The Biggest Outsourcer

The 'private sector' of the economy is, in fact, the voluntary sector; and the 'public sector' is, in fact, the coercive sector. — Henry Hazlitt

Last fall while driving along the historic Lincoln Highway I passed through Mansfield Ohio. Mansfield was first settled in 1808 and was named for Jared Mansfield, the U.S. Surveyor General who directed its planning. The village of Mansfield was incorporated in 1828, and in 1857 Mansfield was chartered as a city. During the War of 1812, the first courthouse, jail, and church of Richland County was served in one of two blockhouses that were located on the public square until 1816. In 1908, the blockhouse became a symbol of Mansfield's heritage during its 100th birthday celebration, and in 1929, the blockhouse was relocated to its present location at South Park. The railroads came to the city in 1846, followed by the first road across America, the Lincoln Highway in 1913, smoothing the path for economic growth.

However, like many cities in the rust belt region of the Midwest, Mansfield saw a large decline in its manufacturing and retail sectors. Beginning with the steel Recession of the 1970s, the loss of jobs to overseas manufacturing, prolonged labor disputes, and deteriorating factory facilities all contributed to heavy industry leaving the area. Mansfield Tire & Rubber Company, Ohio Brass Company, Westinghouse, Tappan and many other manufacturing plants were either bought-out, relocated or closed, leaving only the AK Steel Plant in Mansfield and the General Motors Fisher Body Stamping Plant (Mansfield-Ontario Metal Center) in neighboring Ontario as the last two remaining heavy industry employers.

The AK Steel Mansfield Works production facility, formerly Armco Steel, was the location of a violent 3-year United Steelworkers Union lock-out and strike from 1999 to 2002. On June 1, 2009, General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and announced that its Ontario stamping plant (Mansfield-Ontario Metal Center) would close in June 2010.With the loss of the jobs, locally owned businesses in downtown Mansfield closed, as did much of the retail built in the 1960s along Park Avenue West (formerly known as "The Miracle Mile") and Lexington Avenue. New big-box retail, shopping strips and franchise restaurants have been built in the adjacent suburban city of Ontario, which has replaced Mansfield as the retail hub for Richland County and north-central Ohio.

As we drove through Mansfield, not a pretty town, we passed the abandoned Westinghouse appliance factory, a plant that once employed 8,000 people in the manufacture of clothes dryers, electric ranges, and other home appliances. It was here that the first the first “Electro Robot” was made in 1937. Now the plant is being torn down and all of the jobs are gone, probably to China or Korea. Westinghouse fell into decline due to bad business decisions; sell off of division, entry into to broadcast industry, and constant labor strife and strikes. Eventually their main manufacturing plant in Pittsburg closed and the once thriving Mansfield plant was not far behind.

The Westinghouse plant closure is just one example of many manufacturing plants that have closed in the United States due to the high cost of labor, bad management, and oversees competition. Today the Obama reelection campaign is accusing Bain Capital and Mitt Romney of outsourcing American jobs by closing plants and laying off the workers. This is blatantly false. Yes, Bain closed some plants due to the factors listed above, but they saved many more jobs by restructuring plants and allowing them to become more competitive.

From 1984-98, Mitt Romney worked for Bain Capital. There were 77 companies involved with Bain during that time, and some failed, some sputtered, but multiple others were raging successes. Here is a sample of where the Romney wealth came from. A few of Bain’s successes are:

Staples: Staples only had one store when Bain invested. Romney sat on Staples' board for 15 years after Bain invested in it, according to former Staples CEO Thomas Stemburg. Now the company employs 90,000 people. Stemberg also said on Fox News that Romney is "the single best corporate director I ever worked with."

Steel Dynamics: Bain's investment: $18.3 million. Estimated Gain: $85.5 million. A steel making company that first dealt with Bain Capital in 1994. Steel Dynamics went public in 1996, and still is in business today.

Domino's Pizza: Bain Capital invested $1 billion into Domino's in 1998, according to the New York Times. Now Domino's has 9000 stores.

DDi: Bain did very well with the circuit board makers DDi, nearly quadrupling its initial investment in a few years, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Journal reported that after Romney left, Bain merged DDi with another company and then gradually sold its DDi stock. Romney personally sold $4.3 million of DDi stock in May 2001. In the early 2000s, DDi experienced a drop in sales and cut its work force, according to the Wall St. Journal. DDi defaulted on some loans when Bain still had some control over the company. But DDi emerged from bankruptcy and is still doing business today. In fact, DDi's website says that the company acquired another company called Coretec Inc. in 2010.

Bright Horizons Family Solutions: James H. Furneaux, venture colleague of Romney from another company wrote to the Boston Globe that Mitt Romney recruited the founding team of Bright Horizons, a childcare company, and was heavily involved in the early strategy of the company. Bright Horizons flourished and still flourishes today, with 800 child care centers and 19,000 employees. In fact, the Boston Globe called Family Horizons the number one place to work in their "Globe’s Top Places to Work" survey.

Sports Authority: Sports Authority was also quite small when Bain became involved. By 2006, Sports Authority had over 14,000 employees, according to American.com

Wesley Jessen VisionCare Inc.: In 1995 Bain Capital invested $6.4 million in specialty contact lens maker Wesley Jessen VisionCare. The Wall St. Journal reported that the investment yielded a gain of more than $300 million. The New York Times reported that in 2000, Ciba Vision Corporation bought Wesley Jessen for $758 million.

Stage Stores: Bain Capital invested in Stage Stores in 1988, and Stage went public in 1996, with 9,606 employees. BY 1999, the company employed 15,700 people. Bain received excellent returns. Employment dropped back down when the company went into chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2000. But Stage eventually recovered and now employs 13,500 people, according to America.com. (Click Here to see Romney’s defense against Obama’s outrageous charges of destroying jobs)

Obama wants to tag Romney with outsourcing. It’s the only campaign issue he has for he certainly can’t run on his dismal record. All he has is Bain’s outsourcings and calls warfare. What a miserable president he has been

With all the talk of Bain Capital, let us consider the bane of capital. Speaking at a campaign stop in Roanoke, Virginia, President Barack Obama set business owners straight: "If you've got a business, you didn't build that." Powerful stuff. "If you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own. You didn't get there on your own. If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."

This from a person who told his supporters that his nomination marked the moment when the waters of the great oceans would recede and when the earth's temperature would cool. So now one wonders whether Obama really did win that election. He didn't build the voting machines. He didn't create the cars that brought voters to polling places. He didn't create the pens that wrote the checks for his campaign. Someone else did that. So he didn't win that election. Someone else did.

This from a person who told his supporters that his nomination marked the moment when the waters of the great oceans would recede and when the earth's temperature would cool. So now one wonders whether Obama really did win that election. He didn't build the voting machines. He didn't create the cars that brought voters to polling places. He didn't create the pens that wrote the checks for his campaign. Someone else did that. So he didn't win that election. Someone else did.

The thing is, he does not know how to create a productive job that adds value because he never built a business. He never filed the corporate-compliance documents, was never posed with obligations to leap through endless hoops of government red tape to sell a product. He never built a factory, never went to a fabricator to have manufacturing machines built to specifications. The only fabrication he knows is falsifying his life story — one cannot call such novels a "biography" or an "autobiography," but only a "life story." So he can fabricate facts in his life story. He can fabricate claims against Romney that fly against the truth. But he does not know how to fabricate a machine. Someone else made that happen.

He does not understand what it means to research a product for years, risking all of one's life savings and borrowing and seeking investment capital, hoping for that breakthrough that might fill a need. He does not know what it is to sell a consumer product and, one day, have an extraordinary insight that, by tweaking the product just a bit, it can open doors to satisfy millions of needs. He does not understand because he didn't build that. Someone else made that happen.

For decades people sat in coffee shops and ordered coffee from a waitress who served it fifteen minutes later in a porcelain cup, refilling it endlessly at no extra charge. It cost peanuts. A guy in Seattle became convinced that he could serve an untapped societal desire for a more glitzy coffee — what he called an affordable luxury. He risked his shirt, and he was right. People were ready to stand in line for ten minutes, pay five dollars a cup, pay for refills, and drink it out of paper cup for the affordable luxury that a Starbucks offered. Other people before him had picked the coffee beans, conceived of brewing them for a drink. But a guy turned an idea into something that has touched millions of lives.

