Subsidizing and price fixing us into the poorhouse

This article does a great job explaining how government through its burdensome regulations, tax laws, and cronyism does nothing but create massive market distortions that disrupt and drag down our economy.  The MYTH that the free market has failed is just that.  A MYTH.  We haven’t had a free market in a very long time because it has been pushed off the tracks by progressive Marxist/socialist policies.

This paragraph is a pretty good summary, but you are cheating yourself if you don’t read the whole thing.

Government is theft. It produces nothing and has nothing except that which it takes from the producers. It then turns around and grants what it has taken to favored constituencies in a massive reverse Robin Hood scheme. Subsidies are a subtle form of economic warfare between the haves (crony corporations) and have-nots (the people) and class warfare created between the people who are divided based on their economic status, minority status, etc. Price controls distort natural supply and demand, destroy profit margins, and create shortages. All is a masquerade for the benefit of a wicked political system.

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Posted on May 18, 2015 by Bob Livingston 

“The whole of economics can be reduced to a single lesson, and that lesson can be reduced to a single sentence. The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.” — Henry Hazlitt, “Economics in One Lesson”

One of the greatest fallacies of recent generations is the argument that free market capitalism has failed and that said failure is responsible for America’s moribund economy, the ongoing destruction of the middle class and the growing level of income inequality in which the 1 percent get richer at everyone else’s expense.

The American system is much more fascist and oligarchic than capitalistic. Special incentives, tax breaks and subsidies are given to crony corporations and certain industries in order to buy votes and generate kickbacks for lawmakers. And central planners set prices and control production levels of foods and other commodities. These policies create malinvestment and shortages and cause increased costs for staples and other goods by acting as a sort of hidden tax. Much of this stems from the creation of the Federal Reserve — which is neither federal, nor holds reserves — and Great Depression-era legislation that was bad at the time but has since morphed into something much worse.

Government is theft. It produces nothing and has nothing except that which it takes from the producers. It then turns around and grants what it has taken to favored constituencies in a massive reverse Robin Hood scheme. Subsidies are a subtle form of economic warfare between the haves (crony corporations) and have-nots (the people) and class warfare created between the people who are divided based on their economic status, minority status, etc. Price controls distort natural supply and demand, destroy profit margins, and create shortages. All is a masquerade for the benefit of a wicked political system.

Progressivism Paving the Road to Communism in America

What do you know about the communist movement and what it hopes to accomplish in America?  Maybe you’ve heard of the 10 pillars of communism.  I’ll list them here, and some ideas of how much of each pillar has been completed.

1. Abolition of private property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
   1. Nearing completion.  Liberalization of “eminent domain” and zoning regulations, Bureau of Land Management and Environmental Protection Agency oversteps of authority, and daily land/property seizures under RICO statutes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
   1. Done.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
   1. In progress.  Death/estate taxes.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
   1. Nearing completion. We call it government seizures, tax liens, “forfeiture” Public “law” 99-570 (1986); Executive order 11490, sections 1205, 2002 which gives private land to the Department of Urban Development; the imprisonment of “terrorists” and those who speak out or write against the “government” (1997 Crime/Terrorist Bill); or the IRS confiscation of property without due process.
5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
   1. Done. The Federal Reserve System, created by the Federal Reserve Act of Congress in 1913, is indeed such a “national bank” and it politically manipulates interest rates and holds a monopoly on legal counterfeiting in the United States. This is exactly what Marx had in mind and completely fulfills this plank, another major socialist objective. Yet, most Americans naively believe the U.S. of A. is far from a Marxist or socialist nation.  Federal bailouts of large banks further extends government control of the banking industry.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.
   1. Nearly complete.  The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates communication, and is making intrusive regulations to control internet and cell phone usage.  The government has also recently mandated that the release of information such as unemployment statistics will only happen on government controlled systems.  The Department of Transportation, the Interstate Commerce Commission, and the Federal Aviation Administration, various executive orders, and various state bureaucracies have a pretty tight grip on transportation, a grip which is tightening via further regulation and taxation. Don’t forget the federal postal monopoly, AMTRAK and CONRAIL — outright socialist (government-owned) enterprises.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
   1. Almost complete. The many various federal agencies such as the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Commerce and Labor, Department of Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Mines, National Park Service, and the IRS control of nearly all business through corporate regulations.  By implementing regulations and laws that favor massive agri-business companies, they are driving small farmers off their land and centralizing control of food production.
8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
   1. In progress.  Government policies on debt, spending, inflation, and encouraging families to live beyond their means have over time necessitated the “two income family” to make ends meet.  At the same time “working” families are being forced to work harder, more people are being driven into government dependency.  At some point, the handouts will no longer be “free,” and if the dependent class wants to eat, they will be forced to work.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
   1. In progress.  Land use planning commissions, re-zoning laws, massive government subsidized agri-business farms.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.
    1. Done.  The government has wrapped its tentacles around the public school system via the purse strings.  They mandate what will be taught and accepted, or they cut the funding.  As for  child labor, recent regulations are making it illegal for children to even work on a FAMILY FARM.

