What are we exporting?

Toyota has been in hot water since all their recalls hit the news. The problems are a big deal. They are safety issues.

But the strange thing about this story is that the U.S. congress wants to grill the president of Toyota. When have they ever called-on-the-carpet the CEO of a foreign company? Maybe the imported vehicles have had such a stellar track record that we never had a reason to interrogate them.

But it looks to me like Toyota is being treated like an American company. We have so thoroughly tutored the Japanese in manufacturing that they have learned how to make colossal mistakes and (maybe) how to cover them up.

They are exporting cars to us, but we are exporting flawed manufacturing systems to them. That's one way of leveling the playing field.

Meanwhile, I have to say, it looks like Ford is doing something right.

At least it's not terrorism

Reports of the plane crash in Austin today have been interesting. A man burns down his house, leaves suicide notes and then flies a plane into a federal building. The top cop there assures us that this was not terrorism.

Well that makes me feel so much better. He was mad at the IRS, the Catholic Church, his accountant and his wife. I guess if he was a Muslim they would call it terrorism. But since he is just mad at the world, it is merely a plane crash.

Seems to me that someone is a terrorist if he attacks innocent people. Maybe it's not terrorism if you are not trying to advance some political/religious agenda. In any event, it's sad and scary when people begin flying planes into buildings.

Questions worth asking

Sometimes the most obvious questions never get asked. Though many people are wondering about something, they never get up the nerve to ask. After all, look at all the competent, knowledgeable people who are just going along with it -- whatever it is.

Few of us are willing to be the child who notes that the emperor is naked. Today, it seems that the emperor has a huge walk-in closet full of thousands of outfits made of the same special material. I'm sure I've got plenty of blind spots, but I want to ask the penetrating questions, especially about our culture and government.

One might naively ask, for example, How are we going to pay the U.S. national debt? I think we are pushing $14 trillion now. It seems to increase about a trillion every month. Maybe a better question is, Do we ever intend to pay our national debt?

If we are ever going to begin to pay the debt, we will eventually have to stop spending more than we take in. Even if we never ran another deficit, we would have a crushing burden in interest payments alone. But eliminating deficits must come before we can start paying off the debt. I can only think of one year when the government had a budget surplus. Wonder where that money went...

Another question is, What will happen if we decide not to pay our debt? That's a scary thought, but something we have to consider. Would it be easier to default on the debt or pay it? What are the consequences of these choices?

Meanwhile, we are funding studies of drunken mice. Really.