Thomas,

>The point of amendments written to the problems of that time has merit.
>OTOH the US is one of the more long lived systems and
>NOT changing to every decades new trend might play a role in that.


>Compare to the way the EU changes treaties with no bailout clauses
>sometimes every quarter and listens to the accepted political/monetary caste -
>not sure if the US way in the long run is better for those living in it.

The EU is a very young nation (if you can describe it like that) and there is need to make quick changes (See all the EU monetary problems) to evolve to a stable and evolving nation.

Its like building an software application. You think this through, build it, but then after implementation, the first coding and design bugs come in. You'll fix them and will add new modules along the way. But time will add new requirements to the software and there will be a point that it does not make sense to add certain features on the old foundation and its better you'll have to either a dramatic rewrite or start from scratch and build something new.

A build from scratch is essentially what the EU really is, a new development cycle, where again new bugs in both the implementation and design will/do surface. So call it EU.Version1.

The US already is on US.Version124 and it seems to be the time to look at the things from version 1 or 2 that are still in there, but are only bothering further development. Of course there will be clients moaning over a function that they are familiar with but really has been superseded by a better methodology already within the software, but since some of your clients make money on it they will pester you to keep it in (Lobbying). But it becomes time that at the next version you drop the support for backward compatibility for those items because its a threat for smoothing ongoing development and security (See the difference between Apple and M$ in terms of backward compatibility). Instead you'll have to find a way to keep those clients happy or treat it as loss. Some will moan, but will eventually accept the change, others will not and move on to another software package.

The main problem as I see it, is that the US software package is still holding on too much on the written design of Version1 (made by the company "founding fathers" inc.) while the requirements and the environment where it runs in have changed dramatically. The US software package used to be very successful, but nowerdays better systems arise, and it needs to invest in continuous development in order not to lag behind the competitors (Europe, Asia) on all fronts. There are still strong points in this software, but there are obviously a few very weak points as well. they need to be addressed like the security aspect in this software.

Walter,