Technology Suppression (Wheat & Tares Part II)
By Late Nite LeRoy
April 13, 2001
Massive influxes of cash into our economic system can do both good things and
bad things. If spent indiscriminately, it creates inflation which hurts
everyone. If it is spent on an industry that creates a new and useful product,
it can help everyone. It can be doubly helpful if the technology involved allows
employment of large groups of formerly unemployed individuals. Let's face
reality and acknowledge that the computer industry has not and CANNOT solve the
US unemployment problem. Do not believe the government figures. They have been
bogus since the barbarians took over Washington in 1993. It is well over 10% and
climbing daily. Computers are math intensive products in both design and
operation. Only a small percentage of the population as a whole is capable of
working with high-end math on a daily basis.
Henry Ford did the country a great service by creating jobs that a larger
percentage of the population could become employed into. Bill Gates only
benefited his geeky buddies, not me. Major government projects in our country's
history have had good spin off products. Roosevelt's WPA program gave us Hoover
Dam, the high school building I attended and many other public buildings. The
Manhattan Project discussed yesterday spun off much needed medical
instrumentation equipment. The Eisenhower Interstate Highway project gave us the
fantastic Interstate road system our nation enjoys. The Man on the Moon project
gave us integrated circuits for computers and many other electronic
advancements.
So, despite my ongoing small government cries, I admit some government projects
have actually done some good for society. But what always must be asked, debated
and assessed is whether a big government approach is best or if a private
industry approach may be more effective.
It can be argued that the computer industry only employed the egg heads of
society. But Henry Ford employed most any level of intellectual capacity or
dexterity. So private industry can go both ways. Government always pays off
political cronies first, with a little money spilling over into the general
economy.
There is no sane reason for any level of unemployment to exist. And with 21st
century technology, there is no excuse for any poverty except to the very few so
lazy that they refuse to work at all. But when hundreds of thousands of
individuals are willing to work but unable to find sufficient employment to
survive on, there can only be one culprit. Bankers. We now see a snow job
occurring. Interest rates are coming down. No where near where they belong, yet
declining none the less. But is money currently available to inventors with
genuinely new, creative technologies. Not on your life. Bankers only give their
printed money to those capable of paying them back the highest interest. Credit cards still run off the plastic presses
in abundance, even though defaults are enormous. But new inventions historically
need massive amounts of R&D cash before they can be reduced to a
multicolored box on the shelf at your local Wal Mart.
Venture capitalists have usually filled the gap for these new start ups. But the
easy money they made with dot com trash offered as IPO's to gullible new
investors, has made all these VC's flat out lazy. History repeats itself over
and over again. Japan beat us in the 80's by spending heavily on R&D while
American money was shuffling through a plethora of investment scams. The early
90's saw new banker money go into the US stock market and fund our computer
industry. But greed set in at the end of the decade and pumped out chaff and
little wheat. Japan's early 80's investment paid off for them, but their greed
ultimately led to laziness and destroyed their own economy many years later.
It is law in America that a private corporation cannot publicly advertise their
stock for sale to the general public. That is the definition of a public stock.
A public stock has been properly registered in all 50 states. Its books are open
to the public. And no one individual holds 51% controlling interest in the
company. If anyone ever obtains 51% of a company, it by law reverts to becoming
a private company again. Some dislike the monopoly stockbrokers have regarding
the sale of public stocks, but it really does protect individuals from the
numerous scams rampant prior to the crash of 1929. It however places a severe
restraint on brand new companies with a great idea, but no cash to pay for
necessary R&D or even employ assembly people to make the product to send to
the retailer when it is perfected.
Private corporations may solicit stock purchases from anyone they have had a
prior business relationship with, family, friends or personally introduced
friends. They may also solicit funds from accredited investors. These are simply
described as "really rich dudes" with a lot more bucks than any normal
person needs to live on. I don't think any of my readers fit in that category.
Social liberals try to get government to employ the unemployed. But this only
taxes the productive to employ political cronies, not the public at large.
Affirmative action back fired and no longer helps the downtrodden.
I personally see the alternative energy industry as having the greatest promise
of useful new products, both serving a genuine need and employing a good cross
section of humanity in the process. Yet I have seen the financial community
complacent in its wholesale endorsement of the archaic oil burning technologies
forced on us by John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan over a hundred years ago,
while forcing brilliant inventors to resort to high interest credit card capital
to perfect their inventions. If we ever get the products to market, I will do
everything in my power to make sure bankers have to wait in a separate line and
pay several times as much for my product than we charge everyone else. If the
current financial rape of California continues with the sole intent to profit
the already greedy, low efficient, current energy business, I really fear the
entire topic may turn violent before anyone even hears that true solutions
exist. They have been hidden by greedy bankers.
--LateNiteLeroy
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