Tuesday, July 18, 2017

THE WORKING CLASS IS TAPPED OUT. NO MORE LEFT IDEAS

The latest leftist craze is a guaranteed income.  The idea is everyone deserves something and giving everyone something would save money.  The idea, if not examined, makes sense.  This would be especially true, if a large portion, like 95%, of the bureaucracy could be eliminated.  It might also be true, if the amount took away all the subsidized housing, all the Medicaid, all the education support.  But, the chances of this are less than me drinking all the salt water in the Pacific Ocean.

The question starts, who gets the money?  Then, it is how much?  Then, what does it replace?  Lastly, who is going to pay?  These are important questions for a variety of reasons.  If everyone is going to get it, then those that work are going to have to pay enough in taxes and enough in taxes is going to have to be collected out of the money given others to pay for the program.  Also, there is going to have to be a huge employment program for the eliminated bureaucrats, who are largely not fit for private employment.  The private sector already has enough bureaucrats.

What I am about to write probably goes astray of the fake science known as Keynesian or mainstream economics, but it is in fact true.  The math cannot add up in any other fashion, when all is said and done.  That factor is that the working class pays all taxes in the end.  This is not understood, because there is so much money created by government debt and many people that work for a living don't pay any income tax, only employment taxes.  This will be true regardless of whether taxes on the rich are low or close to 100%, or we will see a decline in the economy that most people aren't prepared to accept.

There are a couple of facts that are not advertised to the public at large.  This is merely Federal Government, not the state and local governments around the country, which makes the picture even bleaker.  The added Federal debt for fiscal year 2016, regardless of what was stated as the deficit, was $1.4 trillion.  If you don't believe me, look for yourself for the debt level October 1, 2015 and then September 30, 2016.  We were told we had a great economy, but the truth is the Federal government is rapidly going broke and the populace cannot be taxed enough to pay for what the government is consuming and paying out.

The second fact is there are roughly 120 million private jobs and we are spending $3.6 trillion on an annual basis.  That expenditure equals $30,000 a private job.  Being that a full 50% of jobs in the US now pay $30,000 a year or less, this equates to 100% of the income of half the job holders in the US.  Being that the majority of the rest make $75,000 or less, we are talking about 40% or more of the productive income of 85% or so of the private sector workers in the USA.  American credit fails, which it is sure to do, if the current trend persists and the system cannot go on.  Then, we see the collapse of the currency, the liquidation of all private property into the hands of a few and dark age serfdom returning to the modern world.

The wealthy pay taxes only on income received.  Either income is received from other wealthy people or from the working class.  Nothing can be received that isn't first paid or financed.  This means that working class people merely return the majority of their money received back to those that employ them and the cycle continues.  Rich taxes are paid out of money spent by the working class and in a real capitalist economy, this is net of credit, with the excess being recycled as investment payrolls.  Throw in credit and the game gets out of balance, which is what creates the business cycle.  This is for another post or you can study the masterpiece by Ludwig von Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit.  If you can understand that in sum nothing can be paid that isn't received or financed, you can figure this one out.  The taxes either have to be paid our of what most of us are paid or what we spend.

Now, lets do the math.  There are roughly 330 million people in the United States.  Lets say we pay them all $1000 a month.  This amounts to $330 billion a month or $4 trillion a year.  What does this eliminate?  Does it eliminate Section 8?  Medicaid?  Social Security?  Medicare?  None of the above?  Maybe it merely eliminates 1 million bureaucrats at $100K a year?  Take off $100 billion.  Put in another $1.1 trillion and we have a net budget of $5 trillion, a 35% increase of the current budget.  If Medicare and Social Security are continued, that is another $1.2 trillion or so, which brings us to $6.2 trillion.  We are now looking at a cost of over $50,000 per private job.  The families currently making $30,000 to $40,000 a year have to consider not working, though with 2 children, their income would grow to $70,000 to $80,000 a year.  Their share of the government would be $50,000 for 1 job and $100,000 for 2 jobs.  We all know they would be exempt from paying anything other than Social Security taxes, so the burden would fall to the next income bracket upward.

