The Terrifying New Normal
I don’t know where this all leads. The aging baby boomers are not going to have the retirements that they envisioned, and their children are not going to have the good jobs their baby-boomer parents enjoyed. The more I talk to those my age (58), the more I hear that they are madly trying to save money, buy an extra house, get a good used car — all for their children who may not otherwise ever have a savings account, a home, or reliable transportation. The ancient wisdom was always “don’t spoil your kids,” “no one helped me after 18,” and “keep it up and they will never fend for themselves.” All true.
But these days, the game has changed somewhat — or rather been downscaled: the PhD is not being hired for anything other than part-time teaching; the JD is reduced to the law library gofer; the freshly minted MD is the equivalent of a salaried, high-paid nurse; the credentialed high-school teacher is subbing; the engineer is a draftsman; the carpenter is cobbling together home repair mini-jobs. The new plum job? Landing one of those federal or state regulatorships, inspectorships, or clerkships, which are paid for with borrowed money, produce little, and grow as those they audit and fine shrink.
In other words, we are seeing the proverbial chickens coming home to roost in an economy that has run up $16 trillion in debt, regulated its way into paralysis, hounded the private sector, and demonized profit-making. The strange thing about the 2008 disaster was not just that hand-in-glove with Wall Street banks Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae created a huge real estate bubble and then watched it pop (one inflated through private speculation and government-backed sub-prime loans), but that the blame went not to the intrusive, incompetent federal government or even to a Goldman-Sachs-like bundler (a firm from whom Obama got more campaign money than did any other prior presidential candidate), but to the vague “private sector” — as if the well-driller or timber man had somehow collapsed the economy. The result was that Obama’s medicine from 2009 onward was worse than the original disease.
Oh, one other thing. We don’t see any more of those funny, though obnoxious, bumper stickers with the words “We are spending our children’s inheritance” on huge Winnebagos as they zoom by. Perhaps that’s because there are not so many inheritances any more or the children (now in their late 20s) are inside the Winnebago on vacation with their parents. Or maybe the parents sold the Winnebago and are working at Starbucks.
Finally, where does all this lead? To a great deal of pressure and expectations upon a Mitt Romney, whom a growing number of people seem willing to entrust with the remedy to Obama’s Hellenic malady. The more Obama tsk-tsks saving the Utah Winter Olympics or creating a Bain Capital, the more the strapped public may say “bring it on.”
“the freshly minted MD is the equivalent of a salaried, high-paid nurse”
Nope. They still make more than we do (during our residencies).
I haven’t actually crunched numbers on this, but from my experience and observation, I hypothesize that nurses may have the highest (salary: years of education) ratio. I kick myself often for changing course from pursuing a 2 year RN degree. I loved what I learned and I have a BS and specific skills, but I would have greater job security, opportunities, benefits, and salary with a 2 year RN certification.
I’d go back, but I have had it with student loans and college is unaffordable without them these days. I withdrew my retirement savings to pay down my current student loans. It is too bad they did not wave the early withdrawl penalties for paying student loans. My new investment philosophy is to pay off debts before investing in anything else. What is the point of having retirement savings if I am indebted?
“It is too bad they did not wave the early withdrawl penalties for paying student loans.”
In the 2008 economic downturn, many retirees lost some 40% of investments. Low interest rates on the remaining 60% only adds insult to injury.
If everyone were given a waiver so that they could’ve withdrawn money from their retirement funds w/o paying a penalty, maybe less people would’ve lost their houses. Instead what we got was gimmicks, such as ‘Cash for Clunkers’.
Come to think of it, ‘Cash for Clunkers’ should be the new Dem fundraising slogan.
And, by the bye, the war on children, the elderly, and individual rights, would hardly be what it is if NOT for the following – http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/08/21/the-paradox-pitfalls-of-liberal-democracies-in-a-time-of-immoral-relativism-the-havoc-wrought-by-leftist-academia-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki/
And, so many more attacks against the individual, as opposed to the ‘collective’ are needed to fulfill the end game.
But, we all know what this is really all about power, and it has zippo to do with individuals/collective or otherwise!
Progressive = regressive in the minds of radical leftists and their cohorts, and ultimate destruction is needed to keep them in control.
Absolutely Adina! This is all about power, and the grabbing of said power, and this in itself is quite troubling. Which crisis shall Obama use, or perhaps I should ask which one will he create to keep himself in power. This is the question, and I fear the answer.
“Low interest rates on the remaining 60% only adds insult to injury.”
Actually, it adds more injury to injury.
If you’re retired, try refinancing your mortgage with the income that almost no- interest provides. Even though you might already have 60%-70% of the value of your house paid off and 45 years of good credit ratings including never missing a house payment, a person w/a brand new job (which might not last) and only a short history for a credit rating will find it much easier to get a mortgage than you.
If anyone still has a mortgage, they should not have retired. Pay off the corrosive mortgage before you retire.
The Fed needs to keep interest rates low or non-existent. The interest on the national debt could not be paid otherwise. If the interest rate were to be the traditional five percent or so, the national debt would be unsustainable. An interest rate of one percent or lower makes the national deficit look better. Unfortunately millions of honest people built their retirement plans on the expectation of a decent return on their investments. So the elderly are the real victims in this massive redistribution of property.
exSSNcrew –
Not everyone has a choice when he or she can retire. Many times retirement is forced on you. I suspect gov’t workers and/or those w/a pension are not aware of this. Corporations have been known to have a policy (unwritten) of firing people after a certain amount of time, so they can’t get into the pension program.
Stephen Ryan -
Jim Cramer has made the comment that because interest rates are so low, the gov’t should NOW consolidate its debt by issuing 50 or 100-year bonds.
“If everyone were given a waiver so that they could’ve withdrawn money from their retirement funds w/o paying a penalty….”
That should read: “w/o paying a penalty AND TAXES”. IMO this would’ve saved many a household.
I think you are right about nursing being an economic sweet spot. My daughter will get her BSN in December. For 2 1/2 years she has had an open and serious offer of employment. As she is living at home to save money and may work in a high salary area – New England – her starting annual salary will probably be roughly 50% of what we have paid for her whole nursing education. Unfortunately for us aging geezers, who will need a lot of nurses, the real barrier to more isn’t the aversion to dealing with bodily fluids or the demands of the job, it is finding nurse educators to oversee the practical labs and the courses.
I think my daughter and others like her will be the new internists. This will be more likely if Obamacare isn’t repealed/eviscerated. Low wages, reimbursement squeezes, high liability exposure and insurance costs – a winning strategy to foster more internists and generalists. Not.
I know plenty of PA’s and NP’s that out-earn some MD’s.
Similar analogy from the legal industry: I know paralegals making over $60k. Granted, it takes a while to get there but many law firms hire those with liberal arts degrees plus a certificate. Best investment I ever made was getting a paralegal certificate: it paid itself back quickly and several times over. Plus…OT rate is pretty good.
Let’s not forget what some nurses have that we don’t – a public pension
– the one responsible, children:
“Thank you, Mister Obama!”
Don’t over-credit #OccupyResoluteDesk.
He’s merely the icing on a cake that’s baked this last century.
Right you are….
Dr. Hanson, it is much worse than you describe. In far too many instances we don’t have examples of a “lost generation” that is living at home with their parents while seeking non-existent employment, etc. We have developed a large segment of our younger population, many of whom are not even citizens, who never have had plans to work, learn a trade, properly parent their off-spring, pay for their medical treatment, own a home vs. live in subsidized housing, pay for their cell phone, pay for groceries, or generally take responsibility for a damned thing. They fully intend to graze off the public landscape while not having the slightest idea where their subsistence comes from or why it exists except that it does and they demand it. They present themselves before the government pay-window with the same lack of concern as one would when going to obtain a license plate with a laundry list of goodies to be demanded in hand. They network with one another, and are encouraged to do so by ads they see on TV, to learn the details of each handout so that they can maximize the take. They could care less about America and love Obama because he cultivates their every wish…that is to produce fully dependent clones of themselves, smoke dope, sleep until noon, get tattoos, and vote for Barry. It’s their plan and his. I know of several examples of young people who roamed Europe while getting jobs with no problem simply because the youth there didn’t want work while employers were crying for help. It has come to America. Too many of our youth don’t consider that a “war” has been declared on them at all. The fact is that they love their current freeloader situation and will fight vigorously to keep it. Just see what happens when the whole thing collapses.
That concerns me too, and I suspect it is all by design. The more that is revealed about the man in the Oval Orifice, only proves he is someone who couldn’t have gotten the security clearance necessary to be anywhere near Washington DC, in a sane world with a working press pool.
I doubt he *actually* won the last election, and I don’t think he could *actually* win the next. (Enter Al Franken) However, I notice Barry, despite the bad polling, seems pretty confident…”after my election, I’ll have more flexibility”…a front man insulated with entitlement class/racial preference protections holding our attention while (somebody) works in the background to bring on the Change they Hope for. Toss in an incurious and hobbled congress/senate and we have…we have…oh, forget it.
Hand me that TV remote…its time for “The View,” I just love these funny-smart, culturally hip and progressive ladies, and all they do to show us the way. Just like Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers, enlightened as they are, have mightily striven and sacrificed in order to lead bitter clingers to the light; please, don’t bother to thank them, they were glad they could help.
Oh, dang…anybody here got aspirin?
But, like, not voting for Obama would be, like, racist man!I have a duty to loose everything I have ever worked for in order for Barack and Michelle to stay in power. After all, it is easier for me to live under a bridge than suffer the disgrace of being called raaacist by Maureen Dowd or Paul Krugman; now THAT would really just destroy my life and might make Michelle Obama, not proud of her country anymore for the 2nd time in her adult life.
Similar to the young, those on public assistance (mainly minorities) act like they have no idea where their public assistance comes from or what its for. I thought the entire mindset of the Obama voting public was summed up during an interview with a black lady in Philly or Detroit (can’t recall which) who, along with a large group of blacks, were told they would be given money by the government (it was later shown that this was a hoax). The interviewer asked one of the woman waiting in line, where she thought this money was coming from “Its Obama money” she replied so the interviewer asked “Where does Obama get the money” and she replied “I don’t know but we love Obama”. Its the rank ignorance and/or refusal to acknowledge WHO is paying for these entitlements, that depresses me the most. Why should someone benefit from my 60-70 hour work week, when those people sit around watching Oprah, until its time to pick up their check.
You are absolutely right. I am a social worker, and it always astounded me that very few of my clients had any idea where the money comes from or how limited resources might be. I had clients complain that they didn’t know why they had to pay a percentage of their health care services if they had the resources to do so (“Why should anyone tell me how I can spend my money”?- umm, this is a service you decided to purchase?)or complain that they should be getting “more” even though all their dietary, health, and housing needs were met by government assistance. Unfortunately, I also served a number of people who actually had retirement savings at one point, but lived about 20 years longer than they thought they would and watched their savings run out. If we continue in our current path, we will become increasingly dependent on the government because we will not even be able to save enough money to pay for our care independently. I guess we will then be completely “equal,” albeit equally poor.
All by design. Read here for all the details: http://www.thenation.com/article/weight-poor-strategy-end-poverty#
Anyone care to speculate about tattoo-mania and its relationship to the unemployed youth phenomenon? Defacing the currency of self?
Maybe.
I think its another fad, like Beatles long hair and pointy boots, flower power, peace beads, leisure suits, granny skirts, Farrah Fawcett hairdos and believing that Alan Alda of MASH fame had talent.
Trouble is, there’ll come a day when they weary of it and want it gone; good luck with that.
College is nothing more than a scam and a tragic waste of money.
Interest rates. Bernanke is Obama’s enabler. Throughout the 90s, 3 month t-bill rates averaged 5%. If that sort of rate prevailed now, it would choke the Government to death.
In 2000, the Federal Government had about 6T$ of debt, Bush added 4T$, and Obama added 6T$. At 5% they would cost 300G$/a, 200G$/a, and 300G$/a, respectively. A total annual carry of $900G$.
That kind of carry would have stopped this nonsense long ago.
Greenspan and Bernanke are as much responsible for this mess, as Congress and the President.
And rates will eventually rise. The government has arrived at a point that the only way to keep its promises, not only the $16T, but the other $100T-200T
in SS, Medicare, pensions, etc. will be to inflate them away.
HYperinflationary collapse will be seconds away when the US dollar loses it’s “reserve currency” status.
That day is not far away…
What Dr Hanson so effectively, and bleakly, describes above may not be communism, but when the government controls so much – and working for it seems the only ‘safe’ bet, then what the hell is the difference what it calls itself? It is the all powerful and all consuming State, and history shows that it is rarely, if ever, a benevolent force. More likely it is a source of tyranny, if not outright malevolence – regardless of its political bent. What the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany had in common was the all-powerful apparatus of the State (yes I know that they were closely related, more first cousins than the polar opposite right wing vs left wing that the Left would like to portray). And in both cases what they were most efficient at was killing – their own citizens. Government, when you really distill it down, is essentially force. If you dare defy it, whether in a small way or a large way, it will come with guns and take either your freedom or your life. And those who want to enlist it to enforce their likes and dislikes are nothing more than bullies – but worse actually – cowards really – because they won’t come bully you personally. They will enlist Big Brother to come do it for them.
