I've tried to take care to ensure that the facts and figures presented here are reliable. I believe that most of them are accurate to within a few percent, although I'm sure that some are disputable, some are out-of-date, and some are wrong. If you've seen figures that you believe are inaccurate, write me and tell me, but don't let that alone turn you from the basic arguments -- this letter paints a picture of the world in very broad strokes, and minor defects in the painting should not interfere with seeing the general picture.
I want to apologize in advance to everyone outside of the United States of America reading this Gumption Memo. The Memo addresses all sorts of general global problems, but unfortunately in dozens of little ways it assumes that most readers live in the United States and it caters to United States readers. When I first produced the Gumption Memo in 1993 I gave it out mostly just to friends and family in the United States, so the national bias was reasonable, but now that we're here on the World Wide Web I'm afraid that it will come off as a little provincial. Please accept my apologies.
I'm still working on the Gumption Memo, and some things aren't done yet. Many of the exercises in the Memo include check boxes and forms that aren't yet hooked up. Someday I hope to hook them up so that I can see how people respond, but right now they simply don't do anything at all. Feel free to go ahead and fill in the forms if you want to, but don't expect much of them.
Here's an example of a form that doesn't do anything:
