlike solar and wind, it doesn’t depend on the weather; unlike ethanol, it doesn’t accelerate deforestation or inflate food prices; unlike nuclear plants, it doesn’t raise uncomfortable questions about meltdowns or terrorist attacks or radioactive-waste storage, and it doesn’t take a decade to build. It isn’t what-if like hydrogen, clean coal and tidal power; it’s already proven to be workable, scalable and cost-effective. And we don’t need to import it.”

Now if we could only get the rest of the press to wake up and smell the free fresh air…

So here’s the dig – putting the blame on lighting (cover art), and using that spiral CFL lamp as the icon of energy conservation. This is becoming a little silly, espesially when the article makes a great deal of noise about foreign oil, which has nothing to do with lighting at all (electrical energy is not produced from oil.) The problem with rolling all energy into one big pile, is it leads people to believe thatif they buy an energy efficient car, they are doing their part… while sucking energy of a different type up at home, which taps totally different resources. Conservation is a two-front war. Oil use in transportation, Coal and Nuclear material use at home and in the office. Both are in need of substantial improvement.

But, at least it gets the big picture – we’ll just have to beat them up on details later.