At one time, America was the most prosperous and the most admired
nation on earth.
Today America is bankrupt and despised
even by former admirers.
This page was written over a year ago. On the Ozarks
Virtual Town Hall, July 19, 2008, I discussed the possibility of a
government bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This is now a reality.
See here
and here.
I sent a message to my elected representatives urging them not to seize
more of your wealth and give it to the bankers. I referred them to this
page. You might want to check out that message.
- Update
- October 24, 2007
- New figures released by the CEO of the
Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas put the total
of America's bankruptcy at $83.9
trillion.
|
|
|
The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis recently released a
report which revealed that politicians have legally obligated the
United States to pay out over $60
trillion in government benefits at some point in time to
people now living -- money the government doesn't have now, and does not
expect to have unless taxes are raised significantly. How much? A "terrifying"
amount, to quote the St. Louis fed report.
Over $60 trillion in unfunded legally-obligatory promises made by
politicians to those who will vote for them. Unbelievable.
- Update
- August 10, 2008
- Latest figures now put America's
indebtedness at a staggering $99.2
trillion. This is beyond
reckless. This is truly insane.
|
|
|
The report is entitled, "Is the United States Bankrupt?" The
answer is "yes." If these politicians were officers of private
corporations like Enron,
these politicians would be in jail.
These practices are fraudulent and unethical.
But these practices are not an aberration. They are not
"abnormal."
Stealing from Peter to buy the vote of Paul is what "the
government" is all about. This is how it preserves its life.
| There's no point in continually
updating this page as the national debt soars to
new heights. Although this material is
nearly a year old, the principle still applies:
it is unethical and dangerous for
government to promise benefits that can't be
paid.
And if you continue to vote for the same
reckless and unethical politicians, you
are not a Good American.
|
|
|
From the Blog . . . .
In yesterday's
post, I gave a conservative estimate of government fraud at $60
trillion.
This morning I came across a
more recent figure, given by Richard W. Fisher, CEO of the Federal Reserve
Bank of Dallas:
Fiscal
Issues: From Here to Eternity - Richard Fisher Speeches - News &
Events - FRB Dallas
Fisher is President and CEO of one of the 12 Banks that operate the
Fed's payments system business. He chairs
the Fed's Information Technology Oversight Committee and sits on the
Federal Open Market Committee, which is "responsible for crafting a
monetary policy designed to foster sustainable noninflationary economic
growth." Its actions are what the press and financial analysts love
to bill and coo about. The Fed moves $5 trillion per day between
financial institutions to settle their accounts. Fisher says:
According to official government trustee reports, the infinite-horizon
discounted present value of our unfunded liability from Social Security
and Medicare—in common language, the gap between what we will take in
and what we have promised to pay—now stands at $83.9
trillion.
This staggering deficit portends conflict, chaos, and a Great Depression.
Imagine that General Motors settled a strike with United Auto Workers
by promising huge pensions and health benefits to workers in retirement,
yet accountants revealed that GM would be unable to pay those promised
benefits. The strikers would not be happy. GM's credit rating would turn
to junk bond status. Oh, wait . . . no need to "imagine" that:
General Motors
Runs Over the Experts
Washington D.C. is a "junk bond" government. Used car
salesmen are less ethically-challenged than federal politicians.
Politicians are liars and buffoons. A liar makes a
promise that can't be kept. A buffoon just stands there
while his colleagues continue to lie, when millions of people are
depending on promises that won't be kept. Speaking
to 4,000 students at BYU, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
reminded the students that government can be our "friend," and
cited throughout his speech numerous government programs as successes.
"For example," he added,
"Social Security is the most successful social program in the
history of the world."
Would you write a check to a person and say, "Here's something to
provide you with income security when you retire," knowing you didn't
have the funds to honor that check? Would you vote yes on legislation
which did the same thing on a scale billions of times larger? Who are
these people who can vote for such bills without pangs of conscience? And
far from keeping these misdeeds quiet, they boast about them, publicly
campaigning on them: "Vote for me! I voted to give you a check that
will bounce!" The poor and the elderly are going to be shafted to the
tune of $83 trillion.
Or the rich and middle class are going to be divested of everything
they've worked for all their lives. Politicians are Liars. Irresponsible
buffoons.
But we’re a big country, so let’s look at it on a per-person
basis. If you divide the $83.9 trillion evenly among the 300 million
U.S. residents, you get a per-person liability of $280,000—more than
five times the average household’s annual income. Each of us would
have to pay that much today if we wanted to guarantee the solvency of
our entitlement system for future generations.
Let me put it yet another way. The total unfunded liability from
these programs encompasses about 7.5 percent of U.S. GDP from here to
eternity, which works out to 68 percent of all federal income tax
revenues from here to eternity. So instead of paying $280,000 per person
now, we could permanently sequester 68 percent of all current and future
income tax revenue for use only on Social Security and Medicare. Or we
could permanently raise income tax rates by 68 percent to accomplish the
same thing—although we’d actually need to jack it up even higher
because a large tax hike would probably discourage some people from
working.
"Discourage some people from working" is a pleasant euphemism
for what could be a lot more unpleasant. Imagine the reaction of the auto
workers when they find out that all the promised benefits they worked for
are an illusion, or that all the wages they've worked for must be
returned. The question I asked yesterday
was How will tax-payers react to a seizure of $280,000 per
person? Or the flip-side of the coin: How will tax-feeders
react to a denial of promised benefits amounting to hundreds of thousands
of dollars? Will they have the moral fiber to resist a violent
protest of this massive transfer (or non-transfer) of wealth?
