Information flows take the form of “news” stories – often opinions – social media scattershot (watch the spelling, there) some print media, and then there are “Special Reports.” Among the “Special Reports” we can include White House press briefings. In the “Biden” White House, though, press briefings provide almost no information: Mostly they provide obfuscation. Still, many “news” sources can manage to create “news reports” that parrot the daily obfuscation – which is what “The White House” intends, while others make news of the gross failure of “the White House” to tell much, if any, truth. Still, as Prudence has instructed us, there ARE truths about what is happening to our nation and the rest of the world, and careful sifting will reveal kernels of it… much like an archeological dig where arti-facts are revealed from under the crap and detritus of imperturbable soil. Digging and sifting.
More than any other people, Americans deserve to hear the truth – all of it. Unlike most other “Westerners,” however, Americans are about the least likely to hear it.
Competing countries – and forces – have their own “truths.” We can see this most glaringly in the stories and hatreds and imaginings of Palestinians, although we should not discount the elements of truth amidst some of their “histories.” That’s the trouble with hatreds and competing hatreds: each employs truth to justify the hatred and to maintain the political power that comes with it. Hating Jews, for the worst example, did not start with the Balfour declaration, and certainly not with the German Nazi Party. Many Christians harbored hatred of Jews for centuries, ostensibly because they “killed Jesus.” Plus, Jews banded together, kept their own customs, helped one another to succeed financially, and did not accept Christ as the Messiah. Jews became bankers, often perceived and in fact, unsympathetic towards inabilities to repay debts. And, they became jewelers, purveyors of expensive things for which prices had to be paid. Plenty of reasons to dislike them in the eyes of many… or to hate them if cajoled relentlessly. Rather than seek understanding, refined potential haters found it more comfortable to ignore or ostracize Jews even as they lived among the majority.
Almost every “Western” society has been unwelcoming to some degree toward Jews, despite the immense contributions to science and medicine and other highly educated pursuits in which Jews tend to excel, and prosper – even the great United States. Yet, the treatment of Jews – “Hebrews” – by political leaders in the U. S. is far from exemplary, most particularly during World War II. Despite American sacrifice to defeat Nazi Germany, Franklin Roosevelt was heartless toward Jews attempting to escape Nazi Genocide. Based on spurious fears that even Jewish refugees might be Nazi spies, the Roosevelt administration refused entry to thousands of Jews seeking asylum. Many of them were forced back to Germany where a large fraction of their numbers would die in the Holocaust.
Today, the U. S. holds itself out as a great defender of minorities, especially against “hate crimes.” This extends even to cultural/religious groups that have been frequent, even documented, threats to Americans and to our nation. Things are different. No longer are we governed by parties that both want to protect and defend the United States, just with different methods. One party appears to be in thrall of globalist forces that are essentially Communist, and that same actively appeases – or cooperates with – Communists and other totalitarians. Indeed, one party seems determined to convert American politics to a totalitarian model… in the interest of “safety.” At the same time – in the interest of idiocy – that party has dropped all defenses of its international border with Mexico, and facilitated the illegal entry of some eight Million aliens, a million of which have not even been interviewed: the “gotaways” who specifically avoid interview.
There may be a logical value to an open-border policy (that flies in the face of all existing immigration law), but no variation thereof seems Prudent. The President of the United States, at the direction of – probably – former President Obama, has set policies by executive fiat, that must serve some interests, albeit not those of the citizens of the United States. Dissolving a nation’s border is tantamount to dissolving that nation, and a citizen of that nation would be advised to ask his or her President why, and on what authority, he would allow such a crime? For, a crime it is. Indeed it has accumulated to several million crimes, and then it has become a federal imposition of unlegislated expenses – one might say, “illegal” expenses – upon the sovereign states that are protected(?) by the federal covenant we call the Constitution.
Those on the left defend the facilitated invasion of illegal entrants as some sort of “humanitarian” sacrifice the United States is obligated to make. It is as though we are to blame for other countries’ crappy politics and socialist-totalitarian economics. But it has become a grandiose lie being told hourly at our southern border – a lie told to the actual citizens of our country. Illegal entrants from over 150 countries have crossed that ephemeral border, including thousands from “hostile” countries… those who are actively working to weaken, if not destroy, the United States. The Biden administration is solely responsible for the breeching of our border(s) and the illegal release of illegal entrants into our nation. One has to wonder.
Over the next decade we will have to capture and deport most of the Biden illegals. Very, very few of them are legitimate asylum candidates. According to international law, an asylee must accept asylum from the first country that allows him or her entry. We’ve had illegal entrants from 150 or more countries. Many had to pay for passage by air or by water to enter Mexico and then the United States. Their presence at the Rio Grande is ridiculous and outrageous. Why aren’t Americans outraged?
One of these days, it is sad to contemplate, there will be a significant terrorist event inside the United States. We have, thanks to the President’s illegal policies toward an open border, INVITED terrorists into our nation and communities. Nineteen radical Muslims executed the September 11th attacks; we know that some much-larger number of terrorist types have snuck into America in the past 3 years. We know that both Muslim and Chinese espionage has undermined the federal government agencies and departments, even members of Congress and major cities’ governments. Do we think that unfettered access to “The American Way” will magically convert these professional America-haters into Boy and Girl Scouts? Not under the Biden administration… they seem to hate America, too.
Prudence has noted in the past that 2020 seemed to be the year that the globalist, anti-American far left determined that it could overthrow the American system. The manufactured “pandemic” surrounding COVID-19 and resulting destruction of civil liberties, social structure and logic following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, seemed to be making the long-planned destruction of America possible. The primary tool to make such a profound change in the direction of history, is managed hatred.
The largest hatreds over the millennia are spiritual, if not identifiably religious. This is sad, in many ways, but also understandable given the nature of non-compromise at the heart of most organized religions. The power lies in belief. Shared belief is the strongest human force. Rare are they who can listen to alternative beliefs and subsequently change their own. Beliefs direct the actions of individuals, even to the point of destroying those with opposing beliefs. When added to “mob” coherence, shared beliefs account for more deaths than any other social circumstance.
To a great degree, religions are – or began as – tribal belief systems, and in the earliest periods they had few alternative ideas to resist. This fact makes the interesting similarities among early origin stories and beliefs about gods and an afterlife, even more remarkable. However, fairly small differences between belief systems can spark enormous conflict, like that between Protestants and Catholics or between Sunni and Shia sects of Islam. The religious differences translate readily into political and military differences, but at their core, they tend to be conflicts between which humans are in charge of the “religions,” not the deep principles underlying the beliefs.
Sadly, some belief systems are based in hatred, such that no form of compromise will permit even suspicious co-existence: the premise of one system being the elimination of the other system. If success appears to find the “destroyer” system, that system prepares to take on the next system it opposes. We can see this pattern with Marxism/Communism. Its basic opposition to private property is enabled by its fundamental opposition to religion of any form. However, one of the most hateful systems appears to be Islam, the premise of which is that the entire world must become Muslim; there is no workable form of co-respect or co-existence with other religions. We have become a world governed by competing hatreds.
In a Prudent view, that is not the way any God of humanity would have wanted mankind to develop.
Regardless of the scale of the groups toward whom hate is directed, the act of hating is still a very personal one. Pressures to convince large groups to direct their hatred at certain targets – politically in purpose and effect – can be successful only if lots of individuals are personally convinced of the “legitimacy” of that hatred. It’s not the same as “following orders” issued by authoritative leaders. And it’s not the same as “hating” those who are simply different from oneself – different sounding, looking, acting – which is closer to fear rather than actual hate. It is fairly easy to learn to stop fearing others, to gain understanding of those differences, to eventually become neutral toward the different and, perhaps, friendly. Soon, we’re marrying one another and blending our differences in beautiful children who will be less fearful than we used to be.
But to become hateful of particular others is a commitment with oneself. It’s hard to casually hate, but relatively easier if one can be convinced to do so, whereupon he or she becomes more comfortable in hatred if he or she convinces him- or her-self that hatred is part of a belief system to which he or she is committed. Soon, the haters are not being led to it, but are pushing for increased purity of hatred, often punishing or rejecting those leaders who seek compromise. Hatred is an awful way to guide or lead people. But, it’s cheap and effective.
America was once described as a melting pot. Ostensibly, people from all places could “become” Americans. Without offering multiple forms of welfare and help – including taxpayer-financed attorneys – in multiple languages and multi-lingual public education, people came only because freedom was offered. Everyone learned English and agreed to live within our legal system, one of the most honest… not perfect, but fairly evenly applied under the Constitution. “Melting pot” was not the most accurate description: “salad bowl” is probably better. America invited the best of the world to join us. Despite our mistakes, particularly with slavery, we learned to respect everyone who was willing to make and pay his or her own way. Things have changed. American “representation” has, in the past 30 years or so, become the politics of competing hatreds. From the Clintonian “politics of personal destruction,” we have devolved to the “politics of social and familial disintegration.”