The $100K household, of the same size would have their income expand to $140,000.  This is the typical middle class 2 income family.  It would also be the households that would start bearing the costs that couldn't be paid by the lower income classes.  Their $30,000 share per job or $60,000, in the case of a 2 worker household would grow to $50,000 or $100,000.  The later would place them in the same shape they were in before the distribution.  The former would improve that household's prorate share from $70K to $90K.  Either way, something besides the status quo would require this household pay more in taxes in some fashion.  These are the households that send their kids to college, buy a new car every 4 or 5 years, buy some new furniture once in awhile, etc.  They also go to restaurants, employing kitchen help and wait staff.  If the standard of living is destroyed in this class, the economy ceases to prosper, which is what has occurred in much of America.

So, do we give it to everyone or do we give it to a select few that the politicians select and leave the rest of us alone?  In effect, required taxation would deprive anyone above the median of any benefit.  If you tax the rich and leave the rest of us alone, how does that play?  Lets say 30 million are eligible?  How many more quit work and get on the gravy train?  Remember, maybe 70 million are retired and 120 million are privately employed.  Throw in another 30 million or so in government.  About 75 million are under 19.  That leaves 65 million roughly that don't work.  Of the 120 million, likely another 40 million either need some kind of assistance or struggle along.  How many of these 40 million would merely quit working and take the money?  There are place in the USA you can live pretty cheap.  Not here in Collin County Texas, but in the abandoned middle part of the country, there are many cities and towns where a couple could take $2000 a month and get along.

I have considered this idea before, as Senator George McGovern brought up the idea in the 1972 election. It was foreign to the morals of the country that everyone could be paid for not working.  I examined the idea because so much has changed in the bureaucracy geared toward the welfare state.  Don't ever fool yourself into thinking the bureaucracy works for us.  The bureaucracy works for the bureaucracy.  This is not to say there aren't people in the bureaucracy that care a lot for we the people, but like anyone, there is always number 1.  This is the backbone of the swamp.  Getting rid of them would make the idea more plausible, but in my case, it was that the idea might have headed off the massive growth in this group.

If there was an amount that would get rid of Medicare, Medicaid, Food stamps, Section 8 and all the other help programs, this would be a viable program, only if it got rid of the entire bureaucracy that services these programs.  Of course, Medicare would still have to be funded by a deduction from the check.  Medicaid would also have to be deducted.  These would be required, if one wasn't earning money in the private sector.

These are the cases for and against.  The question then becomes, what would happen if the guarantee was put in?  How many people would quit work?  What would the price of labor for bottom end jobs be?  Would people retire at age 50?  If so, what would they do?  People produce goods and services and if people don't work, the amount of goods and services are no longer provided.

Also, what does this do to the level of taxation for those that continue to work?  What happens to the structure of credit and the value of the currency?  Both of these factors, regardless of how basically good or bad the idea appears, are the real questions.  They could tax capital, but in confiscating capital wealth, the country runs the risk of consuming the seed corn and stagnating real progress.  At what point does the emerging world no longer take American or European money and we find ourselves in the same boat as Venezuela?  A guaranteed check is fine and dandy, as long as it will buy what one needs.  Once it doesn't and the money collapses, there is no amount of printing that will ever restore the purchasing power of the check.  This isn't an opinion.  It is economic history.  Then it comes down to who eats who?

Friday, June 2, 2017

And the International Swamp Screams

Politicians are like kids in a first grade classroom, except worse.  When something that affects them negatively, like more homework or no Halloween candy, you hear a collective moan.  Never has there been a more universal moan out of so broad a group of political class members, in my lifetime.  A huge pile of goodies were taken away.

