government reform

A Doomed Ponzi Scheme

Mark Noonan7 Comments

From CNS:

There were only 1.75 full-time private-sector workers in the United States last year for each person receiving benefits from Social Security, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Social Security board of trustees.

That means that for each husband and wife who worked full-time in the private sector last year there was a Social Security recipient somewhere in the country taking benefits from the federal government…

This cannot be sustained – even when you throw in government workers (who are paid out of tax dollars, of course) you still don’t get enough total workers paying in to support those who are taking out.  You probably have to get to at least 4 total workers for each beneficiary for it to be financially stable; and likely 5 or 6 private sector workers per beneficiary.  And it is only going to get worse – even after the Boomers all retire and start to exit the system via death, our rapidly declining birth rate ensures there will be no significant improvement in the worker/retiree ratio.

A Ponzi scheme, just to clarify it for our liberals, is a system where early beneficiaries are paid out handsomely from the proceeds of later entrants.  It all works well until you stop getting enough new people to sustain the generous payouts.  Social Security was first implemented when most people only lived a few years beyond 65 and there were a couple dozen workers for each retiree.  Now we live past 80 as often as not and there are less than 2 workers for each retiree.  This a classic example of a Ponzi scheme…and it is failing just like any other Ponzi scheme.

To be sure, Social Security is too deeply ingrained in American life to be easily or quickly done away with…but it must be deeply reformed just to ensure that older people can get retirement pay and younger people can build up independent means of retirement.  The time to do it was, of course, after the 2004 election…but a combination of Democrats wanting a campaign issue and Republicans who lacked backbone ensured that the Bush’s modest reform proposals were killed.  Now it is 7 years later and things are worse…and they will do nothing but get worse from now on, unless we change.

Additionally, any attempt to get our overall fiscal house in order requires Social Security reform (as well as Medicare/Medicaid reform).  The whole economic future of the United States rests on our ability to develope the courage to act.  Democrats will never do anything but “fear and smear” on the issue, so it is up to Republicans to lead the way…and our first step is to (a) bring the subject up and then (b) so badly beat the Democrats in 2012 that they can’t stand in the way of reform.

Maybe Telling the Truth Works?

Mark Noonan18 Comments

According to this CNN poll (PDF), 52% of GOP voters over 65 years old back Perry for the GOP nomination.  Among those 50 and older, 41% back Perry (next in support among this group is Romney, with 22%).  With Pery being the candidate who is correctly identifying Social Security as a Ponzi scheme, this indicates that older voters are ok with the truth…and I wonder if the overall population will be?

It could start a whole, new trend in American politics…where politicians will actually say what needs to be done, regardless of MSM/DNC generated talking points, and the people with a clear eye and common sense just review what politicians say, and then make decisions accordingly.

Imagine what the country would be like?

HAT TIP:  Washington Examiner

The Romney Plan: Good, But…

Mark Noonan11 Comments

Mitt Romney lays out the broad outlines of his 59-point economic plan over at USA Today and I have to say that I am unimpressed.

To be sure, Romney’s plan does have a lot of really good things in it – but it always falls short of the revolution we need.  For instance, Romney calls for a tougher stance with China…but doesn’t lay out what that tougher stance would be (in my view, it should be a phased-in trade embargo).  Romney says he wants to review Obama’s regulatory record and then remove those which “unduly burden” job creation…why not just sign an executive order on January 20th, 2013 voiding all Obama-era regulations?  Does anyone seriously think that any regulation enacted since January 20th, 2009 has been vital to preserve the freedom and safety of the United States?

Given how lousy Obama is becoming, this 59 point plan of Romney’s may prove sufficient to get him in to the White House, but it simply does not go far enough…we need a revolution if we are to save our nation.  The left conducted its “long march” through our institutions and has created a Big Government/Big Corporation monster which is crushing the American spirit…morally, intellectually and economically we are being destroyed, and turning this around won’t be accomplished by tinkering with the tax code to stimulate job creation.

Before Romney can get my primary support, he’s going to have to show me that he’s not just running to be President because it would be a cool thing…I need to see a man who knows what we face and is willing to do whatever is necessary, including ensure a lost re-election bid in 2016, to get it done.

Bachmann: Why is There a Dept. of Education?

