Collapse of the Market
Government does not help when it intervenes in anything. From the stimulus bill we got high unemployment and an awful lot of pork sausage for a bunch of sickos in Congress. It was sickening to watch them greedily grab their earmarks while people were losing their jobs. They are buffoons. They need to be thrown out. All of them!
They had forgotten the collapse of the mortgage lending market and the collapse of the collateralized and securitized debt and derivatives market along with it. The government had been manipulating and the Fed is always manipulating. Nothing helped because the medicine was a tax cut but nobody would buy it. And so, the socialists and the progressives and the liberals and the communists prevailed and the US lost again. Along with the Fed trying to manipulate something that should be left all alone, they decided to pull one over on Americans.
Bad debt must be written off. Government sponsored actions continue to prolong and then intensify the eventual devaluation of our dollar and the destruction of the buying power of the middle class. Who is not hurting besides our esteemed Congressmen. Now with Cartwright instead of Kanjorski, have you noticed that everything is better? Cartwright and Casey need to be thrown out first so they know Americans, not the government, runs America.
The Stimulus Bill
Ron Paul offered some thoughts on the anniversary of the stimulus bill some years back: "Last week marked the one-year anniversary of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, or the stimulus bill, passing into law. While the debate over its success has been focused on whether or not it [was] is stimulating the economy and on various questionable uses of funds, in my estimation this legislation is accomplishing exactly what it was intended to accomplish – grow the government."
The growth of government is killing this country and may in fact help China or Russia to publish our death certificates as we won't be able to afford to print them. Government growth will kill this country? Who in government gives a damn enough to help anybody but themselves?
Government bureaucrats are concerned about the sugar in your soda, the number of ply's in your toilet paper, the # of TP rolls you consume each week, whether you can have one or more chocolate bars in a week, whether the programs you watch favor the sitting government, whether the radio talk shows show respect for the government, and whether two gallons of ice cream per week should be disallowed per household. Why isn't one gallon enough? This, my friends is the government that you voted for. Your guy, Barry Soetero Hussein Obama now runs the show. Now, unless guys like me and other patriots can change it, you too will be forced to live by its rules, and not yours.
OK, that is not all. If you have a coal furnace (some still do and some remember) they want you to pay four times for your coal. If you burn oil, they think they got you for a bunch more in energy expense, Electricity is already going through the roof. The government wants energy prices to go higher so you will use none. They say Carbon dioxide is bad. But, we breathe out carbon dioxide so what are we supposed to do? Should we die? Ask the EPA! BTW, I am the author of the two books at 1st and second edition levels. The book title is Kill the EPA! It may even be too late. The EPA's death wish includes all Americans. Check the book out at www.bookhawkers.com
I say 'too cold' is bad in the winter and 'too hot' is bad in the summer. WHat do you say? The EPA says you are America's worst polluter. I say having to have the car permanently in the driveway is bad and being able to take it for a nice spin is good. Unfortunately, the government wants to limit even these simple pleasures in your life. These are a few of the things you can do because you are a member of the US middle class. Government thinks these are bad and they think they have a right to stop any behavior of yours that they do not like! Actually, the government is now annoyed that there is a middle class so figure out which jump you will make -- up or down...
When has government ever been right? OK, Never.... I agree. The problem is we gave them too much power and the only solution is to take it back. If you let them get away with it by voting the same people back again, the government may very well limit more of your freedoms. How about limiting driving to about 5 miles a week. That might require a new kind of governor.
They won't say that though because they like to avoid the truth. Instead, they will raise gasoline tax to about $20.00 per gallon and then they will use the tax revenue for public relations work to convince you they did the right thing by limiting your freedom. If there is any tax money left, they will hire more government bureaucrats. If there is no more money left, they will still hire more government bureaucrats. They will show the bureaucrats your picture with an "ENEMY" caption in the middle.
By the way, while you are driving those five miles a week or fewer, make sure you keep your head out the window. After all, that will be the only air-conditioning you get until the next week. You may not need a 2700 page healthcare bill to make healthcare better in the US. But, the EPA thinks you do need 2700 pages to describe in minute detail the freedoms that the government will no longer permit for the health of the environment. . And, remember, when you cross the government, it's not like having words with your husband or wife. They'll put you in real jails. Go ahead and try not buying an insurance policy and not paying the fine. Enjoy the Big House, folks, signed, your friendly government.
Don't worry about government lies. They never lie. (Well, only when they lie!) They merely underestimate. The 2008 stimulus bill, which stimulated nothing but earmarks, for example, was pegged originally at $787 billion. This was the original estimate for the bill. True to form as they say in government-eze, the actual cost is 10 percent more --- that's $862 billion. What's a few billion among Senators and esteemed Representatives.