There is a certain ease of slipping into hatred, for most humans, not all. Hating some one else or millions of someones else, requires justification. If a person can find justification for hatred, no matter how flimsy, additional scraps of justification will stick to that hate like double-sided carpet-tape, bonding it just as tightly to one’s beliefs – perhaps to one’s soul. Add in the power of group (mob) psychology and soon a novice hater is leading the charge. Somewhere or somewhen along the spectrum from distrust to embedded hatred, every individual must decide to continue in that direction or to take another. Every person, regardless of justifications, is responsible for his or her actions – including hatred.
Every person can choose from evil, which hatred certainly is, whether political or something else. Every one of us can make that choice. In spite of decades of public indoctrination, our ability to choose to be responsible still exists. We are Americans, still able to lead, including ourselves.
Amidst the anxiety, worry, fear and complete inversion of logic that comprises “Climate Change,” a sad failure of the heart is heard as gullible men and women who might create families, declare that they are afraid to bring children into this world which is doomed by the follies of pollution and fossil fuels. It should be a mental thing, but it’s not: it’s a function of gullibility that is divorced from clear thinking.
America cannot survive gullibility. Americans, more than citizens of any other nation, are OBLIGATED to study and understand the words, and the meaning of the words, and the philosophies supporting them… in our Constitution and other founding documents. The United States of America – those are words, too, and we are obligated to understand them just as clearly. Ours is a country with a role in history unlike every other. “United” tells us that we are OBLIGATED to share common laws and moral guidance. “States” tells us that our States are the structure of our nation, and our strength. Ours is not a national government, it’s a federal one, yet every scrap of legislation that Congress passes EXPANDS national power over the states and the people, when it should be doing only what the states cannot do for themselves. Words matter. Whoever – or whatever – attempts to change the meaning of words is announcing its willingness to confuse the polity and steal our ability to discuss, reason and understand.
What American voters have allowed, so far, is an administrative bureaucracy that makes itself appear to be so important – so vital to our ability to remain fed and comfortable – that threats to its power or existence, even of tiny slivers of it, are tantamount to Hitler’s Nazism. Minor interruptions, like temporary shutdowns until appropriations are approved by Congress, are described as imminent defaults on U. S. obligations and threats to every aspect of life from stocking grocery stores to providing health care and life-saving operations. Worse, a government shutdown is racist, homophobic, transphobic and misogynist… and no one wants to be any of those things, let alone the whole country!
What illogical nonsense. Yet, that is the definition of our “democracy,” today. The “democracy” that we must impoverish ourselves to protect around the world, yet do our best to undermine, here, despite the fact that we are a Republic… that employs democracy.
Are your children gullible? Possibly. Once ideological teachers have taught our kids to believe untrue things, the pathways of gullibility are established. If a first-grader believes the United States was founded upon racism in 1619, he or she can be led to believe that gender can be changed. Pretty soon they’ll believe that their parents are a threat that cannot be told that their son or daughter is changing to daughter or son. So, now it’s better to hide truths from parents. We can’t survive gullibility.
Education, essentially dominated by government schools and unionized teachers and staff, is the fundament of culture and citizenship. Along with language, math, geography, civics, science and a second language, the success of our nation requires that our children learn about our history, our founding, the ideas behind the Constitution and how it works, and basic economics. Turning out students who cannot read – at huge expense – puts our nation at risk; filling their heads with untruths and radical theories of race and biology is the opposite of what parents – and our nation – need teachers to do. Yet, as schools fail to educate, teachers’ unions dictate policies to management that increase costs, compensation and staffing while reducing accountability for teachers’ lack of results. The incredible refusals to work and teach during “COVID” can never be forgiven.
Have we the intestinal fortitude to correct the direction and OWNERSHIP of our so-called “public” education system? Can we place the management of public schools back into the hands of those we elect to manage them? Or will we go to our graves with leftist, virtually communist teachers’ unions operating this huge fraction of our government for their own benefit… not for the advancement of our children? Government employees should be severely restricted in their abilities to influence elections. As it is, politicians charged with financial management of all departments rely on unions to get themselves elected. They (the elected) then “negotiate” with unions for pay and benefits. Those who are charged with representing citizens wind up basically representing only the unionized, public employees. What a debilitating economic farce. Will we continue this? Or are there politicians with the courage to break it up and restore fairness, balance and honesty to our republican form of government?
We are $33 Trillion in debt. Clearly the past 6 decades of “representative” government has failed to manage the people’s business. We are on the path to insolvency and economic ruin when that day comes that other nations will refuse payment in dollars. This is a system our “representatives” created in our name. Now we have a poop-head as president who has invited SEVEN MILLION or more new welfare recipients, many of whom are actual criminals and terrorist threats to our nation, to our people. Shame on him and shame on all of us who voted for him in 2020. We knew he was a fool from his 40 years of history in the Senate and his 8 years as Obama’s V. P. We knew he was a public policy and foreign policy idiot, yet we dutifully followed his party’s directions. Now, we’re the fools.
Are we patriotic enough – still – to make wiser, more sensible, economically aware choices about who will represent us American citizens and who will be our President, representing all of us and our country? Or, are we so gullible that we will again elect a caricature of a leader and toadies who claim to be our representatives? How many of our Senators and “Representatives” are receiving money or gifts of some sort from China? More than one, for sure. Why do we re-elect them and then cede them power in their respective houses?
American citizens are the most powerful people on Earth. We can affect both domestic and foreign policies of our powerful government. Yet we continuously give up our unique rights in exchange for not being called names, and we continuously re-elect relatively ignorant and corrupt people to both state and federal offices – people who soon give up representing we, the People, and then learn to represent their personal interests by cooperating with other corrupt “representatives” who have learned how to steal, legally. Whenever they actually face their voters, these worthies tend to represent the government to us rather than the other way around, explaining why this or that policy position that got them elected, cannot be accomplished.
Are we awake enough in 2023 to exercise our Constitutional rights and powers to put in place a legislature that will actually force the executive swamp to do the right things? How is it that we couldn’t even get the border closed with a threat to shut down the government? How is it that the Biden administration thinks it is “American” to force expenses upon the States in the breaking of federal immigration laws? We ARE gullible, but, are we crazy?
Most of what we hear on TV or radio about the big enemy: INFLATION, is only partially true, at best. Defeating that enemy, which politicians claim to be doing for their constituents, is impossible if we fail, sometimes on purpose, to understand the nature of it. Let’s examine the primary aspect, or feature, of Inflation: it is a tool of government, by which we mean, the federal government.
This is not to say that government intends to raise prices on commodities and goods and labor, but then, prices rising is not the definition of inflation, which is why much of what is spewed about “inflation”… is disinformation. Inflation represents only an increase in the money supply; along with the federal government’s sneaky mechanisms, there are only a couple of ways to expand the money supply, primarily banks, and banks can do so only because of federal regulations. Oddly, foreign banks and governments can ALSO expand the money supply, increasing inflation of the supply of dollars, not of wealth. When prices rise there are temporary bumps in wealth due to increased receipts and, often, fixed rates of interest on loans. So, there is a spotty increase in prosperity, but not for everyone. Inflation increases dollars, but each represents less wealth than it did even a few months, if not weeks earlier.
Only the federal government can “create” money. The Constitution charges the Congress to “…coin money, (and) regulate the value thereof…” In 1913 Congress shed that Constitutional responsibility – and authority – when it created the Federal Reserve Bank, which is a consortium of private banks with federally appointed “governors.” Legally, “The Fed” can loan money it does not have, to the government – it’s a neat trick. Of course, the Congress must approve expenditures and, when the government has no cash, it must approve borrowing “… on the full faith and credit of the United States …” to enable those expenditures. To LIMIT the degree of overspending, Congress created the ”Debt Ceiling” in 1917, streamlining the emission of bonds by the Treasury as World War I expenses mounted. With various changes and accommodations since, Congress has largely permitted the federal government to borrow whatever it can justify politically.
Since the Johnson Administration and the federalization of welfare and healthcare, the “Debt Ceiling” has proven to be not much of a ceiling, or limit, at all. As we approach $33 Trillion in federal debt, the debt ceiling has become merely a tool of negotiation, with the ultimate “threat” of “government shutdown.” With millions of people now dependent upon government handouts, it’s possible for those on the left to raise huge public, political outcry against a “shutdown.” All that conservatives can garner is some compromise on unrelated policies or spending changes, but never is there a reduction in spending or overall cut to the federal budget. It’s always an increase. The $33 Trillion is documented inflation. It’s not static, and it is expensive. When the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, the concept of interest costs to federal borrowing was supposed to keep borrowings small and temporary – that is, “paid back” to stop the interest costs. Today, the cost of interest on the national debt is well over $800 Billion – approaching the defense budget(!). The concept of limitation through interest obligations is out the window with the debt ‘ceiling.’ Our “representatives” have shown over many decades that they cannot be trusted with OUR money. How does inflating the money supply serve the interests of government?
