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Culture, Economics, Education, Elections, Family, Governance, Immigration, Politics 2024, Representation, Taxation

THE PARTNERSHIP COVENANT

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Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States, Oil on Canvas, Howard Chandler Christy

There is a term that is never heard in modern discussions about governance and government and citizens and citizenship. People who care – and pundits who often do not – spend much breath on politicians and on certain policies, issues, fads and economic problems… but, none employs the term, PARTNERSHIP. It is worth our consideration.

Understanding the place of partnership in the American system requires our grasp of the Constitution and its original intent. The Constitution is a COVENANT, not a LAW, necessarily, but a sacred agreement between the people who ratify it – us, at every election – and the people to whom we have granted power to create and protect an orderly society. It’s a bargain… an agreement to treat people equally under the laws that are passed ON BEHALF OF THE CITIZENS, the private half of the covenant, and it is a set of boundaries to restrain the human tendencies of those blessed with political, legal power, the public half of the covenant, to protect the citizens and to sanction those who commit criminal acts.

This is all well and good, but it is not the real story of the formation of a Constitutional Republic. Why establish a nation, no matter how beautiful or philosophical? Is it because God instructed mankind to take dominion over the Earth, so why not this piece of it and why not our self-selected fraction of mankind? That’s too much hubris for any group.

No. The Constitution was created because people had already formed – and fought for – a nation and national identity called America. People had moved here and were moving here to create better lives in a basically Christian and capitalist format, and their society could neither protect itself or its members without an agreed set of rules and bounds, recognized from within and without. As the Declaration of Independence had proclaimed, upon separation from an unjust form of dominance, the right to “…assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them…” It is part of the Covenant that the existing population clearly proclaim its claim to certain territory AND the right to govern themselves as they see fit. A Covenant.

It seems Prudent to describe that covenant as a PARTNERSHIP. It is formed to protect the SUCCESS of the citizenry or, at the very least, to protect the opportunities to succeed for each citizen and family. Any government that ceases to “partner” and commences to “provide,” will shortly become tyrannical, for its “provider” attitude is based on a belief in the incompetence of its citizen-partners. It is a tiny slide from that attitude/altitude to believe that those at a “lower” altitude of competence will need rules to live by. This is not to say “rules” to avoid criminality, at least initially, but rules to govern daily, family and personal life. Almost abruptly, the sanctions for failing to follow rules governing one’s person, become new laws, the breech of which demand sanction as if criminal: a “police” state.

Lately, since, say, 1964, American politicians have concerned themselves more with countering or imposing incompetence-inspired “rules” for everyone’s life. Prudent contemplation shows this to be true. Combined with a relatively communistic takeover of education at all levels, the average intelligence, competence, maturity and self-reliance of Americans born since 1960 has plummeted. At the same time, as the administrative state has found reason to multiply the number of rules necessary to enable less competent citizens to survive, those who are more competent and politically connected have become wealthier and commercially controlling, often allying with government to impose even more rules on those of lesser economic standing… rules that political forces have been unable to impose. This is called Fascism, a slightly different-colored form of socialism, but still a police state

How refreshing it would be if a candidate for, well… ANY office, would introduce two rare policies into his or her campaign rhetoric and promises: clear, open honesty, and determination to render his or her future office as a tool for PARTNERING with citizens so that each might be more successful in life. Partnership and truth-telling. What remarkable promises to make, let alone fulfill.

How would a government-citizen partnership operate?

First, it would examine weaknesses in current systems, but that implies that it knows what the countervailing strengths ought to be. We could start with strong families.

There is no structure, program or law in the world, let alone in the United States, that is more effective in creation of “good” children and adults, than functional FAMILIES. At risk of offending a few, those are families with a married mother and father, who are able to provide for themselves and their children. Every threat to successful child-rearing is dramatically lessened in a married-couple environment. Sadly, our own governments, federal, state and county / municipal, are geared up and funded to encourage single-parent family units – the opposite of what actually works the best. We know this to be true in every single jurisdiction, yet we keep growing the socialist, administrative welfare state.

Should our “governors” choose to become partners in our success, the welfare state would be the first place to reform almost everything that comprises it.

The overarching question for any successful society as for any family: “How are the children?” – obviously connects with the state of education, public and private. A true partnership between citizens and government would dictate that government schools, at least, be employed to perform their primary educational mission, while reinforcing the desires and intentions of parents. Fighting with parents over alternate ways to raise children is a decided breech of that partnership covenant implied in the Constitution.

Economic freedom is the key social pillar of success in the modern economy. Partnership by a government granted its powers by the people, would imply that government would neither punish citizens through taxation nor destroy the value of the money they earn. Clearly, Washington and the 50 States’ governors have a long way to go to restore partnership in place of financial serfdom. Not only are those on welfare rendered financial serfs, but so are most taxpayers. On our behalf, our “representatives” and governors have contrived a debt greater than the economic output of the entire nation, soon to require payment of nearly ONE TRILLION DOLLARS in annual interest payment. No effort is underway to reduce that debt or to reduce the deficit spending that adds to it. This is a strange partnership.

Economic independence from the government and from welfare, should be the goal of the government in a Constitutional Republic. That is, the success of our Constitutional structure can be measured only by the reduction in dependence upon that government. A bloated, largely uncontrolled administrative state is the glowing example of FAILURE of our Constitutional system. The only reason it has survived as long as it has is its ability – shrinking ability – to coddle the population and businesses with borrowed “money” and comforts. Now that a roughly communistic presidency has been installed, the ability of the government to continue on this path is nearing its end. Both internal and external forces are gathering against the administrative / executive state. The partnership promised by representation is dissolving with every failure to budget the people’s money, and with every thousand-page “bill.” Soon the nation will be unable to afford to defend itself.

The FIRST job of partnership is to protect the citizenry, not the last.

A true partnership… which is to say, the truth of the Constitutional covenant, would be marked by partnering with every CITIZEN to facilitate his or her enjoyment of the RIGHTS guaranteed by the Constitution. Sadly, the federal and states’ governments are currently consumed with using the Constitution and tens of thousands of laws and rules to CONTROL the people rather than helping each succeed in life. “Expertly managed failure” is how our governors measure their success, not ours. Our success merits some form of punishment amidst a set of accusations and sanctions, even to the point of separating us from our own children. Soon, Americans will be looking for partnership with fellow citizens in order to return our Constitution to supremacy. Certainly the present government will not do so.

May God grant us the ability to accomplish restoration through elections, and the strength to prevail should they fail.

Economics, Education, Family, Race, Religion, Responsibility, Sex, Taxation

AMERICA – Article III

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A major factor in the success of the United States and its economic freedom (among other freedoms) is the honesty and relative strictness of its judiciary, both federal and State. The honesty of contracts at every level, including the contract between the American people and the federal government: the Constitution, relies increasingly upon the Supreme Court, the final arbiter.

Article III details the legal circumstances that require original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, which means that the supreme court is the first, and only Court, that can hear those cases and rule upon the issues in conflict. In all other cases – and there are hundreds – the Court must agree to accept an appeal from litigants who not only aren’t satisfied with the decision made, but who also believe there is a Constitutional issue involved in their conflicting claims. At least four Justices must agree to accept a case, and one of them is likely to write an opinion, if not THE opinion that will form the Court’s ruling. It takes time. When the majority opinion is delivered there usually is a dissenting opinion. Lawyers everywhere study both. Crucial interpretations of Constitutional issues will form arguments in other cases. Sometimes the issues raised in the dissenting, or minority opinion, will be refined to bolster other cases. The written words of the Supreme Court are critical to our success as a nation.

The Congress is given the power to establish inferior federal courts and charge them with certain authorities over types of crime or types of conflicts. There are courts for immigration matters, for example, or for tax issues, and several others. The country is divided into 12 “Circuits” and Justices often visit those Circuits. See https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/court-role-and-structure for a comprehensive view of federal court structure.

Leftism consistently challenges our Constitutional Republic. Socialism / Communism is inherently counter to the structure of morality and individual responsibility that is embodied in the Constitution. Freedom includes the freedom to fail, to try again and to make choices about how to advance in life. Forces of the left consistently attempt to tie individuals to government rules and regulations. This can be seen in attacks on religion and in unionized “public” education, itself. Little by little, leftist philosophies, even direct Marxism, like “minimum wage” laws, constantly distort our economy and increase dependence on government. These stresses generate social-issue conflicts that threaten domestic tranquility and even personal safety. This places immense public, if not mob pressure, on the Court and on individual Justices. Starting with Judge Robert Bork in 1987, the left – personified by Senator Ted Kennedy, an avowed socialist – has attacked and refused to compromise with “conservatism” in any form.

Leftist, or “Progressive” policies, inherently are on the attack against the premises and ideas expressed in the Constitution. The Supreme Court was and is charged with primary defense of the ideas underpinning the Constitution. Judge Bork represented a shift away from leftist activism on the Supreme Court. The retiring Justice, Lewis Powell had often been the swing vote on issues like abortion, tilting the Court to the left. Bork was a strict constructionist, unswayed by social pressures. To leftists like Kennedy, that threat of a shift away from the attack on original intent, was a threat so serious that the destruction of the reputation of an esteemed legal scholar like Bork, was well worth the effort. The attacks continue, as evidenced by the violent reaction to the reversal of Roe versus Wade in the “Dobbs” decision in 2022.

Among our “Unalienable rights” listed in the Declaration of Independence are “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Within them has developed a severe conflict, mainly due to the equality of status that women have acquired since the beginning of the United States. “Liberty” and “Happiness” both depend upon freedom of action by individuals. Pregnancy, uniquely, with its 9-month period of physical commitment and subsequent lifetime obligations, can interfere, unquestionably, with happiness and liberty of the pregnant woman. So far, we have not found a balance between the rights of the mother/parent, and those of the baby growing inside her.

Does the right to LIFE take precedence? Many think so. Do the rights of the mother take precedence? Many believe this is so. Mainly non-religious, non-Christian or anti-Christian persons, are pleased to take dominion over natural life, and grant women the absolute right to abort their child. Religious people tend to support the rights of the new life to be born and to thrive after birth. They are “pro-life.” Abortion absolutists have done their best to pervert the meaning of conception and of what a fetus actually is: a human baby, growing. Inevitably, this conflict landed in the Supreme Court. Sadly, Roe versus Wade resulted in more than 60 Million Americans being aborted, most of whom were growing inside women of color. It is a number that should give Anti-life believers some pause.

The Supreme Court makes mistakes. The “Dred Scott” decision is recognized as the worst of them, as Chief Justice Roger Taney attempted to undo several state and federal laws governing the status of slaves and even of any free negro citizen. Taney went so far as to declare the Missouri Compromise un-Constitutional and to state that the concept of “free soil” and freedom of slaves who resided there, was constitutionally unenforceable and need not be recognized by other territories or states. The decision helped to push the South to secession and proved to be recognized in its disregard among free states and territories. The 13th amendment made Taney’s decisions moot.