At the same time as we were scrounging for infrastructure jobs in America, consider this lesson in perspective. The US state department revealed under Hillary, wife of Billary, that it had cost a mere one billion dollars for its new ornate embassy in London, built by fine Englishmen using fine European materials. With all the high numbers being bantered about a mere billion seems like nothing. I guess they were right.
Compare this with the government takeover of healthcare at $1 trillion, that measly $1 billion dollars does seem like chickenfeed -- doesn't it? The other perspective I had was that while we are all scrounging around making ends meet, the government is paying British contractors to build a Taj Mahal embassy in London. (I am not talking about a new casino enterprise by Donald Trump) Was this really a necessary expense?
Now, your trustworthy government is ready for you to give it all up and you are now required to trust them with your health. If they executed all of the doctors, they could finally reduce those pesky health care costs by as much as 90%.
The promise of the stimulus was to keep unemployment lower than 8%. It was 4.6% in the Bush years before Pelosi took over Congress. They are now known as the good ole days.
There were dire threats that unemployment might reach 10% if the stimulus did not pass. You may recall the administration went into hurry-up mode and demanded that Congress pass the bill and give them the money ASAP so that the country did not have to absorb the 8% inflation factor. They got the bill passed in the dim of night and most of the people were dead set against it and still are. Unemployment is currently well past 8% and just under 10%. But lying bureaucrats say with 93,000,000 unemployed the number is 5%... simply another Obam lie -- one of many. Obam never gave a crap about employment or Obamacare would never have passed. Now, to save face, he is forced to lie about what he did.
With the major $862 billion stimulus way behind us and another bunch of stimuli bills that also passed, unemployment must be set at 5% even if it is at 20%. Government needs good reporting. Does the government ever intentionally lie?
CPI and Seniors
Seniors are convinced by the way, and I think they are right-- that the government rigs the CPI to avoid giving them cost of living raises in SS. The 10% unemployment rate has been proven to be a joke or a lie. The second 10% (20%) is not a joke but like the CPI factors, it is uncounted. The people in the second 10% who have no jobs are finished collecting and they are so disgusted that they have stopped looking for work because there is none. Thus, unemployment is really at 20% but the government will not admit it is lying so we say it is just under 10%. Now, to prove Obama really is the Messiah, the reporting is that while nobody seems to be working, the unemployment rate is a mere 5%.
Yes, Virginia, that is propaganda spewed by your friendly bureaucrat fearing that telling the truth may harm their ability to keep their jobs. When somebody stops looking for work, are they not still unemployed? Why use chicanery unless you are trying to convince somebody that something is working that is really not working.
So, there is no senior cost of living because the numbers are rigged. Most people know that but again most do not want to believe the government is lying to them. They pretend to believe the government is a truthteller. If you can handle the truth read on.
When you wonder why food and gasoline cost so much until the beginning of 2016) while the government says inflation is low, just remember: You are being lied to – something you probably figured out long ago, just by going to the supermarket and at one time the gas station, and you would know immediately. Government can hardly afford to pay Social Security without the CPI COLA factor. If the CPI factor reflected the real cost of living, the government would be bankrupt sooner and nobody would be getting anything-- or so the logic seems.
Ron Paul has a way of netting it out:
"the American people know that more government spending obviously equals more government, and that is a pain the future cannot endure." He quotes an economist who says that if the original methodology of CPI had not changed, Social Security checks would be nearly double what they are today!
"According to the official Consumer Price Index calculation, life has gotten cheaper for the first time in decades. If the government can show statistically that the cost of living has gone down, not up, then they can make the case for not giving a cost of living increase to social security recipients. But does this match reality? Using older calculations of CPI, the cost of living has actually increased – by roughly 5 percent!
"The CPI (Consumer Price Index) is a calculation based on the average price of a fixed basket of goods that was initially designed to help businesses adjust for inflation. The government eventually started using it to determine cost of living adjustments for entitlement programs. Couple that with politicians’ discovery that they could raid the social security trust fund to pay for new spending programs, and you have a perfect storm to deny seniors what they were promised, while hiding the true size of the deficit. For politicians, it is a win-win.
"For seniors, it is a different story. Economist John Williams of Shadow Government Statistics has estimated that if the original methodology of CPI had not changed, Social Security checks would be nearly double what they are today. This represents a lot of money that politicians have been able to literally steal from seniors, to spend on their own wasteful programs. One example of how they do this is to substitute hamburger for steak, which lowers the average price of that basket of goods. But living on hamburger, or maybe dog food, instead of steak does not represent a constant standard of living. This renders the measurement virtually meaningless, even though politically it comes in very handy. More proof that not only are our Congressmen buffoons, but they are also scum.
