How can we, as a country and a people, advance on the world stage in
 anything, when our system rewards people whether they be a lawyer on
 their own or a person that hired a lawyer, or the government wanting to
 take whatever they want from the citizens. We often hear from the linux
 group refer to the newest programs as "bleeding edge". How long before
 they are afraid of being sued and stop working on new software?

 If you develop something and it doesnt work, you get sued for tens if
 not hundreds of millions of dollars. If a drug company makes a new drug
 that cures millions and .05% of the recipients develop complications
 from taking the drug, by all accounts thats a goo d thing. But, the
 small percentage that has problems will cause the drug company to stop
 making that drug. And the vast majority suffer. And, the majority that
 have good results have to pay hundreds of times more for the drug
 because it doesnt work for everything for everybody.

 I used to employ 74 people in a multimillion dollar company. After being
 targeted by lawyers and the IRS, and spending 4 years in court, I let
 everyone of them go and now work from home on my computer, by myself.

 How many other businesses have gone the way of mine- its too much
 trouble to stay in business. I have bonafide ideas for inventions that
 will help out and be profitable. However, my plans are to develop these
 outside the US and let them be imported. Just like the chinese bearings.
 If we use the chinese bearings and we crash, I doubt we would be
 successful in a lawsuit against the bearing manufacturer.

 I would venture to guess that you guys have experienced the same things
 that I have- when you go to the parts store, do you tell them the parts
 will be for an airplane? Have you been told yet that they wont sell them
 to you if they are? I have. Our legal system has taken the American
 Spirit away.

 Its not just Obama, its all of it. And it only took us 200 years to
 screw it up.

 Kevin Alderman


 I sympathise with your position Kevin, I too could hire more people
but the risk and effort is not worth the reward.
  The ability to sue is a safeguard against profit over people, so
that people can't sell you junk that fails, or be reckless regarding
safety. Clearly the balance has toppled. The rules are designed to
protect everyone. That means if you are stupid enough to think that
the cruise control in your Winnebago will drive the vehicle while you
make a cup of coffee in the back, you will be able to sue when you
crash. ( In all honesty that person's I.Q.should qualify them for
reclassification as a primate and given free housing and food at a
nearby zoo, I bet a lot of people would pay to see what such a person
looks like).  I doubt china has such restrictions, so they can sell
with-out the risk of legal ramifications only the risk of losing
customers. Once the competition has folded the only customers they
lose is 1) from death, 2) and those too smart to risk quality for
price.Without a quality alternative those in group 2, will be
condemned to group1). People dying doing stupid things used to be
called survival of the fittest ( apologies to creationists). Now its
called point the finger!!!  If the smart people out there decided to
look for a loop-hole, sue, and retire instead of leading industry
we'll all be screwed. If Idiots can do it why should we work hard for
our money? I'm sure most of us have found ourselves in such a position
and resisted  going with the trend, but relying on human nature is a
risky business indeed.
 To buy parts for aircraft use, one needs to carry around a pile of
disclaimers that state you have been dully warned against use in
aircraft, to excuse the seller from responsibility. Or don't ask, don't
tell! that works doesn't it ?

SKF have a reputation for quality, and hopefully they are responsible
for Q.C. on these items.

On another note I was watching a documentary called "China is
Coming"and they went to the steel making heartland of USA. whats left.
However a new plant has been set up to produce drilling pipe, the sole
purpose to prove, successfully, that the Chinese imports were being
sold below cost of production. As a result the Chinese product has
been banned. This seems to have stirred the pot as Chinese subsidies
are being used to force out competition. What else are they
subsidizing? What action will the US take, stay tuned!!!
No doubt Australia will follow suit, If our leaders possess the
intestinal fortitude. We have big export contracts with the chinese
don't you know, they're driving our economy don't you know. If they
don't want our Iron ore perhaps we could sell it to the resurgent
American industry, or hell, leave it in the ground it aint' goin'
nowhere and someone will want it sooner or later.  Oh by the way a
weak $US makes our ore cheaper as it too is based on the $US.
The Chinese closed their borders to foreigners all that time ago
because their economy was crippled by the loss of the tea trade. Tea
cultures were taken to Ceylon(now Sri Lanka) and India, this combined
with the control of the opium trade, bankrupted the Chinese economy.
So one perhaps can understand what may be going on here, perhaps
revenge on western economies? For warned is for armed. $1.3 million
could have been spent on creating a united front for the remaining
companies to fight on. not funding the opposition.
 Graeme Riley


The lawyers are not our largest problem.  It is our current president
that does not understand what 15 trillion dollars in debt is doing to
this country. On the other hand maybe he does and he wants to destroy
this country. In that case perhaps he is so stupid, naive  and
ignorant of recent history that he thinks he can replace capitalism
with communism. Socialism/communism never has worked and never will work.

People will not work and feed other people that don't work. The
history of man is over one million years old. This attitude became
part of the hard wired human brain in the days of the cave man. They
had a saying in Russia "we pretend to work and they pretend to pay
us". One look around Russia proved it before the iron curtain came
down. I was there right after. The infrastructure and  once
beautiful buildings looked like the worst of the third world
countries. The cannon on the bow of the Aurora cruiser in Saint
Petersburg harbor that fired a shot at the winter palace to trigger
the Russion revolution has Russian a joke associated with it. "See
that cannon on the bow of that cruiser? That is the most powerful
cannon in the world. One shot from that cannon devastated Russia for
the next 70 years."

Paul Lamar



 I think the main problem is now everyone thinks the world owes them a
living, so if you are working you should look after me. I do not think
modern people are that much different from primitive people, where if
you could not go out on the hunt because you were sick, you were looked
after,until you were well again, meanwhile you were expected to help as
much as you able. If you did not and wanted to lay-about you were
expelled from the group, because the group could not support slackers,
because it would have a adverse effect on all the rest. This is the
problem in Europe now and US and Australia to a lesser extent. In France
if you want to retire at 50 years OK you get the pension if you are a
worker you are expected to work 32 hrs a week, 4 days in the week, try
going to a shop any day during the week, if you pick the wrong day it
will be closed, that is the day they are closed. Common sense tells you
that you cannot be retired for 30 years, after working for 30 years, you
have paid bugger-all tax relative to the pension you collect in the next
30 years, plus you have health care.
       John Burey

You have hit the nail on the head. Our president is too stupid to understand this so we run a huge deficit each year and the total money owed by the US continues to build up to enormous levels. Now 15 thousand billion!!! AKA 15 trillion!!!!. And growing at the rate of several trillion a year!!! Pretty soon nobody will be stupid enough to loan us money and that is when inflation will hit big time.

The debt is in dollars so if you devalue the dollar by inflation it is easier to pay off the debt. That will in effect confiscate private property. That is why smart people are quiting business and buying gold and why gold is now about $1700 dollars an ounce and still going up. The smart money is also buying property in more stable countries like Australia, New Zealand  and Canada.

The same thing happened in Germany in the 1920's. It took a wheel barrow of cash to buy a loaf of bread. That led to Hitler as he promised to turn the situation around as long as the German people would give him absolute power. For a while he did it but he got ambitious and wanted to rule the world. He nearly pulled it off.
Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Ironically  Obama is continually asking congress and the people of the US to give him more power. Trust him he will fix it. The analogy is scary. Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Paul Lamar