For the naïve and uninitiated, the typical politician couldn't care if you fell over dead in the street, unless you were a personal friend, donor or they could make political hay out of your death.  They don't mind starting wars, murdering people or any kind of mayhem, as long as it puts money in their pockets, adds to their power or buys them more votes to use to peddle more influence.  There might be 10% of them not in that class, usually 1 termers.  Pull the name of a multi-term Congressman out of the hat and you have a sure bet you found one of this type.  Find one that has clawed their way up the political ladder and you find a top Swamper, a virtual Al Capone.  Statesmen were from a different era and, in fact, few and far between.  Crooks populated the first Congress and it has been that way ever since. 

The Paris Accord was going to be a source of trillions of dollars for the Swampers, over the next couple of decades.  The lobbyists were going to propose the laws, the politicians pass them and the executive branch write the regulations.  As usual, these laws and regulations were not going to be for we the people, but for those already in line with their own plans.  A million dollars or so, well placed would put the main crooks in the drivers seat.

There isn't much the Accord would do to change the weather, quite likely nothing.  At best, it would force China and India to start cleaning up in a couple of decades.  The only thing we could count on is the middle class and poor, in the United States, would foot the bulk of the bill and Swampers, especially those close to the Democratic National Committee, would reap billions.  More would have to be paid by fewer people, because the real economy would suffer.

The idea global warming regulations would be good for the economy goes hand in hand with the broken window theory and the idea of war being good.  What they are good for is a few well placed businessmen and bankers.  War production is blown up and the enriched worker ends up getting the bill, in the end.  The broken window theory, aka storm damage and other catastrophes merely replaces what has been destroyed.  When a window is broken, society loses the use of a window.  When a house is blown away, a house is lost.  Getting sick also generates a lot of money for someone, but the productivity of the patient is lost. 

Contrary to the story, there is plenty of evidence against the politically presented story of climate change.  You might note that any time something out of the day to day ordinary happens in weather, they blame climate change.  A Dallas County Judge today blamed climate change for floods we had in 2015.  That might work for the masses and kids that have not been here long, as this is a fast growing area, but over the past 50 years, I have seen plenty of floods, some of which would have been significantly worse, had there been as much concrete then as there is now.  Not climate change.  Sometimes, it just rains a hell of a lot at once here.  Sometimes we have droughts.  Some are worse than others.  We had a dust bowl in the 1930's, when there wasn't much fossil fuel use. 

If you have been watching the idiot box and listening to the power and money hungry political class for the last 15 years, you might do your own research.  Those opposed to the fake data theory, which is actually how the prevailing science has been proven up, are substantial and very significant scientists.  You might note that Exxon Mobil is in favor of the climate pact, so there goes the charge that these guys are paid by the oil industry, which is an often used way to stain the reputation of a denier.  In any case, plug into the many videos on YouTube that cover the real science and you will find the most likely causes of climate change, which has been in force for 4 billion years now, are solar cycles and sunspots.

The climate is going to change, if man goes away.  One thing for certain is the fascist governments around the world are going to be able to do absolutely nothing about the sun.  But, that doesn't stop them from attempting to sell us on the idea that CO2 is pollution.  It isn't pollution, but instead the gas that supports plants and is respired from the life actions of all animals and humans.  Another thing for certain is that politicians and their cronies, which we are likely not in the group, are going to tax us, control us and lower our standard of living to their benefit.  This is why they are all screaming in unison.  It is the ultimate in worldwide socialist, communist and fascist control of the populace, the standard of living and the corruption that comes along with it. 

In closing, the one thing we must hope is that the trend in temperature is sideways or up.  Cooler temperature would be a disaster for the world, with lower crop yields and all the other problems that come with cold.  Some more CO2 would boost the growth of crops and trees.  Modern history hasn't shown the idea that the oceans are going to rise and flood the world, as we had a warmer period 1000 years ago and I don't see much evidence London England and Manhattan Island were under water at the time.  There is evidence out there that man lived, mined and farmed on areas now covered by ice.  2 things are certain, death and taxes.  Taxes are the fuel for the political class, in control and goodies to pass around.  The people that work for a living that don't work for the government, those who live by economic means instead of political means, pay all that is paid. 