Another simpler, but still egregious decision was the “Kelo” decision: a 7-year battle over the “taking” of private property for public use, that was decided – many feel, wrongly – in 2005. The city of New London, Connecticut, decided that development of land next to a new Pfizer plant, would increase tax receipts to the city, and therefore qualified as a public good. Unfortunately, Suzette Kelo and her neighbors lived on that land, many on long-time homesteads, in perfectly acceptable, non-condemned homes. The city turned the land over to a new, semi-private development Commission along with the power of “eminent domain,” with which the Commission forced homeowners to sell their real estate. Tragically, The Supreme Court interpreted the “taking” clause in the 5th Amendment to include not only the clearly stated “public use,” like a school or water treatment plant, but for an amorphous “expected benefit” for the public, such as increased tax revenues might provide. In other words, amazingly, “public use” was interpreted to include “private use” if it raised more taxes than current landowners provided. Several States have amended their own laws to prevent exactly the premise of the Kelo decision.

The American public is right to challenge the Supreme Court and, through the Senate, to carefully examine the beliefs of nominees to the Supreme Court. As political conflicts, largely fomented by the Left, become more heated and hateful, the ability of Justices to ignore such matters becomes ever more difficult. It is more crucial than ever that the strength and intention of the Court must be to preserve the originating ideas and ideals of the Constitution, resisting all attempts, regardless of political heat, to drift, stumble or run-away from them.

Economics, Elections, Governance, Representation, Taxation

AMERICA – Article I

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Our Constitution has seven Articles, or “topic sections,” in a sense. The longest and most important, is the first. It describes the bi-cameral Congress. While both Senators and Representatives are members of Congress, we have customarily called Representatives, “Congressmen or Congresswomen;” Senators are Senators. However, members of both “Houses” are members of Congress. Congress OUGHT to be the most important of the three branches of government. It represents the people of the States (Representatives) and the States, themselves (Senators), at least that is the original design. That design has been weakened variously and repeatedly by those who don’t trust small-r “republicanism.” Those are they who proclaim that the United States is a “democracy,” which is intentionally NOT the basic covenant embodied in the Preamble or in the Constitution, itself.

Before we dig deeper into Article I, we must illuminate the problems inherent in “democracy.” Like many, you have probably been convinced to revere democracy when, in fact, it must be carefully constrained in order to serve the government proposed by the Constitution, a real vessel for reverence. Prudence would instruct that democracy is only a mechanism for selecting our representatives, the most crucial of the members of Congress.

Inevitably, the more power allowed to democracy, the more likely that the government will become authoritarian and no longer a partner with its citizens in their success. Democracy gains power from majority action, only. The majority rules in “a democracy.” There are no protections for minority interests. The intended partnership role of our government of the people, by the people and for the people, will quickly degrade to protection of the government and the governors, which we see now in 2023. What has this to do with democracy or the Senate?

The Senate was originally designed to represent the interests of the STATES, whose sovereignty in our FEDERATION, was paramount for many in the Convention and many in the country (and still should be). Every State had its interests and every Senator had reason to respect the will of his or her State’s legislature. In other words, Senators had to answer to a very small set of representatives of their State’s population. Those worthies ought to have had the needs of their States uppermost in their minds, and could not be ignored at the times of choosing their Senators. Senators were supposed to be responsible to their States’ interests.

The Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1913, a most dangerous period for our Republic and for republicanism. It changed the election of Senators to statewide popular voting – pure democracy with almost no accountability, in fact. Since then, the quality of Senators has declined significantly, on average. Democracy places more power in the hands of power and money “brokers,” as it were. Being accountable to everyone has meant being accountable to no one… no one, that is, except the leaders of the Senate and their control of their parties, and of sources of campaign funds.

Pure democracy also is subject to temporary, sometimes mob-like majority emotions. This was recognized in ancient Greece and is an even greater threat in the world of social media, 24–7 news media and widespread (planned) ignorance of reality and history. The mechanism of a Republic filters out those emotions. Citizens must choose the best among them to represent their interests TO the government; States would go through two stages of selection: first to their legislatures and Governors and then to their subsequent appointments of Senators. The Senate, with its longer terms, limited membership and fractional replacement, should be the more thoughtful and, dare we say, wise house of Congress. It’s design is intended to prevent emotional response and to be more accountable for its actions. Much of that “shock-absorber” function was thrown out with the switch to direct election in 1913. For shame.

Still, there are two houses of Congress and both must approve legislation, ostensibly a brake on foolish ideas. In the two-party fog of war, however, and the lack of limits on terms, it serves more effectively to stop good ideas. Abortion, for example can be hotly defended while balancing the budget is set aside. Worse, the Congress has, since the end of the Civil War, rushed to devolve its responsibilities and hand them to the (unelected and virtually un-fire-able) administrative state. About three-fourths of the federal “budget” is in the realm of entitlements or pensions, and “State-aid,” Federal dollars paid out to a thousand programs that States ostensibly control (or misapply). Those dollars twist the sovereignty of states and the thought processes of representatives and senators: No state should receive an unfair allotment of federal largesse. Federal dollars come as if by magic, with many of them being borrowed from the unbelievably distant future, sidestepping the responsibility of raising taxes to obtain them. Congress, both Houses, have “bought into” this sham. There is little statesmanship to point to among the whole number of them.

The most important power of the House of Representatives is to initiate any raising or, as virtually never happens, reducing of revenues. This includes raising taxes or changing tax rates. The Senate must concur, including amendments to bills, so they are nearly as involved in budgets as the House, including in terms of shucking responsibilities in favor of the administrative state.

Other powers of Congress include BORROWING against the full faith and credit of the United States; Coining money and regulating the value thereof; Set uniform rules of naturalization (for legal immigrants); to regulate commerce with other nations and among the several States; to promote the advancement of the sciences and protect invention and copyrights; to declare war including raising the Army and the Navy; to provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the laws of the United States, and to suppress Insurrections and repel invasions. Among other things.

The Congress is also charged with making laws necessary to effect Execution of the laws passed for operation of the Government and any agency or Department thereof. This last has proven to be the greatest threat to the “Blessings of Liberty” ordained in the Preamble. Hence the administrative and nearly perpetual state, busy passing regulations that are enforced as if at the status of enacted Law. For shame.

The discussion of Article I has, unfortunately, been mostly a rendition of what is failing in Congress and in the operations of Congress, and how far afield from the intentions of republican governance Congress has strayed. It is intensely advised, and Prudent, that Americans study Article I and reflect on history and the events of the past 30 years or so. Congress needs reconstruction as much as the South did in 1866, for it has engaged in insurrection against the Constitution, attempting to overthrow it by divesting Congress, itself, from its responsibilities. The United States is nearly $34 Trillion in debt.

[ See: https://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2020/09/27/knife-edge-election/ ]

Biden, Economics, Elections, Representation, Responsibility, Taxation

TRASH-TALKING INFLATION

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Most of what we hear on TV or radio about the big enemy: INFLATION, is only partially true, at best.  Defeating that enemy, which politicians claim to be doing for their constituents, is impossible if we fail, sometimes on purpose, to understand the nature of it.  Let’s examine the primary aspect, or feature, of Inflation: it is a tool of government, by which we mean, the federal government. 

This is not to say that government intends to raise prices on commodities and goods and labor, but then, prices rising is not the definition of inflation, which is why much of what is spewed about “inflation”… is disinformation.  Inflation represents only an increase in the money supply; along with the federal government’s sneaky mechanisms, there are only a couple of ways to expand the money supply, primarily banks, and banks can do so only because of federal regulations.  Oddly, foreign banks and governments can ALSO expand the money supply, increasing inflation of the supply of dollars, not of wealth.   When prices rise there are temporary bumps in wealth due to increased receipts and, often, fixed rates of interest on loans.  So, there is a spotty increase in prosperity, but not for everyone.  Inflation increases dollars, but each represents less wealth than it did even a few months, if not weeks earlier.

Only the federal government can “create” money.  The Constitution charges the Congress to “…coin money, (and) regulate the value thereof…”  In 1913 Congress shed that Constitutional responsibility – and authority – when it created the Federal Reserve Bank, which is a consortium of private banks with federally appointed “governors.”  Legally, “The Fed” can loan money it does not have, to the government – it’s a neat trick.  Of course, the Congress must approve expenditures and, when the government has no cash, it must approve borrowing  “… on the full faith and credit of the United States …” to enable those expenditures.  To LIMIT the degree of overspending, Congress created the ”Debt Ceiling” in 1917, streamlining the emission of bonds by the Treasury as World War I expenses mounted.  With various changes and accommodations since, Congress has largely permitted the federal government to borrow whatever it can justify politically.

Since the Johnson Administration and the federalization of welfare and healthcare, the “Debt Ceiling” has proven to be not much of a ceiling, or limit, at all.  As we approach $33 Trillion in federal debt, the debt ceiling has become merely a tool of negotiation, with the ultimate “threat” of “government shutdown.”  With millions of people now dependent upon government handouts, it’s possible for those on the left to raise huge public, political outcry against a “shutdown.”  All that conservatives can garner is some compromise on unrelated policies or spending changes, but never is there a reduction in spending or overall cut to the federal budget.  It’s always an increase.  The $33 Trillion is documented inflation.  It’s not static, and it is expensive.  When the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, the concept of interest costs to federal borrowing was supposed to keep borrowings small and temporary – that is, “paid back” to stop the interest costs.  Today, the cost of interest on the national debt is well over $800 Billion – approaching the defense budget(!).  The concept of limitation through interest obligations is out the window with the debt ‘ceiling.’  Our “representatives” have shown over many decades that they cannot be trusted with OUR money.  How does inflating the money supply serve the interests of government?

On any given morning the value of all the dollars in the world is whatever it is.  Let’s call it ONE (1).  “Da Gummint” comes up with some cockamami plan to save the planet or forgive student loans or flood the country with 7 Million new welfare recipients… just saying.  With the federal budget already overspent by 30% or so (financed by earlier borrowing) the president’s party dutifully files legislation to make everyone’s life better while enrichening donors to their party.  It requires a new loan to enable the new magnanimity and, since all the loaned money (and tax receipts) authorized so far has been allocated, the “debt ceiling” must be raised.  Eventually it is and a new $500 Billion or so is authorized and the loan made.  The government spends the new dollars at a value of “1,” and target recipients do as well.  Congress-people brag to their constituents about the wonderful benefits and bacon they’ve delivered.

Some of the money is used to pay current federal expenses of various kinds, including entitlements, and some goes to pay interest on this and earlier debts, now approaching THIRTY-THREE TRILLION DOLLARS, with an “F.” But, you ask, how does that cause the price of eggs to go up?  Simply put, increased “prosperity” in consumers’ / buyers’ hands and bank accounts, puts stress on the marketplace: supply and demand.  At first, sellers are happy – more people want more of what they sell, and… every seller is also a buyer.