It turns out, Fisher reports, that Medicare Part D, Bush's unconstitutional
prescription drug benefit plan, will be more costly than all of Social
Security.
The promises made by government politicians are fraudulent. The federal
government had no authority
under the Constitution to make these promises (even if they had the money
to honor them), and politicians who took
an oath to "support the Constitution" violated that oath by
supporting these unconstitutional promises. They all know about the social
security problem. Their failure to confront the inevitable problems caused
by these massive and fraudulent promises is reprehensibly irresponsible,
deliberately avoiding the heat, hoping to get out of office with a
comfortable government pension before the fraud is uncovered and future
generations have to deal with the chaos. Politicians
are liars -- but "We the People" seem
to like it that way.
This is an issue that "separates the men from the boys." Any
politician who just "goes along to get along" and does not speak
out about this massive fraud should be turned out of office. Every voter
should be a "single issue voter" on this issue. Voters should
not vote for any politician who does not support
the concept of the Constitution as a document of "enumerated
powers," and who does not speak as forthrightly about the
terrifying bankruptcy of the United States as Dallas Fed CEO Richard W.
Fisher.
Just don't vote for them.
"But if I don't vote for X, Y will win," you say.
And Y is going to be worse than the X-created $83.9 TRILLION??
You should not vote for someone who does not have the ethical integrity
to avoid making fraudulent promises, and lacks the foresight and the guts
to speak out about the dangers of false promises already made.
You Need an "Extremist" in Washington D.C.
Politics is a "tug-of-war." On one side of the rope are
politicians who want to win re-election by promising gullible, ignorant
voters that they can have some of your money: either money
withheld from your next pay check, or purchasing power taken from the
money you have saved for your retirement.
Pulling on the other side of the rope, pulling toward smaller
government, lower taxes, less debt, fewer promises that can't be paid,
returning to the Constitution, restoring "Liberty Under God," is
. . . who?
Who is on the other side of your rope?
More important, who is strong enough to pull against 400
other Representatives who are pulling to give your money to special
interests and ignorant voters?
You need an "extremist"
pulling the rope in your favor. You need a fanatic who will pull
harder than all the other members of Congress. Barry Goldwater, the 1964
Republican Nominee for President, responded
to repeated accusations of "extremism" as follows:
I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no
vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of
justice is no virtue!
When Democrats accuse Republicans of wanting to "cut
spending," all the Republicans are really proposing is to cut the rate
of increase of spending. Instead of spending increasing by 10% a
year, Republicans want spending to only increase 7% a year! This only postpones
the Day
of Reckoning
.
You need someone who, like America's Founding Fathers, would "alter
or abolish" unconstitutional spending. You need
someone with strength of conviction who is passionately
against today's unconstitutional debt and reckless spending.
You may not agree with Kevin Craig's radical
views. You may think he distrusts government too much. You
may think he goes "overboard." But if your representative in
Congress is only hoping to "hold the line," he's going to be out-pulled
by hundreds of representatives who are trying to increase spending.
You need someone who's actually trying to "go too far" in
order to balance out those who have already gone too far.
Only a radical libertarian can be
trusted to pull against extraordinary corruption and dangerous spending
from an entire Congress.
Just as the world gasped in horror when America's Founding Fathers
created a nation with no king at all, so you may be shocked at the
radical libertarian ideas of Kevin Craig. He believes that future
generations will have no government at all.
The only reason "the government" exists is to permit the
governors to do things against the governed that would otherwise be
immoral and unethical:
- Take money from other people.
- Kidnap people.
- Kill people.
- Take vengeance on one's enemies.
You don't do these things in the ordinary conduct of your business, as
you better the lives of your customers and clients. All these things are
unapproved in polite society, unrewarded by the Free Market, but they are
legal and taxpayer-financed in the world of "the government."
We cannot eliminate "government
corruption" without eliminating the entire concept of "the
government." It is an out-dated idea. It was never a good idea.
If you disagree with this, but do indeed want less
"corruption," less debt, less unconstitutional spending, your
best bet is to vote for a candidate that believes all
government action is corrupt. If you vote for someone who believes some
government confiscation of the life, liberty or property of
others is morally and ethically legitimate, you vote for someone who has
no ultimate restraints on his corruption. America's Founding Fathers
crafted what they believed was the greatest political charter in the
history of the human race. It was designed as carefully as they knew how to
prevent the rise of the very government we have today. Obviously the
Constitution is a failure. The promises of today's politicians are worth
even less than the Constitution. Everything the greatest sages of the ages
have discerned about human
nature warns us that a license to steal (taxation)
will never atrophy, but will always be used with increasing frequency.
Computers, automobiles, medical supplies, air conditioners, telephones,
refrigerators, and everything else that raises our standard of living, can
be produced better, more efficiently, more inexpensively, with higher
quality, by the Free Market than by "the government." There is
nothing that human beings need that can be produced with higher quality
and a lower price for more people by "the government" than by
the Free Market.
Our system of government is supposedly based on "the
consent of the governed." "We the People" don't need to
consent to anything anymore. History has taught us that socialism always
fails, and capitalism triumphs. Government lowers our standard of living, capitalism
raises it.
We didn't need London in 1776, and we don't need Washington D.C. today.