Another fellow experienced an accidental mess-up at work when some glue was not made properly and barely held its stick. He noticed that an adhered item could be separated from the item to which it been glued, and then could re-stick again. Most everyone else would have shrugged and grumbled about the day's mistake at the glue factory. But this guy figured out that people could really do something with little paper notes that could be used as Post-Its. It took a small form of crazy, a wonderful crazy that could think outside a box, to see a vision of millions of insane people like me who survive on Post-Its. 3M made millions.

Obama is the bane of capital. He does not understand it. He does not understand the risk of capital, the possibility of capital, the magic of how America opened possibilities never before imaginable because it liberated capital for private enterprise.

Now let’s see what Obama is doing about outsourcing. Firstly with increasing tax rates and onerous regulations many companies like his buddy Jeff Immelt’s General Electric is doing when they outsource hundreds of thousands of jobs to China and India. Apple, Microsoft, and even General Motors are doing the same. Of course this doesn’t count in the media coverage. It’s only Bain that matters and most of the jobs lost in firms Bain invested in were in companies that just could not make it. See

As President Obama was attacking Mitt Romney for supposedly “outsourcing” jobs when he ran Bain Capital (a charge disputed by The Washington Post’s fact checker), tens of thousands of Americans were fleeing the Obama economy to find work in Canada.

“Skilled U.S. workers are coming to Canada in ever greater numbers, driven out by high unemployment at home, and tempted in by job shortages in key sectors like Alberta’s growing energy sector,” Reuters reported last week.

“Government figures show that Canada issued 34,185 temporary work permits to Americans last year, just shy of the record 35,060 handed out in 2010, and officials expect that number to keep growing.”

Why will it keep growing? Because the U.S. job market is not growing, while Canada’s is.

In the Obama economy, according to news reports this year, blue-collar Americans are fleeing north by the thousands to find work, Mexican immigrants are returning to their home country to find work because the prospects are so bad here, and more of America’s wealthiest are fleeing to Asia to protect their assets from the reach of the U.S. government.

Meanwhile, consumer confidence is down for the second straight month.

“The greatest concern to consumers is that wage and job growth will remain depressed over the foreseeable future, and that these meager gains are likely to be further diminished in the years ahead by rising taxes and benefit cutbacks,” Richard Curtin, who directed the Reuters/University of Michigan survey of consumers, said last week.

President Obama offers nothing that will reverse these trends and bring employment and investment back to the United States. So he tries to distract the people by calling Romney an outsourcer. The irony is that America will continue losing jobs and workers to other countries, with no end in sight, if Obama’s trick works.

The latest and most egregious example of Obama’s push to outsourcing is our space program. When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed their Apollo 11 lander on the moon on July 20, 1969 the United States was the big kahuna when it came to space. No country could touch us, not even the Soviet Union. We were the leaders in space exploration and technology. This was good for the nation, our national defense, and business. Thousands were employed by the contractors making the parts for the space program. This meant jobs – good paying jobs.

Over time NASA, like all government agencies, grew to bureaucratic giant. Once the Apollo missions ended NASA began the space shuttles program that lasted until last year. The shuttle was used as a recoverable space vehicle for putting satellites into orbit, servicing the Hubble Telescope and supplying the International Space Station.

Congress became more and more disenchanted with NASA’s lack of a focus as they spent more and more money. NASA began to dabble in climate change, environmental issues, and even wanting to give Islamic countries more involvement with the space program. They had become a political correct bureaucracy with no clear mission.

Now the Obama administration is outsourcing much of NASA’s space program, particularly supplying the ISS, to Russia. The Mail Online reported this week that American astronaut blasted off in Russian rocket after the end of shuttle program forces U.S. to outsource space travel:

“They may have been bitter enemies during the Cold War space race, but these days the U.S. and Russia work together to transport astronauts through the cosmos.

And it's just as well - for since the demise of the space shuttle programme last year, NASA has been forced to piggy-back off other countries rockets for its space expeditions.

This enforced co-operation was on show on Sunday, when American Sunita Williams joined colleagues from Russia and Japan on a Soyuz capsule headed to the International Space Station for a four-month mission.

Ms Williams, Yuri Malenchenko and Akihiko Hoshide launched successfully from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 0240 GMT.

They are scheduled to berth early on Tuesday, joining Nasa Flight Engineer Joseph Acaba and Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin aboard the ISS.

'The Soyuz had a very smooth ride into space,' a spokesman for Nasa said during a live broadcast on the agency's television channel.

The Soyuz TMA-05M rocket blazed a bright orange trail through cloudy skies above the Kazakh steppe on the first stage of its journey to the ISS, a $100billion research complex orbiting 240 miles above Earth.

Moscow hopes a successful mission will help to restore confidence in its once-pioneering space programme after a string of launch mishaps last year, including the failure of a mission to return samples from the Martian moon Phobos.

The previous Soyuz launch on May 15 was delayed by more than a month after an accident during pressure tests damaged the Soyuz crew capsule. There were no such delays with Sunday's launch.

'The most tense, the most difficult part (of the launch) has been successfully implemented,' said Vladimir Popovkin, head of Russian space agency Roscosmos.

'I have just spoken to the crew. They are feeling great,' Russian news agencies quoted Popovkin as saying in Baikonur. 'I have no doubts that all will go according to plan.'

Colonel Malenchenko, a 50-year-old cosmonaut on his fifth space voyage, loosened his straps about 20 minutes after blast-off after conducting air pressure checks.

Asked by Mission Control how the crew was feeling, he replied: 'Good.' A doll given to him by his daughter dangled from the roof of the capsule.

Captain Williams, 46, and Mr Hoshide, 43, a civilian engineer, are both on their second space flight and their first aboard a Soyuz spacecraft.

They, along with Colonel Malenchenko, are scheduled to return to Earth in mid-November.

The previous crew of three at the ISS returned on July 1. Cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, NASA astronaut Don Pettit and European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers helped to dock the first privately owned spacecraft during a six-month stint in orbit.

Sunday's launch took place less than three weeks after China's Shenzhou 9 spacecraft returned to Earth, ending a mission that put the country's first woman in space.

Although China is far from catching up with the United States and Russia, the Shenzhou 9 marked China's fourth manned space mission since 2003.

It comes as budget restraints and shifting priorities have held back U.S. manned space launches.”

So while Obama and his media minions harp about Bain Capital our campaigner-in chief is outsourcing elements of our national defense to nations that have their own interests in mind — not ours. Once a leader in space technology we have abdicated that role to our once Cold War enemy and China. This is due of an absence of a clear mission for NASA by Obama and the Bush Administrations. Obama wants to put all of his emphasis on social issues and class warfare, items not enumerated to Congress for funding, while we lose our edge in technology.

The Legitimate Use of Taxpayer Money

“To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;” — Article I, Section 8.11 of the Constitution of the United States.

Columnist Charles Krauthammer calls the ceremonial interment of the shuttle Discovery an act of "willed American decline." He's certainly right about that. It is an historic retreat for America.

Mr. Krauthammer writes:

“As the space shuttle Discovery flew three times around Washington, a final salute before landing at Dulles Airport for retirement in a museum, thousands on the ground gazed upward with marvel and pride. Yet what they were witnessing, for all its elegance, was a funeral march.

The shuttle was being carried -- its pallbearer, a 747 -- because it cannot fly, nor will it ever again. It was being sent for interment. Above ground, to be sure. But just as surely embalmed as Lenin in Red Square.

Is there a better symbol of willed American decline? The pity is not Discovery's retirement -- beautiful as it was, the shuttle proved too expensive and risky to operate -- but that it died without a successor. The planned follow-on -- the Constellation rocket-capsule program to take humans back into orbit and from there to the moon -- was canceled in 2010. And with that, control of manned spaceflight was ceded to Russia and China.”

It was under John F. Kennedy, a liberal Democrat, that America was summoned to greatness. Frustrated by a series of Soviet "firsts" in space — first earth satellite (Sputnik), first man in space (Yuri Gagarin) — the young President Kennedy knew that his talk of "getting America moving again" would ring hollow if the Soviets bested us in space.

For the USSR, space was vitally important. Nikita Khrushchev was the Communist Party boss who had famously denounced his dead predecessor, Josef Stalin. Under Khrushchev, Stalin's embalmed remains were hauled out of Lenin's tomb, cremated, and buried in an obscure Kremlin grave. But how to legitimize Khrushchev's own dictatorship? How to show the world that Communism was the wave of the future? Space. For Nikita Sergeivich Khruschev, Marxism-Leninism would be validated by conquering space. Russian, not English, would be the first language spoken in the Cosmos. Cosmonauts, not Astronauts, would lead progressive mankind.

