Immigrants and New Patents

There is a direct correlation between the number of immigrants that are here in the United States and the number of new patents that are registered with the US Patent Office.
As the immigrant population leave US soil, the number of new patent registries' goes down.

Why?

If it is so difficult to register a new patent, how is it possible that a foreigner can come here and do it, and a local boy or girl can't?

If a Detroit worker is worried about losing his job or finding a new one, what has he been doing his entire life other than the same old thing his grandfather, his father and him have been doing forever?

Back to science and ingenuity if this country wants to survive and flourish in the 21st Century!

Where are the Thomas Edison's and the Wright Brother's of yesteryear? Have we become too blasé, lazy and mundane in the 21st Century? Or is it that we are just too stupid to make and invent anything any more?

I personally don't believe that the later is true, because we do work very hard in this country, but there is something wrong with us.

I bet that if we allowed 2 Million educated, ambitious, resourceful and clever folks from India or China visas to work and play in the USA, the registry of new patents in the Patent Office in Washington, DC would go right through the roof.

Why?

I believe we have lost our North. Are we blind or too comfortable? What is it about us that no longer makes us curious and inventive? It takes humility, pride and a "can do" attitude. So what has happened to the good ol' USA.

Foreigners come here and they are like children in a candy shop, so much to see and so much to chose from. Have we Americans lost sight of what is right in front of our own eyes?

What Is Really Important In Life?

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 glasses of wine. A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was. The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was. The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous "yes." The professor then produced two glasses of wine from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed. "Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things; your family, your children, your health, your friends, and your favourite passions; things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full." The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, and your car. The sand is everything else; the small stuff. "If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "There is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you." "Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out to dinner. Play another 18. Do one more run down the ski slope. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal. Take care of the golf balls first; the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand." One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the wine represented. The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of glasses of wine with a friend."

The Coming Evangelical Collapse

An anti-Christian chapter in Western history is about to begin. But out of the ruins, a new vitality and integrity will rise.

By Michael Spencer

from the March 10, 2009 edition

Why is this going to happen?

1. Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake. Evangelicals will increasingly be seen as a threat to cultural progress. Public leaders will consider us bad for America, bad for education, bad for children, and bad for society.

The evangelical investment in moral, social, and political issues has depleted our resources and exposed our weaknesses. Being against gay marriage and being rhetorically pro-life will not make up for the fact that massive majorities of Evangelicals can't articulate the Gospel with any coherence. We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith.

2. We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we've spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.

3. There are three kinds of evangelical churches today: consumer-driven megachurches, dying churches, and new churches whose future is fragile. Denominations will shrink, even vanish, while fewer and fewer evangelical churches will survive and thrive.

4. Despite some very successful developments in the past 25 years, Christian education has not produced a product that can withstand the rising tide of secularism. Evangelicalism has used its educational system primarily to staff its own needs and talk to itself.

5. The confrontation between cultural secularism and the faith at the core of evangelical efforts to "do good" is rapidly approaching. We will soon see that the good Evangelicals want to do will be viewed as bad by so many, and much of that work will not be done. Look for ministries to take on a less and less distinctively Christian face in order to survive.

6. Even in areas where Evangelicals imagine themselves strong (like the Bible Belt), we will find a great inability to pass on to our children a vital evangelical confidence in the Bible and the importance of the faith.

7. The money will dry up.

The only real practical hope for this dilemma is that:

"Christianity loves a crumbling empire."

Seven reasons the market is not going up any time soon.

By Michael Shulman is a contributor to OptionsZone.com.

#1 - The housing crisis isn't over.

The epicenter of everything -- the credit crisis, financial crisis, economic crisis and crisis of confidence -- is housing. Not just bad mortgages, but a continuing fall in housing prices -- already down 20% with another 15%-20% to go. Yup, it is not close to being over. Home sales continue to fall, inventories are equal to more than a year of sales, and the vast majority of new mortgages being applied for as interest rates fall are for refinancings.

#2 - The next mortgage tsunami.

Subprime mortgage defaults peaked and will slowly begin to slide during the next two years.

But don't get excited -- option ARMs and ALT-A mortgages are now beginning to rise at a very rapid rate. According to analysts I follow, notably Ivy Zelman, the next tsunami will be larger than the one we just went through. And the banks are not currently valuing these mortgages as if they will default at this rate.

#3 - Credit markets remain frozen.

Yes, you may hear that the corporate bond market is breathing again and the exotic "TED spread" -- the difference between T-Bill and LIBOR rates -- is shrinking, but no one is lending money to anyone and confidence is non-existent.

Recently the entire country of Spain (meaning Spanish national debt) was put on credit watch due to deteriorating economic conditions.

Remember, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression (I am not forecasting either one, by the way) started at a medium-sized bank in Austria, not on Wall Street or in London.

Credit markets are not only frozen because we don't know what is on the banks' balance sheets; they are also frozen because banks are repairing their own balance sheets by hoarding capital.

#4 - The banks are falling apart.

The banks are a wreck and now the pieces are beginning to fly apart, with Citigroup (NYSE: C) struggling the most and beginning to dismember itself.

Meredith Whitney, the uber-analyst who has been right about everything in banking for more than two years, said there were $2.4 trillion in asset downgrades at the end of last year by the credit agencies. This will really whack the banks' critical Tier 1 capital.


And even if you forget earnings problems, the banks will continue to have no money to lend, which will strangle businesses and the economy.

#5 - The consumer has stopped spending.

The consumer spending component of the economy was 70% of GDP, but it is shrinking fast and it will not come back to former levels for a long time -- maybe ever.

Unemployment and fear of unemployment are killing spending. I believe we will see double-digit unemployment before we see 5% again.

Another drag on spending is a lack of credit, as credit cards get pulled back, home-equity lines are withdrawn and people realize that buying the next piece of breakable stuff made in China may not be the wisest thing to do with their money right now.

At the end of last year, the U.S. savings rate went up for the first time since 1952, and saving money does not repair economic damage -- right now, it aggravates that damage.

#6 - IT spending is flat and falling.

The canary in the coal mine for the economy is business capital spending.
IT spending? What IT spending?

According to ChangeWave Research surveys, spending is flat or falling.
There are no gee-whiz products to buy and install, the number of employees is shrinking, meaning there are lots of extra computers and spare server capacity lying about. The number of licensees for a software license is shrinking and so on.

What's worse, IT spending is contracting even faster overseas, and these markets account for more than 50% of the revenue for most big U.S. tech outfits.

#7 - The government is gasping for air.

Yes, Uncle Sam is going to continue buying stuff and stimulizing (a new word for the new economy) with money it prints. And -- getting back to pure Yogisms -- it ain't gonna work.

The net decline in wealth -- including the stock market, housing, private equity, etc. -- plus the withdrawal of credit now totals $415 trillion or more. You think $700 billion for concrete and a fat guy holding a "Go Slow" sign is going to help?

Roosevelt calmed people by spending a fortune in and on the Works Progress Administration (WPA) -- great buildings and better murals, but not a lot of long-term economic impact.

We are a bit too advanced for that kind of naïve reaction. Not to mention the government is going to need many more trillions to fix the financial system.

And that's the rub -- even Uncle Sam cannot help too much, long term, as the world kicks its addiction to excess credit. And with that goes a big drop in fundamental demand, from the United States to China.

In Times Like These...

Benjamin Franklin once said that in times like these, there are three things that are absolutely necessary:

FIRST: A good dog by your side
SECOND: An old wife
THIRD: Plenty of available cash