Ask Mexico to be Part of the USA

So much of American foreign policy at the moment seems to be done looking in the rearview mirror.  The news is focused on Iraq, Afghanistan, and Cuba.  As a country, we should be much more focused on China and Mexico and other areas of the World.  Hopefully, we can be friendly competitors with China for eons to come, just as we are friendly competitors with England and Germany.

The situation with Mexico is much more complicated.  During the Bush years, we’ve spent billions “getting tough” by erecting a wall / fence between our southern states and Mexico.  We’ve spent billions more unsuccessfully trying to staunch the flow of drugs across the border.  The effect is to keep pushing our neighbor to the ground.  Why don’t we try the opposite approach?  Let’s extend a hand to Mexico and put the country and it’s provinces, if they want to be, on the path to statehood.

In the process, we would gain access to the huge oil reserves in Mexico and help our neighbors.  After a transitional phase, it will become easier to control our borders, as the border between Mexico and it’s southern neighbors is much shorter than the one between the U.S. and Mexico.

The biggest threat is the rampant corruption in some parts of the Mexican economy.  In addition, there would have to be some sort of phased in approach to wellfare benefits, such as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and so forth.  It’s only right that Mexicans help pay for their benefits.

If Canada wants to join the fun, so much the better.  A United North America would be a formidable force in the world many natural resources, creative people, and positive cultural, educational and legal institutions.

Save trees, reduce trash, improve the economy

Huge manuals, often written in English and Spanish, come with almost every product. The new administration could save trees, reduce trash, reduce costs and improve the economy by offering companies a trade:

If you put your manual up online and include a web address for it with your product, then you cannot be sued for not including a manual with your product.  You, dear company, get shielded from liability.

Many leading companies today already put their manuals up online.  For liability reasons they also have to include a copy in the box.  The manual for my new Whirlpool washing machine is 76 pages long!  Does anyone really read all that.  Nope.  But trees get cut down to make the manuals anyway.  In this digital age, it’s a huge waste of resources.

In the past, the digital divide might have been a reason to have manuals in the box.  No longer.  The Internet has been in full swing since 1994.  Increasingly cell phones make the web available anywhere anytime.

It’s time to start saving the environment and money with this pro business proposal.

• The gang in Washington can figure out the fine print.  Here’s a start: Companies would have to agree to post their manuals for 10 years perhaps in a central repository, such as United Laboratories for product manuals, as well as on their own website.
• The manuals would have to be searchable so Google and others could give us instant access to vital product information.
• Companies would have to keep the electronic manuals up to update for product variations.

And so on.

Speed Up Every Checkout Transaction in America

“Credit or debit?” must be the most annoying question at a retail store. It’s a huge waste of time.

Most people use a given plastic card as either a credit card or a debit card, but not both. They might carry a credit card and a debit card, but they rarely use the same card for both functions.

If you add up all the time that customers and stores collectively spend asking and answering this question, you have a huge productivity killer. Multiple the billions of retail transactions each year times the time spent on the question and you realize that America is wasting truck loads of hours on a stupid question.

The marketplace can’t stop this waste of time because no player or set of players is big enough. If Visa stops it, they give Mastercard an advantage. If Target refuses to except duel purpose cards, then they’ll loose some sales to Wal-mart.

The question started when banks were trying to get debit cards adopted. Some banks made it possible for the same card to have both functions. Dual function cards have no way to tell the gas pump or cashier whether they’re being used as a debit card or a credit card. As a result, people have to manually answer the question.

You might think, “what’s the big deal? It only takes a few seconds.” Since the process is slightly different at every store, the customer has to adjust to each process. It probably takes 20 seconds per customer. If there’s a line, it costs all those customers 20 seconds too. If you multiple all that out, you’re costing the American economy time and money.

Most customers are making the debit / credit card choice when they pull the card out of their wallets.  Jane uses the Chase card for debit transactions and the Bank of America card for credit transactions.  This makes the time wasting question all the more useless.  Customers are merely relaying information about the choice they’ve already made.

The Obama Administration could speed up every checkout transaction in the United States by ensuring that plastic can be either a credit card or a debit card, but not both.