On any given morning the value of all the dollars in the world is whatever it is. Let’s call it ONE (1). “Da Gummint” comes up with some cockamami plan to save the planet or forgive student loans or flood the country with 7 Million new welfare recipients… just saying. With the federal budget already overspent by 30% or so (financed by earlier borrowing) the president’s party dutifully files legislation to make everyone’s life better while enrichening donors to their party. It requires a new loan to enable the new magnanimity and, since all the loaned money (and tax receipts) authorized so far has been allocated, the “debt ceiling” must be raised. Eventually it is and a new $500 Billion or so is authorized and the loan made. The government spends the new dollars at a value of “1,” and target recipients do as well. Congress-people brag to their constituents about the wonderful benefits and bacon they’ve delivered.
Some of the money is used to pay current federal expenses of various kinds, including entitlements, and some goes to pay interest on this and earlier debts, now approaching THIRTY-THREE TRILLION DOLLARS, with an “F.” But, you ask, how does that cause the price of eggs to go up? Simply put, increased “prosperity” in consumers’ / buyers’ hands and bank accounts, puts stress on the marketplace: supply and demand. At first, sellers are happy – more people want more of what they sell, and… every seller is also a buyer.
Demand for eggs goes up as more people feel they can afford eggs, but, more significantly, large baking companies demand more eggs than a month ago because stores are selling more of their higher-priced goods. Egg producers need to expand production but it takes a while to do so. Large buyers bid up the price of eggs because they are determined to produce more crème-filled pastries to meet demand, and producers will accommodate their largest customers. Eggs go up in price for domestic buyers, too. Soon, a new equilibrium is attained and eggs stop rising in price from their new baseline, market price, but buyers of all kinds of things are spending dollars at a value of, say, .93, not 1.
Two hundred-million buying decisions, or more, are made every day based on relative values to buyer and seller. Prices are “driven” up as if every seller wants to be a more expensive supplier, but, in fact, most don’t: most want their value to appear higher to attract the next buyers’ ‘buy’ decision. But the seller’s “cost of eggs” has increased and he must pay the rent from his sales; he raises his prices, usually reluctantly. Everywhere you turn some “news” outlet is decrying “rising inflation,” when what they are talking about is “rising prices,” usually the CPI or Consumer Price Index. If there weren’t simultaneous DE-flationary forces at work, we’d be in real trouble.
Okay, then, what is a deflationary force? First and foremost, rising prices! It’s a sloppy, effective and painful way to absorb the extra cash created by inflation (of the money supply.) Government-generated inflation is done so without any connection to increased production or wealth; worse, it has no mechanism for debt destruction. Private, or economic inflation is tied to improved production, greater efficiency and, usually LOWER prices overall, another, positive, deflationary force: increased productivity and wealth. When “The Fed” sets ever-higher interest rates to “combat inflation,” it doesn’t put any meaningful brakes on government-generated inflation, but it does screw up economic inflation.
“Real” companies borrow money from banks when they are certain that a bigger plant, new production equipment, new delivery vehicles or better computerization, for examples, will enable the company to produce more for less, or at higher quality, or with such marked improvement that it opens new markets, or with such improved efficiency that waste is reduced and costs per unit are lowered. The loans involved come from banks that operate, by federal regulation, on the basis of fractional reserves. This, essentially, allows banks to lend out about SIX TIMES more than what they hold in reserves. That is, about 86% of outstanding loans are comprised of… wait for it: AIR. Every commercial or real-estate loan is mostly air. But! It’s generally fine. Why?
“Real” loans are made to people or businesses that have the credit-worthiness that predicts the “destruction” of that new debt. Those are what banks call “performing loans.” Depending on the nature of the loans and the financial standing of the bank, itself, “performing loans” are counted among “assets” of the bank and fractional reserve rules can apply to them, too! Simply stated, bank loans inflate the money supply. But it’s not like government / Federal Reserve inflation; “real” loans include mechanisms for 1)debt destruction; 2)increased WEALTH; 3)increased productivity and economic activity; 4)rewards for smart economic risk and honest, legal, work and growth. Smart, conservative banking is essential to healthy inflation.
The federal “system” of over-spending, over-borrowing and aversion to intelligent economics, is essential to economic weakness and political mendacity. See the difference?
It is necessary to introduce capital – and cash – into the economy. It’s called “liquidity.” There has to be enough money to borrow and enough to spend, but how much? Is there some federal agency or department that would ever add new liquidity in the right amounts and the right places? Absolutely not! Neither now or ever. Free enterprise capitalism pretty-much automatically introduces enough liquidity to enable growth, PROVIDED that the government isn’t competing with its citizens to do ever-larger fractions of the spending – and borrowing – in the economy, AND that conditions are not made politically acceptable for monopolies to form and distort markets, which is where we are, now.
The FED sets rules for banks, including what the fractional reserve rate is, and what the overnight interbank lending rate of interest is. They can chill a “too active” economy almost overnight. Income-Tax policies can interfere with even small investment decisions. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can skew the quality of the mortgage market whenever politicians decide it’s time to buy votes from certain “underserved” demographics. That is, the government can skew normal buy-sell decision-making, hurting most while “helping” some.
Capitalism needs regulation; it’s human nature to get the most for the least if possible. Honesty should be enforced; integrity should be enforced; quality and purity should be enforced; contracts should be clear and honest, particularly in employment, one of the areas where politicians (most of whom are economic idiots) like to meddle for votes. Our public servants are failing to act as partners in the success, safety and comfort of citizens, which means conditions of honesty across all contracts, short and long, and across all elected and appointed offices. Otherwise, they act as the least trustworthy manipulators of the lives of citizens for the gain of… politicians and government.
Our economy – the actions of daily life, growth and advancement – has been turned into a competition with government to survive. We haven’t even discussed the credit-card “vig” we all must pay, now, to banking consortiums, nor the legalization of drugs. Surely ours is a form of “Democratcy” that we should export to other countries… God forbid.
We are obsessed with “RIGHTS” in the United States. This isn’t to deny God-given, or “natural” rights, like Life, Liberty, self-defense, or Independence… or the right to one’s beliefs – about anything. But it should raise questions in wise people’s minds about so-called “rights” that amount to immorality and other licenses to destroy. It should make a person, especially a citizen of the United States, demand that TRUTH be part of every law and, therefore, every right that is protected by the Constitution of the United States of America. This, of course, must mean TRUTH that is empirical and based on a structure of reality that is, itself, based on evidence. Rights should never be based on popularity or “fad.”
To maintain a culture and a country based on empirical truths requires that the basis of truth, itself, must be controlled by the citizenry, not the government, and this requires several components and LIMITS, which we call, responsibility. The system relies upon clear-thinking by each citizen and the ability to obtain knowledge, not just opinion, from available heritage-media, as Prudence defines it. Heritage media is written history of both success and failure, and a wide gamut of opinion and philosophy about historic TRUTH or that serves to illuminate the shadows of historic truth. Honesty, therefore, is essential in that culture’s economics, law and governance, and in ALL contracts, public and private.
In the imperfect processes of human civilization, society and family, mechanisms must be provided and defended that allow for correction of dishonest trends and tendencies. The failure of course-correction in society, governance and education must, itself, be corrected as frequently as necessary in order to return to a path built on TRUTH and HONESTY. The human tendency to take advantage of power, whether political or economic, must be correctable and, as automatically as possible, removable, so that the vast majority of citizens retain its opportunities for advancement, comfort and safety.
That is, any legitimate form of government, must deal with citizens as individuals, and, where possible, partner with each to assure individual “success” as a free and honest individual. Both government and citizens must be acting honestly for this effect to be in balance and to manifest. Language, therefore, must be rigidly defined as to meaning and understanding, a function of honesty that educational methods and content must be based upon.
The greatest opportunity for tyranny exists in government, no matter how benignly formed and constituted. Police power resides in government and its only limits are a judicial system and politics. We like to think that written law protects us as individuals, but the judicial system must agree with those writings, which requires purity of honesty. Citizens attempt, through politics, to limit judicial power to honest jurists, but the system is imperfect. The means to correct the course of judicial dishonesty are few and awkward to employ and, in fact, arcane on purpose. Under the Constitution we hope that imperfect, if not dishonest, politicians will magically elevate the most honest individuals to our “Supreme” court. It is a hope that, historically, has proven only partially fulfilled, but to a somewhat better degree than all judicial positions as a whole. Still, the placing of power in the hands of a small number of jurists to decide Constitutional matters for thousands of others and for millions of individual citizens, is imperfect, at best, and mechanisms for correcting course even there, should be in place.
The natural limitations of foresight, to which all the crafters of the Constitution were subject, prevented planning for today’s advanced communications and democratized pollution of thought, and of honesty. Those who took the risks of responsibility to found this nation against nearly all odds, could not conceive of an America where unskilled, unmotivated and unproductive individuals could claim the “right” to be supported by not just “the government,” but by the dishonest power of government to borrow from generations into the future for the comfort of the relatively useless today.
