Tag Archives: debt

Economics, Governance, Representation

Strange Times, Unbridgeable Gulfs

1 Comment

These are unusual times in Washington, DC, and in the whole country.  The popular press and the Democrat party, which is to say, on one side, there are many voices trying to convince the unconvinced that President Trump is surely guilty of terrible acts involving Russian operators who “colluded” with the Trump campaign to put the electoral kibosh on the Hillary Clinton campaign.  “Collude” means “conspire” generally and we know that Trump is guilty of that and much more because there is, after all, an investigation  ongoing and going and going and “they” wouldn’t be investigating a PRESIDENT, for Heaven’s sake, if he were not guilty of something.

The investigation is under the aegis, which means an obscuring cloak, like a sheep- or goat-skin, of a person named as “Special Counsel” by someone high up in the Department of Justice, usually the Attorney General of the United States.  There have been damned few of these.  Democrats and the Press can think of only one other, when asked: Archibald Cox, who was the first “Special Prosecutor” (same thing as a special counsel if there actually is a crime to investigate) of the so-called “Watergate Scandal” and whose removal as such by President Nixon caused the resignations of then Attorney General, Elliott Richardson and of his Deputy, William Ruckelshaus over their refusals to fire Cox.  Robert Bork, then Solicitor General, automatically became acting Attorney General and it was he who carried out the Presidents LEGAL order to remove Cox.

For Bork his legal exercise of authority, both his and the president’s, partly sealed his fate when he was nominated for the Supreme Court in the Summer of 1987 by President Reagan.  Bork had become an enemy of Democrat justice and there are no resentments, there is no umbrage greater or longer-lasting than that of a liberal.  Bork fired Cox.  Even though Nixon’s brutal ending of the Cox investigations was a time of great Democratic rejoicing – Nixon having sealed his disgrace by that action, what could be more joyous – Bork was the one who provided the means and that was never, ever forgotten.  Ted Kennedy, so-called Lion of the Senate, drunken murderer, he, prepared the most outrageous attacks and vilifications to sink Bork before he could even grasp what in Hell was being done to him.  It had taken 14 years but justice was finally served… against Bork.

This is an example of one of the forces that mould and shape history: hatred.  It is hatred of non-liberals, non-socialists, and it stems from the abiding leftist desire… need… to change humans.  Human nature, designed, conservatives tend to believe, by God, is an affront to leftists who believe, essentially, that left-leaning humans can create not just a better world than God could and did, but even better humans than His.  Heady stuff, and the fuel of giant resentments, perhaps explaining why liberals are always angry about something and why they are convinced in their hearts that people who disagree with them are in need of regulation and re-education, which require more government and LESS freedom.  Freedom, itself, is resented by leftists, socialists, liberals, Democrats.  Hence, anyone who defends freedom and less government, is an automatic enemy of the left.  With so many enemies all around, it is no surprise that liberals aren’t  happy very often.

Because liberals and other leftists are so convinced of their mission to separate people from human nature, they never accept a loss when they do, in fact, lose.  What they do is immediately calculate how to win a slightly different fight on the exact same principle  that they just lost.  First they’ll need to devise a venue upon which the original battle can be recreated, whereupon some modified tactics might bring a victory that was simply not accomplished the first, second or third time.  Of course, once the liberal victory is achieved, the result may never, ever be challenged since it is clearly on the correct path of history.  None of that reactionary constitutionalism, freedom, independence or individual sovereignty and personal responsibility can be allowed to “weaken” the strength of the liberal welfare state.

After all, the reason socialism hasn’t worked before is because earlier practitioners were not as smart as the current crop.  Actually what has always happened was that socialists ran out of money, and not their own.  Today’s stripe of leftist, controlling types, have grown up in a world where virtually unbridled debt is somehow “normal.”  Maybe we… they, can now afford to give up freedom for the opportunity to be coddled by socialists NOT because we won’t run out of money – that train, with its overpaid unionized crew, left the station long ago.  No, it’s because we won’t run out of debt!  So far, at least, the cliff’s edge is still out of sight.  So long as there is unlimited borrowing from the future, there’s no crying need for wisdom, intelligence, historical reference or basic economics.

It’s sad to think that there are capable people who have made whole careers out of bringing us to this point.

