taxes (49)
Exactly Why Progressivism Sucks,
FDR’s/Obama’s Second Bill of Rights
and our Actually $212 TRillion PROBLEM
You do recall candidate Obama’s pledge not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $250,000 a year? A pledge already worthless? Well consider this, in just a bit over five months, all the Bush tax cuts we’ve been enjoying will be rescinded, but that’s not a tax increase is it? Well, welcome to Bill of Rights Hell, Obamastyle . . . .
Barack Obama would like to take all the credit/blame for his radical legislative program but it’s been around since there have been left-wing progressives interested in “progressing beyond” the United States Constitution which they regard as “outdated” or even “an inferior and ill-conceived document.” Barack Obama himself calls it outdated and adds that it’s merely “a catalog of negative rights.”
Woodrow Wilson was the first recognized Progressive (Teddy Roosevelt was actually the first and mildest** one, however). Wilson, an educator and President of Princeton University wrote several books re-writing history and most particularly the history of the founding of the nation and of the founders. Wilson, according to real history – not progressive history, was an abject racist and the first to segregate the armed forces since Civil War Days. D.W. Griffith’s racist silver screen masterpiece “The Birth of a Nation” which glorified the Ku Klux Klan as the most vital element in post Civil War history, was premiered at the White House for Wilson and his Cabinet.
Herbert Hoover, a Republican like Teddy Roosevelt, believed in government involvement in peoples’ lives to a much greater extent than Teddy did. He sought to involve the government in welfare schemes and to give price supports to farmers among other progressive farm programs. He dramatically reversed the Harding-Coolidge trend of substantially lowered taxes and substantially lowered government spending (over a 45% reduction in both cases in response to the “Invisible Depression” Harding had inherited from Wilson). After the Crash of October ’29 under Herbert Hoover, the Depression was ending with the bottoming out of the stock Market three months after Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s inauguration (in March, in those days). FDR had run on a promise to return to common sense and cutting taxes and cutting government spending which had cut Wilson’s Depression down to size very quickly and left it known as the “Invisible Depression.”
FDR’s policies extended the Depression another nine years from taking office and presumably would not have ended the Depression at all except for the U.S. entry into the war in December of 1941. In the United States that period in history is known as the “Great” Depression but the rest of the world had a rough three years and simple call it a little ‘d’ depression.
FDR’s Second Bill of Rights was aimed, as many progressive schemes are, at redistributing wealth and its been adopted in whole cloth by Barack Obama. The harm done by FDR was incalculable. Hoover only created two new government agencies, FDR created forty. Barack Obama’s Obamacare health care “reform” has created 390+ new government agencies in just one law. Again, as most people sense, Obamacare has little to do with health care and will NOT cut health care costs it is just a method of grabbing more control for the government and redistributing wealth.
Before FDR’s 1944 inauguration (his 4th!) speech he paid homage to the idea but he’d already come out specifically talking about his agenda of redistributing wealth during his earlier 1944 State of the Union Address. The “Second Bill of Rights” according to FDR are “positive rights,” that is what government can do for or to its citizens (after taxing them unmercifully for the money to do it with). He included:
1. The right to a useful and renumerative job
2. The right to earn enough to provide not only food and clothing but
also recreation
3. The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return that
would give him and his family a decent living
4. The right of every family to a decent home
5. The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination from monopolies at home and abroad
6. The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health
7. The right to a good education
8. The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment.
Quite the socialist agenda, whereas the Founding Fathers said, we’ll keep the government out of your hair and maximize the money you can keep from what you earn and thus maximize your freedom to take care of your needs as you perceive them, FDR said we’ll tax the hell out of you and then give you some of your money back in the form of cradle-to-grave Nanny-state protection, not noticing that this would destroy the economy’s ability to create jobs and make it a lot less likely that anyone would have money to be taxed. This is clearly virtually identical to Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” progam.
Let’s look at item #4, in 1977 Jimmy Carter and his dual-chamber Democratic majority in congress passed the CRA of ’77 (Community Reinvestment Act) which for the first time required banks and local lenders to knowingly make bad home loans to otherwise ineligible clients. Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac were added to this travesty in 1992; these “rights” were expanded again twice in 1995; and the Bill Clinton final expansion in '98 (the third expansion under Slicky Willy) put the whole process on steroids and with the help of the Cloward-Piven Strategics of ACORN . . . created the sub-prime lending crisis at the root of today’s economic debacle.
And think of this, the United States had enjoyed for over half a century by far the world’s highest home ownership percentage (62-65%) so there was no problem. What exactly is wrong with renting a home, especially when one is young? What about the rights of landlords to operate their business and perform a clearly useful service?
Item #2 has raised its ugly head often since LBJ’s days, the right to a “guaranteed income.” Wow! Do you mean the right of the lazy and unproductive to extort money from those who earn it fairly by trading their goods and services and talent and education in the free market?
Item #8 is likewise quite interesting. This is the welfare “RIGHT” is it not? At present, our country not only has a $14TRillion national debt, but also $110 TRillion of UNfunded liability courtesy of Social Security, Medicare and the federal side of Medicaid. No one ever talks about these things or this UNfunded liability . . . but something that’s even less obvious and even more secret: roughly $88 TRillion in UNfunded welfare liability is also coming our way in the next 44-45 years.
#6 is Obamacare and its travesties are just coming to light. It is a nightmare fiscally, will destroy the health insurance industry and the health care industry as we know it. Count on old folks dying courtesy of the rationing which the newly-appointed health care director openly expressed. As well, a lot of infants also will prove to be “not viable enough” to warrant all the health care bucks and services and time that would be needed to keep them alive. And from having the highest cancer cure rate in the world, count on the United States gravitating toward the rate of Great Britain where early intervention against cancer is somewhat of a joke.
#7 is the right to a good education. Wow, Ph.D’s for everyone? Rajjpuut went through college courtesy of the GI Bill he earned and five different jobs he held and wound up with a 3.92 GPA despite taking as many as 29 hours in two different quarters. A lot of people getting through on mommy’s and daddy’s money wasted their education and their time in Rajjpuut’s not-so-humble opinion . . . what’s wrong with people working to put themselves through college? Why should anyone be guaranteed a college education as Barack Obama has promised to provide?