Nor could they have imagined a political engine that runs not on the honesty that the competition built into a democratic republic ought to ensure, but on the ability to manipulate truth and re-election bribery schemes to limit the number of citizens that might ever hold elected power. There are serious weaknesses in our Constitutional system – not because it can’t work, but because it relies too heavily upon honesty and integrity of those to whom we relinquish power. In other words, it fails to protect the citizens from the worst tendencies of human nature. We can correct for these weaknesses of our Constitutional republic.
Clearly there is too great a concentration of power, political and financial, in the administrative state. This is pleasing to leftists/Communists. Their basic approach to life is that “experts” should be making decisions for, well, everyone who is not an oligarch. For the wealthy, decisions are made that favor and protect them, much as we have observed during the COVID years. Unfortunately, the political “class” is also happy with most responsibility being held by the deep state. It removes that responsibility – and accountability – from the political personas they need to gain re-election. Relying on elected “representatives” to reform the decades-long shift to un-representative administration of power, is a fool’s errand. Things are too comfortable for too many of our “public servants.”
We need a Constitutional amendment that sets term limits for virtually all federal employees – elected and appointed/hired. The “people’s business” has been subverted by an essentially communist administrative behemoth that no longer answers to the will of voters. The American system was created to place and keep power in the hearts, heads and hands of American citizens. To that purpose it is a failure. Much heat is generated trying to find people to blame for this epic slippage of mission.
Naturally, everyone is practiced at denying his or her role in the change. It’s societal, starting with a lack of education of the average voter. Coincidentally, the education establishment is firmly controlled by leftists. States have played a role in the shift, as they sought out innovative ways to shift financial and other responsibilities to the federal government. Leftists have led the efforts to shift welfare and other financial loads onto Washington, but, to their shame, conservatives have found it handy to duck those responsibilities, as well. Nor will any state deny largesse that others are receiving… it would be unfair to their citizens, and so it has proceeded: shifting freedom, power and financial responsibility to the federal government. Over 150 years increasingly socialist forces have transformed the basic relationships of the federal government to its citizens. As often as it has been interpreted to protect citizens’ rights, the Constitution is as likely to defend socialist shifts of rights and responsibilities to government. It’s obscene.
The money controlled by bureaucrats, more than three quarters of whom are leftists, easily sways corporate policies, creating a nearly irresistible force of control over 330 million citizens. It doesn’t seem to matter who they are convinced to elect. The direction of government tends to continue toward the left, which is globalist, now. The independence of individuals and even of the entire nation, is no longer a national goal, nor is it likely, although possible, that citizens can reverse the course away from liberty and free enterprise, and even Constitutionalism. The only option to reverse the course of global Communism is to amend the Constitution by adding tools and limits that the administrative (and elective) states would never permit, if that amending were in their hands. Our Founders anticipated this.
Article Five of our Constitution provides for adding Amendments via two different processes. The only one that has been employed to date is what may be called the Congressional process. A two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate can propose an Amendment that may – or may not – be approved by the legislatures or popular votes of three-fourths of the States. This has been done, starting with the Bill of Rights, 27 times. It is not a perfect process, having included some glaring errors like the eighteenth and twenty-fifth amendments. The process is totally political and responds to democratic whims. [See: https://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2021/06/27/boneheaded-25th/ ]
The alternate process is referred to as “Convention of the States” and requires that two-thirds of the States’ legislatures approve of an application to hold a convention for the purpose of proposing Amendments. It states that “the Congress” … “shall call a Convention for proposing amendments…” It is not clear that that “call” would require a two-thirds vote in both houses as the first process does. But it definitely says, “…shall call…” and there is no stipulation that a “law” must be passed, so, it seems Prudent to say, a majority of the two houses should call the convention. There are risks.
One is that the Left, Fascists and Communists, NEVER retreat from their mission: the destruction of individual sovereignty, liberty and responsibility. We have seen that laws are meaningless in their view of history – RULES are the coin of their realm. LAWS imply shared values of morality like, well, the Ten Commandments and their ilk. Rules are made by rulers… and they will tell everyone what is right, wrong and moral when necessary. Rules evolve, in their view, as do morals, including the number one, most-moral Rule of all: evolution must serve the State (which often means, One Party) and if it does then that is what is moral.
Great vitriol will spew forth if the magic number of 34 is reached. Congress and the rest of the power establishment has no intention of relinquishing any of what they hold dear. A Convention of the States could, if carefully managed, redress many imbalances in what should be a federal system of governance. Most people don’t know what that term means. The alternative is a “national” government – not what the Constitution created… and LIMITED.
One of the worst consequences of the national administrative, unelected “state,” is our astronomical debt. Congresses since the Johnson Administration and the nationalization of welfare, have buried the American nation and people in, now, over 32 Trillions of dollars of debt. Over this period of decline, every problem leftists could give a name to became a “crisis” or a “war” on this or that social ill. Where is the honesty? One wonders.
Arguments over “raising the debt ceiling” are annually fruitless. Those who live their best lives amidst the swamp of Washington are always so deeply concerned about “defaulting on the debt,” something the United States of America, for Heaven’s sake, would never allow! Oh, the horror! Of course, there is interest to be paid for the privilege of never repaying the debt, itself, now in the range of $500 BILLION every year, which is a lot of Meals on Wheels. It’s a lot of drug and other mental health treatment; it’s a lot of policing and incarceration of rabid criminals; it’s a lot of a lot of things. Janet Yellen now wants to rate the INTEREST on the debt in terms of its fraction of Gross Domestic Product. She had to go some to find a comparator that makes the interest bomb look small. Where’s the honesty?
A Convention of the States could bring about amendments that would limit spending to actual revenues of the previous year. What a concept. Any revenue – and that means every penny – in excess of that figure would pay down the debt: another concept, hard for Washington to grasp. How does YOUR Congressman or woman propose to pay down the debt? Eliminate “wasteful” spending and “fraud?” When the Defense Department fails to account for multiple billions of dollars, is that wasteful or fraudulent? When Medicare is defrauded of billions every year, is that wasteful? When States use Medicaid funds to pay other expenses, is that wasteful? Or fraudulent? If everyone from Congress on up is in on the game, it can’t be fraud, can it?
How about everything from health care to the National Institutes of Health, the CDC and Fauci’s NIAID be returned to the States, free from federal politics? Do you think the pharmaceutical industry would have more or less influence over actual health… as opposed to lifetime drug consumption? Maybe land-use policies could be returned to the States, as well. Is federal binding-up of nearly 30% of the country, disallowing joint use for profit, national security and recreation… is that wasteful? Maybe the “work” of the energy Department could return to the States. Who would miss that agency except those who garner money in their pockets by dealing with a handful of bureaucrats instead of elected officials?
Maybe an amendment could remove politics from the FBI and restore it to investigating and fighting federal-law offenses while coordinating States’ cooperation for additional crime-fighting. Policing should be a State matter, anyway. It’s none of Congress’ business how States control crime and incarceration unless Constitutional rights are abused.
Fully HALF of Federal Agencies, Departments, offices could be eliminated, gone, kaput. Few would miss them, again except for those who line their pockets by interacting with them. If they are actually partnering in the success of American citizens, then keep them. Otherwise, put every one on a separate line-item to be voted up or down every other year. Perhaps the Congress could actually serve citizens instead of itself. It might mean some hard work, though.
And let’s put limits on consecutive terms for every elected official who is paid more than an expense stipend, universally, but let States decide what they should be in their State. These might include how many terms a previously elected office-holder must stay out of the process of running again. But EVERY elected official should have to prosper in the private sector and live under the laws he or she helped pass. Being in Congress or States’ legislatures or elected executive office is NOT a profession – it’s a sacrifice of service to neighbors, communities and country. I guarantee we’d have different kinds of people in office – and different offices bound by different laws – which are the points.
The laziness of Americans, as opposed to the laziness of humans in general, will prove the undoing of our culture and comforts, unless there is large-scale social change. The pieces – or parts – of the social engine that created a series of technological revolutions that placed men on the moon in 1969, are well-known, but widely disparaged. How can a successful society turn away from what worked for it for hundreds of years – even thousands – and turn in a generation or two towards multiple paths of destruction of those same social-civil engines that made America the most attractive, envied nation in the world? It requires intense purpose and planning.
Not long before the Eagle landed, the United States reached its highest level of living standards for the largest number of people, of all races. John Kennedy was president at the time and it’s been downhill for the United States since then. Social pollution had slipped into our “main” stream of progress towards the future. The generations of World War I and the Depression had proven their rightness and righteousness by raising up the “Greatest Generation” who sacrificed lives and property to remove large elements of evil in World War II, and then rebuilding former enemies so that they might join “America” in a future of freedom, democracy and prosperity. Unfortunately, the evils of Communism were not destroyed at the same time, instead literally encouraged through treaty and malfeasance to grow and entrench in two of the largest countries: the U.S.S.R. and China.