Demand for eggs goes up as more people feel they can afford eggs, but, more significantly, large baking companies demand more eggs than a month ago because stores are selling more of their higher-priced goods.  Egg producers need to expand production but it takes a while to do so.  Large buyers bid up the price of eggs because they are determined to produce more crème-filled pastries to meet demand, and producers will accommodate their largest customers.  Eggs go up in price for domestic buyers, too.  Soon, a new equilibrium is attained and eggs stop rising in price from their new baseline, market price, but buyers of all kinds of things are spending dollars at a value of, say, .93, not 1.

Two hundred-million buying decisions, or more, are made every day based on relative values to buyer and seller.  Prices are “driven” up as if every seller wants to be a more expensive supplier, but, in fact, most don’t: most want their value to appear higher to attract the next buyers’ ‘buy’ decision.  But the seller’s “cost of eggs” has increased and he must pay the rent from his sales; he raises his prices, usually reluctantly.  Everywhere you turn some “news” outlet is decrying “rising inflation,” when what they are talking about is “rising prices,” usually the CPI or Consumer Price Index.  If there weren’t simultaneous DE-flationary forces at work, we’d be in real trouble.

Okay, then, what is a deflationary force?  First and foremost, rising prices!  It’s a sloppy, effective and painful way to absorb the extra cash created by inflation (of the money supply.)  Government-generated inflation is done so without any connection to increased production or wealth; worse, it has no mechanism for debt destruction.  Private, or economic inflation is tied to improved production, greater efficiency and, usually LOWER prices overall, another, positive, deflationary force: increased productivity and wealth.  When “The Fed” sets ever-higher interest rates to “combat inflation,” it doesn’t put any meaningful brakes on government-generated inflation, but it does screw up economic inflation.

“Real” companies borrow money from banks when they are certain that a bigger plant, new production equipment, new delivery vehicles or better computerization, for examples, will enable the company to produce more for less, or at higher quality, or with such marked improvement that it opens new markets, or with such improved efficiency that waste is reduced and costs per unit are lowered.  The loans involved come from banks that operate, by federal regulation, on the basis of fractional reserves.  This, essentially, allows banks to lend out about SIX TIMES more than what they hold in reserves.  That is, about 86% of outstanding loans are comprised of… wait for it: AIR.  Every commercial or real-estate loan is mostly air.  But!  It’s generally fine.  Why?

“Real” loans are made to people or businesses that have the credit-worthiness that predicts the “destruction” of that new debt.  Those are what banks call “performing loans.”  Depending on the nature of the loans and the financial standing of the bank, itself, “performing loans” are counted among “assets” of the bank and fractional reserve rules can apply to them, too!  Simply stated, bank loans inflate the money supply.  But it’s not like government / Federal Reserve inflation; “real” loans include mechanisms for 1)debt destruction; 2)increased WEALTH; 3)increased productivity and economic activity; 4)rewards for smart economic risk and honest, legal, work and growth.  Smart, conservative banking is essential to healthy inflation.

The federal “system” of over-spending, over-borrowing and aversion to intelligent economics, is essential to economic weakness and political mendacity.  See the difference?

It is necessary to introduce capital – and cash – into the economy.  It’s called “liquidity.”  There has to be enough money to borrow and enough to spend, but how much?  Is there some federal agency or department that would ever add new liquidity in the right amounts and the right places?  Absolutely not!  Neither now or ever.  Free enterprise capitalism pretty-much automatically introduces enough liquidity to enable growth, PROVIDED that the government isn’t competing with its citizens to do ever-larger fractions of the spending – and borrowing – in the economy, AND that conditions are not made politically acceptable for monopolies to form and distort markets, which is where we are, now.

The FED sets rules for banks, including what the fractional reserve rate is, and what the overnight interbank lending rate of interest is.  They can chill a “too active” economy almost overnight.  Income-Tax policies can interfere with even small investment decisions.  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can skew the quality of the mortgage market whenever politicians decide it’s time to buy votes from certain “underserved” demographics.  That is, the government can skew normal buy-sell decision-making, hurting most while “helping” some.

Capitalism needs regulation; it’s human nature to get the most for the least if possible.  Honesty should be enforced; integrity should be enforced; quality and purity should be enforced; contracts should be clear and honest, particularly in employment, one of the areas where politicians (most of whom are economic idiots) like to meddle for votes.  Our public servants are failing to act as partners in the success, safety and comfort of citizens, which means conditions of honesty across all contracts, short and long, and across all elected and appointed offices.  Otherwise, they act as the least trustworthy manipulators of the lives of citizens for the gain of… politicians and government.

Our economy – the actions of daily life, growth and advancement – has been turned into a competition with government to survive.  We haven’t even discussed the credit-card “vig” we all must pay, now, to banking consortiums, nor the legalization of drugs.  Surely ours is a form of “Democratcy” that we should export to other countries… God forbid.

Biden, Climate, Crime, Culture, Economics, Elections, Family, Foreign Policy, Health Care, Immigration, Obama, Politics 2023, Religion, Taxation

VOTE PRUDENTLY

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What on Earth

Prudence wonders about whether America will resolve to solve its problems – actually stop nonsensical policies – reduce federal spending – let men be men and honor the majesty of motherhood… stuff like that.  Questions abound.  Why don’t we have a secure, tightly regulated border, all around?  That’s one to which there doesn’t seem to be a good answer.

Why have we allowed about 7 MILLION illegal entrants over the past 3 years – unexamined adults and children, with unknown backgrounds and unknown useful skills – to pour into our country IN CONCERT with criminal drug and trafficking cartels?  How do we propose to house them in a nation where housing costs are the highest in the world?  How will we educate them in schools that are becoming a black mark on our society, in how many languages, at costs per student that are the highest in the world with the lowest quality of education results?  What sort of a plan is there?  Looks like there isn’t one.

How can a country that is 33 Trillion dollars in debt invite multiple millions of illegal migrants onto our welfare rolls?  No good answer – or reason – here, either.

Americans are wondering – or should be wondering – how it is that our military is being reduced precisely when China’s military, especially their navy, is being increased at its fastest rate ever?  Why are our soldiers, airmen and sailors being weakened by critical race and gender theories as Russia, China and Iran are growing as direct threats to the United States and our allies?  For that matter, why weren’t the military leaders who engineered the stupid and dangerous abandonment of Afghanistan, fired and forced to answer for their stupidity and the preventable deaths of service members at Courts Martial?

Here’s a crucial, life-or-death question for Americans: Why did President Obama and, now, Joe Biden, fight so hard to help Iran become a nuclear power?  Keep thinking…

How can the once-best medical system in the world allow itself to be compromised by a federal government agency that is financially beholden to pharmaceutical companies, to the point of dictating treatments and even outlawing viable treatment options(!)?  How can that medical system allow licensed doctors, many who are recognized researchers, lose their licenses and positions – including having their research suppressed?  How could it?

How could so many tens… no, hundreds of thousands of needless deaths of Americans be permitted, even forced, by the rotten collusions indicated above?  How can we ignore the thousands of “sudden adult deaths” occurring among young, healthy recipients of mRNA injections?  Why are those same being pushed down to 5-year-olds?  Have we lost our minds?

We seem to have lost “America.”  To some, the “some” that wish to eliminate America from the future, there is no good in any part of the United States because of slavery, a practice our nation sacrificed horrifically to end.  The promise of freedom and individual sovereignty for which we also fought and sacrificed – a promise made to all who descended from our founding and which is enjoyed by all who wish to destroy America, now, is a promise based upon Christian sacrifice and faith in God.   There is nothing coincidental that those same wish to destroy Christianity as they tear down America.  When did we lose our courage to defend both?

Rubbing raw the memories of slavery is a process very similar to climate fear-mongering.  The abiding purpose of both movements is never solution or even resolution of those supposedly existential threats to humanity: it is only to empower centralized, political control of humanity and its various nations and economies.  Where is the American Constitution in all of this?

Lately we have taken to defunding police departments where they are MOST needed, in cities where crime has been the worst, and where normal people and commerce are being threatened to the greatest degree.  There must be a good reason to do this in the minds and hearts of those who control those funds.  Prudence cannot discern what it might be… unless, and it’s becoming less and less of a long-shot, those who advocate and promulgate those anti-police policies, are actively trying to destroy America, too.  Evidently, they believe that the hollowing out of American cities – turning them into crime-ridden enclaves, will weaken America’s ability to defend itself when the final push to turn America communist, arrives.

The economic stress of “losing” the cities will also hasten the downfall of the nation.  Cities are the engine of growth and strength; they are always attacked in war.  George Soros and, now, his son, Alexander, have targeted American cities for collapse by financing District Attorneys who are radically opposed to bail, prosecution and incarceration of criminals.  Capitalizing on the unfortunate death (not a murder, more a suicide) of George Floyd, Soros and other anti-American types in the Democrat party, fed so-called protests that mingled with brutal, destructive riots and demanded the end of policing as we knew it in cities.  Some purpose is being served by what seems completely stupid.

The United States, Canada and Mexico sit atop the richest sources of carbon-based fuels on earth.  With the right economics and politics, North America (and South America for similar reasons) could be energy-independent and wealthy, industrialized and CLEAN.  Unfortunately, Mexico is nearly controlled by criminal cartels, Canada has slid into globalist socialism, and the U. S. has fallen sway to anti-scientific “climate-change” hogwash that leads us to sacrifice both freedom and wealth – and global influence – as well as our national sovereignty.  For unfounded reasons, we can’t use the energy we own; we must buy it from hostile countries that obtain it less cleanly than we do, and ship it by the millions of tons in dirty ships.  This dumb idea makes sense to a fringe element that benefits from battery-powered vehicles, solar panels and windmills.  As with other, numerous life-changing trends and forces at work within the federal administrative state, government falsehoods are actively diverting our nation from its history and heritage.  Why do we allow this?

Lithium-ion batteries, mostly controlled by China in terms of materials and manufacture, are being forced upon a public that doesn’t want them.  Why?  Because the government-types believe we need to want them.  They don’t work well and they are toxic and dangerously combustible.  This is all to reduce “carbon,” one of the key building-blocks of life on earth.  There is a belief – an ideology – that claims that carbon-dioxide, the major product of breathing, is capable of such a massive “greenhouse effect” that it will destroy life on this planet, including raising sea levels 20 feet or more.  People motivated by their faith in this concept are unable to consider that it is probably incorrect… and they are noisier than most of us, gaining political sway.  They are forcing the switch away from our extraordinarily efficient gasoline-fueled vehicles and from the freedoms they enable.  So, we are being forced – not encouraged, FORCED – to switch to less capable and less safe modes of transportation that cost more to operate… when they do operate.  They do have slick electronics, but they are relatively useless except in very limited applications.  Why do we, the People, permit our government to batter(y) us?

Our so-called Representatives have divested the Congress of most of its responsibilities.  Article I, section 8 of the Constitution, among other financial responsibilities of the Congress, states that “the Congress shall have the power… To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures; …”  Yet the same band of worthies created the Federal Reserve in 1913 and, in stages, slipped the “Fed” into a position of financing unlimited debts on the credit of the United States.  Despite its supposed purpose of managing liquidity among banks and preventing financial crises, the Fed enables politicians to make economic promises that they generally do not understand the consequences of, knowing that there is unlimited funding available by “borrowing” from the Federal Reserve.  The Treasury issues U. S. “bonds” of various maturities and the Fed “buys” them with money it doesn’t actually have.  What could go wrong?  Socialism… socialism devolving into communism… that’s what could and is going wrong.  Why are the inheritors of the world’s greatest political and economic system allowing their nation to be stolen by socialist enemies… from inside?

The next set of presidential elections in 2024, may be our last opportunity to reverse at least SOME of the stupidity we have been borrowing for since 1963.  It will be Prudent for Americans to reaffirm their Americanism rather than their adherence to any party, and vote accordingly, and not by mail – DON’T VOTE BY MAIL!  It’s too easy to steal your vote or negate it.  Show up and vote… for America.

Biden, Culture, Economics, Education, Elections, Governance, Politics 2022, Taxation, Transportation

CLIMATE, WHETHER OR NOT

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The Green New Deal has become a means of theft: elites taking freedom and independence, and possibly life, itself, away from the middle and lower classes.  “Oh! No!” you say, “Surely you are misinterpreting the existential threat of climate change and their intense efforts to save the planet.”  Well, no, actually I’m trying to balance reality with what we’re being told.

Many hundreds of statements and declarations are made on a weekly, monthly, annual basis – certainly on every hot day, cold day, dry day or wet day, that “climate change” is wreaking havoc on the planet and on the poor and downtrodden, minorities and LGBTQ+ “communities” worst of all.  It’s all the fault of you smug suburbanites and your SUVs spewing that awful carbon dioxide… and the cow farts you cause by eating burgers made from meat and not insects.  Don’t forget your air conditioners and outdoor grills – all hastening our extinction.

This would be such a nice planet to live on if it weren’t for all you… well… people for goodness’ sakes.  (Can’t say ‘God’s sake.’)

Actually, if it were not for the constant tilt of most media outlets, the condition of the earth and its climate could be discussed and better known by young and old, alike.  We are just coming to the end of a very hot summer.  There were drought conditions in many countries.  We will soon be inundated with claims of the planet having a “fever” and “the earth is on fire,” and similar declarations.  So far, we haven’t suffered a hurricane coming ashore to the United States; as soon as one does, we’ll be told there are more -and stronger – storms because of our driving “fossil-fueled cars” and resisting buying non-polluting “electric vehicles,” EV’s.  If we have a severely snowy winter with lots of cold, cold days, they’ll all be our fault, too.

There is some supposed perfect average global temperature… one we like.  It is impossible to define the “ideal” climate, the ideal temperature, the ideal amount of ice at the poles, the ideal amount of cloud-cover or precipitation… or the ideal anything else.  What does seem easy to idealize is the right population the earth should hold and support, and it is a Hell of a lot smaller than the population we have, today.  Various oligarchs, like Bill Gates and others, think the world is overpopulated by 5 BILLION people, or even more.  It’s going to take substantial new rates of sterility and deaths to achieve the “ideal.”  What an achievement that will be.

Around the planet ice is melting… from the poles (supposedly), Greenland, various glaciers and so forth.  This causes terrible worries.  Oddly, they’re more terrible for leftists in the West, than for conservatives.  They don’t make a damned bit of difference to leftists in Russia, China, India and elsewhere, or to Islamists, who are happy with any number of earthlings as long as they’re all Muslims – the right kind of Muslims.

It’s rather comforting that the climate is changing, whether warming or cooling at any time: the climate has been changing for hundreds of millions of years – maybe billions of years… as long as we’ve had an atmosphere.  No one would want to be here on the day the climate STOPS changing.  For most people, “climate change” translates as “global warming.”  We can see videos of running water on Greenland and shrinking glaciers in the mountains.  Definitely, it’s warming.  Then we have a summer like 2022’s and we are convinced of the imminent danger of the seas rising and a hurricane toppling our houses.  Look what happened to New Orleans, for Pete’s sake.  Maybe if they’d all had electric cars in 2005, the people who wasted the federal moneys for strengthening the dikes around the ninth ward might have gone to jail.

It’s hard to predict the future, and that’s the only kind of predicting there is.  There is a form of false, God-save-us-if-this-happens sort of prognosticating, though, that is employed stridently by “Climate Campaigners.”  It’s always negative.  People who worry about and inveigh about the climate, are certain that change means some form of doom.  They never seem to make any predictions of benefit from “climate change.”  It’s always an imminent disaster, and it’s always our fault, meaning that we have to make drastic changes to avert certain death in as few as 10 or 12 years.

The premise of prediction is history.  Recorded history of what people have done, or which volcanoes blew up or geologic evidence of mile-thick ice sheets that created the Great Lakes and the like, as well as records of various past weather trends and climatological periods, provide a basis from which inferences are drawn and, in very grave tones, predictions are made about the future of climate and weather over the next hundred years or so.  It’s all very scientific, except it’s impossible to replicate the conditions to see if the same effects take place, so climatologists are unable, actually, to apply the scientific method to historic evidence and add to the evidence of the first “experiment,” seeking correlation.

Atmospheric scientists have gained great knowledge and reasonable predictive power of weather deriving from worldwide patterns like El Niño, although little has been said about movements of the magnetic poles, for example, and the focus of charged particles changing cloud formation patterns.  The availability of satellite data, global photography and thousands of measurements daily and hourly, have given meteorologists perhaps too much confidence in prediction, and this has seeped in to the self-esteem of climatologists, too.

Whether from ice cores or dendrochronology (tree rings), climatologists can paint what they feel is an accurate picture of what the climate has been for hundreds, if not thousands of years.  Things become more sketchy when they try to make inferences as to WHY they were the way they were.  Bias, or belief, can sway even the best scientists’ theories of cause and effect.  It’s something “science” ostensibly guards against and works against no matter the line or field of inquiry.  Replicating experiments and finding the same or similar results – and publishing those results for other scientists to review and try to replicate or prove wrong, is how science makes real progress towards understanding.

It is not possible to replicate the past; it’s not possible to mimic all the conditions, both on the earth and impacting the earth hundreds or thousands of years ago.  But there is great pressure, whether personal or from the all-important funding sources (grants) for a direct correlation to be discerned… cause and effect.  Why?  Because the reason the study of the past is being funded is often because of beliefs about today’s climate and weather, and that there is a way that humans and their bold politicians can avoid the conditions of the past.  A little humidity – if not humility – is called for.

Politicians and the scientists they fund, have an overriding belief that we humans can modify the climate to keep weather as pleasant as we like, the oceans at the depths they currently are, the glaciers as big as they are if not bigger, and polar bears in their favorite conditions, too.  Underlying this presumption is a belief that we humans have caused changes in the climate to begin with.  Otherwise, we are powerless to undo the damage it is believed we have done!  So, to start with, let’s agree that humans HAVE altered the climate somewhat, and not just around cities.

Cities form “heat islands” with huge blocks of real and manufactured stone, steel and asphalt absorbing more sunlight than the natural environment they replaced.  But huge, multi-square-mile farms also modify natural environments, also changing sunlight absorption, requiring and transpiring huge volumes of water – water that is artificially moved away from its natural location(s).  Are either of these commonplace alterations of the natural environment changing climate?  Somewhat, but how much?  It is very hard to quantify or even describe.  That is, we know the CAUSES we’re concerned about, but we cannot, despite many claims, actually pin down the EFFECTS of these two causes.  Certainly there are some, but what should people be forced to stop doing in order to offset those effects?  We don’t really know, but there is a strong political pressure to force people to stop doing something because of some politicians’ FEARS.  Indeed, one of their biggest fears is of doing nothing or, worse, of failing to force other people to stop doing something.

The urge to do something and to force others to do something comes, deep down, from a belief that a wise-enough human, especially from the leftist persuasion, can control almost anything, including populations, countries and planets.  To a great degree, these same authoritarians will automatically adopt any tool or method to control those who aren’t in agreement with them, especially people whose faith tends toward religious origins rather than government ones.  Soon, the authoritarians commence to blaming those who don’t agree with their beliefs, for the problems they believe they, the ‘wise,’ are destined to solve.  Any contrary data, facts or “science” non-leftists discover, are automatically denigrated and their proponents are labeled “deniers,” as an attempt to more firmly cement the immutable truth of what leftists believe.  It becomes difficult to discuss or debate ideas in that environment.

Because CO2 is generated by so many human activities and machines, not least of which is electricity generation, and because climatologists have observed wide fluctuations in the apparent concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere over millennia from all those ice cores and tree rings, there has grown up a set of beliefs about the correlation of temperatures at different points in time and CO2.  We can summarize this fear quite easily: More CO2 than the magical percentage is BAD; less CO2 than the magical percentage is GOOD.  Sometimes the rise in CO2 concentration precedes a warming period, sometimes it follows, but there is definitely, we’re almost certain… in fact, we’re so close to certain that it’s time to pass laws that we think will reduce the amount of CO2 that enters the atmosphere so that the average temperature of the entire planet’s biosphere can be controlled.

Whether these temperature fluctuations are caused by carbon-dioxide or not is unproven and unprovable.  But, it is definitely believed by many.  Of course, CO2 is essential for life and good for vegetation in particular, from which our food derives: farms and crops and things.  So we wouldn’t want to interfere too much, would we?  How much is too much?  It’s impossible to say, but less than we’re making now, we’re quite certain.

CO2, methane, nitrous oxide and water vapor are the primary “greenhouse gases.”  They’re all natural.  Many chlorinated and fluorinated gases that we manufacture also have the effect of “trapping” solar energy.  Fortunately, they are much smaller fractions of the atmosphere, although not as small a fraction as the dreaded CO2.  [See http://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2017/07/20/a-home-on-the-beach/ ]

It’s common to see descriptions of human contributions to total greenhouse gases based on what percent of our (American) contribution is CO2.  This makes it look like CO2 is a gigantic problem and the U. S. contributes over 70% of it!  Ye Gods!  Stop breathing!  On the other hand, it is very reassuring that over 70% of what we contribute is CO2 and not methane or manufactured gases.  Methane is natural gas, basically, and the product of bacterial action on organic materials, like food we eat or grasses and grains that cattle, deer, antelope, bears and squirrels eat, among other living things.  Those gases escape, both intentionally and accidentally.  As far as we know, animal escapes are all accidental.  Still, methane is a greenhouse gas, the concentration of which also should be reduced, according to the magical percentage theory of global management.  This has led to calls to reduce cattle herds and, less publicized, to reduce human herds, too.  Ye Gods, again!

