To: Barak Obama

Cc: Rick Wagoner, General Motors CEO

Subject: An opportunity for your first hundred days.

Congratulations on your election.

The USA can regain pre-eminence in automotive transportation by forming a working partnership between your new administration and our automobile manufacturers in which General Motors can play a leadership role.

This Partnership would agree that:
·        After a fixed date all new gasoline powered vehicles produced in the US would be flex-fuel capable, burning alcohol as well as gasoline.  (Cost: about $100?)
For a number of years US gasoline stations will be partially subsidized to offer alcohol as well as gasoline, by using state and federal gas tax revenue.  (And perhaps, free or at cost, compressed air for the new air car).
·       Hybrid flex-fuel and electric car production would be encouraged and perhaps subsidized.
·       Low-cost electricity production from zero-carbon sources including nuclear, hydrogen and wind would be encouraged.  (Perhaps subsidized looking long-term toward a future full of electric cars?)

This proposal for a US Working Partnership for Automotive Transportation is a suggestion based on information received from Anne Korin, Director of Policy and Strategic Planning at IAGS, the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security; Set America Free and Pickens Plan.

If this makes sense to you, I suggest that you pass this on to your friends, contact your two RepresentativeUS Senators in our US Congress and follow how they vote on legislation at Thomas.

The vote to solve the current financial crisis further devalues the US Dollar making inflation worse.  All products and services, priced in Dollars will cost more.  That’s not all bad.  Think about it.

Until the corner grocer and the owner of your gas station fully recognize how many more Dollars they’ll have to pay their suppliers and employees, you’ll get bargains for a while using the cheaper Dollars that the government presses spit out.

Also, temporally, foreign customers can get more high-tech products per Dollar, including Boeing and Gulfstream jet planes, until labor unions wake up and demand more of the cheap Dollars per hour.

Our children and grandchildren will pay back our huge National Debt to our Bondholders in China and around the world with cheaper Dollars. That’s good for us but bad for the Bondholders.  That sounds great until we realize that those Bondholders include us! The Dollars in our Mutual Funds and retirement checks will buy less than the Dollars we paid in.

Investors who buy US Bonds expect to be paid back, with interest, in Dollars worth as much as the ones that they invested.  When we devalue our Dollar, they stop buying.

The US Dollar has been highly respected over the years because we’ve always paid our debts and because we’ve had the most productive economy in the world.  This has permitted us to continue to spend more than we can afford, run deficits each year and let the National Debt balloon.  We borrow and spend these funds that people have invested in our country to feed our ‘Buy now - Pay later” habits.

In this way we’ve created this depression.

Our Dollar is not backed up by gold at Fort Knox.  We no longer have any semblance of a monetary standard.  Neither does the Euro, the English Pound nor other currencies widely in use on earth today.  These currencies are free-market traded and exchanged at their perceived relative value every day.

There are advantages to the country or group of countries that create a currency based on nothing more than the perceived worth of the creator and its ability to return more value in the future for the value invested.

If our government continues to print Dollars and pass them out to Main Street in a continuing effort to satisfy the unlimited self-interest, greed, of the populous to get votes our depression will continue.

It has been said that hidden in every problem is an opportunity.  I believe that this crisis could lead us to an improvement in how we trade with each other around the world.  We could establish a common international currency accepted worldwide.

No, it doesn’t need to force us into a common world government.  As our experience with the United Nations Organization shows, most countries prefer to maintain their individuality.

However, as improved communication and transportation shrinks our planet we have already gravitated to a common international language, English, which airline pilots from different countries now use as they fly us where ever we want to go.  (Click on: English for Aviation Safety

Why not specify a specific currency, either a new or an existing one, i.e. the US Dollar, for use on the Internet?  This could be done simply by the administrators of the Internet.  Since all currencies are traded freely based on the perceived value of the buyers and sellers, the creators of each currency would be free to attempt to fix the value of their currency against the common currency but its market value would be determined by the currency traders.  This will make it easy for anyone to compare the value of product or service offerings in terms of an international currency.