Khrushchev chose Yuri Gagarin to orbit the earth because Gagarin was a clean-cut, fit, and outspokenly atheist young Soviet pilot. When Gagarin came safely to earth, he told a press conference he had seen "nyet boga" up there. No God. One Soviet historian, Zheyva Sveltilova, told credulous Westerners that when the hammer and sickle conquer space, "people who now believe in God will reject him. Such belief won't be logical or natural. Man will be stronger than God."

It is noteworthy that the brave Apollo 8 astronauts — Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders — the first human beings to leave Earth orbit and travel to the Moon — did not reject God. In fact, they read from the Book of Genesis as their spacecraft orbited the Moon. On Christmas Eve, 1968, no less. And Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the Moon, celebrated Christian communion in the lunar lander as Neil Armstrong of Apollo XI took his famous "giant leap for mankind."

President Kennedy resolved to find that one goal that could inspire Americans and capture the imagination of mankind — and in an arena where he knew the United States could best its Communist adversary: the Moon. At a time when leading Republicans — Barry Goldwater; William F. Buckley, Jr. — carped that the effort to reach the Moon would be too costly, Kennedy's vision prevailed. He knew that being Number One in space would pay dividends on Earth. Surely, it has. The entire computer revolution we are living through was spurred by America's Moon landing.

The U.S. Earth satellite program began in 1954 as a joint U.S. Army and U.S. Navy proposal, called Project Orbiter, to put a scientific satellite into orbit during the International Geophysical Year. The proposal, using a military Redstone missile, was rejected in 1955 by the Eisenhower administration in favor of the Navy's Project Vanguard, using a booster produced for civilian space launches. Following the launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957, the initial Project Orbiter program was revived as the Explorer program to catch up with the Soviet Union.

I can remember watching the attempted launch of the Vanguard missile with nu buddy, who at the time was working for a firm that was making the guidance system. As we watched the missile fire up, begin.to lift off the pad and them tip over and crash and burn I saw my friend’s face turn white with embarrassment at the Vanguard’s failure. The American public was very saddened by this failure and wanted much better results.

After the second failure of Vanguard the Eisenhower Administration tuned to the Army’s Redstone Missile program in Huntsville. Alabama. This program was being led by the repatriated Nazi V-2 rocket experts under the leadership of Werner Von Braun.

Explorer 1 was designed and built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), while a Jupiter-C rocket was modified by the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) to accommodate a satellite payload; the resulting rocket known as the Juno I. The Jupiter-C design used for the launch had already been flight-tested in nose cone reentry tests for the Jupiter IRBM, and was modified into Juno I. Working closely together, ABMA and JPL completed the job of modifying the Jupiter-C and building Explorer 1 in 84 days. However, before work was completed, the Soviet Union launched a second satellite, Sputnik 2, on November 3, 1957. The U.S. Navy's attempt to put the first U.S. satellite into orbit failed with the launch of the Vanguard TV3 on December 6, 1957.

On January 31, 1958 at 22:48 Eastern Time the 31 pound Explorer I satellite was successfully launched and a little beeping satellite was now orbiting the earth. The United States was now in the space race whether we liked it or not and the carping and debate began. The most common carp was; “why do we want to spend money on space when we have so many problems here like poverty and lack of jobs.” On the other hand those with vision believed we had to make these expenditures for our national defense. If the Soviets could launch a 184 pound satellite how soon before they could put nuclear weapons into orbit and hold the world hostage to their totalitarian way of life.

In 1961 when President Kennedy made his famous go to the moon speech I was just a few years out of high school and thinking of moving to California, the land of sunshine and gold. At the time of his bold announcement the scientists and engineers did not have the slightest clue as to how they would accomplish this feat. With the exception of Jules Vern not many folks had thought about going to the moon and for what reason. After all there was no one living there and it was a very inhospitable place. What would be the value of this beside a great public relations exercise?

To go to the moon meant not only rockets and space vehicles it required a whole new way of thinking, project management, and above all industrial innovations. New metals would have to be developed, computers were needed, ground launching facilities were needed, and thousands of new engineers and technicians were needed. This meant high paying jobs and professional careers for kids still in high school. It meant learning math and science. It meant getting good grades. It meant an exciting future for those who wanted to learn and join the program. It also meant millions of job for construction workers and those entrepreneurs who would build and run the ancillary facilities around the new space launch and control facilities.

You may now be asking that while all this public works spending is good for the economy by what Constructional authority did Congress have to spend this money. In Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution there are three enumerated powers authorizing Congress to allocated funds for this space/defense program:

Section 8.12: To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

Section 8.13: To provide and maintain a navy;

Section 8.14: To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

Also the preamble itself states:

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

In the common defense statement the framers wanted the new nation to be strong enough to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. This might be a difficult feat with soviet nuclear weapons orbiting above our planet.

This is one time I take issue with Barry Goldwater and William F. Buckley. While they thought the moon undertaking was too expensive I believe this space/defense enterprise paid tremendous dividends with the technology and jobs that technology created. This in turn increased the tax base of the United States and gave us unbridled scientific and industrial leadership in the world. I can recall visiting our friends in Paris in 1978 with our family. Our Parisian friends had a 12-year old son at the time. Vincent had models of every rocket the United States had built and was enthralled with our space program. He thought the United States was the greatest industrial and scientific nation in the world. How do we rank today? Our youth want to pursue careers in psychology, women’s studies, and almost anything except engineering. Today we get our engineers from India, Pakistan, and other points east.

The spin off from the space/defense enterprise is too numerous to catalog. New meals and carbon fiber materials were developed that are commonplace in the auto industry today. Computer chips were developed and then improved, and improved to where they are today. The astronauts on Apollo 8 did not have the computing power of one of today’s $300 dollar notebooks that you can purchase at Best Buy, and their computers cost millions. A new way of exchanging information was needed so DARPA along with other universities and private companies developed a new way of sharing information. This effort morphed into something called the Internet, a utility we all use today and which has allowed numerous entrepreneurs to create millions of jobs and make billions of dollars.

The Global Positioning System (GPS) industry was another one of those spin offs from the space/defense undertaking. Developed for the Navy in 1973 to overcome the limitations of previous navigation systems GPS was intended to give our nuclear submarines exact positioning in case they needed to launch the missiles in anger. Although classified at its inception it did not take long for the technology genie of GPS to jump out of the bottle and become an everyday utility today. In 1973 the average person did not much care about latitude and longitude unless he was a sailor and then he had to rely on imprecise radio navigation or the methods Magellan or Columbus used to navigate the seas.

The GPS satellites were place in a safe orbit at 12,600 miles (20,200 Km) in order to keep them safe from enemy rocket attacks. The high orbit of the GPS satellites also allowed for the precise navigation and docking of space vehicles such as the space shuttle. Once again when the GPS genie was out of the bottle it did not take firms like Trimble, Magellan and Garmin to spring up making GPS gear for the private sector. Today the use of GPS is commonplace in land surveying, construction, navigation, and monitoring of crustal movement. Almost every new car on the market has a GPS navigation unit and even digital cameras and cell phone are equipped with GPS. When you take a photo with your GPS enabled camera of cell phone and use the appropriate computer application you can see exactly where you took your photo. Even my iPad has GPS. So who said the consumer did not care about longitude and latitude? He may not understand the tremendous amount of science and technology that went into GPS, but he or she sure likes to set their destination into his or hers auto navigation system to find the best driving route and watch the little icon travel along the road or find a place to eat along the way. And you can buy one of these navigation units for less than $200 toady.

Once again I harken back to those who objected about the moon program. In 1964 Lyndon Johnson pushed his war on poverty on the American people and in almost 50 years we have not eliminated poverty. At that time, the poverty rate in America was around 19 percent and falling rapidly. This year, it is reported that the poverty rate is expected to be roughly 15.1 percent and climbing. Between then and now, the federal government spent roughly $12 trillion fighting poverty, and state and local governments added another $3 trillion. Yet the poverty rate never fell below 10.5 percent and is now at the highest level in nearly a decade. Clearly, we have been doing something wrong.

On the other hand the moon project and other related scientific and technological programs have delivered millions of good paying jobs, created trillions in wealth, and created untold benefits to our civil society through the free market. Sometimes our vision is not too clear or far reaching. When man is given the knowledge and opportunity great things are possible. Our Founders knew this very well.