The all powerful state and its wholly owned propaganda apparatus – the so called mainstream media – are the enemy and one of their greatest travesties – and successes – is their continuing demonization of the Tea Party. Think for a minute of what the Tea Party asks, and stands for. Diminished, smaller government. Not NO government. Just less of the leviathan. And for that they are demonized? How can you be demonized for wanting less of the power to coerce and dominate others? But they are – mainly through the power of the media. And the media’s success reminds me of the old line from C.S. Lewis about the Devil’s greatest accomplishment being convincing everyone he doesn’t exist. Wake up and see who the real enemy is. It is on your TV, bringing you your “News”.
It is the unholy spawn of Communism. Remember that Lenin heavily modified Marx’s original vision to make it ‘work’ in the real world. He did away with the idea that Communism would naturally evolve in Capitalist states and emphasized the need for coercion instead. This meant not only propaganda in order to align public sentiment and demonize opposition, but the seizure of private assets, legislation by fiat, pitting segments of society against each other, forcible resettlement and state control of the “commanding heights” of the economy etc. etc…
Later leftists realized that complete collectivization of the economy was not only unnecessary, but might be counter-productive to their goal of single party, totalitarian rule. Since then they’ve been experimenting, trying to discover how much and what sectors of the economy they could control without sacrificing enough minimum prosperity to keep the proletariat from revolting. Their ‘theory’ is really just a nonsensical muddle because it seeks to impose a preconceived ideal rather than to enable an organic flow (after all, human economy is a ‘life process’ just as surely as any other energy exchange system that makes up the terrestrial biosphere – but the left is too blinkered to grasp that). However they effectively took control of academic, entertainment and media sectors, which is a big part of why we are in our current state.
As Adina Kutnicki wrote above, it’s all about power. I can’t tell if people like Nancy Pelosi (a faithful servant of the Beast, as Jean Raspail puts it in The Camp of the Saints) are aware of that. Does she actually believe the meaningless prattle that she mumbles every day? Does she know it’s all lies (she must, because she carefully rehearses it) but honestly believes her cause is righteous, and that the end justifies the means? Or is she fully aware that all that drives her is to seek raw power, and that everything else in her life is an empty sham? It’s an interesting question but it scarcely matters. The true believing ideologues, the power-hungry drivers and the ‘useful idiot’ enablers always find each other in time. They always unite in their hatred of human creativity (and the freedom that gives rise to it), and concoct ways to put us in chains. In the end they are nihilists, they hate themselves (they hate consciousness, and the pain and fear that comes with it). And they lack the strength that the rest of possess, the strength to find meaning, purpose, beauty and love in this vale of suffering. They want to take that away from us (even though they can’t); that is ultimately what drives them, sad, lost creatures that they are.
Defeat them. Punish them, and teach the next generation how to guard against them.
Time to roll out the guillotines…
Indeed, the money situation is grim for so many of us, but it’s just not finances. We can weather that eventually if we get started producing something, but it needs to be planned out.
First, energy production needs to kick into high gear from drilling, piping, refining, delivery. Driving the cost down with supply.
Second, regulations from EPA through DOT and Labor need to be scaled back. Farms in CA need water, electrical plants need energy, natural gas, fuel, or coal.
Third, Labor rules need to be curtailed so people can be put to work quickly and easily. Money needs to change hands easily for a depression to subside.
As to health: insurance companies need to be able to trade across state lines immediately. Plus, we could quickly open one new medical school in every state in one year, letting a new year bring a new level starting with a freshman class.
We have the teachers, we have the applicants. We do not need grand buildings or campuses(campi?), hell, open the in quonset huts. If we build it, they will come. Let the grads pay for it by working one day a week for a total of 200 weeks in a public facility.
What the hell are we thinking? We are Americans, we own this country, and we can maintain it and our lifestyle by getting creative and inventing new ways. It’s what we do….if the government gets out of the way.
Why does everyone talk about insurance companies being able to trade across state lines? What good does that do if everyone who lives in a specific state is required to buy insurance with specific coverage? Does it matter if I can buy my insurance from PA or OH if NJ requires that I carry a specific level of coverage?
As long as government at any level can mandate the level of insurance I must buy, does it matter which company sells it to me? What is needed is choice in the level of insurance, first and foremost. If it’s what I want, I should be able to buy a catastrophic care plan that would kick in only if hospitalization is required. Most young people could get this for far less than the comprehensive plans many are required to buy. Those of us who lose our jobs but want to retain emergency/catastrophic coverage might have an easier time paying the reduced premiums. Our fist choice should be in the level of coverage. Then, if need be, we can go across state lines to find the best provider.
I took college classes in quonset huts. The professors were great, so the venue did not matter. The edumacation Taj Majals built today are a huge waste of taxpayer money.
If I were President Romney, the first bill I would want from my Republican House and Senate would be a clean bill that declared that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant for purposes of the Clean Air Act. End EPA efforts to regulate carbon emissions and lots of expensive job killing regulations disappear.
The second bill I would want is a complete repeal of “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” aka ObamaCare. This is more messy than the carbon dioxide is not a pollutant law because this huge bill had parts unrelated to healthcare. However, the uncertainty with quick total repeal is less than the uncertainty of attempting to modify the mess. We can fix the unintended consequences over the following months.
The third bill would be a tax swap. Reduce the corporate income tax from 35% to about 25% offset by a new tax on oil imported from outside of the US, Canada, and Mexico. In a static economic model this tax swap is a wash, but in the real world there would be a strong incentive to produce more North American oil to avoid the oil tax combined with less disincentive to make a business profitable. Promotes jobs and annoys OPEC.
What do you think? Repeal a bunch of Obama Executive Orders and pass these laws by March 1, 2013 to get the economy moving again without throwing “stimulus” money at the problem.
They shall have what President Obama says they may have. We the people gave him permission to make the choices and apparently we the people are about to renew his contract.
The last American President? Leader of the global community?
While I’m at it, I want to mention that we, all of us, tolerate this behavior on the part of our government. We let them do it to us. I am just as much an offender as any reader. I put up with it to get through the business day, the red tape, the cockamamie bureaucrats, even the police, just to get by.
So, I came up with an idea on how to deal with government overreach if the election goes awry.
First, start storing food. Pay a little ahead on the bills, not much, just a little. Get water enough.
Then, if everything goes to the dogs, strike. Do nothing for one week. If every worker who puts into the system just stops for a week, the system will stop. It may take a few times to let them know we are serious, but if we just stop, stay home, do nothing, then their world goes chaotic. Non-violent, peaceful, nothing moves.
See what that does.
I realize this is revolutionary in concept, but we should be prepared….just in case.
Striking isn’t a bad idea, but… after the election and if Obama wins and then we strike:
- We start going to jail for little things, just an overnight stay then it was just a little misunderstanding, a case of mistaken identity.
- We get audited by the IRS again.
- We get a letter from SSI saying; “you made too much money on that side job and you gotta pay it all back now, right now.”
- Our car doesn’t pass inspection.
- Our mail gets lost, and bills go mysteriously unpaid.
- Computer crashes with a mysterious virus.
- There is a meds shortage and your script can’t be filled.
You get the idea. Violators, strikers will be punished!!!
Better to work harder to win now!
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You’re right about that. All of that will get worse the more everything goes electronic. Banks and government would love to go completely electronic and dispose of cash and checks. Banks would love it because so much literal paperwork would be ended and they could fire a large portion of their workforce (cash and check handlers, ATM service people, tellers, etc.) and their profits would seem to explode. Without any alternatives they could also then tack on all the fees and charges they wanted and customers would have no recourse. Government would likewise have complete records of people’s financial activity and movements. As those few countries that have gone cashless and those which want to point out, an all digital economy means more chances to tax and little means to escape it.
Unfortunately for real people, with everything digitized and linked to a master account, it would be easy for some bureauthug to push a few buttons and shut you down completely. No money, no health care, nothing.
When the banks go paperless, an MS Global like event will happen on a daily basis. The gov’t will take their share and the banks theirs and the people holding air.
Then all the politicians will laugh. Stupid sheeple.
Floyd – on your tax related points I think we will become like the Greeks and Italians with institutionalized evasion as part of the new normal. The US government, and those cronies and rent seekers it protects, are amoral and many of the 49%’ers who work will adopt the same attitude.
It is a far cry from when an orbiting astronaut was concerned he wouldn’t get his tax paperwork done in time and be in trouble with the IRS.
Regarding “institutionalized evasion” of tax payment like the Greeks and Italians do and have been doing … It’s here.
When one considers the illegal population and how a very large portion of them are paid “under the table” in cash, they, in some ways, have more advantages than Americans. No SS or FICA for them or the employer to worry about; $0 in income for federal taxes; WIC for the anchor babies; and if they get hurt or pregnant or get the sniffles there’s the emergency room … all paid for and subsidized by shlubs like me.
I’ve often wondered if I could find a job with half my current income doing exactly what I do, but all paid for in cash by my employer. I can claim $0 in income, get unemployment and welfare to boost my spending money and my employer doesn’t have to worry about tax with holdings, insurance, retirement plans – regulations in general – that come along with government mandated maintenance of an American citizen employee.
What you’re describing is known as a collective action problem.
If people were that good at acting in concert, armies wouldn’t need generals.
Conversely, though, if orders coming down from on high were that effective, armies wouldn’t need lieutenants.
Here is how a typical working life progresses…..
- Enter the job (not career) market around 16 yrs old and continue, through college, until around 22.
- Start working with a toolbox obtained from the university, but few differentiating skills. Begin acquisition of those skills and start to differentiate yourself by age 35. By this time, a career path is becoming visible.
- Start to master your craft through your 30′s and 40′s.
- Enter the sweet-spot of earnings between 45 and 60 yrs old. You are in a career and are known for what you know and do. You are now getting paid for what you know.
- You have acquired flexibility by 50 and can leverage your talent.
A key period of time is between 21 and 35yrs old. This is a time that you iterate through a lot of “No’s” to get on the right track. What you don’t like, what you are not good at…. you start to develop a career.
Today, we are in the process of losing a generation of careers. I look around and see many people entering their 30′s still in the “job” phase. There is no career, no clarity, and no differentiating skill set. Many are stuck back at 22 in the career progression. A decade is a long time.
This is the same group that will need to produce and earn enough income to pay the tax to care for the generation of idiocy… my generation… the baby boomers.
The Democrat party is salivating over this group in a very dysfunctional way. In 2008, Obama promised many of his followers that he would remove risk from their lives and provide provisions. This dysfunctional riff destroys the will and many would say the soul.
November 2012 will reveal if a majority of citizens are afraid of life and seek the warm embrace of a false narrative. Nature is brutal.
Good summary.
No pity here for the Boomers. They don’t deserve squat for retirement. They caused this catastrophe with their rotten set of 1960s values.
Their misled and undereducated kids deserve even less. Oooooh, poor babies — not their fault they’re so misbegotten. Doesn’t matter. They’re still misbegotten. Let’em starve. It will bring the Republic’s resurgence even sooner — if that’s at all possible anymore.
Note that 50% of those boomers did develope their tool boxes, work, pay taxes, and even found time to serve their country. Don’t put all of us in the same box.
Regulation only strangles small and medium business. The really big boys can simply pull a Congressman out of their vest pockets and end run around their 9-to-5 nominal regulators. That’s what Fannie Mae did, employing Barney Frank for the purpose. Though it was quite deft of him to later present himself as the avenger of the people, after the crash.
Or raise prices and let the economies of scale give them an edge over the smaller competition, to the point that they actually like regulation.
You’re both right. There is also another factor. The big companies can afford to hire “compliance officers” to make sure they stay up to date and in compliance with the reams of new federal regulations poring out every day. Between environmental, safety, workplace and other regulations, it is easy to have shelves of heavy tomes to follow. The best part is that the regs are often contradictory such as a health code which requires hourly cleaning but safety regulations say the same area must remain dry at all times.
So, without a compliance officer, small businesses run the risk of an overzealous bureaucrat coming in and fining them to death if not shutting them down outright. It really doesn’t help is the business can’t find qualified workers because schools have stopped teaching skills in favor of self-esteem and propaganda.
The over-regulation of business has created a cottage industry of consultants. Their jobs are to advise small and medium-sized businesses on what they have to do to remain in compliance. Of course, they have a vested interest in keeping the regulations flowing. It’s like that classic demotivation.com poster, “Consulting: If you’re not part of the solution, there’s good money to be made in prolonging the problem.”
My wife is a retired nurse. Back when the new HIPPA medical privacy regulations went into effect, she was the nurse manager for an out-patient surgery center. That one clinic had to pay thousands of dollars to consultants to help them comply with the HIPPA regulations. Multiply that by the untold thousands of medical practices across the country and you’ll get a idea why medical costs are so high. HIPPA is just one of a host of regulations. Multiply that across the range of small businesses nationwide and the complaince cost is in the tens of billions of dollars a year, if not more. That’s money that could’ve been used to do something productive but instead is flushed down the regulatory rathole.
““Consulting: If you’re not part of the solution, there’s good money to be made in prolonging the problem.””
It is a moral dimension of consulting that I really hadn’t really considered before I hung out my shingle; often, what is in your client’s interest isn’t in your interest. The common billing practice of charging for time and expenses really militates against settlements and easy solutions because you get paid more to work more, or at least to bill more hours. It’s much harder to work out the contracts but it really works better to negotiate a payment for a specific result without regard to how you get that result or how long it takes you, though sometimes if you get the desired result quicker and more easily than the client expected, they get a whole bunch of buyer’s remorse when it comes time to pay you. Sometimes it is better to sit on the job awhile even if getting the desired result is a lot easier than it looked to the client. You also have to be very careful of the fragile egos of your clients. They hired you because they thought you were better at something than they were, but they really don’t like for it to be very evident that you’re better than they. Stuff starts to happen like boards of directors saying, what we we need you for when we can hire him?
Always pronounce HIPPA as “high pay”, as in “Here is a government-imposed ‘high pay’ healthcare form for you to sign and return.”
(Despite having mastered difficult subjects, MD’s and RN’s are kind’a slow sometimes.)
sounds like an argument for higher taxes on large companies
No, it’s an argument for less regulations on all companies. All higher taxes on large companies does is raise the price of their goods and services to the consumers. They just pass the higher taxes along in their prices the same as they do for their costs for labor, materials, energy, etc.
Not to mention that big companies do the same thing with taxes that they do with regulations: lobby their way out of them.
The reality is that big companies will always have an advantage with government. The only solution is to make government as small an inconsequential a part of the economy as possible to the advantage is tiny.
very good, the Somalia model
Higher costs also end up reducing the supply of goods, ceteris paribus.
Higher prices tend to reduce the quantity demanded.
So in the end, that cheap-thrill Obammunist “stick it to the 1%” stuff leaves us all worse off.
Generation “F” as in you know what.
When a government chooses sides against its people, its history, its Constitution, its checks and balances, its economic model, its standing in the world, …it cannot, it must not, it will not…announce that it is doing so out loud.
The knowing furtive glances, the whispered asides, the pats on the knee and deep bows to foreign strong-armers brutally dominating their own, with whom we would link arms and mirror in our own way.
Any government that openly refuses to produce a budget for its people to examine for the entirety of their term in office, protected by a press that is little more than “information bagmen” adjusting the flow, content and tenor of the public conversation.
The government wasn’t sharing the bounty of the land, they were seizing it. They were not advising the public as representatives, they were ruling them as overlords. They weren’t protecting them from invasion, they were lowering the bridges and kicking bricks out of the protective walls. They weren’t standing as sentries protecting liberties, they acted instead to belittle certain religious tenets while glorifying others, they ran guns with gangsters to promote a Second Amendment narrative, they openly tampered with voting protections, radicalized the DOJ, turned due process and equal protection on their figurative heads.
They goosestepped over the Constitution, the Amendments and the checks and balances built into our public bloodstream, like a Bohemian sepsis. By the time we realized all that they were up to…it would be too late. It indeed may well be.
We may very well be victims of the greatest betrayal in all of human history. Our children and grandchildren will have been indoctrinated against the truth, so we should fear not that they will curse us for allowing the rape of this once great nation. We should fear that one day they will wake up and curse us for allowing their minds to be polluted with lies and propaganda, so that they could not defend this land themselves.
This drama has not yet played itself out. As long as we all do what we know we have to in November, Obama will be history. Their forces are divided and their support is dwindling, the more they scramble to recover it the more their panic becomes apparent. Come November it will be apparent that the leftists and globalists have set themselves up for one of the greatest debacles in their sordid history. Paul Ryan understands that creating jobs and restoring confidence is not enough, that the leftist apparatchiks must be weeded out at every level, or we will be in the same boat (only worse), in 4, 8 or 12 years. We can’t afford to think short-term any longer, it’s what got us into trouble in the first place. We must think short, medium and long term, and always assume the very worst when it comes to the Left.
We need to put massive pressure on the GOP come January, to expose the crimes of the Dems and to go on the offensive. We need to turn the tables on the Dems, make them the bad guys (which they are!) through highly public prosecutions and stiff prison terms. As prosperity returns, we must explain why it is returning, through renewed confidence brought on by lower taxes, deregulation and a return to small government principles. GOP’ers who don’t toe the line will be voted out in 2014 and 16 and replaced with people who support our values. Large segments of society who favor the massive welfare state, illegal immigration etc. will protest, there may be some unrest. So what? Let them have their tantrums. By going on the offensive and harassing their leaders, we will prevent them from effectively organizing for a while – Hopefully long enough to rebuild our strength and make our case more effectively than in the past. Then the watchword will be vigilance. Any free society buys its freedom through sacrifice and toil, and it is only ever one generation at a time.
I would love to see that happen but there is still the huge, obnoxious problem of our 5th column media. New media and social networks have helped but between the dinosaurs and Hollywood, I’m afraid we will end up with a repeat of the Bush years
Yes, neutralizing them must be a primary objective. It is a difficult challenge, especially for a society that is (and must remain) based on freedom of speech and freedom of conscience. At some point we may simply have to declare certain organizations, groups and individuals enemies of the state and put them out of business. This may seem draconian but you have to weigh it against the fact that these people are part of an apparatus that is trying to destroy our society and enslave us. We can expect no quarter from them, ever. Any appearance to the contrary is deception. The first rule of survival is learning to recognize a mortal threat when you see it.
I would like to believe that there are still men and women of conscience in the mainstream media. Clint Eastwood assured us that there were some in Hollywood, and I believe him. He is magnificent proof of it! It would help if more of them came forward. An association of A-list actors, directors, performers, athletes and other public figures coming forward to speak out all at once would have a huge impact. They must know that we would support them in turn. Basically we need to shock more Americans into thinking about politics in a different way, and we need as many microphones as we can get to do it.
We need to wage a broad ideological war against Leftists at all levels of society. It will be ugly and unpleasant, drawn out and full of surprises and reversals. But in the end we have a much stronger case to make, and one that can still resonate with the majority of Americans. Romney’s election will be only one more step in this struggle, but if we don’t harness at least as much commitment to our goal to roll back government encroachment on individual freedom as leftists do, we will lose in the long run. The battle against the media will be perhaps the single most crucial front in the war (though it goes hand in glove with the battle against leftist academia, some of the big leftist unions, rogue government bureaucracies, the leftist think-tanks, UN globalists, and ultimately, the shadowy financiers who are bankrolling and directing this attempted coup). We need to simultaneously appeal to the conservatives in their ranks to help us however they can, and isolate and destroy the leftists, starting with the easiest targets first. We can only apply pressure on the entire apparatus, watch for openings, and strike with full force when they occur. We can build some momentum in this way, but the opening salvos will be crucial. So we will have to make use of the levers of power to maximum effect while we have them; because we will not get a second chance. The good news as that Leftists have a fatal weakness that they are %100 blind to, and will never be able to perceive. They are not psychologically tuned to it, which is why they are Leftists in the first place…
I’m just sick of this financial mess. The feds & greedy wall streeters run the economy into the ground playing w/ other people’s money. The the gov’t promises to bail ‘em out so they are playing w/ house money. Heads they win & tails we loose. We all get screwed due to the incompetent idiots running the fed reserve & they just go to work in the next few yrs. as msm talking heads or teachers at Harvard explaining why their programs didn’t work. In the meantime, our savings are worthless, the stock market is dead & will completely collapse in a couple of yrs. along w/ the rest of our economy & our kids can’t get a job. Geeze, i should have gone to Reno or Vegas w/ our retirement & played blackjack. At least the odds are better! In meantime, the fools running the nation say we’re doing fine & everything is better. We just need to have the gov’t spend more money it does not have. And, naturally, raise our taxes. You could have some truck driver from bakersfeild run the economic policy FAR better than all of the blithering idiots we have there now. At least the trucker would have some common sense. If Bennie & tax cheat geth were running a kids lemonade stand, it would go broke in an hour. So, the bottom line is we’re screwed. We passed the line of no return some time ago. Our nation is descending into barbarism & anarchy.
“The feds & greedy wall streeters…”
And the greedy “community organizers” who pushed for the sub-prime loans in the first place. And the greedy idiots who borrowed more than they could afford. And the greedy “unions” who demand ever-higher pay for ever-decreasing work.
Perhaps we will come to a time when there are gallows erected and employed on the Washington Mall. Perhaps, in a future time, people who have committed serious crimes against 100′s of millions of citizens will not be forgiven.
Yes, but the gallows will be employed to do away with “enemies of the State”.
Keep in mind that our leaders see themselves as the heirs of Robespierre and Marat, not Jefferson and Madison. Even when in power, they idolize themselves as rebels; “Fight the Power!” is their motto.
Castro needed Batista. Lenin and Stalin needed the Tsar. Revolutionaries need somebody they can point to as irredeemably evil, to rebel against.
And even when in power, they need to keep rebelling- against the society they hate, and seek to remould in the form of their fantasies.
When they don’t have a figurehead, anybody who disagrees with them will do.
As the bearded Spock said in “Mirror, Mirror”, “The First Directive of the Empire is ‘Terror must be maintained’.”
And don’t forget, “rebels” define “revolutionary terror” as not only necessary, but fun. For them.
clear ether
eon
Frightening. Just read a thousand comments at Huffpo.
Bush. Teabillys. Romney.
So many Goldsteins, so little rope.
In this contest, we who love freedom have the advantage of being underestimated by the narcissists.
Robspierre was beheaded by the mob he instigated to behead the aristocrats.
And right up to the end, he never believed it could happen to him. Because his role was that of the executioner, not the victim.
“Proletarian” revolutions almost always end with the consumption of the original revolutionaries by even more radical ones. Cases in point; Robespierre, the Iranian revolution, Stalin and Trotsky. (In that case, Trotsky was the most radical of the revolution’s Old Guard, and underestimated Stalin’s, or rather Feliks Dzherzinskiy’s, ruthlessness- and reach.)
It has been said that a “people’s revolution” only truly ends when it runs out of people to kill. Which is generally the point when the revolutionaries turn on each other, either in an internal power struggle, or just because everyone else is already dead.
Because killing is, unfortunately, one of the major addictions of such revolutionaries; they come to need it the way a heroin junkie needs a fix.
No, rationality is not a major part of the equation.
cheers
eon
Artificially low (government imposed) interest rates do two things:
1. They result in capital misallocation (waste of wealth.)
2. They result in capital destruction (the erosion of value/wealth for fixed incomes and investments.)
For Romney to have any hope of getting us on the road to recovering from this, he will need to show courage that has almost never been seen in human history.
And for those of you who think he can get America ‘going again’ in his first term, you’re in for a BRUTAL shock. Best case scenario is that we are headed towards a full decade of massive unemployment, business and bank failures, and economic ruin that will be very substantially worse than the Great Depression. We’ll be lucky if our living standards only go back to those of the 1940′s. We will not see the kind of prosperity we saw in the 90′s for AT LEAST another TWO decades.
And that’s the BEST CASE, folks. It’s vastly more likely than Romney won’t have the courage and/or wisdom to do what needs to be done, and we will be in truly RUINOUS shape for another 50 years.
I dread the future.
In other words, we’re Japan in the early 90′s.
I’ve been saying for a while that Japan of the 90′s is a best case scenario.
No – much worse.
When Japan’s debt structure collapsed in the early 90′s, they still had a heavily industrialized and high tech economy of $5T, were still exporting like mad, and the rest of the world economy was healthy and growing.
It’s all different this time, especially for the USA. The whole world (including China, it seems) is under a mountain of debt, and every major economic region is under stress – either stagnant or declining.
America’s debts?
At least $4T for the states. If you add together state and municipal debt, and include off-balance sheet liabilities that are normally counted under GAAP, you get closer to $11T-$12T.
DC’s debt is $16T on the books, but using GAAP rules, it’s about $225T. Yes, folks, you’re reading that right.
And then there’s Wall Street. Count up all of the pyramid schemes and other racketeering, three card monti nonsense, and you get something between $720T and…..$1Q (that’s a thousand trillion.)
And if that weren’t enough fun to deal with: America has the world reserve currency. Any and all attempts to deal with our debt – whether printing/monetizing or ‘debt holidays’ – leads to the end of that, and some sort of drastic inflation shock that could easily spin into a Weimar scenario.
We are facing the worst possible financial calamity, one that is far worse than the Great Depression – a total collapse in asset prices COMBINED with a total collapse in currency value.
All of you NEED TO FACE THIS. Stop hoping that somehow it will ‘all work out’ – that’s an Obama-level escape into fantasyland.
“Stop hoping that somehow it will ‘all work out’ – that’s an Obama-level escape into fantasyland.”
I deal with GAAP and SOX compliance issues with mid-size international companies. You are talking above most people’s heads, but everything you stated is true.
We are running out of road to kick the proverbial can down and most will not like what is waiting at the end.
Thank you, Buckeye.
I was just looking at the Baltic Dry Index. Has gone from 693 to 684, and has been trending downward for some time now. 647 (the all time low) was reached in February, and the trend suggests that level will be broken. In May 2008, it was 11,700……
I fear the can is going to reach the end of the road before Christmas. Woe be unto all of us.
On the third day after taking office as Prime Minister, Winston Churchill made his “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat” speech. Maybe President Romney can leave out the “blood” part but that’s how he’s going to have to start talking after Election Day if America is going to have a prayer of pulling out of the Obama-ward nose dive this nation is now in. Pray also that at least a bare majority of each house of Congress has a conversion to honesty and patriotism.
P.S. If the next Senate doesn’t toss out the filibuster rule entirely, the amount of pain America faces on the road ahead will increase tenfold.
De. Hanson, I’m not at all sure how to respond to your article my friend. What you say is true, but it doesn’t bother me perhaps the way it should.
Competition for jobs due to their limited supply means to an extent that only the better candidates will land them and be able to keep them. Which should lead to more productivity.
The less determined and talented will fall by the wayside. Go on unemployment or such. And hopefully somewhere down the line come back more ready and more determined to obtain the employment they desire.
When it comes to young unemployment, unfortunately, many are moving back in with their parents; sitting in their rooms, staring at their fading Obama posters and their concomitant need to come to grips with fading Obama hopes and dreams.
Leaving their rooms on November 6,2012 to cast a ballot for Romney would be a step in the job direction.
Many in generation Zero ( standing for O as in Obama) will realize Obama was lying to them them all the time since he started talking to them in 2008 as they simultaneously come to grips with their personal naivete and gullibility. What Obama really wanted was to rip the fabric of our nation apart, not bring us together as a nation.
Personally, though near retirement age, I lost almost half a million in the stock market starting around the year 2000. But the family scrambled to base a comfortable retirement on the willingness to work well into our 60′s, and make painful lifestyle changes. Helping us were, of course, my pension type rewards for putting in 30 years of 60 to 80 hour work weeks. Thankfully, with my substantial income over the years came a substantial social security payout every month. Three paid-for cars and an almost paid for house helps us sleep at night, too. Plus we have no credit cards bills.
Bragging I’m not trying to do; suggesting the dangers of borrowing money, both as a nation and as an individual or family is what I’m trying to do.
Romney must have a plan for getting the 16 trillion deficit down to a manageable figure. He must make sure our enemies believe our military can defend us and destroy them. He must get our borders under strict control. He must take the steps necessary to keep our people healthy, optimistic and working. Obama hated the nuts and bolt of the job. Sadly, nuts and bolts are what hold things together. Romney must embrace them.
He must create an atmosphere where government works.
Lastly, people like Victor David Hanson can’t off-hand refuse to serve in government if their country calls.
I was put off at Hanson’s steely and refusal to consider public office to help free this nation from Obama’s socialist gun sights. At a time when this nation needs people like him more than ever, people with his qualifications have to consider serving their country. I think we all should re-read Kennedy’s inauguration speech for it reminds us what America stands for, as well as what we as free men and women won’t stand for.
President Obama thought he could push us around like sheep being sent to slaughter. Finally, he’s finding out Americans are quite capable of pushing back.
With a vengeance.
Still searching for our Maggie Thatcher? But you have my vote, Rachel.
A few thoughts. I believe that many a faded Obama poster will indeed drive a growing number of 20 & 30-somethings to the polls. But not to vote for Obama. And as pocket-book issues usually do, it will also cause many 40 to 60-year olds to pull the lever for Romney/Ryan. And I believe that enough seniors are finally starting to recognise that Obamacare is socialized medicine. That means the inevitable delays, long lines and rationing. And in the back of their minds, they will hear the words… death panels.
But as Stallion pointed out in his post, to recover from all this, a Romney/Ryan administration will need to show the kind of courage that has almost never been seen in human history. And for that to happen, they will need both an unprecedented and a relentless support and pressure from voters to over-ride the push-back from the media and other interest groups.
The question remains; is America wide-eyed and angry enough to pull this off…???
The November election and the electoral difference will be the first sign.
Competition for jobs due to their limited supply means to an extent that only the better candidates will land them and be able to keep them. Which should lead to more productivity.
The less determined and talented will fall by the wayside. Go on unemployment or such. And hopefully somewhere down the line come back more ready and more determined to obtain the employment they desire.
While I agree with some of your points, I think what I’ve quoted seems to be a bit disingenuous. If there are only so many jobs, largely for the reason Mr. Hanson clearly laid out, i.e. regulation, draconian tax burden, age of retirees etc., then it doesn’t matter how qualified they become, the unemployment numbers are not going to go down. It’s a simple ratio of jobs to job candidates, and the number of jobs is decreasing each day it seems.
The old adage that you need experience to get a job, and you need a job to get experience seems to be being fully realized. As the article shows, many young people are turning to internship, which is great for the employer (I loved the Helot reference), because they get free labor, but it doesn’t matter a hill-of-beans if a position never opens for them.
The author and all commentators are hitting the nail right on the head.
I’ve lived overseas (Middle East) for the last 6 years. From here, you can see the inevitable decline of the West, and it is not just the US government’s fault (although the various governments are very culpable). I am surrounded by Indians, Chinese, Filipino, and other sub-Asian continent citizens working 12 hours a day for $800 USD per month – and sending most of that home. I am not talking about just menial laborers here either: bartenders, accounting clerks, nurses, factory workers – you name it.
To correct their economies, those in the West must readjust their economic expectations to the new global reality. Unskilled and mid-skilled workers in the US, England and the EU are not going to be able to enjoy their historic standards of living with the glut of cheap labor available throughout the world. The West is going to have to “right size” what is considers to be the value of these workers or the debts will only continue to pile up.
I don’t think it is going to happen and this will result in the stagnant economies of the West becoming a permanent condition is the mid-term.
That’s why three years ago, I cashed in my 401k, bought a vineyard and olive orchard in South America, and am preparing to retire early on $65k per year post tax.
The old model is gone. True retirement will require creativity on our parts.
Wineman
Don’t forget to file your 1040 every year with the necessary check. And do all those new reports on foreign bank accounts. You may be gone but you are not forgotten at the IRS.
So basically you’re telling us that my generation needs to accept the living standards of a third world peasant in order to “fix the economy”…
Two words for you you condescending old piece of s—: GET F—ED.
As a 50 year old, I second that! Get F__ED!
Wow! The truth must well and truly hurt.
Insults notwithstanding, the harsh truth is that western economies will contintue to stagnate until they right-size the cost they are paying for un- and low-skilled labor.
The world today is too small to allow this fact to be ignored.
Don’t shoot the messenger – get an education and a valued skill set and you won’t have a problem.
And 45 is not THAT old.
When reality smacks most people upside the head they don’t notice.
It seems more and more likely that there will be severe violence in America. We Americans tend to have that “get f—ed” attitude. Yep, ain’t no good gonna come a this mess.
The amount of money in the pent up doers of this world is staggering. When they see someone in charge that will protect their assets by setting guide lines and time lines for a return of investment and capitol, look out. Add to that stripping away the red tape and government interference, look out again. Watch the U.S.of A. rocket into the future if government unions are neutered and put in check and individual States are penalized for running deficits.
Personally, at the age of 70, I have one more venture I would like to pursue before taking the big holiday that never ends, but until I see the right conditions for investing, holidays it is.
One more thing, set congressional and house terms to one 5 year stint so they will do something then get lost, without a gold plated pension.
The amount of money in the pent up doers of this world is staggering. When they see someone in charge that will protect their assets by setting guide lines and time lines for a return of investment and capitol, look out. Add to that stripping away the red tape and government interference, look out again. Watch the U.S.of A. rocket into the future if government unions are neutered and put in check and individual States are penalized for running deficits.
Personally, at the age of 70, I have one more venture I would like to pursue before taking the big holiday that never ends, but until I see the right conditions for investing, holidays it is.
One more thing, set congressional and house terms to one 5 year stint so they will do something then get lost, without a gold plated pension.
GLASS not Anonymous, hit the button to soon
Earlier this month, a hobby company used Kickstarter to raise nearly $3.5 million to expand its product line. They were essentially offering deeply discounted access to the new line in exchange for the support.
Now, imagine if/when we get an infrastructure for micro-investments…
Fabulous column right until the final paragraph, when he delivers a punt worthy of weenie-world/academia.
Where does it lead? Hell, a trend in motion will continue until stopped. And we have to do much more than just call a halt: we also have to reverse two generations of dismal leftist failure. If we blow it, our great-grandchildren will be left with remote and bitter memories of our screwups, and a diet rich in catfood and thin cabbage soup.
No way Romney’s up to the job but he may be able to start the process — with lots of help in the form of encouragement backed by credible threats. First up: get him into the WH.
“Less than half of student loans will be repaid”. Sad but true Dr Hanson.
A university education has somehow turned those who attain it into indentured servants. They now cannot shed the shackles of an vastly overpriced purchase.
In the past 30 years college tuition costs have soared 400% while the CPI has increased 166%. Government with their ever present need to “help” has driven up these costs with their grants and easy money loans. Government misallocating resources always causes calmity.
A bursting of the educational bubble will occur.
“The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” President Lyndon Johnson had good intentions, but many of his policies led to Hell. One was the federal student loan program he set up, so that even “poor boys could go to college.” (When I went to college in 1951, the college cost with tuition, room, and board was $1500. I could have gone to a local college paying only tuition for $500 for two terms.) The amount of the loan was tied to to the tuition costs of the college – so, guess what? – the greedy colleges simply raised their tuition to the present astronomical rates, and have promised to do so again if President Obama raises the amount of loan students can get!
Excellent, as always, Dr. Hanson. It’s such a depressing state of affairs but avoiding the bad news isn’t helpful. Truth-telling such as this can do nothing but help people to understand what’s really at stake this election year. And understanding will provide the motivation to find solutions and bring about not just “change” but improvement.
Alas, poor Blimp. Blond hair, blue eyes — an so perforce barkin against “emasculated Italians” an “Hellenic malady” also. Oh, ¡how Paddy McTammany wishes EYE had been born a Vikin bold!
Nothing can be done, however. America is bound to go on looking less and less like Reykjavik as decade after decade., degeneration after degeneration of American Decline (Pat. Pend.), unfold inexorably.
Meanwhile, I wonder if the good rear-colonel is altogether on the same wavelength as his own Tank of Thought, an as the Fearless Funders of Freedumb generally. There is a scurrilous rumor that the Big Management of our secret-sector business corporations can never see farther than the end of the next quarter. Though this *would* explain a lot, it is probably mostly Rabbi Ben Trovato mouthin off ignorantly about secular matters mostvolks understand far better than Ben does.
American Decline (Pat. Pend.) is too big to miss, surely, and, having noticed it, not to take steps along _sauve qui peut_ lines would be pretty inexcusable. It is not to be thought that Fearless Funders would behave like that, though to be sure, they might prefer not to talk about the steps they actually are takin.
Come to think of it, though, I suppose it is conceivable their freelordships might commission a Blimp to scribble shut-your-eye clap-your-hands Confidence Fairy baloney to cover their own get-away.
Happy days.
new moniker?
Maybe a new moniker, Bear, but same old empty masturbating in front of the mirror, to no one’s delight but his own. As a Writing Teacher, I see this often…but my students are 19 years old. This chronic case of arrested development, I suspect, can’t see 40 in the rear-view mirror, yet still writes like a precocious twelve year old who just got his first thesaurus. Pathetic, really – but, it’s how he gets off on himself, and he really has now idea how embarrassed the rest of us are for him.
Was there a point in there?
There’s no “somehow” to it when it comes to education and its intentional use as a cultural weapon. That’s why Bill Ayers went into the field. To legally create destructive bombs except this time it was the noetic system, not a military dance, that incurred his wrath. It is why he put an experienced community organizer in charge of the project he was so proud to have founded, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. I remain shocked though that last week President Obama proudly acknowledged he was quite familiar with and deliberately pushing John Dewey and Marx’s dream of using education to change consciousness from within. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/didnt-the-president-just-admit-ccssi-was-a-ruse-to-change-classroom-interactions/
The President’s statement that “it had been a generation” since this covert mental assault was last tried from the White House is another reminder that today’s K-12 and colleges and universities were in fact changed forever by the 90s effort at Transformational Outcomes Based Education. The transmission of knowledge may not have been completely eradicated and the primacy of emotion and values retraining may have been only partial, but we are still living with the pernicious effects.
I have written that our educational institutions have been deliberately trying to obliterate rational thought itself. Literally seeking to have no more Axemaker Minds that are capable of developing new unauthorized knowledge or technology. To reenforce that intent that will only get worse in a Second Term with the Belmont Challenge then on the Front Burner along with the operational Future Earth Alliance and its links to the Building One America Regional Equity Movement, I will close with the statement from “What is Education For?” currently being linked to again by aggressive educators all over the world. It is from 1990 and the previous deliberate national cultural assault via education.
“It is a matter of no small consequence that the only people who have lived sustainably on the planet for any length of time could not read, or like the Amish, do not make a fetish of reading.”
The human pathos VDH describes was not accidental or simply misguided. It was part of a deliberate post-Cold War assault on the mental foundations of Capitalism and individual and economic freedom. If Communism could not survive, the idealogues refused to allow capitalism to remain the perceived victor. This 90s partial assault that has been so damaging has now been replaced by a full-fledged global invasion. If the President himself is aware of the implications of what he is pushing to fundamentally transform American socially, politically, and economically via the government’s education monopoly, it is past time for the average citizen and taxpayer to know too.
Because sunlight really is the best disinfectant for tragic political ideologies that too many thought were buried back in 1989 and 1991.
A $100,000 meter maid salary, enough already. Thanks Victor for 3 years of continuing to write perfect pitch dialog in response to the train wreck that is the current U.S. government.
This is what happens when a society becomes “feminized” as defined these past 40 years since the “pill” was introduced and women got a freedom (responsibility?) to be as sexual/free as they desired. Why the abortion game? When did this ever not exist?
Rights, rights and more rights have been demanded.
Where are the “responsibilities” to be placed in today’s society? For males and females?
Hysteria is now not used in certain circles due to “political correctness” and the implied slander toward women. Really? See how the “democrats” behave during this so called convention for a modern description of hysteria at play.
Recall the thoughts of Sigmund Freud on hysteria and neuroses. Doesn’t matter if one is a guy or a guy (used to be gal, I think).
Perhaps the “inmates” are in fact running the game!
Will the “hysteric” Obama end up like his daddy? (beer recipe a clue?)
My mom is 84 & has assets but no income. She wonders what good it did to scrimp and save her entire life and only receives pennies on the savings but pays dollars in taxes. A local radio guy had an economist on and provided the following info; if you’re over 50 and lose your job, you might never work again. 50% of all college grads since 2006 are un/under employed. Social security was supposed to be a three legged stool, savings, pension were two legs and social security was the 3rd leg. With so many people on the government dole and no interest on savings the 3 legged stool can’t support a child. No job = no savings = no pension = greater dependence on the govf. Where does it end. Do we throw the monopoly board in the air call a do over or do we through the bums out (including your congressman/senator that you personally like) put shame back in the game, make hard choices or become Europe
I just can’t get “over 50, you may never work again” out of my mind.
So very many of us, struggling.
Without, I note, the government backed pensions of many, if not most, PJM commentors.
Actually, I expect him to do precisely that. The President is a dogmatic, incurious individual, conceited, egotistical, narcissistic, and vain. He is incapable of conceiving himself as being wrong about anything, and is certain that when his perfect plans don’t work, it’s because they’ve somehow been sabotaged by “nefarious elements”, as opposed to simply being bad ideas to begin with.
In every case where his theories have lost out on contract with reality, his reflex response has been to “double down” his bet, committing even more resources to the project, while making veiled (or not-so-veiled) threats against those he defines as “enemies” who seek to thwart him.
This is not the behavior of a reasonable individual. It is the behavior of a demagogue. Demagogues do not abruptly become reasonable, even in an election year.
I believe he will openly, and proudly, state that he is right, we must do more of everything he has done, and anyone who disagrees will wish they hadn’t. That has been his pattern from the beginning, and he won’t change at this late date. His ego will not permit it.
Plus, of course, he will be speaking to a Greek chorus of enablers who will cheer his every word. The Cassandras having already been driven out of the temple.
The faithful forget- or perhaps never bothered to look up- the small but important fact that Cassandra’s curse was to always know, and accurately predict, the future. But to never be believed by anyone else.
clear ether
eon
No truer words have been spoken (written)
Recently, when asked to grade his performance as President, Mr. Obama responded “incomplete.” A grade of “incompetent” is far closer to the mark.
Great but depressing article Dr VDH. You have become a most useful barometer for those of us who appreciate the long view of things. You have noted in previous writing that your neighborhood is transforming into a Mad Max world of theft, degradation, and necessary survival isolation. Such world awaits us all I fear. That is – everyone for himself. The politicians have long ago adopted this ethic at the expense of everyone else. If Obama gets a second term the decline into Marxist financial slavery and dependence is inevitable. Perhaps the most cruel child abuse is the heaping on of impossible debt for future generations. If Romney wins he faces an imposible task to undo the mess consisting of two Obama created classes ,ie the politically connected, and the dependent. What the country needs is a brutal leader in service of the constitution. If you want to create millions of jobs then first deport millions illegals. And yes others will fill those jobs rather than starve after government benefits are cancelled. The country actually functioned this way not all that long ago. Of course this wouldn’t be warm and fuzzy and would be seen as cruel, inhuman, and unthinkable. So many interesting and insightful comments on ths site yet too few specific solutions including from Dr VDH. And the good Dr will not throw himself into the political cesspool as he has found his comfort zone as an observer rather than a hands-on participant. Why dont we all just follow his lead with interesting blather. But it appears that we already are.
No, you want to keep the illegals. You will need them once the massive die-off from your roundhead tizzy fit begins………
Of course he did.
Being a marxist, he completely ignores the dynamics of the take-off and of the creation of wealth, and the economy for him is just the field for the fight for the division of a given “pie”.
If the brainwashed give him four more years he will successfully steer America towards North Korean poverty (he has already tried, but America is still resisting.)
the next four years will explode with violence. if obama is the winner, that won’t happen until midterm elections, by which time he will have openly bared his fangs. his secret, non-military civil defense forces, armed with billions of rounds of snub-nosed ammunition, will move into action to halt those midterm elections, as our awakened citizenry, belatedly, will have had enough of obama, at long last. who knows how that will go?
if romney is the winner, violence will explode almost immediately in protest. brace for it.
I’m afraid I have to agree with you … and even go a bit further. I’m expecting that, no matter how the election turns out, there is going to be violence in any community that is large enough to have a “Martin Luther King” drive. If Obama wins, it will be like what happens when some home-town sports team wins a championship; if he loses it will be worse – especially if he loses by a narrow margin. And I don’t expect that the long-term aftermath will be any better – just lower key.
“The old American idea of receiving a fair so-so interest on a little money in the savings account vanished. And no one seems to care.”
No one seems to care because very large numbers are still clinging to the hope that the good old days will return.
Very few understand that the good old days were the result of mortgaging the future. I’m not talking about W Bush or B Obama, but about JFK, LBJ and HHH. Once this crap started there was no way to end it without pain. Then in the early days of Reagan’s terms the Republican Hogs found it more sensible to feed at the trough than take the pain (remember Stockman?) and it was obvious to anyone who would face the truth that the answers to RR’s questions were “no one” and “never” (If not us, who? If not now, when?).
Eventually the number clinging to hope of a return to the good old days will dwindle below some critical level at some critical time and then things will get interesting. Right now the wise are just trying to get a good angle on a chair for when the music stops.
“There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.” Von Mises
reply below @ 36
What the left has always known. Humans are weak and will follow the path of least resistance even at their own peril.
Pain is something that can not be ignored. Unfortunately, it seems to be the human condition to ignore reality until pain focuses the mind on survival. All recovering alcoholics know this. In a dictatorship, e.g. Syria, there is some validity in blaming the pain on an oppressor, but in a democracy, the blame can only be identified by a mirror. Idiots have run our government for generations and we permitted it. The bill is now due and payable. Sadly, it is the innocent who take the hit. If you seek justice, visit a cemetery.
The rot started long before Obama, before Clinton, even before Carter, but each made it worse. Our rigged economy is starting to buckle. Its basis axiom: Work hard, learn, contribute, and you will succeed has been replaced by which lobbying firm to hire. Who you know, in Washington, is infinitely more important than what you know. Solyndra is simply a clear example. Without favoritism, illegal funding, and technical stupidity, the company would never have survived in a free market. Desperate workers, who based their livelihood on this employment have been destroyed. There are entire industries which can not survive without the government’s heavy thumb on the scales. An 81 year old guy loading truck tires on a semi is my proof; he put all his money into GM bonds. He wanted to be safe; he lost everything. Obama stole this old man’s money, changed the rules to garner union votes.
I do not think Romney can turn it around. If he does, the survivors will have known great pain. Those who vote for Obama have my sympathy, but not my respect.
I have an idea, let us outlaw refer units for homes. You are only allowed iceboxes again. This would necessitate an entire new industry of ice carriers again. You could see a requirement of at least 1 million ice carriers and the requisite industries to support it.
This is the way that our government thinks. Imagine if you made taxation simple. That would therefore get rid of millions of tax preparers, accountants and lawyers.
Now, let us just enforce a move back 100 years and we could all be working again. I call it the caveman economics theory.
“Right now the wise are just trying to get a good angle on a chair for when the music stops.”
Just what kind of chair might that be?
The above was a reply to Fred-M @ 32.
I was referring to the game of Musical Chairs where people are eliminated when the music stops.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120689/
As was well known back in the 70’s, when Carter and the Fed were ruining the economy, inflation is a TAX.
It’s really very simple.
Double entry bookkeeping is reality, while governments live by single entry bookkeeping.
There is the infallible law of supply AND demand. It’s correlates, such as production-consumption, taxing-spending, making-taking, creating-destroying, necessarily MUST, therefore, play out, and yield their lawful results. Ergo the low percentage paid on savings and the low employment rate for the aging children.
Also, people are stupid, or at least slow learners, or most likely, they forget what they once learned. So, the in-your-face pile of excrement that was the presidency of Slick Willie SHOULD HAVE led to a massive awakening of the people.
Alas, people die and newbies come to vote, so the lesson gets lost for too many.
“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” Bill Clinton.
Well, guess what”
The obvious (to me, anyway) implication is that there are a whole lot of fools running scared in America, circa 2012!
Whatever happened to CYA—cover your assets?
With respect to one’s assets, the key word is—DIVERSIFY.
A religious person tithes 10%, say, to their church. An awake person “tithes” 10%, or so, as a TRUE insurance policy, to their this-world collection of assets, by buying and holding gold, or other precious metals.
Inflation!!! Bet AGAINST it, since it is the only sure thing.
When I was a kid, Detroit needed 200 man-hours to build a car. Now they use 10 man-hours. We have become so productive as a society that there will be a surplus of labor no matter what. Government and service industries can use some of the surplus labor, but what to do with the rest?
“but what to do with the rest?”
“Aim high” – the moon and beyond. Newer industries will be labor intensive until _their_ kinks are worked out. And hopefully by that point, they’ll have spawned new ones. Mr. Newt wasn’t completely batty.
In the words of W. H. B. Smith, they will “be handed a rifle and a uniform, accompanied by a demand for obedience”.
In the words of the Anarchist’s Cookbook, young men and male teens are excellent raw material for revolutionary armies because they have little sense of their own mortality, and if convinced that whatever went wrong in their lives is Somebody Else’s Fault, they will be happy to take up arms against that Somebody Else. Not to mention jettisoning all previous teachings about right, wrong, and common sense, especially if they have been properly indoctrinated prior to “call-up”.
At the risk of Godwin’s Law, this is how the Wehrmacht of 1933-45 ended up with every man-jack swearing an oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler, rather than to Germany or the German Constitution. And of course, the new Wehrmacht spent almost six years helping round up “dissidents” in Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia before it crossed the Polish border, which by the way was seventy-three years ago last Saturday.
The One came in saying he wanted a “Domestic security force as big, well-funded, and well-equipped as the military”. Which sort of explains what he’s done with DHS.
Add in a few million unemployed 16-to-25-year-olds, and you’ve got, or rather He’s got…..
clear ether
eon
Dr. Hanson,
You are an extremely articulate advocate of our common cause, the restoration of a set of good core values to our society. I am 72, and I didn’t study the classics, but in the course of a lifetime I acquired an education in the history of morality mostly be studying history and observing my fellow man around the world. Barack Obama is a child of neglect; our neglect of maintaining core values and national goals pointed at cresting a strong common culture. Childlike focus on consumption as the measurement of success has infantilized our American society.
Barack Obama is a poorly educated totally inexperienced candidate for high office. He has proved that beyond a doubt. Yet yesterday on Labor Day in DetroitI heard my contemporaries denouncing Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan as homophobic, woman-hating,and generally evil. My “friends” knowing that I share none of their simplistic objections turned to me for my reply, and I said ” Mitt Romney is a good and decent man who is experienced, competent, and successful. I will vote for him, because Barack Obama is none of those things..
May I suggest that Federal student loan policy has not “masked” the inflation in higher education prices so much as it caused the inflation? The Supply of higher education is fairly inelastic, while Demand is elastic.
This means that the benefit of any subsidy, such as generous student loans, will accrue more to the supplier than to the consumer. And that is exactly what has happened…
Ameryx, you are correct that the availability of loans has driven up the cost of higher education. There is a parallel, in my opinion, with the way the availability of employer provided medical coverage has pushed health care costs upwards.
Yes, the average American IS worse off but, conversely, the top 1% are doing better than ever. The very people on Wall Street that created the greatest financial disaster since the Great Depression while the Bush Administration “regulators” and the Fed sat and watched made more on the recovery than they did on the orgy of greed and fraud leading up to it. There’s plenty of fault to lay at the feet of Obama and the Democrats but it is more for failing to make real changes in our financial system or holding the people that created this mess accountable.
What we have gotten for MOST of the Obama era is REPUBLICAN POLICY. Only in the new era of “truthiness” do the Re THUG LIE CONs have the audacity to stand up and blame the very people that tried to pull the country out of the ditch they put us in by proposing even MORE of the very policies that caused the disaster.