How can we conduct rational discussions of public policy with a group that thinks non-liberal people are less than human and living in a past that they, liberals, hate.  Not that liberals want to discuss policy with virtual Neanderthals who cling to guns and religion – what could they possibly add? – but there is a case to be made that what liberals would discuss is how to get conservatives to give up American traditions and historical truths… silly things like mother-father families and working for a living.  It is a nearly unbridgeable gulf.

If individuals whose daily life is barely affected by these issues can’t discuss them, how can we expect congress-people to work out conflicts over the same ideas when their entire beings are consumed by re-election?  Prudence tells us that there are honest liberals, as we know several just in the Merrimack Valley.  And it seems still worthwhile to change their minds, bit by bit.

Economics, Governance

A Few Words on Capitalism – Part 2

Leave a comment

Free-enterprise productive surplus is the antithesis… no, the ANTIDOTE, to tyranny. That is, if it shares across all populations. Capitalism without reason is merely a new tyranny; capitalism wisely checked against excessive accumulation of productive power, is the greatest elevator of the human condition yet devised. To do such wise checking, however, wise governors are required.

The foundation of the American experiment has been that of a democratic REPUBLIC wherein representatives of numbers of citizens and of the several states (House and Senate, respectively) ought to be those most trusted by the citizenry to REPRESENT their interests, among which are national security; defense and sanctity of borders, coasts and harbors; honest and unbiased court officers; equal application of the laws – civil and criminal; honest and careful expenditure of tax and other revenues; fair and honest taxation such that all citizens share a portion of the cost of government, courts and defense; domestic safety (“tranquility”) and sound money. All of these reasons for creating government are at varying levels of failure.

Unlike capitalism, itself, governments quickly devolve into somewhat self-serving entities, enriching those who work in government at the expense of citizen-tax-payers, generally rewarding and celebrating degrees of failure. Capitalism quickly roots out failure and assigns its productive capital to enterprise that is more likely to succeed (in terms of generating profit) and as a result, be able to destroy debt. If only government could do the same.

One of the overarching themes of the Federalist papers was avoidance of the concentration of power. Legislative power was to be granted democratically, and kept separate from Executive power and from Judicial power. Judicial power, itself, was to be carefully delineated and separate: “independent of” either Executive or Legislative power. The executive was designed to be subordinate to the Legislative, although with unique powers and authorities, and democratically selected by voters in the several states wholly separately from election of the Legislative representatives.

Another Federalist theme – caveat – is that governments cannot be trusted to reform themselves, leaving that burden to an educated CITIZENRY, by ballot, presumably, but also, as clearly stated in the Declaration of Independence, by the inherent right to throw off government whose failures render it tyrannical, and replace it with one better suited to the general welfare of the citizens FROM WHOM IT DERIVES ITS POWERS.

So citizens, educated about the Constitution and all founding documents, are, like capitalist CUSTOMERS, important to the success of both government and capitalism. Capitalist customers seeking to purchase a new, larger flat-screen TV will seek information and reviews, compare specifications and read the guarantees before looking for the best price offered by a half-dozen sources.

If only we would exercise our roles as citizens holding ultimate power over our governors, with the same diligence. Indeed, we know more about our next auto purchase than we do about our next medical procedure, and more about the auto dealer than about the hospital, clinic or medical group that will provide it. Now we think entrusting a government that fails to operate EVEN ITSELF honestly and fairly, with ultimate decisions over our health and life-span, will somehow make sense, albeit in an alternate universe.

It is high time we stop denigrating our innate capitalist sense and teach our children to apply it to every aspect of life in the United States – not least of which is which governor or government we should “buy.” Capitalism, as a means of analysis and judgment, holds the key to not only wise use of resources, but also to the wise recruitment of competent managers and governors of our largest enterprise of all.

That government has become nearly an opponent of free-enterprise and the fundamental right to private property and the fruits of one’s labors, is demonstrated by the existence of rapidly growing current deficits approaching $20 Trillion. That debt has accumulated, supposedly, by our “representatives,” on our behalf. So has the dramatic loss of value of our “dollar,” now a mere instrument of confidence. For shame. Capitalists arise!