Communism is unalterably antithetical to the American idea and system; it is antithetical to religion, by definition, and it is contained and promoted within a mission of ridding the world of religion and individuality… two of the key engines of American success. How is it possible that Communism could ever gain a foothold against the beautiful system and ideals of America? Long-term, never ending planning and step-by-step erosion of values. “Well, I’m not a Communist,” you are saying to yourself, “and there’s no way other Americans could ever fall for that crap.” You’re only half right… on both parts of your statement.
First, how could anyone fall for Communism in the United States? We “know” it fails to increase freedom and inevitably descends into fascist authoritarianism, controlling every aspect of life and interaction in society. Communist nations are organized by classism and are examples of racialism of the worst sorts. Communists of varied virulence have followed two tracks, and one is education. Over the past 60 years, while our “representatives” have been consumed with clinging to their elected sinecures, leftists, convinced of their being so much smarter than those who “cling to their guns and Bibles” as Obama notably observed, have taken control of educational colleges and programs. This placed leftists (Communists) in charge of certifying teachers and controlling the curricula in education degree programs. Bit by bit our schools, mostly public, but the majority of private schools as well, have slanted curricula toward what “educators,” especially those Phd.’s who get hired as superintendents and commissioners of education, think is most “progressive.” No one wants to be “old fashioned” else we won’t be keeping up with competing countries.
From teens and college students who got away with drugs and free sex rebellion in the 60’s and 70’s, have sprung generations of children who have been raised in “socialist” homes by parents who perceive winning as more valuable than learning, training and personal advancement. If that means “beating” the system and protecting their offspring from the consequences of failure, then there are no limits. College courses, themselves, have more and more quickly responded to social change and trends, first from feminism and then anti-Christianity and sexual deviance. Today students can “major” in relatively useless study areas that have grown out of non-individuality, non-individual responsibility, communalism. We can hear this diversion from what made us strong and resilient when “advocates” and activists describe their deep feelings and concerns for this or that “community.”
The “gay community” or the “trans community” or the “African-American community” are terms that display an inherent rejection of Americanism. Our fundament is individual responsibility, individual success and individual failure, if that is what it takes to learn how to improve and succeed. The quality and character of each of us Americans, is what matters… not the false groupings proto-Communists would try to have us believe exist. Everything, good or bad, is “class-actionable” to communists.
The most destructive laziness is to allow the present circumstances to continue.
The other part of your – our – belief that we’re not Communists also is, sadly, in question. Leftists – Democrats – love to accuse Republicans of planning to cut Social Security and Medicare. Republicans automatically trumpet their promise to “protect Social Security and Medicare!” What they are really saying is: “We believe in these parts of the Communist Manifesto even MORE than those Democrats who claim to care about you!”
Federal money has purchased most Americans’ philosophies. The line between good solid American values and corrupt socialist nanny-statism is moving with almost every “omnibus” bill in Congress and every election cycle. We are, by and large, afraid to give up Communism, now. How can we make the case for freedom? And, what is that case? If most Americans are committed socialists, who is going to rally behind rolling socialism back?
Perhaps you were an obedient mask-wearing soldier in the battle against COVID-19. Some of your compatriots are still wearing their masks, convinced, by government wisdom, of something or other. You have thought you were protecting others and saving lives (despite all science to the contrary) and need only for our benign governors to alert you to something else that only your sacrifice can save us from… imminent destruction of the environment and our planet, for example. “Whatever it takes,” you think to yourself, “just tell us so that we know what to do.” Needless to say, YOU will never be called an “anti-vaxxer” like those deplorables that are constantly skeptical of what is necessary to save us, all. Many of them probably attended Trump’s speech on January 6th, 2021. You don’t need to convert to Communism, the Communists are perfectly happy with you as you are: malleable and far removed from individuality. No trouble.
Now, to save the planet, we are instructed, American success must be stifled. Americans use too much energy, eat too much food, consume too much health care, drive too many miles, invent too much. Maybe if we legalized extra-strong marijuana, dumbed down our education, shifted our university education towards social confusion and division, spent time and money on transgenderism in the military… perhaps then we can make progress towards snuffing out that damned American energy and genius. Individualists will never kneel down for global government so let’s force Americans to divide against one another. Students must be encouraged to foreswear their responsibilities by pretending to be the opposite sex – it’s a good way to divorce them from their meddlesome parents, as well. We can’t have parents inculcating their offspring with religious beliefs and hard-work ethics. All that pro-American stuff must be watered down.
So who are the “we” making all these plans? Why they’re our elected and appointed federal and state officials! We, the people, put these communist-socialists into power over us! We, the people, largely ignorant of our responsibilities as U. S. citizens, have agreed with the hateful divisions that have popped up everywhere with the appearance of COVID. Leftists have been rubbing raw the feelings of many blacks, mainly those who have failed to excel after generations of welfare dependency, failed education and inner-city criminality. Institutionalized failure under federal “programs” have rewarded “community activists” for agitating a restive sub-group. Leftists have worked for years to forgive the somehow-justified hatred for “white” culture, even when it expressed in riots, murders, looting and arson. All that has been needed is an “unjustified” death at the hands of white police personnel – and not always “white” – any police. A few communists, a few hired-to-be-incompetent district attorneys, and almost any tragedy can be turned into a society-ripping weapon against America. If you think the anger and destruction is justified: the “Saint George Floyd” effect, then the committed communists and globalists (same people) are perfectly happy with you. Their plans to remove the U. S. of A. as a stumbling block to globalism, are working better than well.
There’s always the next election, of course, when we can vote in some true patriots who will correct the problems the federal government creates for us. That might be a plan if we hadn’t acquiesced to wholesale weakening of election laws and voting regulations slowly for decades, then in a rushing flood under COVID. Every one of us must be vigilant in our states and question every regulation for voting that has been promulgated since March of 2020.
Communists and other leftists LOVE democracy. All that voting… all those ballots… people can be persuaded to believe they are in control and making real choices. One can observe that the largest “democracies” have nearly universal voter participation and, interestingly, nearly universal approval of one candidate. How wonderful. Even not-so-large “democracies” where some hapless opponent(s) of the approved candidate(s) find that the approved candidate still manages to eke out a win after ALL votes are counted. This means ALL ballots are counted, not actual votes, but ballots. As the great democrat, Josef Stalin opined, the people who count the votes are more important. Clearly that has become the byword for leftists and capital-D Democrats in the United States: the purpose of an election is power – not democracy, not strengthening our republic, not expanding citizen participation… power. And, since that is the true purpose, whatever it takes to realize that goal is justifiable.
After all, whenever leftists slip up and a Republican gains power, he or she is merely an interloper to be tolerated until power is restored to its rightful owners. It is time, fellow citizens, to restore honesty in government – all three branches and the elections that create them. Maybe a candidate will run on a platform of honesty and truth-telling to his or her constituents… ummm, naah.
We could ask, though. If you’d like to make a candidate squirm, ask if he or she will adopt honesty and truth-telling as his or her platform, promising to tell the truth about government to constituents… to people like, well, you? You won’t be able to keep up with the semi-true and misleading replies that question elicits. Should that person take office, Prudence predicts that the answers he or she might offer, should you ask, will become less and more tenuously connected to truth. Finally, “our” representative become a representative of the government TO us. That is when we ought to know that it’s time to replace him or her with someone new. Otherwise that sickly-sweet candy shell with the intensely bitter center, known as Communism, will win.
Progress toward exposing problems we face has been impPrudently slow… and there are so many. They are interrelated, but it is far too complex to discuss them all at once. Let’s move forward.
UNIONIZATION
There are valid reasons for otherwise independent, sovereign individuals to put their futures and ability be productive into he hands of others who may or may not share their best interests. Usually those reasons are related to bad management decisions, but unionism has devolved into monopoly labor, and it’s just as flawed as monopoly capitalism. The private sector has largely rejected unionism; monopoly labor primarily exists in the “public” sector – government financed and managed work. The reason for this phenomenon, the dirtiest possible, is the value of rewarding an army of political, re-election workers, be they in construction, policing, firefighting, plumbing, paving or bus-driving.
Most are good people. It’s never a question of individual people, it’s the power held by a relative few of them who purport to “represent” their membership in obtaining more “fairness” in pay and work rules. The process of keeping power for union leaders lies in politicians having voted for legal status for unions; it lies in “public” contracting and public employment being required to be unionized. The unions, as a result these legal requirements, also are obligated to “negotiate” with the same politicians who granted them power and for whom they work at election times. It is a game in which the politicians always lose when representing “the public” – taxpayers – in determining how much to pay the members of the unions. On the other hand, the politicians, left mostly, but also many on the right, who “fight” for “working families” usually win on the re-election side of the board. “Working families” are always union families, and the “fight” is always to pay them more.