In his jaunty way, JFK said, "America has thrown her hat over the wall of space, and we have no choice but to follow." President Kennedy was right. The American Apollo program was one of the greatest events in all of human history. By turning our backs on JFK's achievement, we have consented to national humiliation and national decline.

An American astronaut was asked recently what advice she had for a young child interested in space. "Learn Russian," she said. Inspired by John F. Kennedy, America went to the Moon. On Kennedy's grave at Arlington the night of July 20, 1969, someone put a simple note: "The Eagle has landed." In the Age of Obama, the Eagle has fallen.

The Growing Corruption of the Obama Administration

“Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce.” — President James A. Garfield

As President Obama continues to drop in the polls more and more evidence of the corruption and crony capitalism of his administration are emerging on almost a daily basis. Not since Warren Harding’s administration’s Tea Pot Dome Scandal of 1922-1923 has an administration been so involved in using the taxpayer’s money to pay off their financial supporters. Not since Richard Nixon’s loyalists use of the government to establish an enemy’s list has an administration so blatantly attacked those who do not support Obama’s policies.

Obama’s green jobs policies have failed at every level and he continually pushes for more money to be poured into his favorite companies. He has picked winners and losers in the marketplace with his bailout of General Motors and Chrysler. He has requested a serving four star air force general and head of the U.S. Space Command to alter his testimony before a congressional committee regarding the dangers to our national security and economy from a company he has invested $90,000 in. He has continual brought his Chicago politics to the White House while telling Americans to pay their fair share and he promotes his politics of class warfare.

The latest developments in the case of the bankruptcy of Solyndra are emerging almost daily as the FBI and Congress begin to investigate the details surrounding the misuse of $530 million dollars of taxpayer’s money.

Fox News reports that Solyndra executives will plead the Fifth Amendment at Congressional hearings:

“Executives with the bankrupt solar energy firm at the heart of a widening federal controversy plan to plead the Fifth when they head to Capitol Hill for a hearing Friday.

A statement Tuesday from California-based Solyndra said CEO Brian Harrison and Chief Financial Officer Bill Stover have informed members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that they will not be able to provide "substantive answers" to lawmakers' questions due to the ongoing Justice Department probe.

"Present circumstances require both gentlemen to exercise their Fifth Amendment rights in the face of questioning that might occur," the company said.

Republican committee leaders blasted Solyndra executives for "breaking an agreement to voluntarily testify."

"Who exactly are Solyndra's executive trying to protect and what are they trying to hide?" said Reps. Fred Upton, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Cliff Stearns, chairman of the Investigations Subcommittee.

The company's statement said both executives were following the advice of counsel, but it also continued to defend the firm's actions. The company came under scrutiny after filing for bankruptcy despite receiving nearly $530 million in federal taxpayer-backed loans. “

In the second emerging example of Obama’s Chicago pay-for-play politics at report in the Daily Beast claims that a second government official was requested to alter his testimony regarding LightSquared’s attempt to develop a broadband network that would interfere with our space-based global positioning system:

“Anthony Russo, director of the National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing, told The Daily Beast he rejected “guidance” from the White House’s Office of Budget and Management suggesting he tell Congress that the government’s concerns about the project by the firm LightSquared could be resolved in 90 days, a timetable favorable to the company’s plans.

“They gave that to me and presumably the other witnesses,” Russo said. “There is one sentence I disagreed with, which said that I thought the testing could be resolved in 90 days. So I took it out.”

Russo said he objected to that language because “I have low confidence that we can complete all of the testing in 90 days.” He estimated that such testing would take at least six months. Russo called the White House efforts to alter his testimony “guidance rather than pressure.”

Russo’s comments come just days after four-star Air Force Gen. William Shelton, who heads U.S. Space Command, told Congress in a classified briefing that he felt pressured by the White House to change his testimony about the same project to make it more favorable to the company.”

In the LightSquared case, the billionaire backer of the company, Phillip Falcone, has rejected claims that he used White House connections to interfere with a Pentagon commander's testimony on Capitol Hill last week. He told Megyn Kelly of Fox News it was "absolutely false" to claim he obtained written testimony in advance.

Air Force Gen. William Shelton had told a House subcommittee that the network could interfere with critical GPS systems used by the military. But Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, later told Fox News that Shelton confided that he thought the testimony had been leaked, and that he rebuffed requests to soften it.

While the Solyndra scandal involves millions in taxpayer’s money going down the Obama’s rat hole of green jobs the blossoming LightSquared scandal can affect our national security and billions of dollars in our economy not to mention each of us on a personal basis.

LightSquared claims to have a 10-cent fix yet no one in the GPS industry has yet to see it. Fox News reports:

“The billionaire backer of a controversial new wireless technology said a fix is in the works for the signal overlap issue that may effectively render GPS useless -- a possibility that the Air Force, police and others have called a dangerous threat to our nation's security.

LightSquared backer Philip Falcone told FoxNews.com that issue lies in the GPS satellites themselves, which were designed to use a specific wedge of bandwidth but sloppily spill out and "listen in" on nearby signals. That wasn't an issue 20 years ago; today it limits LightSquared's ability to create a new high-speed wireless data network.

But a 10-cent filter can fix the 40,000 military devices at risk, Falcone said -- something that should be done whether or not LightSquared is the problem.

"Quite frankly, if we interfere with public security, we should be fixed. And quite frankly, we don't," Falcone told Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly.

"That potential interference is down to a minimum, and that minimum is going to be fixed with some things we have done in the marketplace," Falcone said, promising to unveil this week a new solution to the GPS interference.

Will it be the 10-cent filters? Limited use of the available spectrum, another option LightSquared has suggested? A simple software patch? Falcone wouldn't say which it was, but offered a bit of clarity.

"These fixes are technology issues, not physics issues," Falcone told Fox News.”

But the GPS Industry and users disagree:

"It's a physics issue," said Ted Gartner, a spokesman for GPS manufacturing giant Garmin.

"LightSquared has been talking about the 10-cent filter ever since the issue came up," Gartner told FoxNews.com. "We've asked to see it. we've asked to test it. And lo and behold, it has never appeared."

"By all accounts, it does not exist," he said.”

In dramatic, eye-opening testimony before the House Armed Services Committee last week, General William Shelton, head of Air Force Space Command, detailed the results of tests from earlier this year intended to precisely quantify the effect of LightSquared's forthcoming network on GPS.

"Aviation receivers operating as far as 7.5 miles from LightSquared transmitters completely lost GPS and were degraded out to distances of more than 16.5 miles," Shelton said. "High precision GPS receivers such as those used for surveying and geological study requiring precise measurements were adversely affected out to 213 miles and totally lost GPS out to 4.8 miles."

Shelton noted that the State of New Mexico believes the LightSquared network could "jeopardize 911 and public safety."

As a practicing professional land surveyor for 55 years and a pioneer in the use of GPS for geodetic, land and construction surveying I am fearful that LightSquared broadband network will destroy the use of GPS in surveying and navigation.

Today the general public accepts GPS as a common utility. You have GPS navigation in your automobile and cell phones. Military and commercial aviation rely on GPS for air traffic control and safety. Ships entering our harbors and ports use GPS to navigate the ship channels saving millions of dollars in time and possible damage to the ships each year. Truckers use GPS not only for navigation but to track their shipments. GPS is used to monitor ground subsidence and geological activities. All of these uses require precision GPS that can determine geographic position and elevation to within centimeters.

As the person who co-authored the National Height Modernization Program for the National Geodetic Survey and Congress I know how important precision GPS is to our national security, safety and economy.

Robert D. Towery, the Chief City Surveyor for the City of Houston wrote:

“Part of my responsibility as the City Surveyor of Houston is the City's active CORS [Continuous Operating Reference Sations]. Houston is not a stable enough place that benchmarks don't move, so GPS is realistically our only reliable, cost effective method for providing control, referencing surveys, our basis for GIS, and relating to the flood plain. We could go back to our old system, hard point monuments that become unreliable after a few years, (the earth moves under us here), at a projected cost of more than $50 million, just to cover our current City Limits and an annual budget of $5 million, to re-observe and adjust monuments in high subsidence areas. When I came to work for the City, we had 53 different datum sources and adjustments. You literally could not get there from here, the adjustments were area-specific, crossing out of a specified area of adjustment into another caused never-ending sources of trouble for City projects. Going back to that nightmare is just too horrifying to think of.”