Governance, Politics 2017

Tipping Point

Leave a comment

We are, evidently, at a tipping point for the American experiment. For myriad reasons, we who have been so blessedly comfortable (borrowed comfort, but still…) and never devastated by conquerors, bombing raids or economic destruction, have, for fifty years, been inviting unusual immigration in huge numbers, many of which immigrants are our cultural, if not actual, enemies. Rational nations don’t do this, but the U. S. and Europe have convinced themselves that there is some “rightness” to doing so.

Some are already howling about xenophobia and worse. How did we get here?

The larger source of hatred for the United States – domestically – is decades of dishonesty in government. Sad, that. It took time to convert basic graft into nationwide political power. What is required to move large numbers of voters is some sort of “national” crisis or threat… like war and threats of war. World War I, for example, was played slickly by Woodrow Wilson, a visionary Progressive who was tired of democratic populism and nationalism. First he declared his opposition to getting involved in “Europe’s war,” but once re-elected, sent General Pershing and the “American Expeditionary Force” to France with the message: “Lafayette, we are here,” hearkening back to France’s vital role in defeating the British in the American Revolution.

Following hostilities, Wilson strove to create a “League of Nations,” a large first step toward one-world government. America wasn’t quite as devolutionary as Wilson was and Congress never accepted the treaty of membership. But the trail was blazed, while the largest effects of the war to end all wars were festering, having ensconced Communism in Russia and Fascism in Italy and Germany. Not long before the Great War, the U. S. had adopted the 16th Amendment establishing the Income Tax, and passed a law establishing the misleadingly named Federal Reserve Bank. They, together, installed another form of fascism, perhaps not recognized even now, that has inexorably destroyed American independence financially… freedom-wise, too.

But that was a slow method; another crisis was needed and the Great Depression served perfectly. Suddenly big government was not a handy, righteous expense burden. Now it was salvation, a source of food, employment and confidence… dare we say, hope? This was new: government had a role in growing numbers of people’s lives, a role many could not live without. Another trail was blazed.

After WW-II, the U. S. became the world’s policeman, first keeping Communism contained (Truman Doctrine) and the Korean War, then establishing a C.I.A. that acted in place of stated foreign policy, toppling governments and embroiling us in wars and skirmishes around the globe.

Under Johnson we took two trails: the spirit-sapping Viet-Nam War and the Great Society – both expensive, both yet to be fully paid-for. The American fifth column, led by the New York times, Washington Post and others, flexed its muscles and destroyed President Nixon and the results of a legal and voluminously overwhelming rejection of progressivism in the 1972 elections: 49 states to 1. Nixon was no more or less perfect than most of his predecessors, but he was a threat to what liberals believe was the inexorable direction of history: one-world elite paternalism and the equality of mass mediocrity.

That subsequent presidents have routinely committed actual crimes against the Constitution far greater than what Nixon was accused of, has no meaning on their planet. Every domestic condition has become a “crisis” or a “war,” and worthy of planetary indebtedness. The U. S., for a multitude of reasons, has had the power to increase DEBT without practical limit, since Nixon closed the “gold window.” And, so we have, to the point that we can barely afford to defend ourselves or to prevent riots in the streets if anything threatens welfare. Our highly-paid congressional “leaders” got us here – let’s re-elect them!

Every congressional move is now, by fifth column caterwauls, a threat to life as we know it. Every presidential tweet is simply proof of that threat. Americans voted clearly, in their 50 state elections, to not continue fatuous liberal government, but as in 1974, the fifth column is gearing up to reverse that shift: Trump is an highly obvious threat to a “progressive” future. Progressive jurists and bureaucrats – everywhere – are doing their damnedest to help bring the elected government down. Our Fifth Column is happy to help.

Could tip either way.

Governance

Don’t Feed the Beast

Leave a comment

There’s an old admonition about feeding the beast: it starts to hang around and won’t leave when you try to shoo it away. Even if you scream really loud and wave your hands – or ballots – it won’t leave if the food trough is still where it always was. That’s how liberalism / progressivism is. While we weren’t looking it was building thousands of troughs and passing laws and regulations that make it illegal, or something, to NOT fill the troughs… and not with just the normal rations, but ever larger ones.

Donald Trump is a pretty canny guy and has a good eye for talent. He also can recognize problems for what they are and, better, envision a path to solutions. What he never understood was how tightly, ferociously and viciously the progressive beasts are prepared to cling to their “food” troughs.