#1 the right to a useful and remunerative job. Really? What about the right of an employer to hire who he needs and only who he needs and to pay them what he must to get good work out of them all the while keeping his company afloat? Study after study has shown that minimum wage laws just put more people out of work and threaten the solvency of more businesses . . . so much for government interference in the marketplace.
#3 means that an inferior farmer has the right to survive and charge enough to cover his ineptitude. He grows cotton in the north and succeeds in half the years but is frozen out in the other half, why should anyone give him more than top dollar for an inferior, at best crop?
#5 Sounds pretty nice. Actually, the policies of FDR favored big business and cut the throat of small business which is one great reason why the Depression lasted almost ten more years after FDR came to power. But if it really were true, big IF that, just as in the case of the farmer, why should someone be forced to pay more than top dollar if the product is inferior or the process to produce it is inefficient? So much for the “Second Bill of Rights!
In other words, FDR who gave the country almost ten extra years of Depression and who ran promising to cut taxes and cut spending but did just the opposite, was the king of the early progressives and the first clearly socialist president and was aiming to move the country toward something quite close to communism. And remember he only created 40 new government agencies Ol’ FDR, while Obama created 390+ just in one law: Obamacare. Gotta love them progressives, don’t you?
Ya’ll live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
** Building the Panama Canal and establishing National Parks have to be called progressive by anybody, not that they were bad but that the people had NO say in their implementation; why not have a parks amendment voted on? Teddy feared it wouldn't pass or it wouldn't pass quickly enough or wouldn't set aside enough money, etc., etc., so he abrogated the people's right to decide the issue . . . .
After a week in which the White House achieved a $20 Billion Gulf reparations fund and in which Obama blamed Republicans for the joblessness in America, the pollsters at Gallup show a firm majority of Americans right now oppose the 2012 re-election of Barack Obama. 51% of Americans think Mr. Obama should NOT be re-elected while only 46% say he should. Among Democrats 77% want to re-elect while 87% of Republicans oppose. Independents show 53% in opposition to re-election and 43% in favor. Today’s Rasmussen polls showed that among “probable voters” 45% strongly DISapprove of Mr. Obama’s job performance while only 25% strongly approve giving the president a -20 overall Presidential Index rating (Mr. Obama began with a +30 Presidential Index rating in January, 2009).
Overall in the Rasmussen poll, 42% of likely voters at least somewhat approve of Mr. Obama’s efforts and 57% at least somewhat DISapprove. The recent oval office speech by Obama about the Gulf oil debacle helped him slightly with Democrats. President Obama’s numbers have typically bounced following a national television event usually “up a little” (on only one occasion before they dropped slightly). 48% of Democrats now Strongly Approve. That’s up two points since the speech. 77% of Republicans Strongly DISapprove, also up two points since the speech. Among those NOT affiliated with either major party, 49% now Strongly DISapprove. That’s up five points since Tuesday’s speech. Here are some of the issues preying upon voters’ minds:
Most are pleased that $20 Billion has been set aside for Gulf damage claims but a slim majority are worried about a federal government takeover of the claims process; and to a lesser extent of the oil industry. The six-month moratorium on all offshore drilling is heavily criticized. So much involvement in the past nineteen months by the federal government taking over the car industry, banks and insurance companies, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the health care industry, the student loan industry, etc. has three-fifths of the nation up in arms. Given the administration’s open revelation that the cap and trade legislation would “bankrupt the coal industry” and “necessarily skyrocket the price of electricity;” and the realization that major tax increases are coming on January 1, 2011 when the Bush era tax breaks are rescinded; and the huge tax increases tied to Obamacare which 62% of voters want repealed . . . voters are outraged by taxes and spending and debt and apparent big government incompetence (MMS was about to give BP a safety award when the explosion occurred and signing off on several safety$$ issues; and the lack of competent response to cleaning up the mess).
Raising taxes, dramatically raising spending and deficits and national debt, and endless government takeovers of the private sector are very unpopular. Virtually no voters believe that the almost $1 TRillion stimulus money spent has created or saved any jobs; most disagree that the White House was “engaged from Day One” of the Gulf disaster.
Recent revelations that federal government employees receive on average DOUBLE what their private sector counterparts earn ($120,000 when both wages and benefits are considered vs. $62,000) has also angered some. The only sector of the economy that’s grown under Barack Obama has been government jobs.
In Rajjpuut’s none-too humble opinion. There are only two hopes for Mr. Obama and his out-of-touch progressives: A) somehow achieving citizenship for 20 million illegal aliens and getting 80% of their votes, which is becoming more unlikely by the day, or . . . B) dictatorial takeover, so guess which one Mr. Obama will attempt to pull off in order to "fundamentally transform America?"
Ya’ll live long, strong and ornery,**
Rajjpuut
$$ The 1990 and 1994 safety requirements were both ignored. In particular ten (10) firebooms were required at the site and NONE were there.
** in answer to questions recently raised about Rajjpuut’s “sign-off” . . . saying that “long” life was totally understandable; “strong” life was a bit unique; but “ornery” was downright weird . . . . Look at it this way: it’s a hope for a re-balancing and a return to American virtues. Rajjpuut honestly believes that the big shift to the ultra-left by the media which has refused to cover stories contrary to that viewpoint for almost forty years now was begun first by the “hippie” movement and the environmental movement being commandeered by people who thought that living in communes (root word of “communism”) was a good thing. Rajjpuut earnestly hopes that his readers will indeed live long; and stay strong in body, mind and spirit and vote along those lines as well; and show an ornery, feisty streak to help win the country back for the traditional constitutional, fiscal and libertarian^^ values including respectful discourse in the public arena.
