#75. Bring back our factories by exempting new ones from minimum wage laws.

#75. Bring back our factories by exempting all new factories that manufacture consumer products from all minimum wage laws. No exemptions. No bottom to wages.

This is what the USA will look like in a few years: In every city, town and village, will be a factory started up by an ambitious business person whose expenses will be small because the wages in his/her factory may be $1 an hour or less -- just what it would be in China making the same product for sale in the USA.

The workers will be from 4 sources: (a) junior and senior high school students who will get school credit for their work on Saturday, Sunday, summers or other holidays. Before the new rules, they spent that same time in the malls, skate- boarding, playing computer games or working in fast food. The experience of working in the factories (besides the 50-cents an hour) will be to see how things are done there. Some will get the idea that they can do better, streamline things or even invent better machines. They will grow up to be the sturdy fine Americans who we were proud of because they spent their free time on the family farm helping out. Those hardy Jack Armstrong all-Americans will have a come-back.

Other workers will be (b) the unemployed who have to take the low paying jobs to qualify for any other unemployment benefits. They too will be happy being occupied. Otherwise, they would just collect their unemployment checks and sulk.

Other workers will be (c) the new immigrants who are settling in. The factory jobs will be part of their package of government and charity help. They will be getting the experience from the low paying factory work and learn English and be in positions to see how things can be done better or how they too can have a factory.

The bulk of the workers needed to work in the new factories making things will be (d) foreigners -- migrant workers -- from China, Latin America, Asia -- the same workers who now work in the same type of factories but in their own poor countries. A new American industry will be the service of bringing the workers in and taking them out after their one or two year contracts are over -- for 50-cents an hour. These new companies will bring the right workers to the exact factory needing them. The companies will build worker's villages to house the migrant workers -- much like is done with USA migrant farm workers or servants brought in to the rich Arab emirates or by Halliburton to serve the US military in Iraq.

American factories now in foreign lands will gradually come back, but on their own so that the foreign countries will not get mad at America. The USA will not have to impose tariffs to accomplish Come Back.

America will look great with all the factories under control by inspectors to makes sure they are clean, green and don't abuse workers. Factory management will be happy enough paying 3rd world wages. Some of the Americans working in the factories will see ways to make his/her factory cleaner and greener and invent things the way Americans used to invent and discover. The students working will suggest to their teachers projects for improving the factories.

USA will be chock full of factories. The USA is one of the few countries in the whole world that has all the raw materials within its borders to produce all the products that its many citizens need and want to buy. It will be natural and right and very enriching to see the USA bursting with factories making every town and village prosperous, happy with all its inhabitants busy.
Made in the USA from raw material in the USA will be the proud mark on every product that American citizens will buy and use to live the good life that will be the envy of the whole world. Amen.

# 74. Recalculate cost of health care reform with neglected figures.

# 74. Recalculate the cost of health care reform with the forgotten figure of the amount that Americans spend every year for their insurance premiums.

Enemies of health care reform rely heavily on the supposed high cost of a change in US health care. They have the figures. They recite the figures that scare many voters. But they leave out the money that already goes for that purpose and will continue to go there if they get their way -- the total amount of dollars that Americans pay to the insurance industry for their coverage -- the premiums; that amount of dollars that make multi-millionaires of the industry's executives.

Take that number (800 billion dollars?) and subtract it from the estimated amount of the cost that the industry cites to scare people. Whenever the estimated cost is mentioned, a spokesman for reform must speask loudly the dollar value of annjual premiums and subtract it from the scary figure. Always do that. The new figure will not be scary any more.

The message, of course, is that when we all chip in to cover everyone (single-payer option) everyone will choose to switch away from giving premiums for insurance policies that may not pay off when needed and give that money instead to the single-payer plan that will be watched over by civil servants who will not try to deny coverage.

#73. How to weed out a wasteful insdustry.

#73. How to weed out wasteful indutry? Three methods have worked in the past: (1) Natural Selection, as when the car replaced the horse as the family means of transportation, with auto mechanics replacing blacksmiths: (2) Legislation, as when laws were passed prohibiting the manufacture of drinking alcohol, closing breweries; and (3) military action, as when police airplanes spray fields growing poppy.

So, we see from the past, that natural selection, legislation and military action were effective in weeding out smithies, breweries and illegal plants.

Does that past experience teach us how to get rid of today's waste -- the health insurance industry -- the most wasteful industry of all? Can we pass a law to make it disappear? Or should the Commander-in-Chief authorize the US Air Force to bomb their headquarters (after the buildings are evacuated)? Or let Natural Selection have it disappear, which will happen with a single-payer system that will have everyone switch to it? Or what?