Mark Noonan35 Comments

From CNN Political Ticker:

Painting herself as a “constitutional conservative” Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann told Sen. Jim DeMint’s forum Monday that if elected president she would look to get rid of the Department of Education, among other things.

“Because the Constitution does not specifically enumerate nor does it give to the federal government the role and duty to superintend over education that historically has been held by the parents and by local communities and by state governments,” she said, responding to a question by DeMint, a popular figure among the tea party movement…

To be sure, the DNC/MSM will play this up as Bachmann being anti-education, but I don’t think that will fly here in 2011…we’ve been told for decades that in order to be “pro” anything, you had to be in favor of spending federal money on it…well, that is just about all played out.  Anyone who looks at education knows it is lousy…and any Democrat who tries to defend the lousy education system will come up the loser in the debate.

Now is the time to really press hard – I hope that Bachmann doesn’t get scared off this position.  Doesn’t try to “clarify” it away…yes, let’s abolish the Department of Education and use the money to actually help educate…by using the money for school vouchers.  Hit and hit and hit again…the Ruling Class and it’s Big Government are on the ropes…time to go in for the kill.

Postal Service Going Broke

Mark Noonan29 Comments

From the New York Times:

The United States Postal Service has long lived on the financial edge, but it has never been as close to the precipice as it is today: the agency is so low on cash that it will not be able to make a $5.5 billion payment due this month and may have to shut down entirely this winter unless Congress takes emergency action to stabilize its finances…

In 2010, the US Postal Service had revenues of $67 billion.  Even if we want to assume that revenues have fallen in 2011, there still has to be in the $65 billion-range of revenues…in other words, quite a lot of money.   Any company earning $65 billion a year can’t be worthless…other companies with that level of revenues are Apple, Microsoft, Boeing, Target, Walgreen and Johnson & Johnson. That puts the USPS in some pretty elite company on the revenue end – so, what gives?

Don’t know for certain without doing an audit, but it should be noted that the USPS employs about 574,000 people…far more than, say, McDonad’s, which is also a labor-intensive corporation.  My bet is that the USPS probably employs far more people than it needs to, probably at higher wages than needs be paid, and you can figure they probably get fat pensions and benefits.  The bottom line is that the USPS does not need to go out of business, nor does it need more taxpayer hand outs…but it does need to massively cut costs.

It is time for the USPS – which does enjoy a monopoly on first class mail delivery – to join the real world.  Sink or swim – either figure out how to make itself profitable off of $65 billion in revenue, or fold and let UPS and FedEx compete for shares of that $65 billion in revenue.  Not one thin dime of taxpayer money!

Run, Sarah, Run!

Mark Noonan21 Comments

Real Clear Politics has a link to the Palin speech today as well as several quotes – this is the most important part:

…On crony capitalism: “So many of them, they arrive in Washington, DC of modest means and then miraculously throughout the years they end up becoming very, very wealthy. Well, it’s because they derive power and their wealth from their access to our money, to taxpayer dollars.”

“They use it to bail out their friends on Wall Street. And their corporate cronies. And to reward contributors. And to buy votes via earmarks. There is so much waste. And there is a name for this. It’s called ‘corporate crony capitalism,'” she said.

“Like you, I’m not for sale. I believe in the free market and that is why I detest crony capitalism. And Barack Obama has shown us cronyism on steroids. It will lead to our downfall if we don’t stop it now.”…

She gets it – whether by insight or careful study, she understands the basis of what is wrong…we’ve got a self-perpetuating Ruling Class which has fastened itself upon American society.  They are like colonial overlords, or a visitation…they are not organically connected to us, but they rule us and bleed us dry so they and their hangers-on can prosper.  Unless and until we get rid of them, we won’t be able to restore America.

The people who run our system of government and economics will always stand in the way of reform for the simple reason that any reform will eject them from power.  There is no way that those who leech off the American people will voluntarily give up their place at the  trough.  They will have to be forced out – by peaceful, political revolution.  Sarah Palin understands this – so, to be sure, do Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain and Rick Santorum.  But Palin has the national name recognition and the instant ability to raise hundreds of millions of dollars as well as mobilize an army of volunteers.

In spite of all the excellent qualities in the current GOP primary field – and whomever gets the nomination will get my enthusiastic support against Obama – my view is that Sarah Palin is the best option for the GOP in 2012.  Palin is the embodiment of the true American spirit…the self-reliant, hard working, family-orientated, ardently Christian core of America.  She is the sort of person who crossed the oceans to found America, and who then tamed a continent, built a democratic republic and made America in to the most powerful and generous nation in human history. We can get that America back – but only by revolution.  Of all the candidates Palin is not only most likely to do this, but she has the ability to run that long, difficult race which will be necessary for a revolutionary to win the GOP nomination and beat Barack Obama.

So, run, Sarah, run.  Become the leader of the revolution and let’s restore America.

Nooooo, there’s no room to cut!!!

tiredoflibbs7 Comments

I am so glad the pResident has not rested since taking office and promising to fix the economy, create jobs, heal the earth…  ok he did not say he will not rest on the last one.  But the first two he did and we have seen NOTHING from this so-called “leader” but more of the same failed liberal policies of the past.   I know… I know…you drones can’t wait to cry “Republicans do it too”.  That was before the last election.  We now have some TRUE CONSERVATIVES working against the RINOs.

Here is a collection of government outrage stories from the last few weeks.  It’s just too easy to come up with this BS. There is more…. a lot more.  After next week’s “jobs plan” errrr “jobs summary” errr “reasonable list of policies” speech, there will be even more…

Environmental Enforcement Leaves Gibson Guitar Makers in Fear

Feds Give 4 States $5.8 Million to Protect Insect Habitat

USDA Gives $73,824 Grant To Connect Food With Bed And Breakfasts

DHS Giving $2.1B in ‘Preparedness Grants’ to Cities, Indian Tribes, Non-Profits, Etc.

Postal Service spent $4.3 million on union employees who did “nothing”

$500,000 for a windmill in Milwaukee

Pentagon pays $720M in late fees for storage containers

Gov’t Paying Farmers, Ranchers $112M to Protect Bird Too Numerous to be Threatened

HIV/AIDS group charged with diverting tax dollars to strip club

Taxpayer-Funded App Makes You Look Like a Neanderthal

$245 million for a desalting plant in Arizona that has never been used and still costs $6 million a year to maintain

Taxpayers Foot Bill For an App To Tell Workers It’s Hot Outside

Getting ready for a wave of coal-plant shutdowns

Are you tired of hope and change yet?  Still waiting for the change from someone who was “a new kind of politician” and not “an insider”.  His actions have said otherwise.

The War Against Economic Freedom

Mark Noonan24 Comments

From Points and Figures:

Last night I went to see the documentary Farmageddon in Chicago. I also stayed for the full panel discussion…
…This documentary illustrates the plight of the organic farmer, specifically the organic dairy farmer. If a dairy farmer wants to sell raw milk, they will be run out of business and many times imprisoned by the federal bureaucracy. The USDA actively tries to run Raw Milk Producers out of the business. They work closely with agents from state agricultural agencies.

The documentary shows film of agents descending on various organic farms and outlets, guns drawn, SWAT teams present. It’s straight out of science fiction and something that you can’t believe happens in America. I can understand a huge police presence when going after a drug lord, but a family farmer? Sure, farmers keep guns but in my experience they aren’t violent people…

Why does this happen? Because we have built a corporate and government system which is forcefully opposed to a free market.  The market is where people go to buy – what is in the market is whatever people try to sell.  With reasonable regulations for genuine safety, people are supposed to broadly be able to decide what they will buy in the market and what they will sell.  The trouble with this rather common-sense ideal of the market is that it cuts in to the profits of the largest sellers and by giving people choice is annoys Big Government which prefers that you buy what the government wants you to buy.

Its not just organic milk producers.  Time and time again over my life I’ve seen the heavy club of government working in tandem with established business interests to crush market place upstarts.  If you ever wondered why we’ve only got 3 US auto makers – instead of 30, as the size of the American auto market would indicate – it is because Big Government and Big Corporation have set things up so that no one else can enter the market…except, of course, for big, foreign outfits who can afford to grease the legislative and regulatory wheels.  What the final result of all this has been is a progressive constriction on entry in to the market place – ultimately, a restriction on the ability of average Americans to create new wealth.