Is our government's goal to strengthen the private sector? I would hope so but it is hard to tell nowadays. In a recession like we have yet to escape, it sure should be but not by bankrupting the country with excessive spending. By observing Congress, however, this cannot be their goal. If this were the goal, a thoughtful Congress would have allowed businesses and individuals to keep more of their own money to incent them to grow their businesses to make even more. That is Capitalism and the free market system. When business does well, it hires people. When business fears government action like taxation, it retreats and runs cautiously. With Obamacare, hiring will stay negative for some time to come. It has not eased up in 2016, that is for sure. Is that why we have representatives? If so, let's fire them all.
For the government to have helped, rather than provide handouts to friends all over the world with no checks and balances, the simplest way to do that would have been to provide meaningful tax cuts. John Kennedy did not care whether he was Republican or Democrat as he wanted to help the American people. The Kennedy tax cuts were huge and they were largely responsible for the recovery in the early to mid 1960's.
Why did John F. Kennedy think tax cuts were a good thing? Other than his brother Ted, most people agreed that he was right and that is the way to move the economy forward. When people have money to spend, and they spend the money, industry prospers. Roosevelt and Hoover who raised taxes saw bad things happen when they took all the money. You may recall one of these periods of history. It was known as the "Great Depression."
The Roaring / Booming Twenties With Low Taxes
Andrew Mellon noted the success of tax policy after the 1920 tax cuts had created a boom period known as the "Roaring 20's." As the Tim Geithner (Treasury Secretary) back then, Mellon first of all was not a tax cheat. Second, he was not a socialist, and third, he did not have a lot of Wall Street insiders that he had to pay off. He was independently wealthy. His Presidents, one of whom was Calvin Coolidge did believe in capitalism and free markets and they were not driving the country to become a socialist Utopia.
Mellon had a lot of bucks and was irreproachable. Mellon used his great financial knowledge to gain either major or controlling ownership in what would become great companies. The list is a whose who of successful industries Mellon had big stakes in Alcoa, Carborundum, and Gulf Oil. He did not need the money and so he was immune to corruption.
Mellon did not have Turbo-tax but he paid his taxes and ultimately he became a renowned philanthropist. He did have some issues during the depression but when he had the power he used it well. As a philanthropist, for example, he was creator of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. We could use a good man like Andrew Mellon today. But the corrupt congress we have would probably railroad him out of town.
Excessive taxes simply are not paid
In the 20's Mellon argued that the history of taxation clearly showed that when taxes are inherently excessive, they simply are not paid. It is amazing how many ways those who think they are being treated unfairly can hide income. Mellon believed that high tax rates inevitably put pressure upon the taxpayer to withdraw capital from productive business ventures and invest their funds in non-profit or tax-exempt securities. When these means are not available, he knew that smart investors would find other "lawful" methods of avoiding the realization of reportable and taxable income.
So what happens to government revenue during these periods in which the rich are holding there cards and are not as active? As the major sources of taxation dry up; Mellon noted that wealth fails to carry its expected share of the tax burden. Capital is then diverted into channels which yield neither revenue to the Government nor profit to the people but do help the wealthy protect their income. As Peter Paul and Mary say quite astutely, "When will they ever learn?" I would add that you cannot get blood from a stone.
Bailouts -- Paying For Costly Failures
Suppose you had a big job and you got a little greedy and you were loose with your money as well as everybody's money that you touched. Suppose you lost a lot of money for a lot of people. Would you ever expect that a group representing those people whose money you squandered would give you several more million dollars so you could try again?
Somehow Bernie Madoff went to jail for that. So, why is it that other corporations that do risky things, like guess wrong on a big investment, many of which are a violation of fiduciary trust, have no consequences? Why is it that the people whose money they lost have to refinance their businesses with no recourse while, unlike Madoff again, the perpetrators are permitted to survive and gain?
Why would any corporation ever expect to be bailed out by taxpayers? How is it that certain entities have to be bailed out because of their economic importance and others are OK to fail? Who makes such decisions? Supposedly, some entities can be so big, so important, that no matter what they do, citizens must perpetually sustain them.
I do not buy that argument and I do not think you do either! In a system designed for survival of the fittest, the unfit should not survive. And those just going along for the ride, such as uninformed investors should not have to pay the full toll.
Some banks on Wall Street should fail. Fannie and Freddie should fail. They have been perpetrating fraud against the people while rewarding their executives. Yet, for its own reasons, government insists on rewarding behavior, which should instead be investigated, prosecuted, and punished. Amen! That's the change I will bring to Washington.
Ron Paul notes that "Just as economies that turned away from slave labor had a transition period, our economy would transition as well, but in the end, if we turned to honest, sound money and a truly free market, we would end up with a more just society, founded on truthfulness and decency, not subject to the violence of force or the whims of fraudulent institutions."
The government is basically dishonest and the closer we permitted these sheisters to get close to the sources of huge amounts of money, the more they took liberty to divert that money away from the people and into other hands such as theirs. I don't even care into whose hands the money was diverted. I think these people are all crooks and they should be expelled from Congress perhaps even before the next election. Who in Congress has the guts to put such a resolution on the floor?