It didn’t take long for what union members were paid became the “prevailing wage” and the rate that anyone doing business with town, state or federal governments had to pay in order to bid on “public” contracts. Unlike business and labor and expenditures in the (dreaded) private sector where all the productive surplus that pays for every public expenditure is earned, virtually no one who negotiates for the “public” represents the interests of the public… not really. Elected officials who win election and re-election by promising to “fight for working families and the ‘middle class’” only fight to keep things as they are, reliably in favor of government, always at higher pay.
If a single change could be made that was “fair” for every American, it would be for every state to be a right-to-work state with no favoritism in public contracting for unionized companies. For contractors who could show superior results from their unionized workforce, they would rightly win their share of “public” projects. Non-union contractors who could show the same, would win theirs. Until that day, the slope will remain downward, always at higher pay.
A sad example of the downside of legally sanctioned unionization is the death and destruction that followed the death of George Floyd in 2020. “Oh, come now Prudence… you’re off the rails with that one,” you might be thinking. But, you’re looking at the wrong end of the whole sequence. The man who was convicted for the manslaughter of Floyd before his body was cold, Officer Derek Chauvin of the Minneapolis Police Department, was a dues-paying member of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis. That union had no role in his trial relative to George Floyd, but it had protected Chauvin multiple times relative to complaints about his use of force while an active officer, of which there were many – more than 15. Chances are that Chauvin ought to have been separated from the police department long before he restrained George Floyd. He had demonstrated a tendency to use force to restrain detainees past the point when force was needed. The Federation had argued for him in every case, saving his job. That’s what unions do and a large part of why members pay union dues.
EDUCATION
One of the worst examples of public employee unionization is teachers’ unions – not teachers… teachers’ unions. Their stranglehold on public policy and purse strings was made clear during the 3 years’ of COVID-19 fear-mongering. The damage to children and to actual education itself, is nearly immeasurable, the money wasted to appease teacher unions during COVID, is outrageous. Even the supposed scientists at the CDC were taking orders from the Federation of Teachers as to whether schools could open again or kids stop wearing masks – science be damned. Teachers pretended to “teach” remotely while students pretended to “learn” from their computer screens. But, no one learned from the “science” everyone claimed to be following, including the CDC and the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases: guardians of “the science,” every one. And that’s another post.
Observers of things educational estimate that kids were set back one to two years of development and learning under the COVID regime. Despite the uselessness of face masks and the increasing understanding of the damage they do to development of the youngest school-children, including socialization and speech and comprehension skills, some school systems, largely pushed by unions, still wanted to mask children at the beginning of the 2022-23 school year! Because of fear of catching COVID? Ridiculous. These are the people we trust to impart knowledge to our children – knowledge that is supposed to prepare them to think on their own, resolve problems and conflicts and to prepare for adulthood. Yet many school teachers and school committees seem Hell-bent on denying the children with whom they are entrusted for five days a week, a fair chance at growing up intact. What are we doing? What are they doing? What in every matter of education should educators consider their mission and success to be? Confuse kids about their sexual outlook or fantasy? Convince kids that their skin color is more important than their abilities to apply themselves?
People who don’t lie to themselves and others about human nature – like socialists and Communists do – will say “No” to those last two questions.
BANKS & ECONOMICS
People whom we pay excessively to “manage” our finances, the money supply and economic growth, appear to not have as deep an understanding as we assume when justifying their exalted pay and position. They are evidently even more ignorant of the majesty of freedom and individual sovereignty; money and freedom are inextricable, after all. The foolhardy actions of the “Biden” administration, following on the heels of the largely mendacious “COVID Pandemic,” and the deadly inflation that results, illustrate all too clearly the lack of intelligence being applied to economics… and to governance, itself.
Amidst the jungle of banking, finance and investment regulations that have grown up since the Great Depression, a basic truth has been lost within government, itself – including Congress – and among the people of the United States. Now, with communistic theories being applied thither and yon, we are approaching the cliff’s edge of economic collapse while a crowd of chowderheads is enthralled with its legislative “victories” in the first two years of the Biden regime, basic truth be damned. And, what truth is this? Inflation is the result of government actions. It is not a virus that attacks without warning, or the result of too much exuberance by free people and enterprise. It refers only to the money (actually, “currency”), supply, something for which the unholy alliance between government and the Federal Reserve are entirely responsible. Rising prices are not inflation, although inflation results in prices rising. Inflation (and this is why it is often employed as a matter of policy) reduces the value of currency, both in tangible form and in electronic accounts. In the short term, it enables government to pay its debts more cheaply, but it also steals from every private person and family, savings and retirement account. Inflation is a thief unleashed upon the population by government.
Lately, the secretive, highly regulated, yet poorly regulated banking industry, has been shaken to its boots by the severe inflation ignited by the pandemic and the wild, unneeded deficit spending of the Biden administration. The Federal Reserve Board assumes as part of its role, that it must regulate the money supply, ostensibly to limit inflation. Contra-indicated is its other assumed role: controlling (limiting) unemployment. Controlling inflation comes first, always, since the health of the financial/banking system relies on stable rates of inflation and of interest. In the world of mortgages and large-asset financing and leasing, interest rates – the cost of money over time – needs to be stable or growing very slowly. Abrupt acceleration in the rate of inflation disturbs both long and short-term financing and, ironically, the availability of cash for daily economic function. Banks have failed in the past two weeks and other banks are scrambling to save weakened banks. Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen has repeatedly assured the public and Congress that “the banks” are safe and that depositors will be able to obtain their money when needed. America’s Gramma Yellen looks so friendly. She expects to bring our total debt to 50,000,000,000,000 dollars. That is a difficult number to grasp – maybe FIFTY FRIGGIN’ TRILLION is easier to conceive of. Her calming words consist of the possibility that the total cost of INTEREST(!) will be a certain relatively small percentage of GROSS FRIGGIN’ DOMESTIC PRODUCT!
Yellen is a committed Keynesian economist, which is to say that she believes in deficit spending as a matter of policy and appropriate government action/response to financial OR social anomalies. This belief blends in with the socialist view that any problem brought to government’s attention, must be resolved by government action. “Deficit” spending also fits the modus operandi of the Federal Reserve, itself, since it is enabled by law to lend money to the government that it – the Fed – does not have! What could go wrong?
Deficit spending, itself, is premised on the vast majority of the population being ignorant of the possible effects of it. That is, so long as “people” (voters) don’t understand what government is doing to them (“for them” in theory), and it is primarily economic “doing,” the government can do what is good for government and keep voters occupied with a host of social issues, angers, unfairness-es, and fundamentally local grievances. With enough words in favor of this or that response to these non-federal (non-Constitutional) issues, Congressmen and women and Senators, many of whom don’t understand economics much, either, can keep getting re-elected. The permanent government and the “experts,” like Yellen, who slide into and out of powerful federal positions, can maintain the direction they want government to go, regardless of the wishes of the citizenry whose power they actually exercise. Janet Yellen has been influential or powerful in the economic direction of the federal government for three decades – first as one of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors in the mid ‘90’s, then as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors for Bill Clinton for two years. Barack Obama named her Chair of the Federal Reserve – technically a private consortium of banks, not Federal, in fact. Joe Biden chose her for Treasury Secretary, likely as he chose many of the key people from the Obama Administration: at Obama’s direction.
Despite supposedly favoring low unemployment over inflation control, Yellen has argued for continued “stimulus” during the pandemic, and for higher taxes and lower “retirement” spending to deal with the national debt. Republicans are routinely lied-about at any suggestion of reducing Social Security or Medicare expenditures like what Janet Yellen suggested. Doesn’t matter, so long as she is happy to enable and promote Keynesian deficits in the face of “crises,” socialists will be happy to take her advice.
We are in trouble. Stay tuned for more ways to Prudently analyze or resolve the problems we face.
The accumulation of derogatory information about the origin of COVID-19 and the supposed “vaccines” rushed into production and forced upon billions of people across the world, argues for some Prudent discussion. We’ve been repeatedly told about how “COVID” caused the deaths of “a million” Americans. It’s more complicated than just that terrible number.
For some weird reason, the United States has yet to hold China responsible for the pandemic. We keep doing billions of dollars of business with China, we treat China with kid-glove diplomacy, and we drop key internal defenses against Chinese influence within our universities, elections and social media. No rational country would act this way, so why are we acting irrationally? Money? Is that it? Did you know that China actually established its own POLICE STATIONS (supposedly to monitor Chinese nationals) in New York and elsewhere?
Do you ever hear a statistic of how many people have died or been debilitated by the mRNA vaccines? No? It is Prudent to wonder why that is so. Are the deaths of young, not infirm, but healthy young children and young adults, any less tragic than deaths from COVID? There are thousands, after all. Debilitation includes permanent heart damage that has stopped sports activity in its tracks and lifelong heart weakness. Is this other epidemic simply the price that a society must pay for the greater good? What good is that? Wealth transfer?
Those who take the “side” of the so-called mRNA vaccines are convinced that they miraculously saved the lives of millions of people. That is a statistic that can’t really be quantified: we can’t prove what didn’t happen. Oddly, though, when COVID was its most virulent, in 2020, there was no “vaccine” available, yet in 2021, when people were lining up by the millions to get the injections, twice as many people died “from COVID.”