All of this utter nonsense of safety regulations, lawsuits, warning labels, etc works out to be nothing more than restraint of trade – and a restraint of trade which ensures easy profits for Big Corporation and a steady stream of donations to politicians in favor of Big Government (Big Union is in there, too…a sort of hybrid of Big Government and Big Corporation, working both sides of the street, as it were).   For 100,000 years or so the human race managed to consume milk products and we never died out – some how or another with out a single regulation from the FDA, humanity survived milk consumption.  The bottom line is that milk is food…a sort of food human beings are very used to eating.  Of course, like all human activities, eating food does carry a risk.  But, then again, life is risk…and, in the end, you never get out of it alive, anyway.

Don’t get me wrong here – I’m no libertarian arguing for a completely unregulated market, but what regulation there is must be there to ensure honesty and dignity.  If it starts getting in to deciding what you will buy, then it is a negation of the market place.  If someone wants to buy raw milk, then as long as the seller is honest about his product, then government has no interest in the transaction.  So, too, with all other economic transactions…as long as no one is defrauded or degraded (a human being cannot sell a human being – even if that human being is himself), then government should, for the most part, keep hands-off.

When I speak of freeing up our economy, this is what I mean – getting rid of the government and the corporations who shackle the economy.  We are bound hand and foot…and thus our people are growing poor, our dependent class is growing and foreign competitors are starting to catch us up.  We can fix this – but to do so Big Government and Big Corporation must be brought to heel.

Noticing the Recession and Finding the Cure

Mark Noonan61 Comments

Good thing to do, because the one that started in 2007 kind of sneaked up on us in 2008, right?  Well, my bet is that the renewed (double-dip) recession began in April or May of this year and rather than wait until 2012 when it is plain as a pikestaff, why not dig around for the indicators that its already here?  The bad news here is that I’m not skilled enough to do that – but Tony Pallotta over at Zero Hedge, is:

The consumer driven recession has begun. Keeping it very simple of the four GDP components (consumer, fixed investment, government and net trade) the consumer has simply rolled over. In Q1 2011 the consumer contributed 1.46% to the 0.4% total GDP. In other words if it was not for consumer growth or even if .5% of that growth was removed the economy contracted in Q1 2011.

Fast forward to Q2 where the consumer component is now 0.3%. In other words the trend of the consumer is deteriorating. Representing roughly 70% of total GDP the consumer is the economy. Confidence drives the consumer, the consumer drives demand and demand drives the economy…

Which is why, by the way, we need to shift our economy from consumerism to wealth creation.  We have used debt to finance consumer spending – and now the debts are too high and the consumer is tapped out.  There is no way for consumer spending to lead us out of recession.  Rather than buying gadgets from China and calling that “growth”, we need an economy which will make things here in the United States.  The reality is that the only things of genuine economic value are things which are made, mined and grown…if what you’re doing doesn’t do or facilitate such actions, then it just isn’t that important to the economy.  Doesn’t mean it shouldn’t happen but it is just not something we need to be concentrating on.

The trouble is that our current government doesn’t recognize this.  Obama and Co (and quite a few Republicans, too) figure that we can some how, some way, keep things going as they have been for the last 30 years (and especially the last 20).  The thinking is that we can re-inflate asset bubbles, give people a sensation of being rich and convince them to plunge even further in to debt to buy things increasingly made overseas but which generate profits here in the United States.  Sorry to say, but it just can’t work like that any more…ultimately, if you want to buy something from a foreign country, you have to exchange wealth for it…the way we’ve been paying for the stuff we get is to sell off, as it were, our capacity to make, mine and grow things.  Essentially, in return for that cool cell phone, you gave China a factory, Mexico a farm and Chile a mine.  But now you’ve got no more mines, farms and factories to hand over to them…so how do you pay for your next cell phone?  That, essentially, is the problem we have.

A course of balanced budgets, regulatory relief, corporate reform (Big Corporation is nearly as bad as Big Government…such corporations tend to work for a restraint of trade nearly as much as unions do…and we need to figure out a system which ensures that small and mid-sized players can compete against the big boys), tax adjustments to ensure no foreign enterprise has a tax advantage over us and a general insistence that work replace welfare will fix what is wrong with us.  Not overnight.  It took many years to get in to this mess and it will take quite a while to get out of it.  The good news is that we can still fix it – there is still enough genuine American spirit in the United States to overcome the debt and the laziness and the consumerism of the past.   The bad news is that the window of opportunity is closing fast…if we don’t get our house in order soon then we will condemn ourselves to permanent decline.