Those who are deeply committed to the magical percentages of greenhouse gases theory, are equally committed to blaming their fellow humans for every weather event that is less than perfectly comfortable for everyone from the Amazon watershed to the arctic tundra.  Everything is now our fault.  It has become a great tool for forcing people to accept authoritarian government as it lovingly struggles to avert the imminent climate catastrophe.  A “climate crisis” is declared repeatedly.  Taxpayers and anyone who wants the United States to survive and prosper, should have justifiable concern about any use of “crisis” in relation to items of government interest.  The designation is uniformly employed to justify borrowing from future generations to create politically advantageous spending, now.  There’s a $31 TRILLION liability on our balance sheet that demonstrates the effectiveness of this spending strategy.  Thus it is that “climate change” has become “climate crisis,” a political tool, and not just for the U. S.  Climate is global, and through the World Economic Forum [See http://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2022/04/16/where-the-globalists-struck-first/ ] it is politically valuable to globalists and other socialists.  There is no reason to trust them.

The W.E.F. has determined that nitrogen-based chemicals, like most fertilizers, must be curtailed in order to save the planet.  You can see the conflict: humans eat the products of fertilized crops.  We like to eat meat, too, often simultaneously, and the animals that provide it also contribute to nitrogen chemicals resulting from bodily functions.  It is what it is.  The globalist solution?  Less eating!  Unfortunately, many governments pay attention to the blatherous emanations of the W.E.F., and adjust policies to fit.  You can read of the effects of this nonsense in the Netherlands, where farmers are in serious protest, or in Sri Lanka where people are starving.  Oddly, the same people who want to mandate the mRNA “vaccines” are they who want to limit food supplies to avoid climate change.  Are the two efforts connected in purpose?  Population reduction?  Certainly, in terms of the net effects of the Covid-19 “vaccines,” population reduction appears to be the biggest net effect.  The spike in non-Covid deaths among the healthiest demographic (ages 25 to 64) in the U. S., Canada and the U. K., is continuing.  The victims are vaccinated against Covid.

It seems intensely Prudent to be intensely skeptical of the unsubstantiated claims of Climate believers. 

We should consider the benefits of warming and the ancillary costs of attempting “carbon neutral” or, worse, “zero carbon” by any date-certain.  All the public statements about “climate change” fit under one heading: “The sky is falling!!” Note the dual exclamation points!  Once the rabid claims are sorted out – and the overblown statistics corrected-for – the best projection for the extent of warming is 2 to 3 degrees Fahrenheit by year 2100.  What are the upsides?

One is longer growing seasons for the crops that sustain the world’s population.  This can also translate to requiring less fertilization and more fallow periods for fields, enabling natural processes to enrich the soil between crops.  There will be more arable land, now covered by ice.  Some may think this is a tragedy, but those who live near the ice are glad to see it go.  Earth’s current weather patterns will change.  This may mean more rain in lots of areas.  Deserts that have evidence of past wet periods might return to that condition, improving opportunities for many peoples to feed themselves and spend less time on subsistence, leaving more time to develop their societies and, perhaps, correct their crappy politics and improve millions of people’s lives and futures.

Less energy will be expended heating homes and other buildings; less fuel expended clearing snow.  Meanwhile, should we manage to avoid or stifle the warlike designs of globalists and Communists, the invention and innovation of free, well-nourished people will be making at least as much progress in engineering and science as we’ve made in the past 80 years.  Our economies will cost less in energy density, transportation will be logarithmically more efficient.  People who are bound by ideologies that condemn half the population, and who are willing to twist “science” for political advantage, cannot conceive of humans creating solutions to the problems that serve one political ideology today: leftist authoritarianism.

In short, there are more reasons to hope for the future than to fear it.  If we have the wisdom to restore freedom as our flame of purpose, there is nothing to fear.  Biden and his ilk will be gone.  Education will be dramatically decentralized and made honest and non-ideological.  Freedom, Hope and Genuine Progress: bring it on!

Biden, Economics, Elections, Family, Foreign Policy, Health Care, Politics 2022, Representation, Taxation

THE INFLATION CHRONICLES

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The Biden “administration” has done everything it could in 19 months to destroy the trajectory of the U. S. economy, and, possibly, U. S. permanence.  Above all, everyone is either helped or hurt by the big “bugaboo,” inflation.  Economists, pundits, commenters and news-readers galore, all have wise-sounding opinions, yet no one seems to know what inflation IS!

It seems Prudent to assume that some of them do, but the average person listening to any such is not going to find it out.  To a mouth, all say in so many, many words, that “inflation” is prices increasing.  Well, no it isn’t.  Inflation is inflation of the money “supply.”  And that isn’t even accurate; it’s inflation of available cash OR CAPITAL that is “liquid,” or lendable.  Capitalism and “inflation” go hand-in-hand to create prosperity for most people.

“Wait just a minute,” you’re thinking, “Inflation makes prices go up, and that’s bad, so it’s not helping MY prosperity.”  Actually, it has helped it – look at the riches and bounty we enjoy.  It’s a two-edged sword… like fire.  It can cook our food, keep us warm, run our engines or… burn the house down.  The key is keeping inflation where it runs the engine without burning down the house.  So, where does this wonderful inflation come from?

The simple answer is debt.  Our economy – even your personal economy – operates on a “futures” basis.  If you own your home you probably have a mortgage on it, which is a long-term debt, well into the future.  One of the quirks in our economy is that banks can legally loan out more “money” than they actually have on deposit.  It’s called “fractional reserve,” and it is about 14%.  In other words, among all the stored “savings” deposits and “performing loans” and temporary deposits, the “Bank” has an average number of dollars “in reserve,” at any given time.  If it amounts to a million dollars, our laws allow the bank to lend out up to $7 Million, round numbers, of which 6/7ths is, fundamentally, air.  So long as the honesty and ability to repay of most borrowers are intact, this is a safe system and the recipient of the check for the house you bought, accepts the dollars that were created to write it, as well as if he saw them peeled from a big fat roll of $100-dollar bills.

If the seller of the house also dealt with the same bank, his or her new deposit of, say, $400 thousand will, for a while, increase the average “reserve” the bank can lend seven times as much of.

Anyway, you commit to paying your mortgage for 20 or 30 years because the pain of losing your home is worse than the pain of making the payments.  Besides, you have a job, you’re productive, you’re helping to create profits somewhere – productive surplus, if you will.  It is reasonable that you will keep your promise to pay.  You have made your work valuable enough to produce some “productive surplus” for your own family.

Try to imagine where the construction industry and millions of jobs would be if there were no such thing as mortgages or construction loans.  But, if you’re worried about inflation, look at what you just did: you caused the inflation of the money supply by about $340,000!  Depending on the “velocity” of that money (through the economy), possibly even more than that.  But!  It’s OK.  You’re going to pay it down – or “back” – to the bank.  Owning that house will cause you to buy a bunch of other stuff that increases production (let’s hope, inside the U. S.), as well as future repairs and upgrades, and it will enable you to raise your children to become productive, too.

Transactions like these happen thousands of times a day, whether for homes, or cars, or work vehicles, trailer trucks and on and on.  Every loan creates some inflation, but not more than the “economy” will absorb, or, we might say, not more than the economy needs.

In the process of economic activity, wages, sales and so forth, governments collect taxes.  That is, BECAUSE THERE IS PRODUCTIVE SURPLUS in our economic activity, “we” can afford to pay taxes for those services and public works that individuals cannot provide for themselves.  Among these are public school facilities, police departments, fire departments, all the bureaucrats who are there to help US, the military, highway and roadway constructions, sewage treatment, water works and sewers, themselves.  All that stuff is paid for from productive surplus.  If kept in a rough balance, it all works together amazingly well as more people become productive and relatively financially independent, and benefiting in safety and economy from our shared public works.

How does it get out of balance?  Put most simply, if the money supply grows with no commensurate increase in production or productivity.  Take the example we’ve experienced recently where governments, based on perceived, raw, political advantage, decree that the “minimum wage” shall be $15.00 per hour.  A kid stuck at the fry station in a McDonald’s, making French fries for as many customers as desire some, gets a sudden, say, 20% pay increase.  He or she cannot fry more potatoes than before the raise, there are only so many orders for fries in a given day.  The added pay does not enable the fry-kid to encourage more people to buy fries than they used to buy before the change in pay.  Do you think the individual cost of an order of fries is going up?  Of course.  Or, is it possible that customers might wait a little longer to get their fries – and their whole orders, when it’s busier?  Perhaps the restaurant owner can’t afford to put two kids at the fry station in busy periods, now that the pay has increased arbitrarily.  The customer pays – or suffers – for this arbitrary work rule.

So, French fries go up in price, but is that “inflation?”  Well, no, obviously.  It’s an imposed change to the “CGS,” or Cost of Goods Sold.  How would inflation cause the price of French fries to go up?

Suppose that in a certain marketplace: your town, for example, there are both a lot of disposable income – free cash, as it were – and a limited supply of frozen French fries.  Potatoes are neither grown nor processed locally; they are transported some distance to the restaurants that want them in your town.  People in your town are in the habit of ordering fries with their burgers and sub sandwiches and business in fries is brisk.

Because the supply of spendable cash has been inflated (increased), people who might have held off adding fries to their sandwich orders, have started to order them more frequently, yet the total volume of fries coming from the processors can’t increase for quite a while, as the extra cash in everyone’s pocket makes it possible to afford the fries in other towns, as well, and the price of fries appears to be a bargain where they used to be a bit of a luxury.

Restaurants are finding that they’re “selling out” of fries and seeing customers go to another restaurant that still has some.  The owners get on the phone to order more fries but there aren’t any extra to be had.  Very quickly busier restaurants will offer a premium price to the distributor to get an extra case of frozen fries every day.  Realizing the nature of the increased demand, the distributor makes a deal with a potato processor who guarantees additional frozen fries, but at a higher wholesale price, too.

Pretty soon, the French fry supply problem is solved and people in your town can obtain all the fries they want, although each order costs a little more.  Lo, and Behold!  Inflation of the money supply changed demand patterns in the French fry marketplace.  This example is too simple, but also real.  During the engineered Covid crisis, the federal government wrote checks to millions of people that it/they, the federal, state and municipal governments had thrown out of work… billions and billions of dollars’ worth, but they were from accounts that had no actual – although highly hoped-for-future – money in them!  The checks were written from AIR.  Worse, they were doled out without regard to increasing productivity or other economic growth.  No new crops were planted, tended or harvested; no new mines were opened and their valuable minerals retrieved; no new inventions were spurred causing new manufacturing to commence.  But people accepted the ‘air-checks’ and spent them like money.  The money supply increased by over a Trillion Dollars while the supply of goods to be purchased actually went DOWN!