Needless to say, money skewed those deaths and statistics, too. Hospitals were compensated for treating COVID patients, more for providing Remdesivir (which also killed some victims) and more for use of ventilators on patients… then still more for every COVID death in hospital. Unlike virtually every other epidemic/pandemic, NO OTHER TREATMENT OPTIONS WERE PERMITTED! Despite widespread evidence of lives saved and mitigating effectiveness of Ivermectin in various combinations with analgesics and supplements, one of the safest drugs ever discovered, doctors who prescribed it were chastised and restricted to the point of losing hospital privileges and even licensure. AS IF COORDINATED, there erupted a monolithic defense of mRNA vaccines as the only “treatment” approved, and a virulent disapproval of all alternatives. Is that how influential big Pharma’s money is throughout our medical establishment?
To make matters ever so much worse, governments imposed vaccines on various groups, professions, industries else workers would lose their jobs – jobs deemed heroic prior to vaccine availability. Civil rights were tossed out the window in favor of vaccine mandates, while adverse effects of the vaccines themselves were suppressed. Gone was the right to “informed consent” by the coerced, since the vaccine makers had made claims of effectiveness based on poor test samples and, in crucial cases, NO TEST SAMPLES… just claims. There was no real information about the “vaccines” that could provide the “informed” part.
Throughout 2022, as “vaccinated” came to mean the first two shots and some number of booster shots, the niggling reports of adverse reactions to mRNA injections became a flood, including an abrupt spike in sudden adult deaths among the 25 to 59 year old demographic – the healthiest segment. Morticians and pathologists were reporting numerous instances of long, rubbery blood clots among deceased, vaccinated victims. Young men, even into their teens, were dropping dead during sporting events or while in training – reports from our and several other countries. Other reports involved pilots, who are monitored constantly for fitness, and even military personnel, also in the healthiest years of their lives, all vaccinated by mandate.
One doctor Prudence interacted with, upon hearing how the injections were being called “clot shots,” immediately proclaimed that COVID itself caused clots “orders of magnitude” more frequently than the miraculous mRNA injections, which, sadly, is simply not true. She, like many others “in” the medical industry, believes that the mRNA shots are a miracle that has saved millions of lives. That is what they are supposed to believe.
There are numerous instances of patients’ families going to court to force hospitals to treat their loved-ones with something besides ventilation and Remdesivir. In many cases the hospital would force them to physically take the patient somewhere else to avoid being treated in ways that institution had declared to be the “protocol,” for COVID, often in lockstep with “CDC” recommendations and “FDA” rules against Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine. Doctors who knew of the effectiveness of alternate treatments were forced out of those hospitals and even lost their licenses. Today, the CDC and FDA are trying to claim that they offered only “suggestions” and that neither ever forced anyone to choose certain treatments or deny them. What a load of crap. These are still the “authorities” in medicine. We haven’t even mentioned Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Tony Fauci is a case study in “deep statism” all by himself. He worked for the National Institutes of Health for more than 53 years, and as head of the national Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) for the last 38 of those years. Over that span his federal salary rose to well over $400,000 – more than the President or anyone else in federal employ is paid. He may have been worth every penny. However, in addition to salary, many of the staff within NIH agencies, including Mr. Fauci, presumably, are allowed to collect “royalties” from pharmaceuticals and treatment protocols developed directly from research and laboratory testing financed by the NIH budgets. Fauci has strongly denied any “investment” in, for example, the mRNA injections, but his declaimer about royalties paid to personnel is rather indistinct, although he tosses in that none of its royalties were “paid to (him).” That doesn’t apply to numerous other products his NIAID helped to develop.
Perhaps Fauci’s greatest impact is achieved through research grants, in the many millions, ultimately billions, of dollars. We can see this impact in the microcosm by following the money the NIAID granted to a subcontractor, “Eco-Health Alliance,” for whom there existed no compunction about financing work in the Wuhan, China, Institute of Virology. Despite the highly revered – and paid – Dr. Fauci’s denial before Congress, Eco-Health Alliance was funding so-called gain-of-function research on the SARS-2-CoV virus. There must have been some good reason to encourage and fund that work. Money, perhaps.
It turns out that the University of North Carolina obtained a patent on the SARS-2-CoV virus protein. This is not possible, according to patent law referring to biological “inventions,” unless… unless the molecule or protein or cell has been engineered. That is, one cannot obtain a patent on a naturally occurring life-form. Even more interestingly, our own “CDC,” a federal agency (the Center for Disease Control) had already obtained a patent (which they petitioned to keep confidential) on the SARS-2 virus! That virus had to be engineered, also, in order to be patented, and not merely isolated. Wait a minute!
Dr. Fauci and others had determined that the SARS virus had certain useful qualities, perhaps as a biological vehicle for delivering certain biological materials into humans? Certainly there was something about that virus that made it worth engineering. And engineer they did, except the “they” got laundered through a favored sub-contractor who did business with the Wuhan Institute.
When the virus broke out of the lab – which reason and evidence make clear – it was the engineered version, made more infective in humans through “gain-of-function” engineering. “They” call it research. Who doesn’t like scientific research? Trust the science, right? The Chinese Communists, never known for telling the truth, tried to deflect on the source of COVID-19, as they distributed it across the planet, by claiming that it came from the U. S. military. There was, very unfortunately, more truth to that claim than Americans want to admit. Our own National Institutes of Health and its NIAID under the careful guidance of the renowned Anthony Fauci, began the chain of processes that resulted in the pandemic/plandemic we blame for millions of deaths and trillions of dollars of economic destruction. What a string of crimes.
But the disease enabled a huge lurch toward one-world socialist government, and our own president-regular-guy, Joe, is following along with his own trans-national delusions. He is happy to sign over American sovereignty in matters of health, American citizenship, gun-control, freedom of movement and financial manipulation. His outlook is shared by the World Economic Forum and the United Nations, particularly the W.H.O., who have lied about COVID-19 fairly steadily to protect China. No wonder today’s Democrats hate Trump and “America First” so much. The patriotic, America-loving observer would, Prudently, expect that “America First” would encompass “Americans First,” as part of the philosophy. It would seem that the HEALTH and well-being of Americans ought to be way high up in the purposes and priorities of the politicians we elect and overpay with that reasonable expectation. These so-called “vaccines” and related mandates appear to be the exact opposite of “Americans First.”
Recently the less-than-honest CDC expanded its “recommendations” for the “emergency use” injections of poorly tested mRNA gene therapies, to children as young as 2 years. No mother has been able to make an informed decision – able to provide “informed consent” – for the administration of these odd chemicals to their innocent offspring. That is because no mother has the information about what the “vaccine” does to her child’s body, heart, brain, ovaries immediately or over time. Neither Pfizer nor Moderna nor Astra-Zeneca has publicized what each does know about adverse reactions to the shots. There are, literally, well over 200,000 such events, including thousands of deaths. ANY other “vaccine” would have been pulled from the market after several hundred serious adverse effects.
ANY other epidemic/pandemic disease would have had every feasible treatment thrown at it, as well. None has ever been restricted as COVID-19 was, as to what drugs might be administered to counter the infection. Did you or someone you know lose a friend or family member to “Covid?” Was he or she “treated” with ventilation and/or Remdesivir? Estimates of how many Americans died of Covid, in fact, run to one million; estimates of how many might have been saved with banned treatments, primarily Ivermectin and key nutrients, run to HALF! 500,000 deaths that deserved more than one attempt to prevent them.
And, there is far more useful advice for prevention of harm from Covid-19, than taking more doses of mRNA shots, that for many people are a far greater risk of injury or death than Covid, itself. Put that in your 5-year-old… and hope for the best.
Currently we seem to be as concerned about inflation and the “consumer price index” as we are about any other nationwide issue. “Inflation,” of course, refers only to the inflation of the money supply, something that is only partly affected by the actions of people in the day-to-day economy… what we call, “Main Street.” This reference is usually juxtaposed to “Wall Street,” where the wizards of finance operate at, supposedly, an entirely different level of economics than the rest of us. Though Wall Street money machinations are more arcane, they are not so very different from the decisions we all make regarding the presence or lack of “money” and the affordability of things we’d like to buy.
“Wall Street” is a combine of INTERNATIONAL money manipulators, and they are tied to many governments, especially that of the United States, where finance involves multi-Billions and even Trillions of dollars; financing shopping centers, small businesses and residences is not their particular concern. They, like Federal socialists, are delighted to mess with 10’s and 100’s of thousands of mortgages, including selling “options” and “futures” contracts based on their supposed flow of billions and hundreds of billions of future mortgage payments – delighted, that is, until their phony financial instruments caused the destruction of several of their own pack, like Lehman Brothers. At that point, thanks to their financial entanglements with “our” federal government and governors, they felt free to compel the taxpayers of America to bail them out. Otherwise, they’re just like us.
