Category: Economy

Buying votes with YOUR money, Part II

That’s $300,000,000,000 in student loan debt forgiveness. This amounts to almost $1000 of debt to be absorbed by each and every man, woman and child living in America.

Biden announces student loan handout as national debt soars

This wasn’t “free” money; it was money taken from the treasury and given to students with the intent that it be paid back with reasonable interest. Never mind that only the student benefited from the loans that they took out. Never mind that this money – if/when repaid – could be used to send others to college. Never mind that this money was taken from the American taxpayers, and that without repayment they will have to pay the loss out of their own pockets – again.

What kind of message does this send about responsibility? Don’t worry; if you f**k up the government will bail you out? Your poor decisions will weigh heavily on the minds of your betters, as they sacrifice to pay for your failures? That your life is a check written against the productivity of others?

Sadly, it’s just business as usual in D.C.; buying votes with your money has become commonplace, and I don’t see it ending soon. Funny (or, actually, not so funny), the following paraphrased quote seems apropos – although I don’t know its source (it has multiple citations; not sure which is correct):

A democracy will to exist only up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves gifts from the public treasury.

Here’s my personal take along the same basic theme:

A democracy will to exist only up until the time that politicians discover they can buy votes using the public treasury.

Don’t think we’re there yet? Maybe this previous Biden quote from the 2020 election cycle will convince you that we are well on our way:

“If you send Jon and the Reverend to Washington, those $2,000 checks will go out the door,” Biden said Monday while campaigning in Atlanta on the eve of the election. “And if you send Sens. Perdue and Loeffler back to Washington, those checks will never get there. It’s just that simple. The power is literally in your hands.”

And so it continues, the slide into fiscal insolvency in the name of “democracy”. A slide towards a failed economy and eventual dependence on the government. A slide where productivity is punished (why should one work to line the pockets of others, when they can be moochers, looters and freeloaders themselves?) as we become ever more dependent on politicians for our daily alms via redistributed wealth. But what happens when the wealth runs out? This can only end in a despotic, “We know better than you” totalitarian oligarchic government whose power is obtained and held based on public dependence. And it is democrats/socialists leading the way – not Trump. Who’d have thought?

I find it interesting that some still claim it’s the conservatives who will lead us down the path of tyranny, of totalitarianism. Have we already forgotten that Hitler was not a conservative, but was instead a socialist (he was the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party, aka the NAZI party)? Have we already forgotten that Kim Il sung’s totalitarian state was named the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea? Or that the communist regime of East Germany was similarly named the German Democratic Republic (GDR)? Just as how Democrats have convinced Americans that it was the Republicans who fought for the oppression of African-Americans (it wasn’t – it was southern Democrats who fought for slavery, oppression and Jim Crow laws; it was Republicans fighting against them), Democrats are also implying that it is the Republicans and other conservatives who are leading us down the road to totalitarianism. But it’s not – it’s the progressive left, as usual.

I went to college. I did not incur debt. I reduced my costs by attending a community college for 2 years before transferring to a 4-year university; I also worked throughout my graduate education. I was a responsible adult who earned a useful degree in a STEM discipline without incurring debt so as to not be a burden on others. As a result I am now to be saddled with the debt of the irresponsible – the debt of students who earned a useless degree in a worthless field and who now don’t want to pay back the money they were loaned in good faith.

What a fool I am; I could have been a moocher! Maybe next time…

Buying votes with your money, episode #231

Yeah, this can’t be good…

Newsom’s plan for free gas cards will drive prices, inflation even higher, expert warns

I love this quote:

Newsom said in a statement that his administration is “taking immediate action to get money directly into the pockets of Californians who are facing higher gas prices as a direct result of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.”

But, wait… whose money are you giving to Californians, Gov. Newsom? Oh, that’s right – their own! You’ll send the state further into debt – a debt to eventually be born by the taxpayers at an inflated cost (interest, government overhead, etc.) – to provide temporary “relief” for high gas prices (and pushing them higher in the process). Smart move, Ex-lax.

This is like telling people, “Don’t worry! We’ll charge some money to your credit card and send it to you (with a fee, of course) to help in these times of need!”  But why would Californian’s accept such a useless solution? It’s because they’ve been taught by California’s “progressive” politics (Really? Can we still call it “progressive” when California has the highest poverty rate among U.S. states?) that it’s only a game of musical chairs and that someone else will always get stuck with the bill. Each Californian demands their unearned payday believing that someone else (the mysterious “rich”) will end up paying their share of the bill. In short, progressive Californians are too excited about “free” money (pronounced “stupid”) to realize that they will always pay in the end.

Good luck, California. You’ll need it when you finally realize that there is no such thing as “free” money.

What they don’t tell you

Yes, the jobs report was “bad” last month. Only 210,000 new jobs added. But that is only half the story:

Hiring slowed sharply in November, even before omicron, with 210,000 jobs added

The truth is that there are plenty of jobs – the JOLTS report (which reflects jobs open rather than filled) indicates there are more than 10 million available jobs at the end of September. So why were only 221,000 filled? Good question.