Prices started to go up until states started to re-open their businesses and let people go back to work.  The economy was roaring back when Biden was shoveled into office.  He promptly signed another Trillion-dollar “Covid Relief” bill that was no longer needed, indeed it extended payments to not work, and inflation really started shooting up.  The money supply – more air, but who’s counting – was now completely untethered from productivity, production or quantities of goods for sale.  In addition, there was an even larger incentive to not work.  The Consumer Price Index (CPI) started to take off in a serious way.

Because of “petro-dollars,” a sweetheart deal we made with Saudi Arabia (and, therefore, OPEC) when Nixon closed the gold window in the early ‘70’s, our federal spenders have developed a habit of calling everything a “crisis.”  It doesn’t have to be a war, a disaster, a plague… just a problem – like getting re-elected.  And, since there is (almost always) a terrible crisis, they can justify borrowing to resolve it.  So, they spend about one-third or more, MORE than the real money tax receipts that the federal government collects each year.  That missing third or 40% or so must be borrowed, largely adding to the “national debt.”

Now, if the extra federal spending were creating real wealth, which is what real investment does, the loans would steadily be repaid by the productive surplus the investments made possible.  Another way of saying it is that the DEBT would be DESTROYED.  That’s a good cycle: ideas vetted, loans obtained, practices, processes or new resources are implemented or obtained,* and the new productive surplus can be applied, in part, to “retire” the loan while net societal – or National – wealth increases.  Living standards improve and the repaid capital (the loan) becomes available for other real investments.

This neat system collapses when non-productive or ANTI-productive effects of the loan (deficit spending, it’s called) are mandated by law.  Most commonly, it collapses because the government borrows money to PAY FOR CURRENT EXPENSES, like welfare, interest on older loans, increasing the numbers of people employed in non-productive pursuits, and so forth.  A good example of hiring more people to be non-productive is part of the recently passed “Prosperity Reduction Act,” or, as it is officially mis-labeled, “The Inflation Reduction Act.”  Inside of this dishonest legislation is a provision to hire 87,000 more IRS agents, who will harass and impoverish productive people (tax-payers they are called) with absolutely no increase in productive surplus for anyone.  Oh, there’ll be some fat paychecks, but the net wealth of our economy will decline. 

The extra payroll dollars (among others in the bill) will inflate the money supply, however, and prices will move upward again as more cash chases fewer goods.

There are $600+Billion other dollars in the “bill” that also don’t represent any new production, productivity or wealth… they just lower the value of all the dollars floating around or in your wallet and retirement accounts.  Thanks, Brandon.

*Where are new resources “obtained?”  Well, there are only so many sources of new wealth that can add to an economy and total wealth of a nation.  The first is agriculture.  The elements of a crop of wheat or corn or soybeans or potatoes, are relatively inexpensive.  We count on God to provide the soil, the rain and sunlight… even the seeds, although humans have figured out how to augment everything but sunlight, and how to till the soil and harvest the crops with automated machinery, which has reduced the cost of labor in food production, as well.  Barring weather disasters and political interference, agriculture creates new wealth with every crop-cycle.  Many inventions and new mechanizations have been developed in response to the need for better food production as population has grown.

Coincident with expanding agriculture are various forms of mining, whether for coal, metals, oil, gypsum, quartz and dozens of other riches the earth provides.  From them have come thousands… no, Millions of products and inventions and improvements to standards of living, not least of which are pharmaceuticals and computer chips.  Virtually every one of these bits of progress and improvement has required some “financing,” or, as better known, debt.  Little by little every step has also “inflated” the money supply, but in rough equivalence to the new economic activity each has spurred.  A lot of that activity has been in the form of “fixed” assets, like buildings, roads, bridges and so forth.  At their creation, “fixed” expenditures DEFLATE the money supply, while enabling long-term economic benefit for lots of other activities, comforts or safety.

Somebody is going to paint those buildings.  We’re still driving across bridges that were built by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930’s.

Some companies, banks, agencies, treasuries and individuals are benefitted very nicely by inflation, primarily the federal government.  They get to spend the money first.  Debts and other invoices the federal government owes are paid off with “cheaper” dollars.  Increased payrolls result in increased tax receipts.  Favored industries obtain contracts and payments to carry out policies incorporated in the inflationary legislation.  Millions of votes are purchased as loans are forgiven and exorbitant expenses incurred and paid off.  So, some benefit immediately and don’t begrudge deficit spending.  Others, tax-payers, not so much.

The actual net result is a reduction in both national and individual wealth for MOST people.  The few favored in the legislation get an artificial boost of income.  It’s all very unfair and sold to the American people as a universal “good.”  But, what does it have to do with “petro-dollars?”

Petro-dollars refers to our agreement with OPEC that oil would be traded only for dollars.  Every nation, basically, would need to always have some dollars on deposit – some even made the U. S. dollar a “reserve” currency – so that when they needed to buy oil they could.  If they sold oil, they accepted having billions of U. S. dollars on deposit.  Dollars could be exchanged for any other currency an “oil” nation needed to buy products from anyone.  Still, a global acceptance of dollars gave a golden “carte blanche” to ignorant congresspeople to borrow without any practical limit.  All they need is a “crisis.”

At the same time that President Biden has ruined relations with Saudi Arabia and the rest of OPEC, and attacked fossil-fuels in the United States, multiple countries like Russia, China, Brazil and Iran, are making moves to eliminate the dollar as the currency of trade in oil.  When they succeed – WHEN they succeed – countries will start dumping dollars.  They won’t have the impetus to buy stuff from the U. S. in order to use up the dollars they have had to hold.  Currency markets will turn upside down.

We will experience price increases that are unimaginable.  All the goods and goodies that we import now, will have to be paid for with more valuable currencies than U. S. dollars.  Exchange rates are going to punish the dollar when that day comes.  All the dollars that have been created in other countries and banks have been inflating the same “money supply” we talked about earlier.  Every dollar BILL is, in fact, a bill that must be paid with something valuable, not merely with more “Federal Reserve Notes.”  The mendacious debt that Congresses and administrations have racked up to the tune of almost $31 TRILLION, will complete its cycle of inflation, as well, while much of the trading world rejects payments in dollars, preferring gold, rubles, rials, or, most likely, yuan.  We have no concept of and no political ability to balance our books and bring the number of dollars floating around into alignment with some form of productive output from our economy.  Prices, for everything, will shoot up.

We can see the World Economic Forum, a group of self-selected control freaks by which real governments – including our own – are being influenced, is spreading the organic fertilizer of “nitrogen pollution,” since carbon-dioxide hasn’t scared enough people.  To limit “nitrogen” requires, in their view, reducing crop yields (by refraining from using chemical fertilizers) and going “organic.”  There is an agenda that is far removed from “climate” at work here.  What will we do when hyper-inflation is chasing reduced supplies of food around the world?  Or, when Chinese- and Bill Gates-owned land is held out from cultivation in our own country?  We need miss only ONE growing season to be faced with famine, which is very unpleasant, even here.

Looking at the effects of the “green” movement and the recent pandemic-inspired tyranny, and the so-called vaccines that resulted, the main effects, cumulatively, have been death and sterilization.  Sounds like population reduction, if one were being Prudent.  Lo, and behold!  Bill Gates and the people he hob-nobs with agree that there are too many people on Earth, by a factor of two-thirds or more!  Let’s “vaccinate” every person on the planet.  Inflation won’t be a problem, then.

Economics, Elections, Governance, Politics 2022, Representation, Taxation

“with Liberty and Corruption for all.”

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There are always consequences to corruption in government agencies… and officials… and it’s not always mere dollars.  Simple graft is bad enough for it demonstrates the willingness to lie more or less directly to the people an official or “representative” has sworn to serve while in office.  Typically, we, the foolish voters in either party, see our “humble” servants gain ever more comfortable styles of living, but those gaining the increased comforts are usually careful to hide the actual scale of thefts from which they benefit, and we re-elect them.  We tell ourselves that the problems facing government are the fault of other or previous representatives or senators, mayors, city councilors, governors or, ultimately, presidents, not the ones for whom WE voted.  Our civil society is breaking down, it seems, in every way we contemplate, and yet we only shake our heads when trying to explain what is happening.  The scale of American civil failure disturbs us and we try our best to isolate the one thing we would change if we ran the zoo, but it’s not really clear that our ideas would really cause the change we think we want.  Besides, we’re busy and, fortunately, there’s an election on the horizon and we’ll be able to change the party holding power – or most of it – and “things” will get straightened out.

Except they rarely do get straightened out, or even “change” very much.  Over the past, say 70 years, America’s direction has not been toward strength or toward moral purity, but toward weakness and moral decline.  Still, there appears to be a majority in the country that prefers moral straightness and traditional American honesty and trustworthiness.  Why have “things” declined – lately quite dramatically, in the past 30 years in particular – when most people want the direction to be otherwise?  It’s a damned good question.

The Prudent thing to do, as our erstwhile Vice-President, Kamala Harris, likes to say, is look for a “root cause.”

Prudence offers a theory of the root cause based on extensive evidence: official corruption.  We are in decline not because “the times” are changing.  In fact, we have purposefully caused our own decline by electing corrupt people, and then re-electing them over and over.  The effects of this simple process are very complex – for good, purposeful reasons – and far-reaching to, now, threatening the survival of our nation.  While this sounds like there’s a single “thing” we could change to correct our decline, if this theory is true, we are so far gone that no election or piece of legislation can do it.  But Prudence is committed to never leaving her readers without a solution, or a host of them, so fasten your seatbelts.

Fifty thinkers studying the problem would have 150 opinions about what should be our FIRST move, and in truth, it is the largest conundrum.  So, we have to look for some of those root causes so that beloved corrupt politicians can’t make things worse.  Although its strictures are being eroded as quickly as the left (it’s always “the left”) can chip away at them, our remarkable Constitution is still the fundament of our laws and means of governance.  However, it cannot speak to our modern, sophisticated ways and means of subversion and corruption.  It needs some upgrading via amendment, and via an amendment process that cannot be corrupted by our “deep state” or current elected officials and representatives.  It won’t be easy, but Article V. of the constitution provides the mechanisms for proposing and adopting Amendments.  One such mechanism is for 34 states to apply to Congress for the calling of a Convention for the purpose of proposing amendments.  The Congress must issue the call for such a convention, and then step aside, as the Constitution allows for no further role for the Congress in this mode of proposing amendments.  Ratification is performed by the states, too: three quarters, or 38 of them.