2012 is that important – who we choose to give power to next year will determine, for good, the fate of our nation.  We’ll either do what is right and restore American greatness, or we’ll slink away in a cowardly surrender and insist upon a Big Government shroud for our national funeral.  We’ll see how we choose.

 

Abuse of the Welfare State

Mark Noonan77 Comments

Writ large in Michigan – from Detroit News:

…Here we go again — the cold-harded GOP elitists are balancing the budget on the back of the poor.

More than 11,000 people will see their welfare benefits end on Oct. 1.

What will they do? Well, most haven’t considered working as an option.

The Department of Human Services sent letters to 11,062 welfare recipients, notifying them their checks are coming to an end. Included was a toll-free number people could call for information and assistance.

The hotline got 1,401 calls. Of that number, only eight callers requested help in finding a job.

Many of those being cut off have been on public assistance for 14 years. That’s not a safety net; it’s a hammock…

Except for those actually incapable of work – and, remember, I have an exceptionally high bar for that – all people must work.  I don’t care if its just picking up trash in the city streets, no one should ever be allowed to sit on their rear and collect any sort of government benefit.  Furthermore, in order to ensure that the search for work is diligent, welfare should never pay more 80% of a minimum wage job.  Any job, any where – even those “jobs Americans won’t do” and are thus filled by illegals – should pay more than government assistance.  Welfare should only be just enough to keep body and soul together until the recipient finds a job.

The best estimate that I have found of non-health care, non-Social Security welfare spending by the United States government is in the range of $350 to $500 billion per year (its hard to tell because Uncle Sam – determined to not make it easy for us – doesn’t have a category of spending called “welfare”…you have to dig around for it).  I’ll bet that State and local welfare spending adds at least 25% to that figure (and it is probably higher)…even at the low end, we’re talking more than $400 billion per year spent by government in various transfer payments to people who didn’t pay any “input” taxes (in other words, didn’t pay SS taxes, didn’t pay taxes which fund unemployment, etc).  I’ll bet that three quarters (at least) of that money is going to people who can work, but choose not to.

Add in the waste and fraud in Social Security disability, the number of people who get healthcare on the public dime without putting in anything, the drain caused by illegal immigration, and the money spent on worthless aspects of education (what is that?  Worthwhile education spending:  education spending which results in an engineer, teacher or doctor.  Worthless education:  spending which results in diversity coordinators, corporate bureaucrats and lawyers) and you’re probably getting in to the range of a trillion dollars per year of drain on the economy…money which is spent that has no net, positive benefit.  Money which just goes to leeches.

This has to change – and the welfare reform in Michigan shows why:  some people are so long on the public dime that they simply have no desire to get off it.  They must be forced off – work, or starve.  A complete audit of all recipients of government money must be done…and all able-bodied people with no minor children must be kicked off of government support; those with children must be forced to do at least some work in payment for their welfare; only those absolutely incapable of working (or on a program they directly paid in to over the years) should be allowed to remain.

There is still plenty of work on the low end in the United States…work which doesn’t need even a high school diploma (how many from the backwaters of Mexico and the third world who come here illegally have such?).  It is, often, hard and dirty work…but work is honorable, and all honest work creates personal dignity.  Better to be poor digging a ditch than poor watching daytime television.  Mind you, I’ll go ten thousand extra miles to help out anyone who is working hard and still not able to make ends meet…you put in your 40 hours and you’re still short, you can count on me to either work it through charity or, if need be, enact laws to ensure that you and your family have decent food, housing, clothing and basic health care…but the first step is that 40 hours of work.

We must become a nation of hard work, thrift and careful investment…massive reforms need to be undertaken, and none of them can really be done in isolation.  Big Corporation also needs to feel the hammer; Big government, naturally; all of us have to stand up and do what is right…after generations of coasting on  borrowed money.  The only way we keep our nation is if we work for it.  Period, end of story.  Anyone who says otherwise is simply not understanding the nature of life.