Unfortunately, without a major change in Washington, Wall Street and Main Street away from “Spend for Today” to “Save for Tomorrow” inflation will continue and we may need $10,000 to buy a cheap pair of shoes.

Whatever happens, our American can-do, Yankee & Rebel grit and Pioneer spirit will assure that the USA will pull (muddle?) through.  We, as citizens, can learn from this experience the way we, as individuals, are learning about the burden of credit card debt.

As a hard working middle-class, $90,000 taxable income, retired GE Engineer, I would like to be one of the first tax payers to offer $50,000 of my future taxes to buy, at auction, some portion of the troubled mortgages at the present value of their reduced, realistic, and adjusted close-out value.

The $700 billion estimate may be high or low, but even if the homeowners are given fair treatment, the value of the mortgages a year from now will far exceed the current rock-bottom price.

This is not only a solution to the credit crisis but, as advertised, an excellent investment for the United States of America.

This can’t wait for the election. It is up to you. There will be time for debate about how to change regulations and oversight.

Tax Big Business & Huge Corporations

It sounds great doesn’t it? They are the ones who have the money. And, of course, our government has to have money to spend on what the voters say is important.

Because there are fewer big Business owners and since corporations can’t vote, there will always be more voters who will agree with this approach, i.e. “Don’t Tax Me, Tax that Guy Behind the Tree”. But does it really make sense?

Hold on now. What do these very successful businesses do because of being taxed?

*      They raise their prices to customers and/or
*      Hire expensive consultants to help tweak their tax returns to minimize the tax
*      Defer or cancel stockholder dividends.

These actions, individually or in combination, simply pass on the taxes as a cost of doing business. The people who pay these taxes, the costs of government, are those who pay higher prices to them and sometimes the shareholders who suffer reduced dividends. Businesses and Corporations don’t pay taxes; they just collect them.

The US tax system is regressive because it relies on taxing the profits of successful creators of things people can use. Not only is the tax code horribly complex, our system punishes investing and saving (for a rainy day) and encourages consumption and debt. “Buy Now, Pay Later”. This has led to inflation and the declining value of the US Dollar.

Although the weak Dollar helps US exports and encourages foreign businesses to come here, our regressive, complex tax system is very much against doing business here and encourages US businesses to invest overseas.

The proposed Fair Tax would completely replace our current outdated tax system without increasing or decreasing the amount of taxes paid or revenue received by our government. It would encourage saving, investing and job creation by taxing spending rather than taxing creative investors and entrepreneurs. (See: http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer).

The “Fair Tax” law was first introduced to the 108th US Congress in 2004 as House Bill H.R. 25 and Senate Bill S. 25.

The law has been reintroduced to each do-nothing congress since then without, I believe, it ever being voting on.

I join you and applaud you for pointing the way to clean, renewable energy for the people of planet Earth.    I thank nature’s God for Earth’s rotation and the resultant prevailing winds that you point out can become a free source of much of that energy.

My friend Russell Zimmer, former President of the Wyoming Senate, alerted me about Denver billionaire Phillip Anschutz’s plan to provide wind energy to Southern California, (See: http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_10036833).

However, I have a concern about natural gas as an interim fuel.   I am confused.  I was told that the USA is faced with the same strategic situation on natural gas as we are on oil, e.g. we have only 3% of the reserves but consume 25% , and that producing countries are threatening an OPEC type cartel to control natural gas supply and pricing, just as they do on oil.    I learned this from Ms. Anne Korin, co-director of Institute for Analysis of Global Security. (See: http://www.iags.org/sinosaudi.htm).

This seems to me inconsistent with your TV ads and those of cngNow.com, which imply we have plenty of natural gas here.   I believe Ms. Korin sees Flex Fuel cars using either gasoline or alcohol - and easily implemented in the U.S. by a government requirement that all manufacturers include this capability, at about a $100 cost, in their gasoline vehicles.

I respectfully ask for your comment and reaction at your convenience.