Thursday, June 1, 2017

Donald Trump's Greatest Victory. Stopping the Climate Change Scam...So Far?

Today, Donald Trump confirmed one of his most important campaign promises, pulling out of the Paris Accords on Climate Change.  There are masses against this, not because it is important, but because of the propaganda that has been spouted over the past 20 years or so.  It is right up along side the Russian interference news story that has almost no valid backing. 

Why was the climate pact so important to avoid?  To start, there is plenty of conflict as to whether the science is valid or not.  The 97% figure was never accurate.  It was made up, using names of people that had attended conferences that had never voiced an opinion pro or con.  So, there is a good chance the whole matter was invalid and even if it had some validity, no reasonable person would really believe the governments of the world could control the temperature of the Earth.  There is a massive amount of scientific proof that the world has been warmer and colder throughout history, trends in one direction that reverse in the other direction.

There is also the fact that the pro change group was being paid to come to the warming conclusion and doctored the data to achieve a continuance of the warming trend.  The hack of emails of a major climate lab discovered the scientists were under duress to hide the decline.  The decline was a 30 years or more period between the 1930's and 1970's, when global temperatures declined.  This was a period when the use of fossil fuels ramped up massively, thus blowing a hole in the CO2 theory.  According to one group of data, there has been no warming since the late 1990's.

One might note the term has moved from Global warming to Climate Change.  The climate has always changed.  What has also changed is the news, where propaganda from the major fascist leaders and establishment figures around the world has pointed to everything, warm weather, cold weather, storms, no storms, rainfall, no rainfall, etc. and said it was linked to global warming.  Those of us that are prone to think we know something, because everyone is supposed to know, might find ourselves brainwashed by such a practice.  But, because there is data that shows no warming, the switch has been made, with the same message.  Global warming=Climate Change, though they are actually 2 different things. 

The real absurdity starts with the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.  400 parts per million.  In comparison, oxygen, at 20% is roughly 200,000 parts per million, nitrogen at in the high 700,000 range.  Added CO2 is like throwing another jigger of scotch in a lake, expecting the water to now get one drunk.  Greenhouse or not (called greenhouse because they pump it into greenhouses to make plants grow faster, maybe a good thing), the amount of CO2 is insignificant, a very trace element. 

I have doubted the story from the first for one reason.  Back when I was in school, around 1970, I had read that the energy of the sun hitting the Earth for either 1 second or 1 minute (a big difference in magnitude, but in either case, an amazing statistic) was greater than the total amount of energy mankind had expended in history.  In such an arena, there could be little effect from any other source on temperatures that came close to that from the sun.  Mankind was insignificant. 

Going farther, the arguments against the global warming theory involved a variety of causes, including the number of sunspots present at a given time.  Man had been recording sunspots for as long as there were means to do so, several hundred years and there were records.  The more sunspots, the warmer the temperature.  Fewer sunspots led to cooler temperatures.  Thus, regardless of theory, the primary influence came from solar, not from mankind. 

This brings us to the next point.  That point is, who is stupid enough to believe, without destroying the atmosphere, is government of any kind going to control the sun?  This is what they are telling us, because using all known data, this is what creates the warming and cooling cycles on Earth.  Not another eyedropper of CO2 thrown in the ocean of air we have around us.  They might as well have told us we needed to give them money and power to stop a Martian invasion. 

Then comes the question of why so many establishment figures are behind the climate control agenda?  The same answer as most other ideas, money and power.  Virtually all deniers have been accused of working for the oil companies.  But, it turns out the multinationals are in favor of the pact.  Why?  I suspect the investment bankers and the petrochemical industry are counting on having control of carbon credits.  The idea has made former VP Al Gore wealthy.  Carbon credits would virtually take the right of the average Joe to consume energy, free of any side profit earned through this multinational corporate and international banker racket. 