And how soon? Natural selection will take the longest time. Yet with people's health and very lives at stake, time is of the essence. Legislation can also take time, because that very industry can delay action with its huge profits spent on corrupt legislators. Bombs will eliminate the offices, buyt with collateral damage.

Which of the three proven methods of getting rid of unworthy, unneeded industry will be the most effective to help society destroy its most wasteful, dangerous business, the health insurance industry, which does not manufacture drugs or treat patients or distribute vaccines. What is the answer?

# 72 Shel Gloger's Op-Ed #72. God we are wasteful.

# 72. Shel Gloger's Op-Ed #72. God we are wasteful. Please don't punish us, although we deserve it, especially when we laugh at those nice people who are not wasteful. When we dine and drink before entering an airplane to journey, we are causing the aircraft to be heavier because of the extra food in our bodies -- like carrying an extra carry-on piece of luggage. So, when the Japanese leaders ask their citizens to help conserve fuel by keeping the weight down that airplane fuel has to lug through the sky, the people see the wisdom and comply, while we in the USA laugh. We laugh at the simple attempt to be thrifty, to conserve fuel -- not to waste.

Is God just waiting, suffering a slow burn because of us? Or is God holding off, giving us another chance, maybe because God owes us for the good deeds of our forefathers. God rewards his faithful unto the nth generation. Is this the case with us? If so, are we using up our credits? Beware! When I still see cars idling instead of being turned off when the driver visits the store, then I feel that the driver is tempting faith; tempting God. Or when drivers drive alone in a big car that could seat a small army, then I worry. Or when we laugh at other people's attempts not to be so wasteful.

# 71. Self-determination, citizen army, Sarah P, John McCain, Monetary problems and the Draft.

#71. This blog began on September 10, 2009, with (#1) the simple truth that the US leadersahip is basing its relationship with weak states on Territorial Integrity instead of on Self-Determination. Take Iraq and Afghanistan, for examples. We assume each is a real country because 19th century colonial powers invented borders for them. But what should be real is what the people who live in the area believe to be their boundaries, which is their tribal lines and their leaders are their tribal leaders instead of some supertribal, national figure that most don't know. My next entry or "letter-to-the-editor" was/is about our current military which is mistakenly called "voluntary" but is really "professional." Democracy or representative government, such as the USA in its best light, needs a citizen army truly representative of citizens, which can only be accomplished with a draft. (# 3 ) is about Sarah Palin which reminds people who laugh at her, that anyone could be elected president, so instead of laughing, we should take her seriously. Remember those who laughed at Hitler in 1930. My (# 4 ) letter. "October surprise" two months before the election, was the only one that I admit to have been a wrong prophesy, for it thought that John McCain would resign so that the wildly popular Sarah could be accepted as the Republicn candidate for president and win hands down, as a demogogue knows how to do. It didn't happen, but the concept is alive and well and has to be guarded against especially since the Democrats don't know how to exercise powwer. ( # 5) "Taxpayer bailout" warns the danger of letting the so-called bankers -- who caused the financial crisis --letting them try to fix it instead of giving the "good guys" a chance, the good guys being those bankers who were prudent enough to avoid high risk and respect their customers' safety. For example, those banks throughout the USA who remain stable have not been rewarded for their good behavior, either by being given power to make changes or by announcing who they are to the ordinary citizens so they can do business with those banks instead of with the bad banks. Who are they? I have yet to read a list of those banks in any area in that area's newpaper or mentioned on the local radio station. We hear runmors that some of the credit unions are the most soluble of banks, but which ones? ... So, this is a summary of my first five letters ( #1 - #5 ) . I invite you to read them in full and comment on them in print, following each. Thank you.

#70. Generals must be viewed wearing their underwear.

#70. We the People, as well as the President of the USA, must not be influenced by the uniform and medals decorating that uniform worn by a military big-shot aiming to influence Us the People, as well as the president.

A despondent President, after taking the bad military advice of his general, was given this wise advice: " Next time, don't be impressed by that fancy uniform with all those ribbons that will surely give the general's words more weight than they should get. Imagine him in his underwear. Let your eyes be Superman's X-rays that visually peel the clothing away until you see the man standing in front of you in his underwear. "

In conference with General McCrystal, President Obama must see him stripped down to his underwear. When the general appears on TV to influence Us the People, we must imagine that he forgot to get dressed that morning so that he is before you in his underwear.

$69. Nobel Peace Prize points the way.

$69. The Nobel Peace Prize points the way to peace that is not yet reached. In the same way, any meaningful comprehensive health care program must point the way to the weakening of the private insurance companies now in control, and point the way to an eventual single-payer method of paying for that system (everyone chipping in).