Marc Cheves, the editor of American Surveyor Magazine wrote in a recent editorial:

“The LightSquared issue refuses to go away. After the presentations by LightSquared and the Coalition to Save Our GPS at the Survey Summit in July, it seemed that if LightSquared stayed in the lower band of the two bands adjacent to GPS, its plan might work. Since then, it has become apparent that even that band is unacceptable. Here's the situation: the bands that LightSquared is seeking to use have always been reserved for space-based transmissions. Because LightSquared has convinced the FCC to allow it to make terrestrially-based transmissions, the problem becomes one of signal strength. Signals from space have been described as whispers, and the GPS manufacturers have done a marvelous job of extracting useable information from these weak signals, even being able to sort out GPS signals from signals that are millions of times stronger. LightSquared, with its terrestrial scheme, broadcasts signals that are billions of times stronger than GPS. The bottom line for us is that we simply cannot coexist with LightSquared in bands that are adjacent to the GPS signals.

To support this, the National Space-based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Advisory Board finally weighed in with the following: We strongly recommend that the Commission rescind its conditional wavier and not allow a change in the structure of the MSS band that abuts GPS to allow transmissions that interfere with GPS. Another frequency band must be found, well away from GPS that allows LightSquared to compete with the other broadband suppliers and does not jeopardize US infrastructure, imposing unnecessary costs to the many millions of current GPS users.

To make matters worse, collusion in the highest places seems to be the order of the day according to an Inside GNSS article which states "...political influences, driven by Harbinger's billions and the president's desire to lift up expansion of wireless broadband as a feature of his re-election campaign..." This is not the first time the FCC—an agency that apparently answers to no one—has been accused of being susceptible to undue influence. Once again, it appears that the FCC has been co-opted by political and financial interests.”

In a statement issued by the Coalition to Save Our GPS it is stated:

“We are astonished to hear that Phil Falcone, head of the New York hedge fund that controls LightSquared, believes that LightSquared is being “stonewalled,” apparently by the “GPS industry.” It seems that Mr. Falcone gives no credence to a four star general of our armed forces, the commander of the Air Force Space Command, when he testifies under oath before Congress that, ‘In summary, based on the test results and analysis today, the LightSquared network would effectively jam vital GPS receivers. And to our knowledge thus far, there are no mitigation options that would be effective in eliminating interference to essential GPS services in the United States.’ When questioned about costs, the general responded, ‘We have not estimated cost. However, I think it'd be very safe to say that the cost would be in the b's – billions of dollars.’

“At this point, there is apparently nothing that can convince Mr. Falcone that there are legitimate concerns over interference from GPS – even though every major government agency and every affected company other than LightSquared is on record that its proposal will cause substantial and harmful interference to critical uses of GPS. How LightSquared didn’t know this all along, and how it can continue to suggest that it is simply stonewalling to raise these concerns, is beyond comprehension.

“In fact, LightSquared said at the outset of this process that it had a plan that would not interfere with GPS signals. Comprehensive testing organized by the FCC showed that its first plan would cause devastating interference to GPS. A second plan was discarded for the same reason. LightSquared is now on its third plan and just last week both the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the president’s principal adviser on spectrum policies, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), concluded that more testing is needed to determine whether that third plan adequately addresses interference issues.

“It’s time for LightSquared to stop its glossy ads, irresponsible rhetoric, revisionist history and finger pointing, and provide genuine, fully- tested solutions to the GPS interference problem. LightSquared has always been prohibited from interfering with GPS, and it should have done its homework on this critical issue before spending its investors’ money. It is not the fault of government GPS users or the GPS industry that LightSquared has failed to offer proposals that actually solve the problem. LightSquared must accept the responsibility to provide technical proposals that do resolve the problem, as well as its financial responsibility to address any interference issues that it cannot resolve by technical proposals.”

The general public does not know how much the use GPS plays in our national security and economy today. From the guidance system in a smart bomb launched from a Predator Drone at a terrorist hideout to a fisherman marking the location of his favorite fishing spot GPS is used every day by millions of Americans in their daily lives. It is used by trucking companies to track the location of the item you purchased online and by construction firms to control their earth moving equipment. GPS is used by the aviation industry for navigation and to insure safe all weather landings at airports where the cost of ground-based radar and ILS equipment is too expensive. It is used by emergency first responders to get an ambulance to the house of a person suffering a heart attack as quickly as possible. GPS is used by land surveyors to survey roads, bridges, damns, sewer systems, and land development projects as half the cost of traditional methods. GPS is even used by photographers to mark the locations of their travel photos for Google Earth and Flicker. GPS is a national utility.

As Marc Cheves said; “What a sad legacy if high precision GPS works everywhere else in the world except in the United States. Didn't we pioneer, design, build, pay for, and continue to operate this wonderful system? There will be high precision GPS in Syria, Libya, Iran, Pakistan, etc. — everywhere but here.”

The End of an Era

"The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society." — James Madison

Today the space shuttle Atlantis landed marking the end of a thirty-year program of the United States, domination of space. The New York Times reports:

“The last space shuttle flight rolled to a stop just before 6 a.m. on Thursday, closing an era of the nation’s space program.

“Mission complete, Houston,” said Capt. Christopher J. Ferguson of the Navy, commander of the shuttle Atlantis for the last flight. “After serving the world for over 30 years, the space shuttle has earned its place in history, and it’s come to a final stop.”

It was the 19th night landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to end the 135th space shuttle mission. For Atlantis, the final tally of its 26-year career is 33 missions, accumulating just short of 126 million miles during 307 days in space, circumnavigating the Earth 4,848 times.”

This marks the end of an era where the United States led the world in space exploration and technology, an era of optimism, opportunity and technical achievements. According to the Times article:

“During the 13-day mission, Atlantis ferried 8,000 pounds of supplies and spare parts to the International Space Station. With the retirement of the shuttles, the space station will now rely on Russian, European and Japanese rockets to bring up supplies.

NASA is also counting on two commercial companies, the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation of Hawthorne, Calif., and the Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Va., to begin cargo flights next year.

For Atlantis, NASA will now begin the work of transforming it into a museum piece. It will be mounted nearby at Kennedy’s visitor center.”

Our leadership in space began in 1903 when the Wright Brothers made their first flight on the windblown sands of Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. This leadership in aviation grew throughout the twentieth century as our aircraft industry began to dominate the fields of military and commercial aviation. Companies like Grumman, Lockheed, MacDonald Douglas and Boeing were producing aircraft that not only helped us win World War II, but brought us to the pinnacle in commercial aviation.

In 1961 President John Kennedy made a bold announcement that we would go to the moon in ten years and with the participation of the private sector we made it in eight with Apollo 11 landing on the Sea of Tranquility on July 20, 1969. Those of us who were watched this event on television will never forget Neil Armstrong stepping down from the lunar lander Eagle and setting man’s first step ever on the surface of the moon as he proclaimed; "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

And it was one giant leap for mankind, a leap in optimism, science and technology. Countless technological advancement stemmed from the space program over the ensuing years — everything from microchips to thermal blankets. The art of program and project management blossomed and scientist and engineers worked as a team as never before. Thousands of businesses, large and small, were created as each new technological development was refined and released to the general public. Millions of jobs were created as these businesses grew and flourished. As the businesses and jobs grew so did the economy. It was a time of great technological progress that brought benefits to millions of people.

School children did not have to be encouraged to study math, science, physics and engineering. They saw the opportunities that these subjects would bring them in the free marketplace. They were motivated, not by government and academic pronouncements, but by the mere fact that they w

For 23 years I lived in a community in Westminster, California where many of my neighbors worked for MacDonald Douglas and Northrop, two of the larger aerospace contractors. They had good paying jobs, bought homes, sent their kids to school and college, took vacations and went shopping. All of this profited the economy at large. Everyone benefitted.

Of course there were the detractors, the progressives, who did not have the vision to see the benefits of the space program. They whined and decried he money being spent on space claiming the money should be spent on earth to help the poor, provide for better education and promote social justice. These small-minded people just could not see or understand of capitalism worked. They believed it was government’s role to spend this money on social programs and did not see the force multiplier that these dollars spent on space exploration would bring to the economy thus providing better paying jobs and opportunities for all. These are the same people we have today clamoring for social justice and wealth redistribution.

By contrast look at the Soviet space program. Their program was a communist run program that did nothing for their economy but spend money of government jobs. They never landed on the moon and the program did not benefit their people. Their state run industries could not compete with our free market system. Their economy suffered while ours flourished.