** in answer to questions recently raised about Rajjpuut’s “sign-off” . . . saying that “long” life was totally understandable; “strong” life was a bit unique; but “ornery” was downright weird . . . . Look at it this way: it’s a hope for a re-balancing and a return to American virtues. Rajjpuut honestly believes that the big shift to the ultra-left by the media which has refused to cover stories contrary to that viewpoint for almost forty years now was begun first by the “hippie” movement and the environmental movement being commandeered by people who thought that living in communes (root word of “communism”) was a good thing. Rajjpuut earnestly hopes that his readers will indeed live long; and stay strong in body, mind and spirit and vote along those lines as well; and show an ornery, feisty streak to help win the country back for the traditional constitutional, fiscal and libertarian^^ values including respectful discourse in the public arena.
^^ Libertarian values are constitutionalism; strong national defense including of our borders; fiscal-conservatism; and a largely live-and-let-live social outlook (for example, protect gays and all Americans from violence and injustice; let the gays have their unions legitimized with all the rights accorded married couples EXCEPT adoption and palimony). Most important to Libertarians is the 10th Amendment which allows Americans to “vote with their feet” and move from states with onerous tax burdens and ridiculous spending legislatures to states more in line with the original U.S. Constitution such as Texas (which still has a part-time legislature) rather than having all states become homogenized “departments” of a runaway federal government.
Managing to survive the repercussions of the Jimmy Carter administration has left me with apprehensions about the future of our country. The signs are similar, but worse. As Gerald Celente of Trends Reseasrch Institute says: We have ....
"Debt piled on top of a failed bailouts, stimulus, tarp, cash for clunkers, housing tax credits, 5.5 trillion dollars dumped into the system to pump it up after the crash in Mar-2009, printing phantom money out of thin air, backed by nothing and producing nothing."
TAX HIKES AND THE 2011 ECONOMIC COLLAPSE
If you thought deficits and unemployment have been bad lately... http://bit.ly/djCcpX
Recently President Obama waxed positively orgasmic over the “creation” of 443,000 “new jobs” in the economy. De-emphasized in his glowing report was the fact that 411,000 of these “new” jobs were temporary census positions and not real jobs at all. By the way the Census department has 560,000 odd employees and roughly a full 150,000 of them are permanent employees. Since the cost of running the census this year was $14+ Billion or roughly $10 Billion more than it cost to count everybody in 2000; and since those permanent employees must logically speaking not have much to do for 9.5 years of every ten within the census cycle . . . a whole lot of waste seems to be wrapped up in this particular government department, no?
Waste in government is pervasive and all of it kills jobs. In a similar way, common sense would rule against 90+% of all government spending programs and 88% of all new laws. Without term limits for congress, the evil done by career politicians and particularly progressive Republican and Democratic career politicos feeding at the public trough has become almost fatal to the country as a whole. Perhaps they should wait two days for every ten pages of a proposed new law and cuss and discuss it thoroughly . . . . so the 3,000 page Obamacare bill finally passed would require a minimum of, say, 21 months to get the bill right . . . or better yet, pass a realistic and helpful 150 page law over a period of one month. In any case, government spending annihilates jobs and destroys the private sector. Back to the Census . . . .
In fairness, this is nothing new, President Clinton made a huge deal about a bunch of very similar “new” jobs in 2000 precisely ten years earlier and presumably President George H. W. Bush did so also in 1990 and President Jimmy Carter likewise in 1980, etc., etc. This is, of course, a big lie and the jobs in question are, of course, false entities by any reasonable understanding . . . virtually as soon as they’re “created” they disappear from the economy. Let’s delve more deeply into this matter . . . .
Because of population growth, the American economy right now requires averaging 250,000 “new” jobs to be created every single month just so our official UNemployment rate can stay the same (coming out of college or high school every June etc. we add three million new job-seekers every year . . . as we’ve seen, it doesn’t seem to matter to the politicians whether or not the jobs in question can reasonably be considered REAL jobs or not. To the more reasonable among us, a.k.a. “taxpayers,” however, it makes a huge difference. REAL jobs are permanent and they help slightly offset all the government tax-spending jobs out there which are now being created hand over fist. For now, let that definition of a “REAL job” suffice. Let’s look at government jobs and their characteristics, what are the differences between government jobs and real jobs?
Government jobs tend to be . . .
1. Artificial concepts not precisely “necessary” in the big picture. Are, for example, government census workers and government people examining bee population shifts, and government people researching “human dating behavior” strictly needed? What great loss to society would occur if they didn’t exist? How much taxpayer money would be saved if these jobs were eliminated (or if census workers asked one-third the questions)?
2. Government jobs are UNproductive. No goods or services are added to the country as a result of their existence.
3. Government jobs tend to pay more, thus putting the potentially best and most productive people into Unproductive positions.
4. Government jobs tend to have the greatest benefits adding to the overall cost and since their retirement benefits are among the greatest, that payment goes on sucking away at the country’s lifeblood long after these workers retire.
5. Government jobs tend to have the most substantial perquisites (perks). It isn’t just the President whose actual job cost cannot be calculated, but virtually all the upper echelon government employees whose perks bleed the rest of us dry.
6. Government jobs are destroyers of REAL jobs in the REAL economy. Spain was the poster-child for the European Union about a decade back with a booming economy and only 3% unemployment. Then they adopted a “green-jobs” policy. Today Spain’s unemployment is just over 20%. President Obama threatened us with the creation of five million green jobs. Since the $675,000 subsidization cost of each Spanish green job cost 2.2 jobs in the real Spanish economy, we could expect losing eleven million real jobs?
7. Jobs that create a whole artificial group (the “political class”) within our society which seeks to perpetuate itself and enlarge itself and its budgets at all costs. The “imperatives” of this new “special interest group” seem to be contrary to the interests and needs of mainstream Americans.
8. Jobs whose creation is aligned with bigger, more onerous government, more red tape and more likelihood of finding a “boot on our neck.”
9. Jobs which tend to be temporary such as the census workers’ situation. In the recent Spanish studies of their economic collapse. It was revealed that only one in ten of the green jobs they created actually lasted much beyond the original funding period. In terms of Mr. Obama’s proposal to create five million new green-tech jobs, that means that he’d only be creating 500,000 permanent jobs (at a cost of eleven million real permanent jobs, remember).