They’ve had a good run, our progressive saviours – about a hundred years or so, constantly finding reasons that freedom was a problem, as is free-will and any religion that preaches the concept of free will and personal salvation. And they became very good at stifling freedom and when that didn’t work, stealing it.

How can politicians steal freedom? Let us count the ways. A key measure of freedom is private property. The Constitution enshrines the concepts of private property, private thoughts and beliefs, and of security within one’s private realm. That is, that one is free to live as one pleases in his or her pursuit of “happiness.” The government – the locus of political action – exists to assure your freedom from threats to your privacy.

Just saying the previous five sentences is to laugh at our precarious position in modern America. There is barely an activity left that is no longer truly “private.” Try to think of one:

• Sex? What kind of sex? Surely the federal government has nothing to say about sex, right? Except that they do. All kinds of sexual function and dysfunction have gained the status of “protected minority” with rights and enforcement.

• Business, private, owner-operated business? Should be a “piece of cake,” but, please…

• Raising your children? Punishing them? Teaching them your values? You are so suspect that every teacher and school administrator has been placed on notice to observe and report any ways you handle your child that the state disagrees with. Worse, you are often the last person to know about the mind-numbing, values-warping content of many lessons and courses. Do you know how to use a condom? Or what “gay” sex is? Your eighth grader does.

• Driving? If you pay enough, it’s a privilege. If you are deemed “suspicious,” such as driving where you – or your car – don’t belong, you can be stopped, identified, and your personal property searched on the basis of some articulable “suspicion.”

• Do you work? Earn an income? Well, it’s certainly not really yours, is it? Numerous of others’ needs must be addressed by “your” pay before you get a share. Many of these are “benefits,” so-called, but they are benefiting someone else. Things like FICA, your Social Security “contribution.” Then there is the bonus deduction for Medicare and the so-called “income tax withheld” that pays a Hell of a lot of people to do things you never heard of, probably don’t like and probably can’t afford for yourself! It must also pay interest on debts you have not incurred but which were incurred in your name, long before you were born, most likely. How free is that?

• Private property? From local “zoning” boards to the EPA, how you use your own property is abridged in, literally, hundreds of ways. God forbid you’ll be found to own a “habitat” for an “endangered” specie of gnats or centipedes. No one wants to be responsible for killing the last right-handed beige centipede, but the concept of “threatened” or “endangered” life forms carries great power to push humans around. So-called progressives love doing that. They are those who know what’s wrong with most humans and why what they tend to do is flawed. Want to build a shed for your garden tools? Better get permission from the town and all your neighbors.

• Your own health? I mean of YOUR OWN BODY? Well, you can’t buy the care you want because the doctor you want to buy it from can’t sell it to you. “Free” enterprise, indeed. Congress, that bastion of good sense and careful budgeting, is cobbling together how the last frontier of control will dictate how and, eventually, whether you will live, at all, if your life will burden the federal deficit. Ye Gods!

• And self-defense? Immigration and the world-wide movement of peoples have changed the need for personal self-defense. Add drugs to the mix of cross-cultural peoples and it is a more dangerous world – and neighborhood – today than it was a hundred years ago, or even fifty years ago. Yet our progressive neighbors, who place little value on the United States’ cultural norms, or its borders, are the same who demonstrate AGAINST your inherent, inalienable right to defend yourself and your family. You are rendered more free to die for their principles.

Finally, consider that when a new American is born, he or she has a debt of $155,000! And the government, that benign behemoth we all depend upon to protect our “rights,” is adding to that debt for all 330 Million of us at the rate of $5 a day. That’s $150 a month ON TOP OF the taxes we already pay. With about half of us NOT PAYING federal taxes, it’s more like $300 a month for every family that has a worker/ breadwinner.
The problem is, rather than figuring out how to reduce that burden, congress works overtime to INCREASE it. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Let’s keep in mind that every dollar of tax is a loss of freedom; every dollar of DEBT is a growing ball-and-chain that now inhibits our collective ability to defend ourselves.

Mr. President, I haven’t heard much about this…

Governance

CABINETS AND BUREAUS

Leave a comment

President Barack Obama holds a Cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House, Jan. 31, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)
It’s not easy… changing the course of the ship of state, that is. Building a Great Pyramid, that’s easy. Transitioning from communism to capitalism – not so much. Worse, every move a newly elected president must make is nit-picked, criticized, undermined, called fascist and/or racist by the dominant media.