Over the years NASA lost their way. They became a bureaucratic agency with a budget of 18 billion dollars and 18,000 government employees. Many of the tasks once outsourced to small and medium sized businesses were now being done by their government, civil service staff to whom we are liable for lifetime pensions and health care. Simple tasks like surveying are now being done by NASA employees or by the employees of other government agencies like the National Geodetic Survey.

Also their mission changed over the years from space exploration to domestic programs such as climate monitoring and weather forecasting, things duplicating the activities of NOAA or the private sector. Under the Obama administration they have been tasked with social programs like advancing the participation of Islamic countries in the program — Islamic countries that did nothing to promote or advance space exploration or the development of technology.

Now we will leave the exploration of space to the Russians, to whom we shared our technology with. They will be charging us billions of dollars to send men into space. This will create no new jobs in he United States, in fact we will lose thousands of jobs. How crazy is this?

Soon it will be the Chinese and Indians who will take over the exploration of the universe and we will be related to second rate player in the space program while we become more and more addicted to social justice, social networking and wealth redistribution.

Today was the end of an era and a sad day to the United States.

101 Gadgets that Changed the World

"I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious." — Thomas Jefferson

I enjoy lists. Lists like the top ten beers, the most watched TV shows or the best selling cars in the world. Many of these lists are compiled by trade magazines representing the items the lists refer to, i.e. beverage, entertainment and auto magazines.

The other night the History Channel had a program devoted to the 101 gadgets that changed the world. The list was compiled by Popular Mechanics Magazine. I was fascinated with some of the selection PM had included in their list. Here are a few selections that I thought were simple, yet I believe had a great impact on society and the way work, play and live. You can go through the list and make your choices for the “best” selections.

No.101 Duct Tape: NASA astronauts have used it to make repairs on the moon and in space. The MythBusters built a boat and held a car together with the stuff. Brookhaven National Laboratory fixed their particle accelerator with it. And enthusiasts have used it to make prom dresses and wallets. You might say it's a material, not a gadget, but trust us: Duct tape is the ultimate multitool. I can’t tell you how many times I have used duct tape. I have used it repair cars and household items. I is inexpensive and I always carry a roll in my car and suitcase when I travel.

No. 99 the Stapler: The first known stapler was handmade in the 18th century in France for King Louis XV. Each staple was inscribed with the insignia of the royal court, as required. The growing uses of paper in the 19th century created a demand for an efficient paper fastener.

In 1866, George McGill received U.S. patent 56,587 for a small, bendable brass paper fastener that was a precursor to the modern staple. In 1867, he received U.S. patent 67,665 for a press to insert the fastener into paper. He showed his invention at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and continued to work on these and other various paper fasteners through the 1880s. In 1868 a patent was also taken out for a stapler in England by C.H.Gould. As well, also in 1868, Albert Kletzker of St Louis, MO patented a device to staple paper.

No matter the color or size the stapler is one of the most “can’t do without” tolls of the office. It replaced those pesky paper clips that always rusted and stained your documents. Of course its companion tool, the staple remover is a must tool if you want to save your fingernails. The stapler was so popular the largest office supply store in the world borrowed its name. Today we use all sorts of staplers: heavy duty, electric, industrial for construction and surgical staplers to stich you up.

No.94 the Blender: Stephen Poplawski invented the blender in 1922, but his name is not the one most often associated with the gadget. That honor belongs to Fred Waring — an orchestra leader in Pennsylvania who, in 1936, offered financial backing to a tinkerer named Frederick Osius who was developing a similar invention. One reason for Waring's interest: He could use Osius's gadget to puree raw vegetables for the ulcer diet his doctors prescribed. The Waring Blender debuted in 1937 and cost $29.75; ($470 in today’s dollars).by 1954 one million of the devices had been sold. It was a gadget for the rich, but with completion and manufacturing techniques you can buy a simple blender for under $40 today at Wall-Mary or Target.

No. 90 the Zippo Lighter: Almost every soldier or sailor in WWII had a Zippo lighter. The Zippo, that stalwart status symbol of the smoky second half of the 20th century, was born in 1932 in the most inauspicious of settings: a rented room over the Rickerson and Pryde auto shop in tiny Bradford, Penn. Equipped with a kitchen hotplate for soldering, a used welding kit, and a punch press, founder George Blaisdell and two employees went to work. In the first month of production, January 1933, they produced 82 lighters. In February, output jumped to 367. By 2006, the total number of Zippo lighters surpassed 425 million lighters.

Today you can get a custom Zippo emblazoned with the emblem of your military unit, your company logo or favorite sports team. These lighters make great give-away marketing items. There are even butane versions on the market today.

No. 88 the Flash Drive: Boy is this one is a gem. Toshiba engineer Fujio Masuoka developed the concept of flash memory—so-called because the erasure process reminded a colleague of a camera flash—in the early 1980s. But the good ship flash drive needed a way to dock. Intel's Ajay Bhatt and his Universal Serial Bus (USB), which was introduced in 1996, provided part of the solution. But data still didn't travel well until 2000, when the first USB flash-drive stick, with 8 megabytes of storage, arrived.

These 8Mgb flash drives sold for around $60 dollars, but it didn’t take long for bigger and bigger drives to come on the market reducing the price. Today we have flash drives with capacities up to 32 Gigabytes and the 1Gig versions selling for under $10 dollars. These, like to Zippo make great give-away marketing items.

No. 85 Sunglasses: These most common of health and fashion accessories came on the market ten years after founding the Foster Grant plastic company in 1919 to make hair accessories for women. Sam Foster switched his focus to a new consumer product — sun-blocking eyewear. Targeting the throngs of beachgoers in Atlantic City, Foster started selling his wares — America's first mass-produced plastic lens sunglasses — at the Woolworth's on the oceanfront boardwalk. Foster's business boomed, prompting him to adopt the manufacturing technique known "injection molding" in 1934, which revolutionized American plastic production.

In 1936 Ray-Ban (founded by Bausch & Lomb) came out with their optical glass, green tinted versions. Unlike other sunglasses, Ray Ban Aviators classic style was created to deflect the sun’s glare and prevent light from hitting the eye. While their original design was meant to make an aviator’s job easier, their iconic design has withstood the test of time and is one of the most imitated brands on the market. Buying a Great Pair of Ray Ban Aviators History. The Ray Ban Aviator sunglasses have been around since the late 1930s. In fact, they were first released in 1936 but only for fighter pilots. They were not released for public consumption until 1938. Their designed was modeled after the goggles being sold to the military at that time. This was the beginning of what would later evolve into the Ray Ban Aviator Polarized upgrade. Their popularity stemmed from the media appearances of General Douglas MacArthur during World War II. He often wore Ray Ban Aviators and was photographed for many newspapers with them on. In my opinion these are the best sunglasses you can wear and I own two pair, one regular green and one polarized brown.

Since the introduction of the first sunglasses the industry blossomed with some of today’s fashion models selling for 3 or 4 hundred dollars. I’ll stick with my beloved Ray-Bans.

No. 83 the Toaster: People have been toasting bread since the days of the Holy Roman Empire; for a thousand years, the job was done by simply holding the bread over an open flame. In 1919, however, a plant mechanic in Stillwater, Minn., finally got fed up with the burnt toast in his company cafeteria. So, Charles Strite built a box that incorporated heating elements that browned both sides of the bread at once, a variable timer and springs to eject the bread. Originally intended for restaurants, the toaster is now in 90 percent of American homes; 12 million of the gadgets are sold annually.

No. 79 the Swiss Army Knife: Carl Elsener, a Swiss journeyman cutler, thought it was a disgrace that Swiss soldiers carried German-made knives. In 1890, he introduced the first Swiss Army Knife, the Modell 1980, which had a blade, an awl, a can opener and a screwdriver. Today you can get a Swiss Army Knife with a multitude of utility tools ranging from the traditional blade, awl and can opener to saws, pliers and scissors. There are two competing manufactures, Wenger and Victorinox. Wenger claims to be the “genuine” while Victorinox claims to be the “original” and was founded by Carl Elsener. You can tell the difference by the little Swiss flag emblem on the case. I have been to the Victorinox factory in Ibach, Switzerland and the visit was very rewarding — I purchased several Swiss Army Knives.

No. 78 The Can Opener: Canned food was invented for the British Navy in the early 1800s—but the modern can opener didn't come along until 1870, when American William Lyman created a simple device with a cutting wheel that rolls around the can's rim. Previously, can-opening instructions for British sailors read, "Cut round the top near the outer edge with a chisel and hammer." It is also claimed that Napoléon supplied his arm with canned food when they invaded Russia.