EVERY FREAKING STEP OF THE WAY the Obama and the Democrats had to fight the ReTHUG LIE CONs to implement policies that were basically Republican policies. Months dragged by in the endless attempt to get even ONE RepubliCON to sign on to a badly-needed reform of the health care system, a reform that looked almost exactly like the very reform THEY had proposed just a few short years earlier, a reform that came from a RIGHT-WING THINK TANK, a reform that Mitt Rawmoney had already successfully implemented in Massachusetts. Instead they and their allies in the right-wing echo chamber hammered away with slobbering idiocy about “death panels” and a “government take-over of health care”. Invisible Obama, the Obama that only THEY can see, was a “socialist” (Ok, that’s when they weren’t calling him a communist or – I’m not making this up – a fascist or a foreign-born Muslim).
This same unprecedented obstructionism carried over into every policy attempted by the Democrats. The stimulus was woefully inadequate after Democrats compromised away half of the spending that economists predicted was needed and implemented more tax breaks in order to get Republican votes. Financial reform was badly watered down while the Republicans demonized Elizabeth Warren, one of the few people to warn of the dangers of the laisse-faire regulation of Wall Street and the mortgage industry, for attempting to put in place protections for consumers to avoid future scamming by crooks in the financial industry!!??
You name it, the Republicans opposed it DOUBLING the use of the filibuster over the previous record set by them in the LAST Senate session and leading up to the comedy of arrogance last summer over the debt ceiling, a stand-off that gained them 98% of what they wanted but cost the country it’s sterling credit rating. Standard and Poors pointed to the paralyzed political system and cuts in spending when they predicted a slowing economy which is EXACTLY what happened. And, it wasn’t because of Obama and the Democrats. They tried to compromise but ended up giving in to Boehner and his allies who refused to even consider a tax on the wealthiest Americans, the very people that had made most of the money the past 10 years. But, WAIT, we can’t tax THOSE people, they’re the RepubliCON base.
If Americans puts these people back in power they deserve what they’re going to get.
No need here to refute your inversion of the facts. You are delusional.
So, let me make it easy for you by narrowing the conversation to just ONE item, the health care reform attempt.
Did the blueprint for this reform come from the Heritage Foundation, a right wing think tank? Was that basically the reform that was implemented by Rawmoney in Massachusetts? And, was that basically the blueprint that the ACA followed and the Republicans opposed? Do they NOW call this basic blueprint “a government take-over of health care”?
And, finally, how is this an “inversion of the facts”?
I won’t hold my breath waiting for an answer.
Are you capable of making your counterpoints without coming across like a sanctimonious asshole?
He’s being himself; he is always like this. A real treat to talk to.
It wasn’t an inversion of facts because all you presented were claims.
Wow, thats a lot of capital letters but it still makes no sence.
Folks, come on.. Remember our History…
We started, and won, the Revolution..AGAINST ALL ODDS
We survived the War of 1812. Washington DC was burned to the ground and our future was very uncertain
We fought a war Brother against Brother, American vs American, War,and survived and thrived.
We fought in WWI. We suffered SEVERAL Depressions and shocks to our system.
We fought a global war after being mortally wounded and unprepared in WWII..And Won. The world became a better place. Even our enemies were rebuilt by US, and now live better lives…
We halted Communism in Korea. We fought for the same reason in Vietnam.
We suffered under Carter and 16% Interest Rates and gasoline shortages.
We built the Interstate Highway system, canals, we were 1st in Flight and the only Nation to the Moon.
We suffered mightily over the last 200 + years but we have ALWAYS been a Beacon of hope and light in a very dark world at times. We have ALWAYS recovered and ALWAYS moved higher in productivity and wealth. Each Generation has been better than the last.
Do NOT lose Hope.
Do NOT lose those traits.
What did everyone at Sarattoga, Antietam,the trenches of France, the island of the Pacific, the diggers of the Erie Canal risk and often lose their lives for, so we can throw it all away in a few years?
No… We must dig in, pull ourselves up by our boots, and recover.
We can rebuild our infrastructure (and create millions of jobs) paid for by revenues from US domestic drilling.
We have withstood bigger threats.
We will survive this as well.
If we summon the will that American generations before us had.
All true enough until the recent treasonous betrayal of the fight for the common good by the modern Republican Party which chose to deny any and every initiative by Obama and the Democrats and made capturing the White House their only goal. They are willing to destroy this country in order to rule over the ruins and have gone so far as to oppose the very policies they either initiated or supported in the past.
This is your country under conservative tyranny.
Any questions?
I didn’t think so.
Obi, you don’t get it. Obama & The Democrats aren’t the answer. Romney & The Republicans aren’t the answer either. Until 20 years ago both parties were “same stuff, different day” mirrors. Nothing substantial got done, but they were mostly civil. Over the last 20 years BOTH SIDES have became polarized, so the zealots are in charge. There’s a line from an interview with a U.S. Army officer in Viet Nam after a nasty battle. He said, “We had to destroy the village to save it”. That’s who’s running the country. That’s what needs fixing, but everyone is either drinking the kool-ade or too apathetic to do anything. Those who see clearly are too few in number, and no one listens to us anyway.
God, nothing makes my head EXPLODE like the false equivalency that both sides are equally responsible for the partisan rancor now paralyzing this country.
N0, this partisan climate ISN’T equally the fault of Democrats and Republicans. What freaking part of UNPRECEDENTED OBSTRUCTIONISM do people not understand!!?? The Republicans implemented a strategy of blatantly opposing anything and everything that Obama and the Democrats have attempted in order to deny them any victory and held the economy and this country hostage in the process. They even went so far as to oppose policies that THEY THEMSELVES HAVE SUPPORTED IN THE PAST!!! The ACA follows a Heritage Foundation blueprint. And just look at the graph of the EXPLOSION in the use of the filibuster for Christ’s sake. They’ve even filibustered floor votes on judicial appointments that have passed unanimously out of committee. This is how insane this has become!!
The freaking health care plan that Obama pushed was born in a right-wing think tank as a supposed “free-market” alternative to Clinton’s attempt at health care reform. Yet the CONs called it a “government takeover” of healthcare and fought every proposal tooth and nail. Time after time the Democrats folded under Republican pressure and ended up with a tepid, business-friendly “compromise” that was more Republican than Democratic policy. God, there wasn’t even a freaking public option!!!
I don’t deny that you could find examples of Democratic extremes but nothing, N.O.T.H.I.N.G. like what has taken place with the cynical manipulation and breath-taking dishonesty of the Republicans.
All this obstructionism and partisan rancor comes DESPITE Obama and the Democrats trying to meet the Republican’s in the middle on health care and just about everything else. God, Obama appointed THREE Republicans to his cabinet!! Has any Republican in modern time ever done the same for Democrats?? Even the stimulus was reduced in size and included lots of tax initiatives that were basic Republican policy. Economists like Krugman railed about how the compromised stimulus wouldn’t be adequate and he was right. But, whether you agree with that or not, it WAS an attempt to include the Republicans point of view.
And, last summer when the Republicans held the country hostage in what should have been a routine debt ceiling negotiation, their brinksmanship won them 98% of what they wanted Boehner later bragged. That’s the Republican idea of “compromise”, give us what we want or the country gets it.
The country HAS “gotten it”. The CONs have been willing to hold this country hostage by stopping anything that would help improve the economy because they don’t want Obama to succeed and a bad economy works in their favor. What they have done is nothing short of treason and it’s long past time for them to pay the price.
Is that a promise that your lefty idiot head will explode?
Did it “look” like I had any questions?
I made Statements that spoke volumes.
We have overcome,outlasted, rose above, things much worse than the last 4 years, and we shall do so again…with or without you on the train.
Sorry, Lester, if you don’t have a question you’re not paying attention.
If you think more of the same policies (Bush ll) that got us into the ditch are going to pull us out then I have a bridge to nowhere with your name on it. Please contact me ASAP and bring lots of money.
Obi-Punk, you lefty idiot. One does not compromise or reach agreement with communist trash trying to destroy one’s Country. It is the solemn duty of any patriotic American to extirpate Comrade Obama, his apparatchiks, his fellow travellers, and all the idiots like you who follow him. There really is no place in this Country for trash like you, so one way or another you’re not going to be a part of the American res publica.
So, Art, you clueless buffoon, haven’t I warned you about the dangers of drooling all over your keyboard? You really are a slow learner, aren’t you?
But, before you go all Shawn Insannity on me, here’s a few questions for you to answer that will maybe get you to ponder how completely insane the current conservatives have become;
Did the blueprint for this reform come from the Heritage Foundation, a right wing think tank?
Was that basically the reform that was implemented by Rawmoney in Massachusetts?
And, was that basically the blueprint that the ACA followed and the Republicans opposed?
Do they NOW call this basic blueprint “a government take-over of health care”?
Answer any or all of the above and take your time, I know this is difficult for you so you can have all the time you need.
Correction:
The first question is “Did the blueprint for the health care reform that became the ACA come from the Heritage Foundation, a right wing think tank?
This WSJ article explains the history of The Heritage Foundation’s support of an individual mandate without Obi’s histrionics:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204618704576641190920152366.html
In Short, Heritage did support a form idea more than 20 years ago. It was very different than both RomneyCare and ObamaCare. Hardly a “blueprint.” More of a “similar idea from a different source.” But Heritage has long since decided the downsides of the plan exceeded the benefits they saw at the time and repudiated it. Even at the time, many conservatives thought it was a bad idea and did not support it. The whole conservative movement does not take its marching orders from the Heritage Foundation.
What’s supposed to be the significance, anyway? “Because some think tank on your side once upon a time had the same bad idea, you are forever forbidden from opposing the idea now that we have it?”
If I was bound to support every idiotic, mistaken thing I’ve ever said and done in the past, I’d be doomed. There’s nothing wrong with changing your mind.
When the opposition is negotiating in bad faith, unprecedented obstructionism is a good thing.
In a nutshell!
Yea, but our elders didn’t have their government kicking their legs out from underneath them while handcuffed. We were taught to get up, brush off the dirt and carry on, but how can you when “The Man” is jumping on your back while digging the hole deeper at the same time? The way it’s going that “light at the end of the tunnel” isn’t our salvation, it’s a train named “China” come to run us down. They won’t let us kite checks forever. Then we will be royally screwed.
We survived the War of 1812. Washington DC was burned to the ground and our future was very uncertain.
It’s true that the British burned our capital in the War of 1812. And to think, we never had the descency to thank them.
Obi-duuuuude, stick your head back in the oven , man, you are only half-baked. .what rock have you been living under? . . or are you working to collect that stipend from georgie-boy?
Obi, learn your history. The ’08 crash has roots in the ’29 crash, the over reaching policies of FDR, the “Keeping up with the Commies” spending spree under 7 Presidents, Johnson’s unfunded war in Southeast Asia, his underfunded “Great Society” boondoggle, the wasted space program (cut/canceled before the good could be realized and built upon), Carter’s failed policies, Over spending in the Reagan era to try and recover from 60′s & 70′s waste, forced credit extensions to people who couldn’t get it, rampant bankruptcies by the same people, the repeal of Glass-Stegal and other regulations to control rampant speculation under Clinton, and 2 underfunded poorly fought wars (not by the soldiers, but by the politicians & bureaucrats). The stimulus hurt more than it helped. I’m all for affordable healthcare and assistance for the poor/disabled/elderly and those down on their luck, but raising taxes on “The 1%” is a placebo. And there is no proof that “Obama-care” is “Romney-care” expanded. We can’t be. Nancy Pelosi’s “we have to pass the law to see what’s in it” is proof enough that it’s B.S.
Um, Leester, for someone advising someone else to study history your little historical synopsis barely earns a “C” (and that’s being generous).
For instance, FDR “overreached”??? You mean putting a check on the financial sector that had just wrecked the economy? You mean by instituting Social Security??
The deficits really took off under Reagan. The tax cuts while increasing military spending drove the deficit up 188% during his tenure, more PERCENTAGE wise than any president before or after. America now spends 42% of all the military spending in the world, more than the next 17-27 countries COMBINED (depending on source) yet Republicans claim any cuts will harm our national security. Somehow Britain and France stay secure spending about 3% of the world’s military spending.
The repeal of Glass-Stegal was snuck into a last-minute government funding bill by Phil Gramm during the lame duck session as Clinton left office. If he’d vetoed it, it would have shut down the government.
Neither Obama nor any other Democrat has claimed that taxing the richest Americans – the ones who have most benefited from our economy over the past 30 years – would solve all our problems. But, MEANWHILE, there’s absolutely no excuse for allowing the richest Americans to game the system, move money offshore, and pay a LOWER tax rate than their secretaries. Same for many corporations who benefit from our system but in some instances pay no taxes. Etc. Etc.
“Um” O B Bullshit. Aren’t you Cynical Wonder? Too? Persons Galore!
All this talk talk, and you will not answer this simple question.
And you are soooo righteous! But dishonest in the basic element of presentation. All the while being false.
You must be quite special! To youe mirror.
“Delusional” –
21. Obi-jonKenobi
“I could go on but what’s the point, you people actually seem to ENJOY being lied to.”
August 30, 2012 – 9:52 am
Jaycen
“You people don’t care…”
August 26, 2012 – 5:55 pm
Cynical Wonder
“What you people…”
August 26, 2012 – 5:01 pm
And Jaycen as well?
Where the hell is C. Blunder?
Buuuck, buck, buck, buck!
If someone had the intention of burning down my house I certainly would be in favor of obstructionism. You’re long on claims short on facts and likely a TP or CAP disciple.