10. Jobs for which the real cost is never shown, or even ever known. How much does it cost to have a President of the United States? Obvious things like salary, upkeep of the White House and paying for the White House staff, security, Air Force One, Camp David, travel and entertaining foreign dignitaries and an extensive communications grid in place pale before the perks of the office. Look at the inaugurations, the presidential balls, bringing in of entertainers like Paul McCartney, etc, how much does it cost to have a president of the United States. Rajjpuut estimates this one employee costs us DIRECTLY at least $1 Billion. The indirect cost of Mr. Obama, personally is, of course, potentially in the hundreds of TRillions of dollars and that’s just the money cost . . . . How much does it cost to have an Environmental Protection Agency that puts 40% of some central California workers out of a job by insisting that a two-inch fish was endangered by irrigation pumps to water the vegetable basket of the nation?
11. Sometimes a job whose existence is onerous and an abomination to much of the rest of the country: IRS agents come to mind.
12. Political, often, by their very nature rather than neutral. Jobs aligned with OSHA and the EPA, for example tend to be created by liberals. Defense contracts tend to be created by actions from conservatives.
13. A situation where not only Unproductive but often actually slipshod work is done. Look at our present Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Laws were put in place in 1990 and 1994 to protect our safety. The Bush and Obama administration “signed off” on many of these safety requirements for British Petroleum (such as the need for ten fire booms on site – there were ZERO fire booms present when the explosion occurred). Indeed, the governmental regulation agency MMS was prepared to give BP its highest safety award five or six days after the explosion occurred – that notion is now on hold, and no award has been granted. One of the biggest series of pathetic and scary jokes is the notion of “Close enough for government work.”
14. Often a job where ethical considerations are routinely NOT even considered. During the Bush administration, a governmental oversight group found out that oil companies were routinely wining, dining, having sex with, and providing drugs for the governmental employees charged with oversight for the oil industry. NICE.
15. Despite the “merit system,” of exams, etc. created for civil servants a job given to political friends more often than not. Of all the stimulus funds thus far over 68% has been spent in areas that voted disproportionately for Obama over Mc Cain in 2008. Even though many more actual counties either voted for Mc Cain or slightly-favored Obama , only 31% of the total stimulus funds went there.
16. Despite the so-called merit system, a job given to certain preferred portions of society over the rest of society. Affirmative action in government hiring has been an abysmal failure. The Sotomayor fire-fighter case highlighted some of the obvious discrepancies.
17. Often a job that works at cross-purposes to the rest of society. Rajjpuut recently found himself with a suspended driver’s license courtesy of a ridiculous clerical error when a paid speeding ticket dropped through the cracks in the system. When asked how to get the matter straightened out . . . ‘you’ll have to wait 30 days that’s the requirement, can’t get around it,” no way to correct their mistake . . . . So many of burdensome errors and deliberate red tape and obstruction and waste of time in society is attributable to government officiousness. OSHA and the IRS and EPA cost of tens of billions of dollars every year. Teachers across the nation (hired by the school districts but loyal only to their union) are now teaching that the Founding Fathers were tyrants and racists and otherwise no goodniks while praising labor unions and socialism in their classes. In Los Angeles the lie that the two Arizona immigration laws are racist has been ordered taught in civics classes. One L.A. history making a "field trip" to Arizona to protest the Arizona immigration law before travelling posed before a mural in their school with Castro, Che Guevarra, Uncle Ho and Lenin. Three other L.A. social studies teachers are overtly and directly emphasizing to Hispanic students (at least 40% of them illegals) the need for a Revolution within the United States to give back lands lost by Mexico in 1946's Mexican-American War . . . . which government are these govt. employees working for?
18. Many government jobs are “make-work” creations designed to expand the empire of some muckety-muck bureaucrat. Promotions routinely come (all out of proportion to actual “production”) to those in government who command the most money . . . which usually means those who command the most subordinates. Expand the “scope” of your office (usually unnecessarily and unwisely) and get promoted to a higher position where you, of course, want to expand again. Activity is easily confused for results in government . . . .
19. Without exception, governmental regulatory jobs are absolutely dominated by the industries they supposedly oversee – remember our example of the (literally) in bed together relationship between the big oil companies and MMS. For another example, at the managerial and supervisory levels, the FDA is virtually, the best job in the world for ex-bigwig pharmaceutical workers to consider. The ethics, or lack thereof, of this incestuous relationship literally kills many Americans every year. What is the number three cause of deaths and number five cause of hospital visits in the country? Huge numbers of "iatrogenic" deaths and injuries from legally prescribed medicines result every year from FDA incompetence. The ADA and its oversight of the food industry is presumably even less compent than the FDA now, over a century since Sinclair Lewis wrote his blockbuster novel, "The Jungle" exposing corruption and uncleanliness in the American food industry.
20. Require “emergency” spending virtually every year. To “justify their budgets, government agencies routinely find themselves spending money willy-nilly so that next year’s budget can be as large or larger.
21. Is often a necessary job, which when done rightly puts the job occupant out of work. This happens when a war is won, for example. But most of the time on the rare occasion when a government job has solved the problem it was created to end, the job is somehow made a permanent drain upon society. In fact, it’s often a job whose self-perpetuation is an actual danger to the country. Most people do not know that originally, the U.S. congress met every other year for 140 days only. Texas in its wisdom has a similar part-time legislature even today. The cost to the nation of a permanent legislature is incalculable, bad laws clearly outnumber good ones by about a 12/1 ratio. Then there’s the pork and other corruptions that occur because of the need to get re-elected of the incumbent rascals that have already hurt us . . . etc., etc., ad nauseum.
22. A government job is quite often a position whose day-to-day operating standards and procedures defy all logic. Families or small businesses who operated using the same guidelines that government routinely follows would be quickly ruined. Big businesses could survive a bit longer but who can operate successfully a) without a budget such as our present Congress is now doing even though a budget is required by law b) continually spending much more than you have c) creating set-asides such as Social Security, Medicare and the federal side of Medicaid and then never actually setting the money required by law aside so that now besides our almost $14 TRillion national debt we also have almost $110 TRillion in UNfunded obligations d) Not honoring simple common-sense, for example the new "Pay-Go" law was a good idea. It said no new spending could occur without either the generation of a new tax or the cutting in costs from elsewhere in the federal budget to pay for the proposed new project. How often has Pay-Go been followed since it was created in February? NEVER! The rascals simply call everything an "emergency" and then forget about Pay-Go.
23. When it comes to progressive job creation, there seems to an "ivory tower" approach consistently in evidence. Let's talk about the Gulf oil spill again. Rabid environmentalism stopped much of the inland drilling and pumping and all the near shore drilling and pumping. The facts are that BP screwed up monumentally; governmental regulators -- whose responsibility it was to keep BP operating safely -- screwed up monumentally; and environmentalists who pushed for exactly the deep offshore drilling we now are faced with when we didn't really have the completely safe technology to do it are also deeply at fault. Another example: in 1972, worldwide deaths from malaria amounted to fewer than 50,000. However, since the U.N. and the United States outlawed DDT, fifty million people have died around the world due to pseudo-science claims that DDT was harmful to non-insect life never proved. The president's aim to create five million green-tech@@ jobs is likewise based upon the pseudo-science of global warming^^ and is presuming that "saying it's so makes it so." If President Grant had said that we were going to create 800,000 new electric jobs in 1870 . . . his saying it's possible is NOT equivalent in reality to it being possible. 800,000 American jobs in electricity didn't come to be until about 1922 over half a century later. How many real jobs would have been lost over those fifty years if Grant and his successors had followed such an ignorant path? What would have been the economic and overall history of the country? Promising the unachievable has grown into a virtually criminal political art.
Here, in a very brief essay, is much that people need to know about how economics actually works in modern life . . . .
http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html
Liberals and Progressives do not know nor appreciate that little essay, they believe that the creative problem-solving part of human nature is actually benefitted by big government. The sad pattern is that liberals and progressives do not have even the slightest understanding of economics and therefore proselytize a utopian picture totally out of contact with the demands and conditions of the REAL world. Survival and "thrival" in the Real world is based upon surplus goods, a.k.a. profits. Liberals and progressives have a real yen for criticizing profits and business at every turn. Not realizing that prosperity means surplus, and "obscene profits," Liberals condemn the very lifeblood of modern society. REAL jobs are created by four possible motivations:
a. survival problems
b. profit/surplus problems
c. combinations of a and b
d. innovation and entreprenuerial expression
Taking things back to "basics" two million years ago . . . virtually everything that was done by humanoids other than children's play and sex during pregnancy was a necessary "job" for the individual and group's survival. In particular, the need for nomad hunter-gatherers to find adequate shelter; protect themselves from large carnivorous animals; and most importantly to secure adequate food and water was often an hour-to-hour imperative. Their eonomic system was absolutely 100% communistic.
Shortly after the coming of CroMagnon man roughly 35,000 years ago, earlier patterns of nomadic hunting became culturally locked in and tied to technological innovations (like taming of the dog; making of spear-chuckers, bows and arrows, spears and hand tools, domestic tools, tents, clothing, sewing tools, water bladders, leather bags, and later even baskets) and for the first time ever . . . occasional surpluses were possible. The necessity of constant travel made it impossible to carry much in the way of surplus clothing, tools, weapons, etc. -- even heavy tents were a huge problem . . . but food and water surpluses were absolutely necessary for Cro-Magnon's. Virtually every culture gathered vine-dried fruits equivalent to raisins and learned to dry meat. A well-known example, during the late Cro-Magnon years, the American Indians' pemmican was one of the greatest such innovations: a fat-dense**, calorie-rich, nutritious, easily carried food surplus. Virtually every family had their own "spiced-up" pemmican recipes passed down from mother to daughter. Because each family was largely responsible for its own survival and creation of surpluses a cross between communism and light "capitalism" say 98% communistic. (We exaggerate some in calling any part of this system "capitalistic" because until the adaptation of money in many cultures roughly 7,000 years ago, very little "specialization of labor " beyond gender and age specialization which had been going on for almost two million years actually existed.) Again, we're talking 98% communistic or socialistic society.
When natural "Edens," such as in coastal situations in the Mediterranean and California and Egypt, existed greater surpluses were possible and less travelling was necessary. Soon rudimentary agriculture became possible and domestication of the horse, goat, sheep, cattle and semi-domestication of the cat (feral cats loved "amber waves of grain" and the mice, rats and other rodents that fed upon the crops) provided the possibility of "permanent villages" existing. And what exactly made this all possible? SURPLUS a.k.a. PROFIT. Specialized labor like carpentry, pottery, basket-weaving, farming, fishing, metalworking and even soldiering first appeared during this era in these Edens. No longer was it necessary for the full range of hunter-gatherer skills to be practiced by virtually every single member of the tribe. At first a strictly barter economy existed but soon money was created. After the initial idea of surplus (storing up some of the excess food against "rainy days" which operated over two million years to ensure mankind's survival and advancement) money was the greatest single innovation for mankind's survival and advancement of all. Money was, in effect, nothing less than "stored surplus work." While this might sound to most of us today like pretty much a 100% capitalistic society . . . reality was considerably different since forcible tax collection (of grain and goods and coin) by tyrannical rulers was pretty much the order of the day. Later as "nobility by direct bloodline from God" became a normal part of the ruling class's rationale for existence, various sorts of feudal-type arrangements became the norm in virtually every "civilized country" or duchy in the world with a trifling few short-lived Republics thrown in among all the ordinary despotic states and semi-benevolent monarchies.
The economic system known as capitalism was found almost purely among guild-craftsman and folks like independent black smiths and cottage industries like weaving particularly in England and until about 1750 that's the way it was. The "most capitalistic" country in the world with its merchants, craftsman, cottage industries and independent farmers was perhaps 40% capitalistic. The feudal system with all the British lords and ladies was still deeply tied into the overall economic picture. Then came James Watt and the Industrial Revolution. Although the Luddites (cottage weavers put out of work by the water and steam power looms and other textile innovations) rebelled, the benefits to all British society of cheap cloth was among the most shocking and positive things that had ever happened in all of history.
Without the expansion of nobility into the American colonies, rugged individualism prevailed and this nation quickly became the most capitalistic society the Earth has ever seen, perhaps 99.7% so in 1787. The last burst of capitalism released upon America occurred during the Reagan years 1981-1989 when 21 million jobs were created. However, because Republican Reagan was faced with Democratic control of the House and Senate and needed to compromise with Dems to pass his own pet projects . . . the National Debt skyrocketed.
The single-most Capitalistic period in American history was the Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge era sandwiched between progressive presidents Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Hoover. The "Unknown Depression" of 1921-22 was met steadfastly by Harding and Coolidge (after Harding's Death) by cutting taxes 50% and spending 49%. The Roaring Twenties that ensued was the single most transformational decade in history as the Unknown Depression ended in late 1922. Little known by most people is that Democratic progressive Franklin Delano Roosevelt ran constantly and was elected for promising he would return to the Harding-Coolidge tax-reduction and spending- reduction paradigm as he succeeded progressive Republican Hoover. He obviously lied and did the opposite and America suffered under a dozen-year Great Depression extended by his socialistic efforts while the rest of the world had a fairly short "little 'd' depression." Ultimately, the facts of economic life are this: as in so many other ways, when it comes to jobs and the economy: "that government is best which governs least."
Ya'all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
** should you ever find yourself in an extended survival situation, it isn't only getting enough calories and traditional nutrients that matters, you could actually get 3,500 calories a day and die malnourished if you can't supply the body's need for fat from the ultra-lean rabbits, fish and birds you're most likely to catch.
@@the Spanish green-tech economic debacle is clearly pertinent
Readers of Rajjpuut’s recent blog, “Bend Over, America, Here Comes Your Re-Raping,” know that Goldman Sachs is very much a villain in league with the Obama adminstration in plotting the birth of Cap and Trade legislation that will greatly profit them both but literally kill the United States. So GS, often known as “Government Sachs” is a wet buffalo chip at best . . . ‘nuff said. Nevertheless, the current senate hearings on Goldman Sachs, while potentially fruitful (they might actually find evidence that Goldman Sachs extra-actively endorsed the attractiveness of the hedge vehicles in question to the folks who lost about a billion dollars gambling upon them) but at first glance this is a case of the absolutely least principled and least fiscally-disciplined folks in the world pointing their wagging fingers at someone else by insinuating GS was one of the chief causes of the financial meltdown from October, 2007 to present. Unless a smoking gun is found, which never happens during these inane senate hearings, the very best they can say is that Goldman Sachs profited from a situation in 2007 which is not allowed today in 2010, and since the Constitution wisely prohibits ex post facto legislation . . . the livid senators can spin on that little detail till the seas dry up.
As Rajjpuut has explained repeatedly in the last year, the real responsibility for the meltdown belongs in five camps:
o Progressive legislators (80% from among the Democrats and Democrat-backing Independents, Mr. Lieberman) who passed the four vile mortgage guarantee laws beginning with the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (CRA ’77) through the Clinton ’98 mortgage-guarantee legslation that put the whole process on steroids in response to a housing crisis that never existed sinced the United States at 64% own-home ownership was by far the highest in the world . . . a government interference boondoggle of the highest order detailed briefly in the link above (the first raping of Americans in the 21st Century)
o ACORN which plotted to use these four mis-conceived and poorly written laws deliberately as a Cloward-Piven vehicle to transfer wealth and bring the country to its knees
o The lawyers like Barak Obama who were hired by ACORN to shake down the banks and other lending institutions and force them to make terribly unwise and fiscally negligent loans in accord with the horrible laws (see the details about the loans recipients at the link above) to people with no chance of ever paying off those loans and
o Greedy firms and banks who abandoned all pretense of fiscal probity in the search for the quick buck by eagerly buying bundled mortgages, make that bundled worthless mortgages.
o The FEDERAL RESERVE whose chiefs, Bernanke and especially Alan Greenspan acted like sideline cheerleader for the developing “derivatives” market. Greenspan claimed in 2002 that derivatives actually would act “to prevent ALL possibility of future market freefalls.
In this light, the hedging that GS was “guilty of” was merely sound business practice (selling both sides of an “issue” and profitting from commissions. The fact that Goldman Sach prospered (if no smoking gun is found at the Senatehearings) so much puts their fiscal responsibility in the highest light compared to say, AIG, Bear Steans, Leyman Bros., etc., etc., ad nauseum who risked their customers’ well-being with their worthless judgment.
This senate hearing is a monstrous smokescreen for two obvious reasons.
A. Today Greece went under. Her history is that they were a few years back running at a questionable 45% debt to Gross Domestic Product ratio (D/GDP) and today are slightly over 100% on that ratio and basically bankrupt with their debt paper (bonds, treasury notes) valued at pennies on the dollar. What’s not said is that we Americans were ourselves operating at a more questionable 50% D/GDP ratio in late 2008 and now under Obama are already at 75% D/GDP and well on the road to becoming the next Greece. And
B. There is only one known model for recovery applicable. To end the “Unknown Depression of 1920” sometimes called the “Invisible Depression,” Warren G. Harding and after Harding’s death Calvin Coolidge cut government spending 49% and cut taxes 40%. The group in the house and senate and the oval office today has dramatically increased spending and even more dramatically upped taxes. The result will unquestionably be a long, painful Depression of the type engineered by the Progressive Republican Harding and the Ultra-Progressive Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt which lasted the better part of thirteen years.
Until their own house is in order, politicians hold NO RIGHT to criticize anyone. As with virtually everything that’s happened since Obama’s inauguration, the whole situation smacks of a world being turned upside down the legislators are severely scolding Wall Street for the fiasco which their four ill-advised criminal laws created. Rajjpuut says “criminal” because there was surely never any thought of mortgage guarantees for the American Republic when the founding fathers created our Constitution. Obama creates a law forcing Americans to buy a commodity and his minions from the IRS can “ask for your papers” to verify that you are not acting illegally. Somehow that’s all “fine and dandy,” but policemen in Arizona can’t check IDs to make sure that everyone in their state is legally there? Until the world gets righted again, we’re going to see a lot of this crap.