No. 74 The Safety Razor: King Camp Gillette did not invent the safety razor—that honor goes to the Kampfe Brothers, circa 1880--but his company, founded in 1901, quickly became the foremost name in facial hair removal. Advanced manufacturing methods, low prices and shrewd promotion— for example, Gillette arranged to have his safety razors issued to every American soldier during World War I — changed the practice of shaving from the exclusive domain of skilled barbers to an everyday act that any man could perform from the comfort of his own bathroom. And according to Gillette, his blade saved money and time, too. From the March 1918 issue of The Gillette Blade: "Every razor sold by the Gillette Company represents a saving of half an hour of time spent in a barber shop, without saying anything about the money paid for service and tips. With an approximate number of 10 million customers this would represent a saving of 10 million half-hours per day, or a saving of 5 million hours which might be devoted to study or labor and which represents 500,000 working days of the labor of 500,000 men constantly employed, which is nearly twice the number employed by the U.S. Steel Corporation, which at $3.00 per day represents a saving of $1,500,000 per day, or for a year of 300 days, a saving to the United States of labor equal to $450,000,000."

Today there are three major manufactures of safety razors, Gillette, Schick and BIC. Gillette and Schick compete for the higher end razors while BIC goes after those throw-away plastic ones. One thing Gillette discovered eary in the game was that could give the razor away and make money on the blades. Today’s you can pick up a Power Fusion razor for about seven bucks, but for replacement blade cartridges will cost you $20 dollars.

No. 71 The Kodak Carousel: Unveiled in 1961, it was not the first 35-mm slide projector--merely the best. Before the Carousel, projectors tended to be problematic machines. Other projectors at the time relied on temperamental mechanical parts to move the slide out of its stack and in front of the light, and jamming was a regular occurrence. According to Todd Gustavson, the George Eastman House's curator of technology, "The Carousel was the first projector to use that most dependable system of slide delivery: Gravity." But adman Don Draper put the Carousel's cultural impact best in his pitch to Kodak execs in an episode of the '60s-set show Mad Men: "This device isn't a spaceship, it's a time machine." He waxed poetic while clicking through images of his family life before it unraveled. "It lets us travel the way a child travels--around and around and back home again."

Thousands of architects, engineers, marketing professionals and family photo enthusiasts used the Kodak slide projector with a Carousel holding 40 or 80 slides for their presentations and boring family travel logs. How many of us have had to sit through an hour or so of blurred, overexposed, underexposed, out of focus and receptive 35mm slides of someone’s family vacation?

No. 66 The Tape Measure: The modern, spring-loaded tape measure was created by Alvin Fellows in 1868. Fellows' work improved upon an earlier model by encasing the tool in plastic and attaching it to a spring clip to lock the tape in place until its release. Yet despite the spring tape measure's timeless utilitarianism, it didn't start outselling the wooden yard stick until the 1940s; the gadget sped up construction during a major building boom: 14.1 million houses in a decade.

As a former surveyor I can’t tell you how valuable this little tool is. Today’s tape measures come in all sizes with dual scales in US and Metric markings. There even electric ones on the market.

No. 65 The Zipper: When inventor and farm implement salesman Whitcomb Judson unveiled his newly patented "clasp-locker" — which featured a central guide that hooked together the fastening clasps when pulled upward — at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the odd-looking and ungainly device failed to impress. The modern zipper didn't come about until the 1920s, when Goodyear put an improved version of the fastener on its Zipper galoshes.

Today we use zippers for almost everything from pants to suitcases. Many are now made of nylon and come in little tiny models to the large industrial types.

No. 59 The CD-ROM: The CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data.

CD-ROMs are popularly used to distribute computer software, including video games and multimedia applications, though any data can be stored (up to the capacity limit of a disc). Some CDs hold both computer data and audio with the latter capable of being played on a CD player, while data (such as software or digital video) is only usable on a computer (such as ISO 9660 format PC CD-ROMs). These are called enhanced CDs.

It is claimed that the first music CDs were developed by Sony and were designed to contain enough space to play Beethoven’s ninth symphony as that was Sony’s chairman of the board’s favorite piece of music. Today the CD Rom has been replaced with the DVD, which can play you favorite movies.

No. 54 The Ball Point Pen: The Reynolds Rocket, America's first ballpoint pen, cost $12.50 when it went on sale at Gimbels in 1945. Adjusting for inflation, $12.50 in 1945 dollars equals about $150 today. At $3.29 per dozen, that's 546 BIC pens.

I got my first ball point pen while in high school and paid for it with proceeds from my paper route. I paid $10 dollars for it and it skipped, smeared and would leak in your pocket. Today there are hundreds of models of ball point pens ranging from a $0.19 BIC to a $200 Mont Blanc. They all write the same.

No. 47 The Leatherman Tool: Invented in 1983 by Tim Leatherman, the Pocket Survival Tool (PST) has 14 tools, including a can opener, pliers, a file and four screwdrivers. Today, the Leatherman Surge features 21 tools. Even Victorinox makes the Swiss Army version. Everyone should have a Leatherman.

No. 45 The Sony Walkman: Sony's portable personal stereo pioneered the use of headphones. When the Walkman was introduced in Japan in 1979, Sony sold out the initial production run--30,000 units--in eight weeks. The gadget made its American debut in 1980 and became so ubiquitous that in 1986 the word "walkman" was added to the Oxford English Dictionary. By the time the line was retired in 2010, more than 220 million units had been sold.

No. 43 The Polaroid Camera: In 1943, Jennifer Land, 3, watched her father, Edwin, take photos: "Why can't I see the pictures now?" Her plea was answered in 1948, when Polaroid — the company her father headed — began selling instant film and cameras. It took 10 years and $250 million developing the iconic SX-70, which debuted in 1972. The expenditure nearly sank the firm, but by 1974 the camera was a hit: It spit out 1 billion prints that year.

For those old enough to remember you took the photo and its ejected from the camera. After a wait of about one minute you separated the two parts of the film leaving one as the photo and the other the throw away chemical sheet. Then you needed to rub some smelly stuff on the photos from the applicator that came with each package of film. Any place you went; to the beach, Disneyland or a National Park you would see hundreds of those black developing sheets in trash cans or lying about.

The photos were okay and there are no doubt thousands of scrapbooks and show boxes filled with these photos. Over the years the, camera, film and image got better and smelly stuff was no longer needed. Polaroid cameras are still in use today by people who want an instant hard copy photo for documentation purposes.

No. 41 The Pocket Calculator: Math nerds couldn't slip the first all-transistor calculator (1957) into their shirt pockets: The three-unit IBM 608 weighed 2400 pounds. Anyway, at $83,210, it was too pricey. By 1976, four-function pocket calculators weighed a few ounces and cost a few dollars.

I purchased my first electronic calculator in 1969. It was a Sharp with one storage memory and I paid $195 dollars ($1,200 in today’s dollars) for it. It was big, the battery did not last too long, but it beat the hell out of the slide rule I was using. Today you can pick up a pocket calculator for less than 3 dollars at a big box office store that does the same thing my $195 dollar behemoth did and its solar powered.

It did not take long for the pocket calculator to morph into the full function, programmable engineering, scientific and business models with more computing power than was onboard Apollo 13.

No. 40 The Wi-Fi Router: Since its introduction in 2000, Wi-Fi has made its way into more than 9000 devices, from phones to TVs. According to a Wi-Fi Alliance poll, 75 percent of young Americans say they would give up coffee before Wi-Fi. Almost every home with a cable or DSL Internet connection has a Wi-Fi router connected to their cable modem allowing distributed Internet access throughout the house. Now most hotels and motels advertise free Internet access by using Wi-Fi routers.

No. 36 The 8mm Camera: It's the most famous home movie in history: 486 frames that record on Kodachrome II safety film the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Abraham Zapruder had left his Bell & Howell 414PD Zoomatic camera (shown here) at home that day, but at his assistant's urging, he drove 14 miles round-trip to retrieve it. Each winding of the mechanical camera's mainspring lasts 30 seconds; the footage that became critical evidence in the Warren Commission's report on the assassination is 26 seconds long

I bought my first 8mm camera while in high school. It was a Bell and Howell with three lenses mounted on a rotating turret. Over the years I moved to Super-8mm and much more expensive cameras. I also got into the editing part of film making and have thousands of feet of movies film stored in reels.

