Buddy, Can You Spare Me a Shovel?

Nobody’s Opinion: You should have seen their faces. Anger, shock, resentment---the “We just got ripped off big time,” look.

No, I’m not talking about the defiant faces of the Lehman Brothers…I’m remembering the faces of the three hundred or so disappointed inventors at the annual American Yankee Invention Exposition held in Waterbury, Connecticut. The year I was there was 2007, and it was the end of a three-day convention. A place where Americans from all over the United States had come to show their ideas in hopes of finding an investor. After all, big money is needed to put these ideas on the market.

And why were they angry? Some of them had spent their life savings, paid thousands to expensive patent lawyers, built elaborate displays filled with expensive prototypes…and it was all for nothing. They watched in disbelief as a small group of elite university professors had chosen for the top awards…a few Chinese men. And these Chinese didn’t even show their inventions. They had the only two booths in the auditorium with no displays at all. For three days they sat and laughed at empty tables…and handed out single page white flyer's…no one had a clue what their inventions were.

As we all watched the beaming, obsequious professors handing out trophy after trophy to this one Chinese family,…trust me, there was not one American inventor in that room that didn’t want to throw a few good well-aimed spitballs at those university snob's bearded bald heads. In another time, they might have been run out of town. Not one of those “professors” had ever made anything creative in their lives…despite their degrees.

Shocked was not the word for it---nobody could believe it.

As I walked around, watching the people dismantled their displays, slamming boards, and cussing---my heart went out to them. To me, they had all been scammed. Many inventors had put every penny they had to make the trip. They were told that “many investors would be here”…only to find out NO one came but a few curious locals, and a try-out for a Jay Leno comedy spoof.

Well, I can’t say no one: There were several Chinese and Japanese industrial spies walking around all three days, stealing every single idea. That’s a fact, and I watched in amazement while they did it.

The same professors put this on every year. Not only do they make money from the expensive “fees” paid up front, they all were paid handsomely to give talks that helped no one but their own pockets, because the truth is: the gig is up for the lowly American inventor. Unless you have big connections, your chances of getting that idea on the market are about as good as your chances of becoming the next Secretary of State.

Hope is a man in a seer-sucker suit, and he’s everywhere these days.

Many of our big universities work, just like it seems, most of our politicians, for the multinational corporations. And the multinational corporations have been given free reign by our politicians to gobble up all competitors until there is just one company left standing. And that one company, along with its nearby university, will always have members of Congress or their wives on their boards.

And now, the multinationals are doing something even more insidious. They are going into our high schools, with the help of our government under the guise of “invention” workshops, and literally stealing the ideas of whatever talented person they might find…because you see, in universities, and companies…if you think of the next great idea, it does not belong to you, it belongs to the company.

If you, the young brilliant inventor, invent the next air car: you will get a thousand dollars and a nice write up in the newspaper, while that major company will take your idea and make billions, or better yet: save themselves billions by keeping your idea off the market for good, because you see, they will own it.

It’s Jamestown, the sequel.

What’s wrong with that you might say? Ask yourself: Why did America become the greatest country in the world? Why did we create almost everything under the sun, while the other countries had trouble feeding their people?

Only in America could an individual have the opportunity and freedom to create and the knowledge that he could become very rich for that creation, if he worked hard enough. That was the American dream. That’s why everyone flocked here.

That was of course, before all the great company mergers we’ve seen in the last 20 years.

Only a people living in freedom already could have formed a document as wondrous as our Constitution. Americans lit up the world, gave everyone the car, computers, airplanes-- you name it: it was invented here.

Freedom. You have to have fertile soil to grow, and we had the best.

And those inventions gave us superiority, and money. And that superiority gave us the strength from our manufacturing base to build a strong army, and rebuild the world. In fact, we rebuild the world so well after World War II, that now “the world” has come back into our country and took over all our markets and put us all out of business.

Not because they are smarter, or more creative…but because our politicians let them.

While the whole world was protecting their markets and stealing from us right and left…our politicians sold out to the big multinational mergers, on which most of them have all served as board members.

For instance; take the globalization of Wal-Mart. Sure, it started out with one guy…but whole American towns, whole American small-town church based cultures, were wiped off the earth---not to mention the billions of tax revenues lost from these small town mom and pop stores because of its “success.” We are now a nation of franchises…a nation of “servers.”

Give or take a few more years. K-Mart and Target will be gone. By that time, Chelsea Clinton will serve on the Wal-Mart board, just like her mother did.

The United States Patent Office now has a board with ten multinational on it, and one man representing the individual inventor.

You see, it used to be an inventor could file a patent and the patent office would keep it secret for a good while. But the multinational companies wanted to merge “with the rest of the world” and as soon as the small inventor files his patent now, his drawings can be seen by anyone in the world, and they can steal it.

The idea is that only a few companies own all patents, and all inventors work for them, concentrating wealth into a few hands.

So when the poor guy now has a great idea, he will not only be unable to get a patent, or the banks to invest, but he will actually feel grateful if some one offers him a few bucks for it. And that’s why the “green” revolution is doomed.

There’s no money in it except for the big CEO’s. Why do you think GE had to get the government to outlaw light bulbs? Because, in a free market, those bulbs filled with mercury, would have not made it off the shelves.

That’s why we are being “forced” to get HD TVs, and little cars. And we will be forced to get whatever “green” technology they want us to, whether it works or not.

This insanity will stifle the great creativeness of the American people. Why create anything if someone else is going to make the money off it? Why? And if you work for a big corporation and quit to pursue your dream of making it rich?

The big lawyers will gobble you up. A good example of this is a movie called "Tucker." Lots of conservative people believe in this big dog gobble up little dog system.

But, Russia, China, the middle East...there is a lot of historical proof that it doesn't work. Not only that, it has doomed countries to the dust bin of history.

And yet, that's where's our politicians have taken us, and why without economic straight, we are valuable to all the people who want to kill us.

Do they REALLY care? Bill Reilly doesn't think so, and I tend to agree.

Today, Pat Robertson said that God told him that America would embrace Socialism in 2009 in order to relieve their pain, and the economy would rebound under Obama.

And to this all I can say, is “Buddy, can you spare me a shovel?”

I think I might as well start digging.

(God, I’m a cheery nobody today, aren’t I? And yes, that was some of my economic ideas, although many are still stuck in hibernation.)




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