My daughter and I got to hear an excellent speech, followed with Q&A, on C-SPAN Thursday, August 7th, by Anne Korin, Co-Director of Policy and Strategic Planning at AGS, The Institute for the Analysis of Global Security.  Here is the link to a video of that speech from C-SPAN (click on the big red F).   Well worth watching!!!

Her principal point is that, for security against OPEC’s control of the supply and price of oil, we in the USA, who “have 3% of the world’s conventional reserves of oil, same for natural gas; we account for a quarter of global oil consumption, same for natural gas“, should wean ourselves off of the exclusive use of oil, gasoline, for transportation and lead the rest of the world by:

“    Requiring all vehicles manufactured be capable of using all high hydrogen content alcohol fuels, already available or becoming available.  This conversion cost is only about $100.

“    Flex fuel cars, using either gasoline or alcohol, can be refueled at existing gasoline stations by adding additional alcohol dispensing pumps, partially subsidized by federal and/or state taxes.

“    Battery and Fuel-Cell Electric flex fuel cars will get 100-300 or more miles-per-gallon of gasoline used.

Keep It Simple
Some years ago I learned an acronym, “KISS”, (Keep It Simple, Stupid).  I’ve used this ever since to try to dig down to the most cogent aspect of whatever I’m studying or writing about.

While searching the Internet about our planet Earth’s need for energy and that energy’s threat to its pristine atmosphere, I learned the term “Decarbonization”.  This has to do with how much carbon there is in the fuel we use to get energy compared to the hydrogen that provides the energy.

Since the carbon, as carbon dioxide, is what is harmful to the Earth’s atmosphere, the less carbon and the more hydrogen the better the fuel.

I copied this from the Internet:
“For nearly a century and a half, fuels with high amounts of carbon have progressively been replaced by those containing less. First wood, which is high in carbon, was eclipsed in the late 19th century by coal, which contains less. Then oil, with a lower carbon content still, dethroned King Coal in the 1960’s.

Now analysts say that natural gas, lighter still in carbon, may be entering its heyday, and that the day of hydrogen-providing a fuel with no carbon at all, by definition-may at last be about to dawn.”

Natural Gas, CH4, with four hydrogen atoms to one of carbon, more than gasoline, seems likely to be an interim fuel while we transition to pure hydrogen, H2, now being used in fuel cells to produce electricity.  And, of course, there are other ways to create energy, electricity, without any hydrogen: nuclear, wind, tide and solar cells.

T. Boon Pickens, a very successful billionaire (and oil speculator) says “We can’t drill our way out of this” (See: http://www.pickensplan.com/theplan/.)  He says wind turbines and solar panels can be the answer.

My employer for thirty-five years, General Electric, seems to agree.   Their Schenectady, NY factory, where electric generators for large, coal, oil & nuclear steam-turbine-electric stations are made, will apparently become the headquarters of their expanding wind turbine business.

In addition, I see where Vice-President Al Gore agrees that we should quickly convert to renewable nuclear, wind, solar and tide energy.  Conservation is not enough.

What is the US Dollar worth, today at the middle of 2008?  It isn’t backed up by gold at Fort Knox.  We no longer have any semblance of a monetary standard.  Neither does the Euro, the English pound or any other paper currency in use on earth today.

Our Dollar is only worth what you can get for it, or obtain with it, from someone else.  Crude oil is about $125 per barrel so a Dollar is worth less than one-one hundredth of a barrel of oil; gasoline is over $4 a gallon or a Dollar is worth less than a quart of gasoline and gold is just under $1,000 an ounce, which means that a Dollar can get you about one-one thousandth of an ounce of gold.

In 1933, during the last world depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt devalued the US Dollar by 42%.  This meant that all outstanding Dollars in bank accounts and under mattresses were, instantaneously, worth about half of what they were before.

Today the value of the Dollar is devalued automatically just by our government printing and passing out more of them.  That’s when people start hording gold.