It turns out that the number of people in the workforce has dropped. It is currently 61.8%; pre-pandemic it was 63.3%. This means that roughly 4 million people are sitting out the recovery. A big reason might be the $300/month/child parents are being paid to … well, be parents. I know, I know – by itself the $300/month/child doesn’t seem like much, but when added to child care cost savings it will tip the scales towards staying home. Not a problem, if I wasn’t expected to pay for it.

Average day care per child is running about $200/week. This amounts to about $800/month. Assuming 3 children, that’s $2400/month. Add to that the child tax credit currently paid monthly, $300/month/child x 3 children = $900. Now we’re up to $3300/month in child care savings and government payments for a family with three children – that’s nearly 40K/year to stay home. Now, I don’t mind people staying home to raise their children – I just don’t want to pay them to do it. Not my child, not my pageant. Raise your own damn children. BTW, this increase in the child tax credit (it’s not so much a child tax credit as it is a tax on childless couples) was originally part of COVID relief legislation, but Biden’s “Build Back Broker” plan wants to make it permanent. The BBB plan includes “…permanent refundability for the Child Tax Credit…“, further incentivizing people not to work.

Now, again, I don’t mind people staying home to raise their children. And it’s fine that they remove themselves from the workforce to do so. But paying people to stay home and not work will only result in inflation. Think about it: money added to the economy (that we borrowed, no less) when less is being produced – the only possible outcome is inflation (unless our politicians balance the budget – fat chance of that ever happening…!).

And don’t give me any crap about how these parents are doing “valuable work” raising their children and thus should be paid; I’m not buying it. The work has value ONLY TO THEM, and thus it is only they who should pay for the work. Their circular argument goes something like this: I can’t afford to pay for a gardener, so I’m going to do my own gardening. But gardening is productive work, so I want to be paid for it – and thus the government should pay me. But the bullshit part of this argument is that the person who benefits from the labor is the one who should pay – in this case, the homeowner benefits from the work. They are free to pay themselves what they would have paid a gardener, but the result will be a wash. They did the work, they benefited from the work. Account closed. Get the hell out of my wallet!

The alternative is that the parents not be paid to stay home, and only reap the benefit of the child care savings. This would be fine – and since it introduces no new (unearned) money to the economy, inflation is not affected. Former childcare workers could actually go on to do other productive work. All is good with the world.

If we want the economy to improve, we must stop incentivizing people to not be productive, and – more importantly – we’ve got to stop paying them for non-productive (to the rest of the world) work like raising their own children. Only then will the workforce participation rate return to normal and inflation be tamed.

Idiots!

Just what did you think would happen? We’d all somehow be made better off by “free” government money? When are you idiots going to realize that nothing is “free” and that “government money” is an oxymoron?

Meet Skimpflation: A Reason Inflation Is Worse Than The Government Says It Is

I guess that liberal education was good for something after all: creating mindless socialists drones, incapable of questioning the government or its propaganda and too stupid to know why they should. But now, people, it’s time to face the ugly truth using that “racist” math you were never taught (probably so that you couldn’t see the false logic of the socialist liberal argument). And here it is:

When people do not produce but are paid anyway, the availability of goods goes down while the money supply remains the same or increases. There is only one possible outcome when the same number of people are vying for a reduced quantity of goods with the same amount of money: inflation.

I know, I know; the government said we’d all be better off. Well, aren’t we? Isn’t this what you wanted your socialist agenda to bring about: equality for all? Aren’t we all equal now as we each scavenge for hard goods, toilet paper and food? Oh, wait; you wanted us all to be brought up to the same level, not down? Sorry, son – you can’t do that with free money. Why? Well, if everyone is paid not to work, who will work to produce the goods you so desperately want/need?

Welcome to socialism. Enjoy your stay. F**king idiots.

 

And THAT’S how Capitalism works…

Fed up with large companies controlling an industry? Compete! That’s what America and Capitalism is all about. You are limited only by yourself (rather than the government):

Ranchers launch effort to build own meat plants to fight against low beef prices

These ranchers saw that a few large slaughterhouses were controlling prices, pushing down cattle values while reaping large profits in the processing and distribution end of the market. The ranchers used capitalism to fight back: they banded together to form their own processing and distribution company.

Welcome to America.

 

What a crock! (updated)

OK, so maybe you’ve heard of the latest jobs report (aka “Employment Situation Summary“). This shows a slower than expected job growth, which some have blamed on the cornavirus “delta” variant. However,  that’s just a load of dingo’s kidneys.

Many of us have seen the help wanted signs posted everywhere in our communities as employers clamor for employees; how could it possibly be that job growth is “slow”? As it turns out, what the government defines as “job growth” might be the real culprit – along with the administration’s insistence on paying people not to work.