The key to saving our nation, then, is the nature of those who actually attend the Convention, and there is the crux of the matter.  It seems obvious to Prudence that “the left” should have no role in such a Convention.  How can this be ascertained?  Could there be a test of philosophies to select each state’s delegates, like Supreme Court nominees?  State legislatures are going to control who represents their states.  One can hope that the 34 states that ultimately make Application to the Congress to call the Convention, will be the more conservative states, but there is no certainty to that.  Many resolutions over the decades have been passed by one state legislature only to be rescinded by a later legislature.  Most had specified one or two purposes for the Convention to form into amendments.  In many cases, the nature of those reasons to call for the Convention were the reasons for recission, later.

The likelihood of actually convening an “Article V. Convention of the States” appears remote.  A more likely possibility is that during Republican control of both houses of congress, an amendment could be proposed and submitted to the states for ratification.  Such an action requires a two-thirds vote in both houses, but no approval from a President.  Still, there will be a problem obtaining even that much cooperation when one of the key elements of an amendment is to impose term limits on Senators and Representatives.  Could the case be made that the time had come for courage and sacrifice?  It all depends on how corrupt the Congress is at the time.  But let’s assume that a clean, traditionalist, pro-American delegate body could be filtered out and assembled.  What are the “TOP 12” fixes the amendment should include?

Term limits for federal offices keeps coming up as of prime importance.  With our longer lifespans, instant communications and unbridled budgeting with perpetual debt, the opportunities for becoming wealthy in Congressional “service,” are legion.  All that is required is a tingle of corrupt aggrandizement.  One need only pick apart any budget legislation or any “emergency” spending bill – often an “omnibus” bill – that is more than 20 or 30 pages long, and numerous “earmarks” can be found.  These happy “gifts” to Rep’s and Senator’s districts and, often, key supporters, are the price we pay to keep our elected “representatives in office for 20, 40 or more years.  During those decades the motivation to represent the constituents who elect a 2-year or 6-year representative, is twisted into the overarching motivation to keep a cushy, well-paid job in which lots of people treat the lucky “seat-holder” as if he or she were very important.  News media seek out the elected and ask for their unique and oh-so-important thoughts about whatever is “hot” at the moment.  Before too many months have passed since taking office, the elected begin to think that they are wise, not just smart.  After the first re-election, they also begin to accept that they occupy their “seat” because they are one of the uniquely capable humans who can understand the positions to which they have been elected, and understand, at the same time, the incredibly complex and arcane workings of government and legislation.  How fortunate are the ordinary people who are represented by any one of these august creatures.

We have a “system” of election and “representation” that corrupts men and women, alike.  Their jobs are too comfortable and too permanent.  We pay them too well no matter how poor or sloppy a job they do, and no matter how poorly the country and their constituents are doing.  There are too many “perks” and advantages built into their job descriptions and, with the exquisite tools available for twisting news and social media, there is virtually no oversight of their performance.  We re-elect them so that they might “fight for us” in Washington, or, at least, so that they can keep the scurrilous bastards and bitches in the other party from taking away our Medicare, 401k’s or Social Security, or from raising taxes and fees and imposing onerous regulations.

Helping to grease the skids toward illicit wealth are an army of lobbyists – more than we can imagine.  Many of them represent not only business and hand-out interests, but also foreign countries who all, it turns out, have their hands out, too.

The whole corrupted enterprise depends in large part on long-term relationships with those lobbyists and the abiding motivation to be re-elected.  What makes it work is repetitive re-election.  The first article of the new Amendment should be Term Limits on consecutive terms of service.  It doesn’t seem proper to create a group of people who cannot run for certain offices.  Forcing them to remain out of particular offices for a period of 4, 6, 8 or 12 years will open up representation to people who are NOT compromised by lobbyists and re-election corruption.

The second article should pertain to the budget, but not simply that it be balanced.  It should force Congress to manage budget legislation while forcing oversight of the administrative state and the flood of regulations that emanates from it.  So, the “A” paragraph will force the congress to budget no more revenue than that collected in the previous 12 months, and that it shall have 4 budgetary cycles to accomplish this goal.  The “B” paragraph will require that every Cabinet Department’s budget and planned regulatory effort for the next budget year, shall be analyzed and approved or modified separately from other departments.  A sub-committee shall also be charged to review existing regulations and to recommend changes to or “sunsetting of” regulatory regimes.  Finally, the “C” paragraph shall require a date-certain for completion of budgeting and oversight that is prior to the beginning of the next fiscal 1-year or 2-year period.

A third article would simply state that the Congress may, by law, change federal budgeting to be bi-annual rather than annual, should the work of review described in Article 2 take longer than will allow for annual budgeting.

The fourth article will require that: A. No legislation may include items of appropriation or law that are not listed in the title of the bill; B. No bill that raises or lowers taxes may be more than 40 pages long, printed in 8 point or larger type; C. Any bill that appropriates funds for projects or support for any cause or construction that impacts a single District or two or more Districts in a single state must be presented as a single bill to be voted upon separately from any other matter; and, D. Any “continuing resolution” deemed necessary for continued operation of any agency or department of the Federal Government shall include spending at a rate equal to that of the budget cycle preceding that which is just ending, whether a 1-year or 2-year budget cycle.

Finally, the fifth article will replace Social Security with a mandated private investment plan at the same rate of payroll contributions as currently required, with restrictions on dates of retirement similar to those now enforced.  A period of years would be required to completely phase out the current federal “piggy-bank” structure of Social Security so that once privatized – carefully overseen and regulated – the funds will build wealth for taxpayers and cease being a drain on the Federal budget.

There are a hundred other ideas for cleansing our federal spending and taxation and limiting opportunities for self-enrichment while in office.  With more frequent turnover of elected personnel the expectation will be that more Congress-people will employ statesmanship more often, and not fear fighting the bad habits of others.  The same will limit the amount of damage a bad-apple can do in his or her limited period in office.

Meanwhile, let us stop electing career politicians.  Let’s impose our own term limits, particularly at the caucus and primary levels.  The office-holders who have participated in expanding the debt to, now, more than $30 TRILLION, do not deserve re-election.  Remain Prudent.

Crime, Culture, Economics, Education, Family, Taxation

BUSINESS, PROFITS, CHARITY & FREEDOM

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Taking care of business…

Fewer and fewer people understand capitalism, despite every, single, one of us being a capitalist.  This is an odd distortion of knowledge and understanding, and it has taken a lot of work.  There are two kinds of capital: earned and unearned.  Figuring out which is which will make clear where each of us is on the spectrum.

Consider a newborn baby.  He or she will cry and fuss until he or she receives food and/or comfort – often the very same things.  There is no sense of sacrificing for greater rewards an hour or two later, or of “saving up” cries in order to obtain a larger portion at a later time.  Babies exhibit raw capitalism: pure barter.  I won’t make your motherly instincts feel the discomfort of a crying baby if you will provide what it takes to comfort me and put enough food into me so that I will sleep… like a baby.  We all start out as capitalists.

We might also note that a baby doesn’t save any food or comfort for later, nor does he or she offer more quiet alleviation of motherly guilt in exchange for food than it takes.  Everything is on the expense accounts as “current” – no accrual.

It takes a while for infants and toddlers to figure out that kindness and caring can be “banked,” as it were, for increased pleasure and happiness any time later.  It’s a big concept.  If lovingly raised, however, children do learn to avoid punishment for “bad” or costly actions, and to express love and kindness toward parents and others when they are not hungry or uncomfortable… and even to share possessions.  At some point they learn to trade possessions for perceived “profits.”  Something Tommy has seems more desirable than what Jeffy has – and vice-versa – and both parties “profit” from an exchange of goods.  Also a big concept.

Like all human “isms,” even incipient capitalism requires regulation and “institutionalized” bounds.  Almost every child learns that simply taking something of Tommy’s is extremely profitable: nothing is given up in exchange.  Parents or other adults are, at that point, obligated to punish – or dis-incentivize – that practice.  Jeffy’s taking, or stealing the possession of Tommy’s, must be made costly enough that Jeffy learns as immediately as possible, that there is no advantage or profit in that act or acquisition.  And, it must be a cost that exceeds the simple return of the stolen property.  Whether it’s a period of disfavor from a parent, or deprivation of a desired activity, a slap on the hand or something else proportional to the “crime,” there must be a cost that the perpetrator, Jeffy, will do his best to avoid going forward.  Otherwise, stealing becomes a habit and will be perceived as profitable and worthwhile.  Several big concepts.

It’s easy to imagine the fairly short-term consequences of the lack of institutionalized sanctioning of “bad” actions.  In this case, the “institution” is the “law,” or, at least, the automatic and swift punishment (let’s hope, by parents) of theft in addition to retribution.  This is the fundament of civilization; capitalism is woven amongst all the threads of civilized society.

Now let’s assume that our properly guided and sanctioned child grows up, essentially according to the Ten Commandments.  People of faith attempt to obey all ten, there being nothing negative about any of them, which is to say: nothing that hurts social cooperation and quality of life, or the raising of new adults with civilizing self-control.  Strictures against creating and worshipping graven images instead of God; taking the name of God in vain (cursing involving God’s name or power); keeping the sabbath day holy is also a good idea, albeit one that we in America have cleverly set aside; honoring our fathers and mothers is both logical and essential to the health of society; not killing one another; not committing adultery; not stealing; not lying about our neighbors; and, not coveting the property of our neighbors.  These are essentially society-protecting strictures that we attempt to talk ourselves away from only at our peril.  The hate-based riots of 2020 are the clear and clarion proof of the fragility of civilization in the absence of “the Commandments,” whatever their source.

Our new adult decides to start a business.  Having been raised “with a conscience,” Jeffy plans to sell his skills as a carpenter, and he recognizes that he’ll need a partner with similar skills in order to keep his contracting promises and to help avoid mistakes.  He makes arrangements with a local lumberyard to establish an account with sufficient credit to do significant renovation or add-on projects.  The account is based on Jeffy’s reputation as an honest person and, in part, on his father’s equivalent reputation.  The lumberyard considers the potential of a growing business customer as a worthy risk of a certain level of credit, or debt.

By virtue of hiring Aaron, a friend he knows from High school, who also loves building things, Jeffy takes on a remarkable burden of employer obligations, including various benefits that must be paid, including health care and liability insurances, and, of course, meeting “payroll.”  As owner of the business, Jeffy also is responsible for legal contracting with customers, and for other tax consequences of success.  He and Aaron still believe in their abilities and respective roles. and business commences.

“Jeff’s Construction” finds itself busy and able to pay both the owner and his employee reasonable wages while gaining assets in the form of two trucks and several power tools, and while accumulating some money in a local bank.  In other words, “Jeff’s” is profitable.  Knowing that his little company was facing taxes on his profits at both the state and federal levels, Jeff decides to make a donation to his church’s Christmas Food Drive.  With profits on the books of about $12,000, Jeff donates $2,000 to the food drive.  He and Aaron get their picture in the paper handing over a big cardboard check to the chairman of the Drive committee.  The minister and several other key people are also in the picture.  Jeff makes a handful of new connections, as a result, a couple of whom later contract with “Jeff’s Construction” for renovations of their homes.