This is what happens when someone depends on MSNBC for the “news”.
Student loans are out at 8%; retirees are earning 0.25%. Can’t we have retirees lend money to graduates at 5%? (Kidding – sort of!)
The effect of the student loan bubble has to prevent the professional class from “shrugging”, a la Rand: we cannot work for a few years, pay down our debt, and, when faced with over-regulation or over-taxation, say, “No. I’ll retire. I’ll work fewer hours. I will take on a different job.” Graduates who need every cent will work for every cent – no matter how onerous the ability to make every cent.
This is not the place to review the terrible legacy of Phil Gramm, but one short answer is: restore Glass Steagall. The repeal of Glass Steagall coupled with nationwide banking did everyone a disservice.
In more concrete terms, however, this speaks to a different problem: outsourcing. So called “free trade” has been an utter failure. Capital is fungible. There is no comparative advantage in capital or in intellectual property. Regulation of things like pollution and toxic waste and work place safety also matter. That means in a “free trade” world wages race to the bottom. It also means that manufacturing moves to places where you can pollute, not control waste, and make people work in unsafe places. That is not a necessary condition.
We can fix these problems if we close the door on outsourcing and on escaping sensible regulation by bringing in goods from places that let you pollute.
Neither political party is moving in that direction.
Obama and Bernanke can borrow trillions for free only because savers earn zero interest. When Boehner and the GOP gave Obama unlimited credit, our fate was cast.Inflation and zero interest rates for savers.In reality, this is government expropriation of private property in the worst way. Social security and all government handouts are inflation proof, while every careful saver in America is stripped of the value of a lifetime of sacrifice.Worst than the takeover of mortgages,healthcare,agriculture, or energy,is the government takeover of saving.Sadly, our government now owns the means of production.If this isn’t communism what would be?
It’s even more insidious than communism; it’s the spread of the abysmal ignorance of even the simplest economics by our self-serving and increasingly hereditary political class. When Americans were fed up with the Democrats in 1968 the kids took to the street. Today it’s the turn of that vanishing breed, adults who take responsibility for their own actions and don’t need Big Brother’s help in their daily lives, to bring the government back to it’s only reason to exist, the common good.
We are far better off in savings than most Americans, owing only under $100k on an Illinois condo, and above water having paid extra. We pay off the credit card every month. I buy my business suits and sport coats at Goodwill. Since I have pulmonary fibrosis, an eventually terminal illness that kills as many or more people than breast cancer, we likely have enough money for my lifetime, when I am forced to retire. I fear we don’t have enough savings for my wife’s lifetime, as she should outlive me by 12 years even if I didn’t have PF. Worse, I think that’s if things hold steady, but I don’t see them doing that. I think the “New Normal” in 15 years will make current problems the “good old days.” If Romney wins, the situation of our Republic will be desperate. If Obama wins, I fear it will be hopeless, though I’m unlikely to give up. Not in the Marine DNA. I will link to this from my Old Jarhead blog. (www.tartanmarine.blogspot.com)
Robert A. Hall
Massachusetts Senate, 1973-83
Author: The Coming Collapse of the American Republic
All royalties go to help wounded veterans
For a free PDF of my 80-page book, write tartanmarine(at)gmail.com
Vanguard’s Bogle: ‘Financial Train Wreck’ Looms for Retirees Tuesday, 04 Sep 2012 By Forrest Jones
http://www.moneynews.com/StreetTalk/Bogle-Retirees-aging-americans/2012/09/04/id/450684?s=al&promo_code=FF42-1
Print the darn comments!!!!! We keep pushing “submit comment,” and the comments just disappear! What is going on?
Internship’s are a great way for an employer to evaluate an employee. From the intern’s POV, not only does it give valuable work experience, it is a foot in the door. I work with an intern who has used his internship as an opportunity to make himself invaluable to us.
He will get hired as soon as he finishes his degree, after all, who else will maintain the software he has written for us?
This is contingent on a basic morality in the system, though. Young people do internships for the same reason businesses give free samples: demonstrate the product so that people will buy in the future. However, that won’t last if the market keeps demanding free samples without an intention of ever buying the product.
We Don’t Need No Stinking Warrant: The Disturbing, Unchecked Rise of the Administrative Subpoena BY DAVID KRAVETS 08.28.12
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/08/administrative-subpoenas/
Those “spending our children’s inheritance” bumper stickers are gone because:
a) they used to be a joke, because the children didn’t need the inheritance, so it was easy to be funny about spending the money on pleasure
b) now the children could use very penny they could get from an inheritance, so the bumper stick has a negative connotation to it – the parents are taking another vacation while the children haven’t enough money to pay rent
09/02/2012: While waiting in the Columbus OH airport for our flight to Oakland, I couldnt help but notice the two TSA women that were “testing” any and all liquids that people had in their hands. Now remember that this is inside the terminal, well beyond the security check and purchased inside the terminal…just people waiting to get on the plane
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTZUZdJiI-Q&feature=player_embedded#!
The role of surpluses:
Historians, classicists, archaeological anthropologist and other students of social evolution are well aware of the crucial role of “surpluses” in the development, expansion, survival and decline of societies, nations and civilizations.
In current discussions of both national and global economic conditions, the critical function of creating and redeploying surpluses for the creation or acquisition of productive assets, together with provision for the means of services to effect production, has been obscured by glaring problems that have seemed susceptible to political solutions.
For many years during the expansions of western economies, surpluses were aggregated from smaller surpluses, such as savings (actually deferred consumption for the most part) and those derived from commercial enterprises. The successful redeployments resulted in available returns to the beneficial owners of the surpluses, and compensations to the aggregators and to agents redeploying those surpluses.
As a result of the development of leveraged credit, based upon the fractional reserve system (basically a method of estimating the rates of maturity of future obligations), credit funding for the creation and acquisition of productive assets and application of related human efforts began to displace the redeployment of aggregated surpluses for those critical functions.
Portions of those displaced surpluses began to be directed toward other politically determined social objectives. That trend has continued at an accelerating rate through most of the western economies. For a period of time those politically re-directed surpluses were provided with politically determined returns (usually by means of some form of sovereign debt), since the surpluses were not applied to generate forms of production that create available returns or other compensation.
A further change occurred in the modes of aggregation of surpluses arising from invested capital (aggregated surpluses). The fragmented ownership of invested capital represented by diverse forms of public ownership in commercial enterprises, through shareholdings and other various kinds of beneficial interests, have resulted in the control of aggregated surpluses by layers of managerial determinations. The variations in motivations of the persons and groups making up the differentiated layers of managerial actions have begun to produce conditions in which the historic role of redeployment of surpluses is being distorted.
Some reactions to the conditions resulting from those distortions and from the motivations causing them have begun to develop in some of the western economies. “Private Equity” is a notable example of that kind of reaction. The reactions include, among other things, the capture and redeployments of surpluses, concentration on productive uses of surpluses, re-direction of leveraged credits and other modes of acquisitions of productive assets. However, the continuing political pressures for sources of funding for social objectives (not related to production) has begun to generate some areas of conflicts between the reactions cited and specific political objectives.
A survey of the deployment of surpluses of many large commercial enterprises discloses their prior commitment to previous production activities, often in the form of retirement and health benefits related to previous production. To some extent those commitments may not have been intended to reach the levels that have occurred. Nonetheless, those surpluses have been consumed, or soon will be. The surpluses were not directed toward future or better production.
With the exception of surpluses retained in commercial enterprises, there does not appear to be any substantial aggregated surpluses in the western economies. Some surpluses are accumulating in some parts of the global economy, but their aggregation and redeployment into productive activities appears to be impinged upon by political objectives and motivations, resulting in less than adequate effect for maintenance (much a less expansion) of other economies, particularly those of the so-called developed nations.
To regenerate the surpluses that have been lost to politically-directed social objectives is likely to require significant increasing productive efforts without commensurate increases in consumption patterns. Declines in quantity and quality of consumption may be avoided if such surpluses as are available are redirected early on to productive functions, and are diverted from politically directed social objectives, however socially and politically disruptive such redirection may be.
Otherwise, to have only “seven lean years” will turn out to be a great blessing.
sir:
i will tell you where all those unemployed 20+ year olds lead, if the condition lasts long enough that they become an “institution.”–
the same place they lead in the undeveloped world, and in europe, and that is either perpetual privilege as “students,” or political violence in the street, or both, if they turn leftist as is quite likely.
why should the united states be any exception.
john jay
milton freewater, oregon usa
“…or political violence in the street….”
…Unless all those hormones and drugs in the food and water supply we’re dosing ourselves with lower their testosterone sufficiently to make them more docile/feminized/less capable of aggression.
You neglected to mention that GWB will be blamed for this, as Hoover was blamed for the entire First American Depression from 1929 to WWII.
America was saved from that depression only because WWII destroyed economies around the world, creating vast markets for American products.
No more.
This time, once the downward spiral makes enough people dependent on the Federal Government, and once their poor educations make enough people incapable of rational thinking, America will be lost, perhaps permanently.
Empires ascend to power in hobnail boots and descend into decadence in silken slippers.
Sound familiar?
Brought to you by the Hope ‘n Change party in ’08… vote for them on 6 Nov if you want more of it.
Keeping interest rates low is an indirect form of social engineering. Why? Soon there will be a large group of seniors exclusively dependent on the government because they are now spending their principle to survive. This creates a voting bloc for the Dems who will promise them more government dole.
It also eliminates the transfer of wealth to the younger generation. No inheritance means no capital for future investment and thus a more dismal future.
And let’s not forget it creates a whole generation that doesn’t know the meaning of savings. I mean why should they? It’s worthless. I remember as a kid having a Cristmas savings account. I put in a couple of bucks a week (picked up from odd jobs) and in November I got it back plus interest. Admittedly it wasn’t a lot, but it was more than I had put in.
This country has a dismal outlook.
Know what’s the surest sign of an old timer who isn’t quite up to speed on the world that Mr. Hanson describes so accurately?
Answer: a comment on the order of “the problem is these lazy kids just wanna mooch… they need to get a job. It’s easy to get a job, just put on a clean shirt and personally visit the man in charge of the factory down the street, like I did.”
Or: “By 25, your skill set should be in place and you should begin climbing the ladder. That is the predominant employment path.”
Got news for the old timers. It isn’t 1965 anymore – or even 1995. Please don’t consult memory lane for your assessment of 2012. Pay attention to Mr. Hanson. He is right: the economy is monstrously screwed up, and no amount of “elbow grease” will create millions of jobs where none exist, unless the effort is applied to starting a business… and under Obama, good luck with that project.
You have all missed the point. The paralyzed economy serves the current purposes of the Left who wish to reduce the birthrate. People cannot marry; if they marry, they cannot support a family. That is not simply a consequence of the our poor economy. Population reduction is the goal of those who support government control. Conversations such as these are a slight of hand that covers the subterfuge.
Who are those currently having children? Those of the upper classes and those on the welfare rolls. It is a Darwinian victory. Those who can afford children see to it that competition is reduced for their children by not permitting a middle class that might compete on the basis of merit for the limited number of well-paying positions that a faltering economy can provide. Those who cannot compete will devolve into positions that service the upper classes, not unlike Victorian England. Intelligence and drive count only so much as the upper-classes permit.
Please do not mistake this comment as a Progressive diatribe. To the contrary, I refer not only to the small portion in the private sector that makes millions of dollars a year, but to the bureaucrats who make $175,000 to $350,000 a year. These government functionaries may not be wealthy, but they are privileged and powerful.
It is all about survival of the fittest. Those who hold power stamp upon those who do not. Communist, Capitalist, Socialist – same game. If your children are not learning mathematics, engineering, English, Latin, history, or plumbing they are headed for the entropic heap of slime and ooze no matter their high characters or broad joyous smiles.
but thought you’d benefit from knowing it’s sleight of hand, not “slight.”
Haven’t had time to read all the posts but regarding interns, US Dept of Labor threatened my employer last spring, making it impossible for us to offer experience for no pay, even if the work assignments return no economic benefit to our company.
Either your company works for the government or the government works for your company. What do you mean, “threatened?”
Gets my vote for the “Best PJ Article of the Year Award” I have sent this out as was William Wallaces’s Body to all parts of the country. It needs to be framed by parents. The whole truth and nothing but the truth. Kudos, well done!
Dr. Hanson, the world you describe as the “new normal” simply isn’t my experience here in Houston, Texas. My daughter is in college and finds summer and part-time employment without a problem, as do her friends. She doesn’t have any school loans. My high-school son got a paid internship this past summer, and all his friends had jobs. All our neighbors whose children recently graduated have gainful employment, the majority of the young men getting jobs in the energy industry. The engineering grads have jobs in the oilfield either domestically or abroad as drilling rig or fracking supervisors, and the finance and liberal arts grads have positions in banking or with venture capital companies in the energy business. The medical students are all workjing at the Texas Medical Center in professional positions. I think your experience may be colored by living in California. It isnt like that in the so-called “flyover” states. And, if the government would get out of the way. the country would be in the midst of an energy boom which would lead to a manufacturing resurgence.