The we have the politicians, the corporate states.  What it a corporate state?  It is the political form of something otherwise known as fascism.  Virtually the entire Western world is engaged in fascism to some degree. It is a form of socialism where the government and the major corporations have a cooperative relationship.  It was the elites way of adopting socialism without going to communism. 

The climate change accord meets the model for a worldwide corporate state, where industry is managed in unison by a few.  It gives the politicians and the multinationals full control of the economy of the entire world.  Though ideas move the world forward, the whole game runs in energy and regardless of what they say about green energy, it can hardly provide more than a dent in what is needed for progress around the world.  Thus, who controls the carbon based fuels, controls the world and the uses of these valuable substances. 

Though it sounds good, socialism is a bar to progress around the world.  It sounds good in that it divides everything up.  But, divided up, what does everyone get?  The same?  That might be for us peons, but not for the elite.  In getting the same, who wants to produce more?  In fact, who wants to produce at all, if they are going to get an equal share either way?  Take a look at Venezuela, what is by far the wealthiest country in South America.  Several years ago, the supply of toilet paper dried up.  A major oil producing country, with an abundance of good land and other minerals and nothing to wipe with.  Now, there is not enough food.  Everyone gets their fair share, except a few who have deemed themselves important. 

Take a look at the backers of the Paris Accords that you see at the conferences.  Do they fly coach?  No, they fly their own planes, many of them commercial jet liner size.  How concerned are they about their carbon footprint?  How concerned are they about the added cost of energy?  Not very, because they are going to run the game and the flow of funds will be rigged so they can continue to live it up, while many of the rest of us have to give up our cars, turn our air conditioners down or off in the summer and wrap ourselves in blankets during the winter.  Everything will be more expensive. 

Being that I have now lived over 6 decades, I have seen things, read things and digested ideas that people 30 years younger than myself have either no or little knowledge.  I was a kid in the 1960's, when the US still had muscle and the economy hadn't been fully sabotaged by the DC elites.  There was much discussion in the 1950's about the significance of the UN and the various treaties we had entered.  The fear was that the US government was ceding the sovereignty of its people to international organizations.  Anyone who takes a close look, sees that is the truth.  The Paris Accords was going to be the final straw, as a country whose people have no direct control of their economy no longer has its freedom.  All government is left to do is manage the resources between its people and manage its people.  It is the people that are supposed to manage the DC government, not the reverse. 

This brings us to the mainstream establishment trouble with Trump.  Despite being very wealthy, Trump isn't in their club.  He sees the US a nation of people that can do as he did, not as a country that you need connections to the government in order to prosper.  The US government, in an accelerating manner, has systematically destroyed the industries in the US, including agriculture and it is destroying, through propaganda and education, the initiative a a major portion of its people.  More intelligent in some ways, where it counts, the kids today are dumb as a box of rocks.  Colleges are nothing more than training centers for bureaucrats, not creators of science in industry.  This is why we have a leftist tilt to the education system and its students.  Clearly the understanding of real economics and math are beyond the masses. 

One must ask themselves how long a nation can last that exports a trillion dollars a year in debt in exchange for goods and services, gives away, through military and other programs, several hundred billion more.  It's central government spends $30,000 a year per private job, a figure that is equal to or greater than the pay of half the jobs.  Can anyone explain how long that is going to work?  Then we have elitists, the same people that want the Accord approved, who talk of guaranteed incomes.  With whose money?  So we print it off on the press?  The $30K a year guy already has a fair share of $30K a year.  If they give him $10K, it will be $40K, except that if they give the nonworking guy the $10K as well, that too will go on the fair share.  Businesses are merely transferees  of taxes, thus the bill is being paid regardless. 

The point is, a country that is already mathematically broke isn't in position to pay tens of billions of dollars a year to third world countries to make up for not emitting CO2, nor can it continue on its current path sans the money.  We also can't afford to spend an average of $13,000 per capita on health care, regardless of whether one is sick or not.  The government has already ruined that industry, one which was affordable and the best in the world at one time.  Think they are going to do any better at managing our broad economy through carbon credits?