As the years go by, “Jeff’s Construction” becomes “J & A Builders, Inc.” incorporated and no longer a proprietorship.  They grow to 6 full-time employees.  Each summer J & A work with the regional technical high school to provide summer jobs to budding carpenters.  Aside from income taxes to state and federal government, J & A’s building and garages plus the property taxes on the two partners’ and their 6 employees’ homes total over $100,000 per year, while excise taxes on their vehicles kick in another $26,000.  Donations to the Food Drive, the Boys and Girls Club and to the local “Y” for Summer Camp sponsorships plus support of a local Little League team, amount to nearly $25,000.  J & A also matches 401-K contributions up to 5% of income for all 8 personnel.

Those who misunderstand the immense values of honest profit are always looking for “businesses” and “business owners” to right non-business wrongs in society, perhaps because they are “fortunate.”  But that is not a business obligation.  The business is obliged to operate legally and honestly, delivering what it promises and not cheating customers, and to do so at a profit so that all legal obligations to employees and suppliers are met.  By providing multiple streams of tax revenue, businesses provide for all that civil society is relied upon to provide for residents.  Charity is in addition, and a blessing, not an obligation.

Of course, everything is different for those small businesses that have a room in the back that’s full of cash… cash they’re just too greedy to share with their oppressed workers and every poor person in town.  But, there are damned few of those. 

There are  many ways to add new wealth to an economy and to a nation.  The first of these was personal manufacture, in a sense, where the best tools or weapons compared to other groups or tribes created an advantage in terms of safety, hunting and survival.  Next came agriculture, permanent villages and cities and the need to defend them, which latter need spurred invention, metallurgy, and more.  Along with agriculture, fishing also introduces wealth and spurred marine technology.  In the presence of defensive pressures came a third major source of new wealth: mining.  Everything, of course, required managed labor and the necessary efficiencies that make ever-larger projects, whether construction or war-fighting, possible.  Indeed, it all made the Roman Empire possible – a success of management and leadership that taught some lessons to all of today’s successful – and failed – governments.  Religion, particularly in terms of Judaism and Christianity and the economic and familial ethics they spread across Europe, led, eventually and often unpleasantly, to the enlightenment and the explosion of technology, which made intellectual invention a new source of wealth and source of medical advantage, which is another form of civic wealth.

Today, virtually pure intellect is like a global form of mining.  New products are “manufactured” from a raw material of electrons, bringing new wealth into existence.  Construction, of homes or factories or office towers or highways and bridges, adds new wealth, too: fixed assets, from which use is derived for years and decades, enabling other wealth and our gigantic “service economy.”  Still, no matter the type of business in which one engages, the obligations of businesses and business owners – including stockholders – are the same.

What are they?

  • Operate legally (but don’t hesitate to challenge regulations and laws that are irrational and which amount to unequal application of the law)
  • Earn a profit legally, without cheating customers
  • At best, manufacture a product (best way to create new wealth benefitting the most people)
  • Next best, grow a product and/or improve the growing process
  • Treat employees equally and provide appropriate training and safe conditions for work
  • Provide real services that add value to products and their use or availability
  • Deliver what is promised, never less than promised, and more if you can
  • Do not employ false advertising or sales tactics
  • Maintain honest accounting, pay applicable taxes
  • Do not dirty your property, the air or the waters

Individuals, business owners or not, are always free to be charitable and to take part in politics or social issues they believe in.  But these should be personal decisions and personal resources.  A business owner fails his or her basic obligations to a community , to customers and to employees, by diverting business resources that should be enhancing working conditions, or providing insurance against future threats to the business.  Otherwise, if this sense of purpose and obligation to the health of the business is being weakened for any number of reasons, the business should be sold to those who will work to meet the listed obligations, or folded, having fulfilled, or no longer fulfilling, its mission.

Culture, Economics, Governance, Politics 2021, Taxation

American virus

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For the children… their children… their children… their children…

The general malaise that has infected the United States far more significantly than the Wuhan, China virus, has many markers for human-engineered mutations in its DNA.  COVID-19 seems to have just ONE insertion of non-natural protein into its DNA, and look at all the trouble that has caused!  It was inserted to make COVID a human-transferrable pathogen not for a good reason, but an evil one. 

America, on the other hand, began by the insertion of several new ideas, all for good reason, designed to spread amongst mankind for the betterment of all.  The greatest of these was “We the People…” forming a government to protect our liberties and our God-given rights, and to adjudicate injustice among the citizens and between citizens and governments when the latter lose their way.  Sadly, dangerously – if one agrees that the loss of the American ideal is a danger to mankind – many, many mutations have been inserted into America’s DNA over the decades, some for good reasons, many for vilely bad ones.  The resulting disease, socialist tyranny, is now eating our muscles and brains.  There are treatments and ways to build up our immunity against these foul mutations, but they’ll be bitter pills for some.

The most pernicious mutation in our genes was slavery.  We were born with it and have fought, quite literally, to remove it and its errors since the very beginning.  Even those who depended upon slavery knew it was wrong and out of place, needing a cure.  Various forms of compromise, as if we might be happy with a little sickness if it didn’t spread, were tried and failed: too much prosperity was involved.  Even those abolitionists who railed against it from the North, happily processed the cotton slaves picked, in their humming mills along rivers large and small.  When the bitter pill of secession and civil war was finally swallowed the young nation gave up hundreds of thousands of lives and casualties and nearly all of its treasure to effect a cure.  It worked on the grand scale but not the tiny one.  Thousands, perhaps millions of Americans still clung to the false premise that inferiority could be discerned by skin color, and fears and hatreds remained for another century, now mostly gone.

Originally, slavery interfered with politics, bringing distrust upon those who lived where it was practiced, and upon their representatives.  But the bad gene of organized hatred gained strength under Reconstruction and into the 20th century, and politics learned how to GAIN power with hatred.  That gene has not been excised, and indeed has become dominant, now.  We have so far refused the bitter pill that could reverse its spread.  Indeed, for POLITICAL purposes, we have undermined full equality for blacks, in particular, by wrecking their family structure and making large fractions of their numbers dependent through welfare, always, publicly, for the most compassionate reasons. 

We have inserted the unionization gene into public employment, including education, for wonderful POLITICAL and not educational reasons.  Once unleashed it metastasized throughout local and state governments and infected the federal behemoth, sapping education itself while cementing incumbents into power they have not earned.  There is a cure, but insufficient courage to take its bitter pill.  We’ll run out of money and taxpayers before we gulp this one down.  Power will remain in the same hands that have prevented a cure for 60 years, however.  The pill requires voters to elect those willing to change the laws that cement unions in place, and who will then de-certify those unions.  Unfortunately those organizations have successfully changed the definition of “education” and voters think “teachers” and education are synonymous, to the detriment of generations and the future of our nation.

The debt-ignorance gene was inserted in 1913, right after the income tax gene – a bad year for our DNA, 1913.  Once the Federal Reserve got its “sea legs,” debt became our friend and the ticket needed to buy votes and to confuse our voters and taxpayers.  The “Fed” has become a $28 TRILLION ride… mostly downhill.  The pill to reverse the damage this gene has done is so distasteful that its name is almost never mentioned: cutting the budget and ending the borrowing.  [Did you know the Fed was created with legislation that makes it legal for it/them to loan “money” to the United States that it/they, the Fed, does not have?  Yet we pay interest on it, anyway?  It’s wicked cool.]

The debt gene mostly finances bad ideas, like 20 years in Afghanistan, and the dissolution of our national borders.  It finances economic shutdown in the face of a communicable disease, instead of analgesic treatments that slow the progress of the disease in individuals, allowing the human body to fight it off without lengthy – or any – hospitalization.  It finances incredibly corrupted federal programs like Medicare, Medicaid and the ACA.  It finances public transportation that people don’t use.  Debt is one of the most debilitating diseases a free people could ever suffer, since it will steadily make them not free.  We have to take the pill that fixes it else we’ll have it shoved down our throats in the disappearance of American sovereignty.

We think we’re so smart because we are the only people on Earth who have figured out that our unique nation is the first and only one that will never have to pay its debts – at least the “intelligentsia” of the Democrat party have figured this out, which makes them much smarter than stick-in-the-mud traditionalist Republicans – these are not all Republicans, who tend to be liberal, but the Conservative ones who tend to be the most honest and patriotic.  The actual debt gene is paired with another, the dependency gene, which were both inserted into America’s DNA sometime in the 1930’s.  They were tickled a few times by the Roosevelt “Brain Trust,” but lay mostly dormant until the U. S. went off the Gold Standard under Richard Nixon.  They’ve blossomed since then and would normally have obliterated the debt-ignorance gene, but that pesky ignorance has hung on after the gold window closed and we started borrowing our own currency from the nearly empty vaults at “The Fed,” who pays the U. S. Mint to now print Federal Reserve Notes instead of U. S. Dollars.  The debt-ignorance gene enables us to call those notes “money.”  Very bitter pill to cure that gene.

The combined actual-debt and dependency gene pair causes a mental disorder that we call liberalism or progressivism.  Liberals are convinced, genetically, that their malady actually is a cure, although here and there some sufferers do “snap” out of it and become conservatives.  Soon after that they become patriots as well.

The main symptom of the liberalism disease is a belief that people are not individuals and have no individual rights and that, further, a government can make groups of people into better humans by giving them free stuff.  Naturally, as any progressive liberal will partially explain in just a few words, certain groups respond better to those free gifts than others, and that is why the others are left on the outs when all the free giving is going on.  Makes sense to liberals, anyway, so it is taught in public schools, especially the out-group part, whose attempts to stop the free gifting exposes them as racists, who should be on the outs, everyone agrees.  Don’t join THAT group, children.

Ultimately the only cure for liberalism is knowledge of history and a change of beliefs, making the liberalism “symptom” of genetic weakness, the hardest to undo.  There is a pill for it, however, containing the essence of Judeo-Christian philosophy and tiny bits of hemoglobin from the Revolution, Civil War and other righteous conflicts men have died to win.  Unfortunately, a large fraction of the body politic refuses to consider taking it or even acknowledging it, mainly those who exhibit the disorder known as progressivism or liberalism.  Sadly, we may have reached a point of liberal virulence when not enough of the out-groups are praying for the survival of the United States of America and its unique Constitutional Republic, based upon individual independence, responsibility, structural honesty, prosperity and charity.  We still have faith, however.

I hope inspired people are working on a real vaccine against our progressive disease – a vaccine that trains the body politic to recognize infection and remove it before it gains strength, again.  That pill will taste sweet or, if it takes a shot or more, they won’t sting a bit.  America’s health and longevity are worth it.