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
It gets tougher and tougher to keep up with the ever-shifting sand underneath America's freedoms and the fight to keep shifty congressional hands away from our pocketbooks, not to mention staying current with the “shifting nature” of Obamatruth itself. It's a monstrous quagmire -- here are a few items you might be interested in . . . .
Item:
Obamacare, should it stand against legal challenges, requires over $3.9 billion in taxes from the middle class according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the official Congressional scorekeeper for legislation's tax effects. The new law begins somewhat gently and overall raises $15.2 Billion over a ten-year period but reaches the $3.9 Billion threshold in 2019 by limiting medical expense deductions on income tax. Present law allows a tax deduction of 10% of adjusted gross income (AGI) for medical expenses, but Obama care would cut that deduction to 7.5% of AGI which makes it not only a new tax on those earning less than $200,000 but surprisingly a new tax on sick middle-class Americans.
Item:
U.S. Congress members and their staffs are furious about Obamacare taking away their present “Cadillac” congressional health insurance (which did NOT happen to Reid, Pelosi and some of the top Democratic committee heads and their staffs). Rajjpuut is shocked. But, of course, these things will happen if you don’t actually read the bill you’re passing, eh?
Item:
The number of legal challenges mounted against the constitutionality of Obamacare by individual states threatened by the new law (Obamacare would eventually bankrupt each and every state of the union) has reached twenty-one while another 18-20 states are considering action. Florida actually has filed two separate suits against the federal government based upon Obamacare’s illegal status. Of course, it would be a lot easier to impose big government on the mass of American voters if all those nasty state governments weren’t in the middle shielding people.
Item:
Today is Tax Day, April 15th. 67 million American families, and most earning under $50,000, will pay little or no taxes and 73 million families will pay 98% of all taxes. In accepted tax theory “the rabble” gets real dangerous as they approach becoming the majority in any democracy because then they theoretically can feel free to demand all sorts of services from government and vote all the taxes upon the minority who will pay for all that government. Nevertheless, over the years 67%-70% of Americans consistently (69% in a recent study) say that the maximum responsible tax load anyone should bear, regardless of income is 20%. Currently 35% is the maximum tax level on any Americans due to the Bush policies. When those laws expire on January 1, 2011, the Obama tax requirements will immediately jump to 40% maximum taxes and aim at conversion to 77% taxes by 2013. Since many who pay no taxes also get “refundable tax credits” which thus amounts to a tiny, but guaranteed income . . . . we already have socialism in America.
Item:
Seven of the top eight state income taxers are suffering the seven highest rates of emigration out of their states. High tax states like New York, New Jersey, Massachussets and California are actually losing taxpayers to states like Florida, Texas, Nevada, Colorado or New Hampshire. New Hampshire with no state income tax benefits immeasurably when talented high earners from New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts get frustrated and decide to pull up stakes. The high tax states are the ones with the largest number or percentages of state employees; where the states involved offer them the highest pay and highest benefits; and those employees are members of the most vocal and strongest unions.
Item:
http://www.libertycentral.org/index.html Most people don't know that Liberty Central is actually a bigger "support the U.S. Constitution" movement than the TEA Parties. According to its president, Virginia "Ginny" Thomas, White wife of Black Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, her organization and the TEA Party movement are disparaged by the mainstream media and MIS-characterized as racist and unintelligent hate-groups, but these two organizations truly reflect "the heartfelt concerns of patriotic Americans everywhere demanding a return to fiscal responsibility, eliminating deficits, and honoring the Constitution itself." Rajjpuut says, only 7% of the Obama administration and cabinet at all levels have ever held real jobs outside of education and politics and their unceasing "racism" charge against the TEA Party is an attack by the true racists and haters in hopes of using the confusion that arises in continuing their control over our country.
Item:
A recent USA Today newspaper poll showed that those who view the TEA (“taxed enough already”) Party favorably are somewhat wealthier and more educated than the voters at large . . . this despite the lamestream media’s efforts to label all TEA Partiers as uneducated rightwing racist buffoons. In the study, over 50% of those viewing the TEA Party movement favorably were either Independents or Democrats (despite the efforts of Nancy Pelosi to call the movement a “astro-turf” or “fake grassroots” movement created strictly by ultra-right wing Republicans) and Republicans while still the largest single sector in the survey constituted a minority of TEA Party membership and TEA Party advocates.
Item:
Kudos to President Obama for the words spoken about his new space agenda as he revealed in his Florida speech today, Far from dismantling the space program, he talked about revitalizing NASA and revealed some very ambitious forward-thinking dreams. Remember this for pennies on the dollar, NASA has been the best investment American Government has ever made. Flat screen TVS; Tang (hee-hee); GPS navigation systems; cell phones; etc. are just 0.1% Too many jobs were at stake. Too much technical advancement was at stake. Too much national pride was at stake. Rajjpuut would, however, advise the president, to replace his own totally-inept NASA supervisory staff or perhaps better yet, eliminate them altogether. Right now his speech amounts to a lot of pretty words only . . . unless competent people are put in charge of things, that’s all they’ll remain pretty words.
Item:
Rajjpuut denies that any provable global warming caused by human actions is occurring. Certainly, the recent Climate Gate revelations of global warming fraud by scientists would back up his point of view. However, the huge recent Icelandic volcanic ash clouds that are cancelling flights all over northern Europe may make us wish we REALLY HAD been creating global warming. In past history, volcanic eruptions have severely affected weather and even climate (long-range weather patterns) and caused frigid conditions such as the 1816 “Year without a Summer” also known as “1800 and Froze to Death.”
Item:
This nation's oil dependency on the Middle East costs American soldiers dearly. Every time the cost of a gallon of gas increases a dollar the Iranians gain $1.6 Billion from us. Iran is the top exporter of terrorism in the world and designer of some of the worst improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that have endangered, maimed and killed our boys.