Will we soon need a wheelbarrow of money to buy a loaf of bread as they did in Germany when the German Mark became almost worthless?

It was not too long after my wife died in 2006, when my daughter told me about someone she’d heard give an interview on late night radio.  As a result, I went to Dr. Bruce Lipton’s web site at: http://www.brucelipton.com/, bought and read his book “Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles” (2006).

The author, a noted cell biologist, tells in his book about when, as a young biology professor, he underwent an awakening, a sort of epiphany of belief that changed his life.

I also read another book that Dr. Lipton referenced “Molecules of Emotion: the Science behind Mind-Body Medicine” by: Candace B. Pert, which described laboratory experiments involving transferring information to and through the membranes of individual cells.

Sometime later I came across “A Short History of Nearly Everything” (2003) by: Bill Bryson and wrote the following based upon his Chapter 24 “Cells”:

Our Cells

We humans each have about 10 quadrillion (10,000 million trillion) cells in our bodies when we’re born.  Of these about 100 billion are brain cells (all we ever get).

The components of every individual cell are renewed within about one month.  This means that no part of us is more than about nine years old.  However we do lose about 500 of our brain cells per hour during life.

Food and oxygen are delivered by the blood through tiny capillaries to each of our cells.  There they are combined to produce electric energy in tiny amounts—about 0.1 volts moving nanometers.

In a typical cell about 1,000 tiny electric power stations called mitochondria provide this energy.  These power stations produce tiny ADP power pack molecules.  At any moment, such a cell will have about a billion ADP molecules in it.  In two minutes they will be drained dry of energy and another billion will have taken their place.  This energy used within our body’s cells to make proteins is what keeps us healthy and warm.

It was early in 2007 when I first became aware of Lynne McTaggart’s book “The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe” (2002).  The following is a description of the book:

Science has recently begun to prove what ancient myth and religion have always espoused: There may be such a thing as a life force.   Lynne McTaggart, indefatigable investigative journalist, reveals a radical new biological paradigm — that on our most fundamental level, the human mind and body are not distinct and separate from their environment but a packet of pulsating power constantly interacting with this vast energy sea. ‘The Field’is a highly readable scientific detective story that offers a stunning picture of an interconnected universe and a new scientific theory that makes sense of supernatural phenomena. Original, well researched, and well documented by distinguished sources, The Field is a book of hope and inspiration for today’s world.

This book convinced me that groups of people just by jointly consciously willing a specific event to occur elsewhere can cause it to happen.  I heartily recommend it to everyone.  Though seemingly supernatural, science confirms that such power exists.

Also in 2007 I became aware of a similar book “The Divine Matrix: Bridging Time, Space, Miracles, and Belief” by: Gregg Braden. This book reinforces the concept that a small group of people, by jointly, consciously willing an idea or thought to be transferred to a much larger number of people elsewhere on Earth, they can do so.

The following is a description of the book copied from the Internet:

“Between 1993 and 2000, a series of groundbreaking experiments revealed dramatic evidence of a web of energy that connects everything in our lives and our world—the Divine Matrix. From the healing of our bodies, to the success of our careers, relationships, and the peace between nations, this new evidence demonstrates that we each hold the power to speak directly to the force that links all of creation. What would it mean to discover that the power to create joy, to heal suffering, and bring peace to nations lives inside of you? How differently would you live if you knew how to use this power each day of your life? Join Gregg Braden on this extraordinary journey bridging science, spirituality and miracles through the language of The Divine Matrix.”

I will record future purchases and sales here.
On Tuesday, July 08, 2008 I looked at this WMT 1-Month Daily Price Chart:

The two day jump in price on increased volume is positive and suggests continuing acquisition of shares as buying opportunities present themselves.
The next day, July 9th 2008 just before noon the following 2-Day 15-Minute Price Chart suggested a buy opportunity so I sold another holding and bought  36 shares at $58.50.

On Thursday, July 10, 2008 I sold some stock holdings to raise cash to buy more Wal-Mart (WMT) on Tuesday, the 14th when the cash is available.