The real threat of the incoming Trump administration is that the new president may keep even some of his campaign promises. How dare he?

Those of us who were willing to overlook Trump’s several lacks of finesse and glibness, thought we could discern his visceral messages that mattered, “MTM’s.” One MTM is stopping illegal immigration. Viscerally, Americans recognize that inviting millions of very different people into our midst – people with different cultures, beliefs and languages who neither wish to adopt our culture and language nor are forced to for personal or economic survival, MAKES NO SENSE. What folly such a policy would be. What a treason it would represent.

We are transitioning from an administration whose intention it was to change, literally, the color of America. Mr. Obama is governed by a number of hatreds, among which are hatred of colonialism, hatred of white “supremacy” and hatred of capitalism. One might also discern a hatred of the Constitution in there, somewhere. What an odd person for Americans to elect.

Mr. Trump has been sounding like he may not be as concerned about the illegal entrants already here as are we who voted for his promised change. Let’s monitor what happens to the border control he also promised, very carefully. No matter how “big” we think we are in the U. S., having escaped full-scale attacks or invasion – so far – our culture is under assault, largely from confused domestic enemies who find it satisfying to hate America’s imperfections while celebrating the imperfections of others. It’s perverse. For too long we have relinquished power, including power over education, to those who hate the premises of America. Importing people of vastly different ethics – particularly Muslims – whose belief structures are antithetical to our constitution, is pretty stupid policy.

Another big MTM is about re-energizing the American manufacturing and jobs engine. Can a president actually do this? Maybe. Like most of Washington – a construct of creative bullshit – (sorry, sort-of) “managing” the economy is mostly wishes and hope. Tax cuts can surely help as lower taxes will, for a while, encourage the PRIVATE economy to make good domestic decisions and investments. Production, productivity and employment should improve. But Trump’s choices for Treasury and Chairman of The Council of Economic Advisors (White House) are from Goldman Sachs, a mendacious Wall Street behemoth, and this exposes a serious flaw in Trump’s economic courage.

Between the Federal Reserve (neither federal nor a reserve) and the Wall Street financial manipulators like Goldman Sachs, the United States has been led into astronomical debt. Trump, and all of us, need to recognize that just as every dollar of taxes is a loss of citizens’ freedom, every dollar of federal debt is a loss of national sovereignty… and loss of flexibility to manage our own domestic, foreign and military affairs. What’s a president – or a people – to do when they are stuck in a box of perpetual servility to banks?

One of the changes, perhaps the most significant of changes, that Americans tried to bring about in November, 2016, is the upside-down relationship between our supposedly sovereign nation and these blood-sucking banks. For shame. Trump has already proven to be deaf to our outcry and he’s not even in office yet. Usually newly elected presidents don’t start giving us the finger until around April first. So, many people’s concerns about Trump’s impact on – or proximity to – conservatism have some validity. We’ll see.

Finally, naming Rex Tillerson to head the State Department. Feelings are mixed, obviously, but there are positives. On the face of it there is an element of putting oligarchs in public charge of “the world.” Trump’s a business mogul and must believe that only business moguls are smart enough to manage big systems like the U. S. government. For everyone who has gained the impression that businessmen are inherently dishonest – as popular media consistently portray – giving one political power is the worst possible outcome. “They’re all crooks!”

Even worse, Tillerson is in the OIL business, helping to scourge the earth while stealing money from everyone. Woe is us. Some perspective is required.

Exxon-Mobil is certainly huge, deals in global commodities and must negotiate with virtually every country in order to maintain stable supplies and stable markets. Well, it’s time Americans admit – or recognize – that most of what foreign policy comprises is maintaining and defending global commerce, free access to the seas and stable markets and prices. It is rarely a pretty business, but undeniably vital.

And, it’s not simply oil. Oil is the current (for a hundred years) leading commodity against which almost every other commodity (corn, wheat, soybeans, beef, pork, gold, uranium and… on and on) is valued. The U. S. dollar is how oil is valued and oil is how the dollar is propped up in the face of unbelievable debt. There may be more sense behind having this particular mogul in charge at State than first appears. Exxon-Mobil is pretty-well run, after all.