In either case, “money” is defined as instruments of real worth or value: a dollar once was exchangeable for a dollar’s worth of silver or, in theory, of gold. People – and banks and governments – around the world, recognize precious metals and true weights and purity thereof, as items of intrinsic value. Right now, the “dollar” bill we are familiar with is no longer even tied to the United States directly; it is a “Federal Reserve Note” that the U. S. Federal Government declares must be accepted as “legal tender” for all debts public and private. But, all you can get at a Federal Reserve Bank (neither federal nor a reserve) in exchange for a one-dollar Federal Reserve Note is another Federal Reserve Note. So, our “currency” today is only “tender,” not actual money. Others accept it in exchange for real goods and services and as long as this is true we can function economically.
Our good and trusted Representatives, however, legislating in “The People’s House” on our behalf, have decided over many decades to spend more “money” than we can actually afford to pay in taxes. Our Federal “budgets,” such as they have been since 1960 or so, have been out of “balance,” now accumulating some $32 Trillion of DEBT, which has placed an obligation on the backs of all of us, thank them very much. This occurred at an accelerated rate over the past two years of the Biden administration and the last year of the Trump administration, thanks, ostensibly, to a COVID-19 pandemic, and this has both distorted our employment, wages and sense of responsibility, and caused tremendous INFLATION of the money supply. Well, actually, it’s not money that it has inflated, but our “legal tender” or “currency.” Keep in mind that it is not “money” that gets inflated – that supply only grows by the quantities of goods and fixed assets that increase thanks to PRODUCTION of those goods, goods that have intrinsic value. That “intrinsic value” is the closest thing to “money” that we have.
Unfortunately, as fascistic leftists shut down our economy and started paying newly locked-out workers to stay home as their jobs evaporated, PRODUCTION, oddly enough, declined! Suddenly we had trillions of new bits of legal tender floating around with fewer goods – or SERVICES – available to buy! This logically caused prices to rise. That’s not “inflation,” regardless of how often we call it that, it is PRICE INCREASE derived largely from supply and demand. In our foolishness we lowered supply while we multiplied demand. Indeed, our decades-long transfer of production to China, where it was also restricted by COVID (including screw-ups in the supply chain, keeping what products were made out of our marketplaces) made our own inflation-generated price increases even worse. Anyone who calls rising prices, “inflation,” is simply ignorant. The Federal Government and the current administration are the most frequent mis-staters of what “inflation” is, but it helps to confuse – or lie to – the American people, one of which is always a Federal goal.
Consequently, President Biden and his tight tether to the truth, loves to claim that “inflation” has “come down” for the past 6 consecutive months. How wonderful that sounds, as though his spendthrift administration were responsible for improving the economy for average folks. But what is reality? Do Biden’s truths have any congruence with reality?
Prices are still high and getting higher. What does Biden’s claim of slowing “inflation” have to do with that? Well, when we recognize what his “inflation” really is: price increases, Biden is patting himself on the back for slower price increases. Swell. What he hopes to obscure is the painful fact that all the price increase that has already taken place IS STILL THERE, and those prices are STILL GOING UP, just a little slower. That is not a victory. Factually it is a sloppy admission that the pain he has inflicted on Americans with his dumb-ass policies is as bad as ever and getting worse. Congratulations, you old dope.
Add to the damage being done the fact that the rate of price increases (so-called inflation) is no longer honestly stated to begin with, thanks to Federal political calculations, since they no longer include ENERGY or FOOD! What a hoax. That lets the Department of Commerce claim that “inflation” is only 6 or 7 or 8 percent, when it’s actually 12 or 13 percent! People might really vote against someone who presided over an economy with 13 percent inflation (whatever that is). As Ralph Waldo Emerson famously said, “The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.”
So, Prudent readers, inflation isn’t the same as price increases, but it is a significant cause of them. It isn’t something people cause; it is a tool of government that performs as a relatively slow devaluation of the currency. Unfortunately, that is the same legal tender that we, all, depend upon for affording our means of living. Don’t vote for politicians or erstwhile “leaders” who willingly devalue the money you have earned and the wealth you have accumulated over years. Who the Hell do they think they are, to steal from every citizen? Indeed. Check out: https://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2022/08/21/the-inflation-chronicles/
Predictions are generally not very Prudent uses of mental energy. Every new year period yields predictions from financial experts, various historians, and, practicing their strong abilities to follow trends, politicians. Politicians are no more intelligent than 99% of the polity they claim to lead. Their skills are no greater than roughly that same percentage. They DO have unusual experiences, having agreed with their own ethics and advisors of various sources, to get involved with politics, campaigning and the miasma of half-truths and virtual untruths that “politics” seems to require in order to gain majority support.
Prudence is very close to a man who ran for office in the 1980’s. One of the most common questions directed to him was, “Why do you want to get mixed up in this stuff?” His strong beliefs about where his state government was off kilter didn’t really answer that question. In its simplest terms, it was almost, “Why would you want to become a cesspool adjuster?” Hard to answer.
One must multiply the paltry and rotten problems of one state by ten times or twenty, to appreciate the corruption of the U. S. Congress and the “swamp” it finances. Where does that leave us in the matter of predictions?
One of the most prescient observations, which sadly became a clear prediction, was from Scotsman, Alexander Fraser Tytler: “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. …” It would be difficult to fashion a more succinct description – warning – of the political history of the United States. Having just watched the querulous assignation of the Speakership of the House of Representatives to Kevin McCarthy of California, and appreciating the truth of Tytler’s observation-prediction, some fresh predictions are now become Prudent.
Much of the battle for the speakership involved demands from actual conservatives to cut federal spending, even holding it to 2022 levels (a very low bar for measuring success), which would be a departure from the profligacy of recent decades of lies and spending. In other words, what those 20 or so conservatives promised to win elections is a departure from the direction of the past 7 or 8 administrations. Based on his history of “working across the aisle,” as though that were a mark of wisdom to be celebrated, McCarthy’s instincts would not have led him to run the house, its committees or the budgeting process, such as it is, along those lines. His history in the house, and some of his comments on hot issues, indicate that McCarthy acted as much in service to his party position as to hard principles. He supported Trump and criticized him. He voted for and against what might be considered “liberal” legislation. He has been more steadfast in opposing Biden-supported spending plans.
This all leads to both speculation and prediction. Not even Prudence can discern the innermost motivations of a politician, so trying to predict what the McCarthy-led House will actually do on specific issues is not likely to be useful. However, it seems Prudent to predict that some of the 6 holdouts who led the opposition to McCarthy, will face retribution, regardless of any promises from the new Speaker. The Speakership brings a lot of power, both administrative and political… plus a fatter paycheck; threats to that power will be punished.
Further, any motion to “vacate the chair,” now makeable by a single member, will never result in a change in speakership. Accepting this new rule seems like a major concession by McCarthy, but it will prove hollow.
A lot of heat will be generated from “oversight” investigations by several committees. Will any dishonest Biden administrator, of which there are several, actually be impeached or forced to resign? This is unlikely, despite the substantial law-breaking and lying to Congress that has transpired. Will anything substantive come from an investigation into Hunter Biden’s and presidential brother, Jim Biden’s, nefarious foreign influence-peddling over the years Joe Biden was Vice President? This appears to be a slam-dunk, but is also likely to be mostly heat, not light. There may be some sort of resolution passed by a slim majority in the house, but no impeachments.
Can the House, alone, force Biden to close the southern border? Theoretically… and according to the Constitution, Congress’ control of the “purse strings” can be used to propose “revenue”-raising legislation, taxation and borrowing and the like. All such must arise in the House. In addition, the ability for the Executive branch to draw moneys from the Treasury is dependent upon Congress’ passing of appropriating legislation to that effect. Amidst all the horse-trading and dealing done between the House and Senate, let alone in each House, the likelihood of targeted restrictions on expenditures in order to control or punish any executive department or agency for bad behavior, lying to Congress or various malfeasances, is quite small. It would be a watershed event, in practice, and seems doubtful in Prudence’ view.
It is more likely that specific appropriations might be voted for the purpose of closing the border and other needful actions, but, barring the willingness to perform quick impeachments, those directions given via appropriations can be “slow-walked” by the “swamp” for the duration of an administration.
Ultimately, in order to impose its will in any meaningful way, the “Republican” House will have to endure a government “shutdown.” In our lifetimes there has been very little political stomach for accepting the slings and arrows that are always directed at Republicans for such a “crisis.”
The pressure in Washington, within the deep state, certainly on Capitol Hill and, to our detriment, within the so-called Biden administration, is to send money from the Treasury out to thousands of programs that reach millions of Americans, buying their votes in the process. Along the way we may adequately defend the country, but that is becoming more questionable as “woke” nonsense infects the military establishment.
Can a couple dozen conservatives in the House actually change the direction of our decline? May God make it so… otherwise, let’s all be prepared to defend our nation, economy and border.