In the past, whenever the fed has kept interest rates lower than inlation, and rapidly expanded the money supply, the result has been rapidly accelerating inflation. We are laying the groundwork for that now. The only thing temporarily stopping hyperinflation is that large sectors of the economy are still in recession. But we are already getting big inflation in various commodities, like fuel, food, metals, and in sectors like health care and education. If by some chance the economy does begin to recover, the hyper inflation being set up now will begin, and the only choices the fed will have will be to raise interest rates above inflation again, which could abort the recovery, or keep them low and allow another bout of stagflation like we had under Carter. But todays loose money policy by the fed is doing nothing to help the economy, since the new money isn’t going to business expansion where it is needed, but instead goes to prop up new fed debt. And this kind of monetary expansion will ruin our future economy if not stopped. All in all, another depressing example of Obama and Bernankes gross economic mismanagement.
…the credentialed high-school teacher is subbing…
This California credentialed high-school teacher with a Masters Degree in her subject matter (English Lit) is grateful for a substitute job. Now they’re not even hiring subs in my school district. In this economy, my degrees are worthless, my education valueless. I work part time as a grocery store cashier to supplement the meager substitute assignments I can get.
Ten years ago, I was trying to encourage my eldest daughter to pursue a university degree, because that was the goal we had for all our children at the time. She chose instead to go to a culinary school for a year of training. She has been gainfully employed ever since completing the training. Her younger sister just graduated from university this June in another state, and is having difficulty finding a teaching job (she’s a credentialed teacher too). Coming back home to live in California is not an option unless she wants to completely abandon any possibility of teaching.
I’ve told their younger brother (he wants to attend university and then pursue a career in law enforcement) to leave California as well when he graduates high school, and to choose a state which is doing better economically. I can see absolutely no sign that things will improve at all in this state, regardless of who is in the White House next year.
I hate, truly hate, that higher education has become a burden rather than a blessing, and that I must send my children to other states in order for them to have a decent future. But it is what it is. I came to California in 1980, looking for a good future for myself, thinking that this state would be a great place to settle down and eventually raise a family. And this is the result.
>Really Lost Generation
D’ya reckon that’s where your rural thieves come from?
Regards,
Bill Drissel
Grand Prairie, TX
Looking forward to the “Fiscal Cliff”. It’ll be a good starting point. Get those tax rates back to the pre-Bush era when were doing fine. Along comes GW Bush ( yes, Republican trickle down economics are to blame) gave away the store to his wealthy buddies while he created “donut holes” and started costly unnecessary wars on borrowed money. Once again, what is Romney hiding in those tax returns?
Make it a felony to employ illegals, require work for welfare and require the wealthy to pay their fair share. No more rewards to the Bainists who enrich themselves at the expense of the middle class.
Overall VDH’s observations are correct and most alarming. Pity those who would saddle their unemployed kid with a home…hadn’t heard that one before.
Meanwhile Rome burns while they argue over the same petty God, Guns and Gays crap. Too bad Alan Simpson isn’t president. There is the fair minded tough guy we need.
Bill, I can agree with some of what you said, but not all. “Along comes GW Bush.” Too many people are too ready to blame him for EVERYTHING in order to bolster their arguments. This grants too much power to the office, in my opinion.
There are also 2 bodies in Congress that seem to be always champing at the bit to spend more. If one is to place blame, I think it is more accurate to place it squarely on the shoulders of this crowd. They are the ones who propose budgets, and appropriate money, and they seem pretty adept at packaging legislation so it includes pet projects. We get the “good” with the “bad” and in my opinion, it is all designed to make a presidential veto such that it will hurt the party of the president as much as the opposition party.
Presidents of both parties have wealthy buddies. You need to look no farther than the backers of Solyndra to find a nest of them supporting the current administration.
Agree with the costly wars comment. There seemed to be no plan following the fall of Baghdad. The sign in the antique store comes to mind: “If you break it, you bought it.” And Afghanistan just drags on, under the current admin.
I don’t care about Romney’s tax returns. I probably paid a similar effective rate because of the sources of my income and no one is clamoring for MY tax returns (yeah, I know I’m not running for office), but the point is, there are a lot of people in the same category because that is what the tax code allows.
Please define “wealthy.” Also, please define “fair share.”
“what is Romney hiding in those tax returns?” What is Obama hiding in his academic records?
“Bainists” have always existed, and WILL always exist in a capitalist system. Do you think only Republicans are “Bainists?” Please. The equity/takeover/venture capital/turnaround crowd is about equally split between Dems and Repubs, so can we just abandon this argument and stipulate that there are smart, finance-savvy guys and gals of all political stripes and once in a while, one of them decides to run for office? Does the name Jon Corzine ring a bell?
Agree with you on the employment of illegals. To which I would add, close the borders, now.
Agree with you that we are fiddling. But that is Congress’ job — to fiddle a tune until the next election, then promise more, but deliver only unto your district.
Frank – Finance is far to big of a percentage of our economy. If business is the prerequisite we desire of our leaders then give us the people who did something tangible for our country besides shuffling money around in the global economy. I’d take Allan Mulallay over Romney. Put our best and brightest to work building things, innovating, discovering, researching, not in banking and brokerage. The Chinese and Indian’s are burying us in science and engineering education while our kids get degrees in economics, graphic design and film school degrees. Why don’t we give our kids a break if they are willing to do the hard work? Our universities are full of foreign students. Why? Facebook – all we are doing is growing more bubbles. Anyone want to bet we are seeing the beginnings of a new real estate bubble? What happens when interest rates inevitably rise?
Bill, I agree Mulallay seems to have a desirable resume, but he is not running.
“Put our best and brightest to work building things, innovating, discovering, researching, not in banking and brokerage.”
Young people need to figure this out on their own, and head in the directions you mentioned. You imply some form of top down control over career/education choices. So who gets to decide?
Also waiting for your definitions for “wealthy” and “fair share.”
Frank,
The policeman, firefighter, teacher, programmer, engineer, etc in Silicon Valley pays out a very large percentage of their income to various forms of taxation. They can’t even begin to think about buying a home where they work. Hence no mortgage deduction. Only huge rent/commuting costs. Their tax bracket is much higher than the guys like Romney who have a marginal rate of 15% and pay no “payroll” tax. The irony is that those Social Security (we call it “payroll” now) taxes get dumped into the general fund anyway. The small business owner everyone is so worried about has a schedule of deductions as big as a library. Not so for the lowly wage earner. It is all patently unfair and heavily biased towards finance/investment/hedge fund types who seem to have no loyalty to their own country. There is no magic number. We know the wealthy ( however you define them) can’t balance the budget. Just don’t ask the middle class to sacrifice to keep this game going.
Seems I was ahead of my time after all! Graduating with a degree in 1979, I never found a good job, much less a career, so I really never had that much to lose. (Yeah, I know: that resembles a certain pop-culture definition of “freedom.) FWIW I’ll admit this is attributable more to my eccentricities than to society. Anyhow I’ve wound up helping to demonstrate the power of *family*, which in our case has proved strangely cohesive. My widowed mother still likes living with her sons around & insists we’re all useful. Of course this arrangement can’t last indefinitely–but that’s to be dealt with later.
Meanwhile I’ve begun to consider myself as a possible “professional revolutionary” in terms of party/leadership doctrine that Lenin (known around here as “Well-Embalmed Vladimir”) introduced. Having never liked communism, I haven’t studied its zealots’ tactics in great detail, but I have read Master Sun & so assume that we should generally take on the opposition where it’s weakest. Right *now* this might even involve the election. Should that fail–well, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” youse ignorant leftists! Remember Mao’s dictum about where political power grows? We’ve got it covered. As for Obeyme’s proposed SS, it doesn’t exist yet, & if he starts on it, we might want to start crying “Havoc!” & so forth.
Then there are the other layers of government, state & local. No need to explain the potential here. And so far I haven’t assumed the US military would act like good Turks & intervene to restore the constitution, but AFAIK they might. Under some circumstances we could encourage intervention from friendly foreign powers, as the original Patriots did. Those overseas hackers who like to go after the US government could turn into handy allies in the process.
All hypothetical, of course. The above notion of a general tax/strike has merit, though it might prove impractical to accomplish. There are other fronts, however, of which the Marx-deluded know not. As BobSledd noted, “Folks, come on.. Remember our History…Do NOT lose Hope.
Do NOT lose those traits.”
AEL
Mr. Hanson: you can get tax-free municipal bonds that yield about 5% in most states.
There might be munis out there with interest rates of 5% but you would not be able to buy one of them now, and get that same yield to maturity. The owner of the bond will demand a premium for giving up the right to 5% interest payments in this low-interest rate environment.
Dear Prof. Hanson, I think you/we will soon be witnessing/experiencing a third radical development: very close behind the not so golden anymore years of retirement awaits genuine old age and a tsunami of issues – personal and public – associated with the largest population of old people in history. I would love to hear your comments on that. I think the alarm bell should be ringing in everyone’s head.
This world you describe is the world of the new man in the new age. Paradise for those benefitted in it, Hell for those excluded from it. Chosen by the people who live in it who refused to listen to cautions from sober men and women that is no free lunch. Everything has a price which must be paid sooner or later.
Many are benefitt4ed from it. All those dependent directly or indirectly on other peoples’ money called government money. As the government has no money except that it expropriates from productive citizens government functions only as middle men between those who provide and those who receive “other peoples’
money”. Sort of like a bank.
Some see their chances and take them to getting some or much of that “other peoples’ money”. Politicians of course, university professors of course, lawyers and other pressure groups for their “fair share” of congressional payoffs for financial support and “pork”.
And unproductive citizens capable of work but too refined and exacting in the work acceptable to them. Since the government is willing, in fact encouraging their receiving “other peoples’ money” they can see no reason not to take it. But to become part of the system requires some sort of licence to their physical or emotional/mental/social incapacity to productive work from professionals licenced to do just that.
The example for this good way of life, the American Way? during the past half century was/is professional politics. A porkbarrel with the politicians and all their hangers on and humongous higly paid staffs and pressure groups while Americans were provided 24/7/365 entertainment including an educational system and free and easy “credit”. Money receive now to be paid, it at all, in the future. A perfect model of and for the federal governments of recent vintage.
While citizens elected, even to the highest offices in their gift, persons a- and im-moral, quasi and actually criminal, uttterly untruthful and untrustworthy except in feathering their own nests, and generally displaying absolute contempt for the values, principles, behavioural restraints and respect for the rights and dignity of others of the people who elected them. And and who elected them again and again and again.
This new world is the world chosen by these new men and women of this new age. If it is not as they HOPED it would be. It’s up to them to CHANGE it to a world that is viable for them and their children. If they care.
Re: “…there is no 5% any more on anything, not even 2% or in most cases 1%. Saving money means nothing really in terms of return, only the realization that inflation eats away the principal each year.”
Dr. Hanson, you are correct but have failed to pursue this line of inquiry to its only logical conclusion: the United States can enjoy no real future prosperity until the Federal Reserve is either reformed radically or put out of business entirely. In the century since its creation, the Fed has presided over a 95% decrease in the real buying power of the US dollar. Most of its lost buying power was via inflation, which should really be called a form of hidden taxation – or, less-politely, theft. Politicians come and politicians go, but the Fed remains as the real master of these United States. Until we face that fact, and do something constructive about it – a genuine return to prosperity is impossible.
I met the son of a friend whose mother got him diagnosed with ADD, so he was getting a government check. He shot heroin. I asked him if he could wash dishes.
He said “I refuse to wash dishes.”
And yet all through the complaining of what Obama has done no one has even mentioned how with all the Bush tax cuts, with the philosophy that we need to reduce the taxes of the wealthy so that all that money will trickle down and create so many jobs, has NOT worked nor does it. With Romney in office and his continual declarations that he will reduce their taxes even more so that they will create more jobs is a farse. Trickle down does not work!
As a business owner, I do not create more jobs if I do not have higher demand for my product. Why would I pay another salary when I have no extra sales coming in? The idea that I would take that tax savings and reinvest all of it into the company is plain stupidity. I will buy more supplies/equipment only as I anticipate it’s need not before. We as a country need to stimulate the buyers and the buyer by and large are the Middle-class yet with all their talk about saving it, they continue to give bigger tax breaks to those that impact our economy on a small scale. So if I have no more need to hire more employee’s due to the fact that I have no increase in future demand then guess what, I keep the money and I make more. Thank you government. If you look at the rise of average household income from the past couple of years you will see this to be the case.
Now as to Obamacare. Come on. Myself as well as others in my network have been switching from traditional Major Medical to High Deductible ones with the pairing of Health Savings Accounts do to the rising cost of providing the latter for employee’s. We began looking at this even before Obama was in office. I welcome a system that eventually will settle down and help me control the cost. This is what Mitt envisioned in Massachusetts and this is what Obama used as a model and it works. I need my employee’s to not miss work due to being sick/hurt. I need my employee’s to not be sick/hurt over a long period due to them not going to see the doctor as they need to. This hurts my production as well as that families income due to missed work. But hey maybe in order to offset this I could hire another person to fill in when they do get sick. But that means more payroll taxes, training cost, ect. So that is not about to happen.
This is reality. I only hope that under the right leadership, the tax incentives go to those who need it so that I can begin to hire more people.
Good day! I know this is kinda off topic but I was wondering which blog platform are you using for this site?
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