Item:
Comedian Mark Klein told a crowd that the difference between Obama and terrorist Osama bin Laden is that "one is an anti-capitalist trying to destroy America. The other is hiding in Afghanistan."
Ya’ll live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
A wide range of polls over the last three weeks show that as Tax Day approaches Americans are becoming more and more convinced that congress and the president do not listen to them, tax too much, spend too much, have run up too much debt, and are on the wrong track for curing the ills of the nation, particulary jobs and the economy. Whether old respected polls or the polls of the networks or spot polls on the internet, the conclusions have been the same. More recent polling paints a “hardening” of those attitudes . . . today, Rasmussen Reports pollsters found "more of the same" in their surveys:
Item: only 21% of the voters believe that the decisionmakers in Washington have the consent of the governed while 61% believe Washington does NOT have that consent
Item: only 21% of the voters believe that the decisionmakers in Washington have the consent of the governed while 61% believe Washington does NOT have that consent
Item: 66% of those polled say Americans are overtaxed including 81% of mainstream America feeling we are overtaxed . . . but in contrast 69% of the political class feels Americans are NOT over taxed
Item: 69% say the American Dream is becoming impossible for their children and grandchildren and 58% favor repeal of Obamacare and 47% say repeal of Obamacare will be good for the economy and only 33% say repeal of Obamacare will be bad for the economy
Item: 50% of unaffiliated voters say their views are closer to the TEA Party than to President Obama 38% of unaffiliated voters align with President Obama’s views and overall 48% of Americans feel closer to the TEA Party views than to Obama while 44% feel the President represents their views better.
Item: 96% of the political class** have an UNfavorable view of the TEA Party movement but 58% of the mainstream hold a favorable view of the TEA Party. To understand this polling statistic better . . . the Political Class typically varies from 6% to 18% of the populace depending upon the answers to three key questions on any given polling date. The mainstream percentage typically varies from 46% to 70% depending upon when a given poll takes place. The upshot is that the political class believes that the people in Washington are the experts and they know what’s best for America. The mainstream believes the voters have a much more realistic idea of what’s needed and what’s NOT needed at any given time.
Ya'all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
Ya'all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
** Understanding "Mainstream and Political Class" designations
Rasmussen's designations of "political class" and "mainstream" do more to clarify attitudes than perhaps any other system of classifying voter trends. The two groups not only shift in temperment from time to time, but also shift in the sizes of the respective groups over time, for example, a late January, 2010, Rasmussen poll showed that only an unbelievably low 4% aligned with the political class at that time. It is unusual for the political class to drop and stay much below 8% for any extended period of time. The three questions Rasmussen uses to calculate the Index are:
-- Generally speaking, when it comes to important national issues, whose judgment do you trust more - the American people or America’s political leaders?
-- Some people believe that the federal government has become a special interest group that looks out primarily for its own interests. Has the federal government become a special interest group?
-- Do government and big business often work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors?
To create the designations, each response earns a plus 1 for the mainstream answer "YES", a minus 1 for the political class answer "NO", and a 0 for not sure.
Those who score 2 or higher are considered part of the Mainstream. Those who score -2 or lower are considered to be aligned with the Political Class. Those who score +1 or -1 are considered leaners in one direction or the other.
In practical terms, if someone is classified with the Mainstream, they agree with the mainstream view on at least two of the three questions and don’t agree with the Political Class on any; and someone is classified as part of the political class if they agree with the political class view on at least two of the three questions and don't agree with the mainstream view on any.
The infamous words of all-too corrupt Nancy Pelosi have returned to bite the country in the butt. “We have to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it . . .” the irresponsible Speaker of the House said. While the lambs were being led to slaughter, many of us did know and tried to head it off. Of course, President Obama, Veep Biden, the White House staff, Nancy and other senior members of the Congress and leadership staff there are all exempt . . . so the first thing the country is finding out is that ObamaCare is too much of a threat for our “leaders” to treat themselves to it.
Across the nation at least 7% of all residents are not covered by ObamaCare despite its huge pricetags. In the first full decade the law will cost a minimum of $2.4 TRillion despite removing Medicare Advantage coverage for older citizens. Health Savings Account (HSA) owners will either need to buy new policies are ante-up stiff penalty bucks. Although benefits for the most part won’t start until 2014, taxpayers will begin paying ObamaCare taxes NOW and there are a total of 19 new taxes imposed on us because of ObamaCare’s passage into law.
The CBO estimates that 8-9 million people will now lose their employer-provided health care coverage despite Mr. Obama’s promise “people who like their insurance now can keep it.” Expect a huge new tax burden. Here’s what Nancy dropped on us . . . .
Employers must buy government approved health coverage if they have 50 employees or more and at least one of their employess receives a tax credit for health care or pay a yearly penalty of $2,000 per employee.
16,500 new IRS agents will be hired to enforce the taxes mentioned here and other new ObamaCare taxes . . .
The first federal sales tax in the American Republics history has been passed: 10% tax on all earnings from tanning salons paid directly to the federal government.
Individuals must buy a government approved health policy or they must pay a yearly penalty of $695 or up to 2.5% of their income.
Families must buy a government approved health policy or pay a penalty of $347 per child up to $2,250 per family.
All home sales and all other real estate transaction will be taxed 3.8%. Middle income sellers even if they immediately buy a home the very same day must pay this tax which amounts to $7,600 on a $200,000 home.
Medicare taxes are increased on single taxpayers earning $200,000 or more and couples earning $250,000 a year or more (thus it is a huge marriage penalty tax) by an additional 0.9%.
A new 2.9% medical aid tax on items that never were taxed before has now been imposed. All these and many other Obamacare taxes start immediately.
In 2018, however, those of us with so-called “Cadillac health care plans will be imposed a 40% annual tax if their plan is valued at $10,200 for individuals or more and for families if valued at $27,500 or more. Mr. Obama’s union friends, however, will be exempted from taxes on their Cadillac plans.
Projections made by business leaders recently say that by 2018 taxes associated with Obamacare will cost the country over four million additional lost jobs.
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