No. 34 The Digital Camera: Logitech introduced the first consumer model, the Fotoman, in 1990. Because of its popularity and that of other models, Kodak retired its Kodachrome film format in 2009 after 74 years of service.

Today’s digital cameras come in all shapes, sizes and prices range from the $19.99 Wal-Mart special to the $6,000 Nikon D3s. They take great photos and many now take video. They have tuned millions of people into photographers and they no longer need show boxes. Now they just load up their PC hard drives with all of the images they take.

No. 32 The Computer Mouse: Initially, it was more like an elephant: The first trackball, which was invented by researchers in the Royal Canadian Navy in 1952, started life as a duckpin bowling ball. Other inventors created smaller prototypes, but it wasn't until Apple paired its Lisa computer with a small controller 31 years later that the mouse assumed the basic design it has retained for decades

No. 27 The Blackberry: In 1909, scientist and inventor Nikola Tesla wrote a piece for The New York Times — later quoted in Popular Mechanics — that essentially predicted the BlackBerry. "It will soon be possible to transmit wireless messages all over the world so simply that an individual can carry and operate his own apparatus," Tesla wrote. The BlackBerry was introduced in 1999; by 2009, 50 million of the devices had been sold. I am on my third model, the Torch.

No. 26 The Crescent Wrench: n 1907, the Crescent Tool Company was officially incorporated in Jamestown, N.Y., by Swedish emigrant Karl Peterson. It had one product--a wrench that could handle periodic brake and clutch adjustments on early automobiles, and replace an entire set of dedicated-size wrenches. Its popularity didn't end with car owners, however. After his historic transatlantic flight in 1927, Charles Lindbergh was quoted as saying he carried only "gasoline, sandwiches, a bottle of water, and a Crescent wrench and pliers."

No. 23 The Laptop Computer: In the age of the MacBook Air, a computer weighing more than a few pounds seems like a desktop. But the most successful early laptop was the 11-pound GRiD Compass 1101, a clamshell computer that went on sale in 1982. The gadget spurred innovation; today, 59 percent of U.S. adults own a desktop and 52 percent own a laptop. In the 18- to 34-year-old demo-graphic, seven in 10 are laptop owners.

Today’s laptop PC or MACs contain more computing power that all of NASA had during the moon launch program. When combined with Wi-Fi or phone modem Internet access the user has the ability to communicate with the world anywhere a cell phone will work.

No. 19 The Brownie Box Camera: Inexpensive and easy to operate, the Brownie was one of the first box cameras and brought the snapshot to the masses when it hit stores in 1900; 100,000 units sold that first year. Ansel Adams's parents gave one to their son during a 1916 trip to Yosemite National Park, when the future landscape photographer and environmentalist was 14. While setting up his first photo, Adams tumbled off a tree stump and inadvertently pressed the shutter. He rated the accidental image "one of my favorites from this, my first year of photography."

No. 17 The Handheld GPS: Before GPS was a road warrior's tool, it was the navigation system for actual U.S. military warriors. The government opened up GPS for civilian use in 1983, after the Soviets downed a Korean airliner in a no-fly zone. Magellan sold the first handheld unit in 1989, which believe it or not I helped them develop.

Today GPS is everywhere. It’s in your car, imbedded in your smart phone. Hikers and fishermen have small handheld units, you can get a wrist model for jogging and some camera makers, like Nikon, offer a small unit to attach to their higher end cameras for geo-tagging your photos.

No. 7 The Telephone: Alexander Graham Bell's interest in the education of deaf people-he began teaching at the Boston School for Deaf Mutes in 1871-led him to invent the microphone and, in 1876, the telephone, which he called the "electrical speech machine." In a 1912 issue of Popular Mechanics, Bell said, "To tell the truth, as a practical man, I did not quite believe it; as a theoretical man, I saw a speaking telephone by which we could have the means of transmitting speech and reproducing it in distant places. But it really seemed too good to be true, that one could possibly create, by the action of the voice itself, electrical impulses intense enough to serve any practical purpose." The device debuted at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, leading Brazilian Emperor Dom Pedro to exclaim: "My God, it talks!"

Just think of the Pandora’s Box Bell opened and the communications industry his invention created. We now have cell phones and texting (sexting in Anthony Weiner’s case) and the ability to interrupt people when they are eating their dinner.

No. 5 The Personal Computer: The forerunners of modern personal computers were introduced in the mid-1970s as kits. Little did pioneers like Bill Gates and Paul Allen, who wrote programming language for the MITS Altair 8800 kit, or Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who designed the skeletal Apple I, know what was in store. The Apple II, which debuted in 1977 with color graphics and an attachable floppy disk drive, ushered in a new technological era-and when IBM introduced its Personal Computer in 1981, the PC began its slow acceptance as a crucial business tool instead of merely a geeky toy. In 1983, there were 10 million personal computers in the U.S.; today 80 percent of American households have a notebook or PC, creating unprecedented levels of efficiency, capability, and access to news, music and entertainment.

No. 3 Television: The origins of television stretch back to the late 19th century, to a time before it was even technically feasible. In 1877, civil servant George Carey was already sketching drawings for a "selenium camera" that would allow people to "see by electricity;" at the same time, Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell were theorizing about telephones that could transmit images along with sound. Modern television was demonstrated in 1939 at the New York World's Fair-and soon TV beamed dramatic images of the Civil Rights movement; political debate and casualties of war; astronauts, pop musicians, sports heroes and more directly into American living rooms. In 1949, fewer than 1 million U.S. households had a TV; four years later, that number had ballooned to 25 million. For a half-century, TV has stood as the No. 1 source for Americans' news and entertainment, and today, 99 percent of U.S. households have a TV. We spend an average of 2.8 hours per day watching them

No. 2: Radio: Police switchboards jammed. Drivers fled cities. Doctors volunteered to treat the injured. Why all the ruckus? On Oct. 30, 1938-the day before Halloween-Orson Welles presented a radio play he based on H.G. Wells' sci-fi novel The War of the Worlds. The Mercury Theatre on the Air presentation sounded like a news broadcast of a Martian invasion, complete with fake bulletins that interrupted dance music. The resulting hysteria dramatically revealed the power of gadget No. 2, the first instrument of instant mass communication. Patented in England in 1896 as "wireless telegraphy" by Guglielmo Marconi-who based his work on technology developed by Nikola Tesla-radios were in 80 percent of U.S. homes by the time those aliens landed in New Jersey.

No. 1: Mobile/Smartphone: With origins tracing back to Finland and Japan in the '70s, mobile phones have fast become the most widely used gadgets in the world. The first billion units sold in 20 years, the second billion in four and the third billion in two. By the end of 2010, the subscription rate stood at 5 billion, or 75 percent of all people on earth. The technology leaped forward in 1983 with the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, the first truly portable cellphone. The smartphone, with us since 2000, is now a pocket-size PC. Wireless and GPS — and multimedia-enabled, it facilitates instantaneous personal connections that make phone conversations seem like cave paintings. People of developing nations, even those without an electrical grid, can tap into the world's commerce and culture. After a scant 11 years of development, the device seems to have limitless potential.

Well, that’s my selections of the 101 gadgets that changed the world. I am sure you can go through the PM list and add or take away from my selections. The UK Independent published their own list of the 101 gadgets that changed the world and it’s a bit different than the popular Mechanics list. You can view their list by clicking here.

The one thing all of these gadgets have in common, however, is the industries and the millions of jobs they created. Each one began as a gadget, but ended up as a staple of society, something we cannot live without and not one of them was created by government or with government money. They are all products of the free market.

Some said items like the computer would cause the loss of thousands of jobs and TV would ruin the movie industry and Hollywood. This is like Obama spread his nonsense by saying the ATMs caused unemployment in the banking industry. Sure some bookkeepers and secretaries may have temporarily lost jobs due to the PC, but millions of others now had jobs in a new industry. The had jobs building the PCs, writing he software, selling he PCs and servicing them Whole departments within companies were created and called IT departments. Microsoft employs 77,000 people in Redmond, Washington and another 12,000 in Canada writing software for the PCs. As for Hollywood, they have never had it so good. They now make movies that go directly to DVD and they make more money on some of their films through the sale of DVDs and cable TV than from showing then in your local theater.

The human mind operating in a free market environment is the best thing we have going to build a prosperous society. Government intervention, regulations and restrictions imposed by the lobbying efforts of special interest groups are our worst economic enemy.