You see, the so-called “job growth” noted in the Employment Situation Summary describes jobs actually filled, not new jobs made available. Even if the economy has millions of job openings available the jobs report will show little growth if no one comes to claim them. And millions there are: while the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) hasn’t caught up to August, in June there were more than 10 million job openings in the U.S. That’s substantially more than the 8.4 million who are unemployed, and ~2.5 million more job openings than at any time in the 10 years prior to the pandemic. If just these 2.5 million “extra” jobs were filled we’d be back at pre-pandemic levels of unemployment. But hey – why go back to work when you can make money at home watching reality TV?

A clear case in point comes from a New York Times article on the job report:

[name redacted], [age redacted], took a job as a United States Postal Service carrier in late August after more than a year out of work. He will make more than $10,000 a year less than he did in his previous job as an assistant property manager in Chicago. But with unemployment benefits expiring this month, he wouldn’t have been able to pay his mortgage if he didn’t take the carrier job, he said.

“I took it in desperation,” he said. “I held out for the longest time. The unemployment benefits were very generous.”

This is a perfect example of how enhanced unemployment benefits have actually prevented a full employment recovery. If the enhanced unemployment benefits were not ending this man would have likely, by his own admission, “…held out…” as a result of the “…generous…” unemployment benefits. He’d probably still be unemployed!

Now when you read in the New York Times that “There are still 5.3 million fewer jobs nationwide than there were in February 2020”, you  know to call “bullshit” on their claim. The fact is that there are approximately 10 million jobs available in the U.S. right now – but now one willing to take them and give up their “generous” unemployment payments. The reality is that the only thing currently slowing down job growth is Biden’s enhanced unemployment payments.

So when administration officials start pushing to extend enhanced unemployment benefits – citing the job report as justification rather than cause – make sure you tell them where to go. It’s time people are incentivized to work – not to stay home and watch soap operas on the people’s dime.

9/17/21 – UPDATE: The latest JOLTS report estimates that there are now 10,934,000 open jobs available in the U.S. as of July – almost 3.5 million more than the highest point in the ten years prior to the pandemic. In May of 2021 the unemployment rate fell to the same average rate as from 2011 through 2019 (before the pandemic, 5.8%), and yet we continued “enhanced” unemployment benefits until September 2021. Can anyone guess as to why there are so many unfilled jobs available in the U.S.? This is isn’t rocket science, folks, just basic math. Oh, wait; apparently math, getting the right answer and being objective are no longer acceptable behaviors. That explains why no one else can see the hypocrisy of paying people not to work and then complaining about the jobs report…

The “New World Order”

If a group of companies agreed to fix prices to prevent consumers from shopping for the best value, they’d be brought up on antitrust charges. But what about countries fixing their tax rates, specifically to prevent companies from seeking out the best value in countries (the most efficient government)? That’s OK, right?

Janet Yellen Proposes Bold Idea: The Same Minimum Corporate Tax Around The World

Sounds good, no? Then those evil capitalist companies wouldn’t be able to build inexpensive products in foreign lands, where the government overhead is lower and the workforce more productive. But how do you think this will affect your low-priced, foreign-sourced goods? That’s right – you’ll have to pay more for them. How does Yellen’s plan sound now?

Competition – between companies, cities, states, and even countries – is good; it drives resources and capital to where it can provide the most benefit. But lack of competition results in a monopoly, and the most dangerous kind of monopoly is one run by the state.

Be careful what you wish for; you might get exactly what you deserve.

For once, Bernie is correct

The average American is more interested in getting “free” money than having all voices considered in our legislative deliberations. But it only proves that the average American is stupid.

Sanders: Americans Care More About $1,400 Checks From Aid Plan Than Lack Of GOP Votes

I’ve said this before but it’s worth saying again (and again, and again…): the typical voter believes that someone else will be forced to eventually pick up the tab for these payments (and the associated pork-barrel spending). They believe that Sanders and Warren will eventually make good on their threat to tax the rich to pay for their socialist utopia (an oxymoron). But it won’t work, as the people will eventually discover. They’ll pay directly or via unintended consequences, but in the end they will pay.

There is no such thing as free money. Get used to it.

Finally, we agree

Although not as she might expect:

AOC says GOP minimum wage compromise is ‘legislated poverty’

Any attempt to set wages for labor based on edict rather than actual value simply won’t work. Jobs that are worth the legislated minimum will likely already be paid that wage due to market forces; jobs that are not worth the minimum wage will be exported to other labor markets, and those that can’t be exported will result in higher prices and thus lower demand. The net result will be reduced employment, literally legislating some into poverty.

Even the CBO agrees: 1.4 million jobs will be lost by increasing the minimum wage to $15/hr. However, the CBO also concludes that the number of people overall living in poverty will decrease by 900,000. But take a moment to ponder this a bit and you’ll see a dilemma not accounted for in the projections: while 900,000 will be moving from below the poverty line to above, 1.4 million people will go from below the poverty line all the way to zero. This disparate impact should not be ignored; just ask one of the 1.4 million people who will lose their jobs.

The solution to lifting people out of poverty in America is not an edict setting wages at a level greater than their value; this will only drive some further into poverty. Instead the solution is to actually increase the value of labor, for instance by education and training, such that wages increase naturally as a result.