Whether or not you actually believe this or not, I encourage you to at least open your mind to the POSSIBILITY that it MIGHT be true, or at least have some merit.  Ask yourself what you can and should do in case it is true.

I Told You So: Pay Czar Strikes

Remember when Obama said he didn’t want to run the car companies or the banks?  One of the early lies in his administration.  I guess it’s like the fox saying he doesn’t want to run the chicken farm.  He just wants free chickens and eggs.

When Bush started, and Obama implemented the takeover of the American auto and banking industry, I told you it was going to be bad for America.  Once these industries and companies took the bailout, they wrote their own obituaries.  I told you the government would control salaries and prices, and eventually run these businesses into the ground, or prop them up forever at tax payer expense like AMTRAK and the Post Office.  Now you have Comrade Obama’s Czar deciding arbitrarily that certain people make too much money.  Don’t believe the lie that Obama didn’t know.  He directed the whole show.

Now I, along with people like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, don’t look so much like conspiracy theorists.

On the surface this may not seem so bad.  The companies took tax payer money to stay afloat.  It would seem reasonable for the tax payers to then have some say in how that company is run.  That’s where sanity ends and the government begins.  But letting the camel’s nose of government under the tent of business is always bad.  Let’s look at why government intervention in our economy’s businesses is a bad thing.

First of all, a failing company is failing for a reason. For the benefit of consumers and the economy as a whole, companies must be allowed to fail.  Stronger, better managed ones will spring up to take their place if there is a demand for what they produce.  Subsidizing failure with tax payer dollars helps no one except bureaucrats seeking power.  You don’t get lower prices or a better product.

Second, government is inefficient.  I use the example of helping a homeless person as an example.  There are numerous churches and shelters in most cities whose mission is to help the homeless.  If I walk into one of them and give them $100, they are so close to the front lines that very little of that money will be wasted, and more food and service can be provided for the money.  If I give that same $100 to the government, less than a penny of it will trickle back down to the shelter I could have given it to.  A certain percentage of the $100 will go to running various agencies of the government.  Most of it will be used for purposes for which it was never intended (i.e. all the money that’s supposed to be in the Social Security “lock box”).  After all the money has been laundered through the apparatus of government, lost to fraud, waste, and abuse, the inefficiency leaves little money for where it was needed the most.

Third, when government interferes with business, they screw it up.  The Clinton foray into the vaccine business is one example.  They “only” took over about a third of the industry, but they started price fixing.  That’s another area where government ALWAYS screws up.  The don’t understand the difference between PRICE and COST.  When the started dictating the price of vaccines (which they arbitrarily set, and which were lower than actual costs), it became unprofitable so companies either quit making vaccines or went out of business.  The current housing and banking mess are another prime example of how government interference screws things up.  A bank, just like any other business, is in business to make money.  A bank makes money by loaning money to people for a fee.  That fee is what we know as “interest.”  Banks charge enough interest to cover their costs and make a reasonable profit to expand their business or have savings to cover tough times.  Normally, banks loan to people who are able and likely to pay the money back.  These customers are low risk.  If they loan to someone who may have trouble paying back the loan, or who is in some other way a risk, they are charged a higher interest rate to cover that risk.  That’s basically how banking has run for centuries.  Now enter Bill Clinton, Barney Frank (pronounced Fwank), Chris Dodd and company.  They authored and implemented changes to this thing known as the Community Reinvestment Act program, I’ll just call it CRAP for short.  The stated goal of their CRAP was to increase home ownership by minorities.  Again, that sounds good on the surface, but as with all things liberal it can not be taken at face value.  What it did in essence was force banks to lend based on skin color rather than risk or ability to repay.  The AMERICAN way to accomplish the goal of home ownership is for people to work hard, earn higher wages, start their own businesses, and in general improve their economic position THROUGH THEIR OWN LABORS.  The liberal way to accomplish this goal is to take from those who have earned, and give to those who have not.  So what did CRAP do?  It coerced banks into making loans to people who could not pay them back, but at the same lower interest rates charged to those who would be a lower risk.  With the normal restraint of sound banking and business practices stripped away by government, the bankers looked for a way to make money out of the scheme they had been forced into.  The details are complicated and take a while to work through.  So what happened?  The ones who would not normally have been given the loans they received defaulted on those loans.  All the bad debt that had been bought up and sold as “securities” came due and couldn’t be paid, thus causing both the banking and housing crash.  And yet Bahnee Fwank and Chris Dodd still walk the streets as free men, serving as poster children for how government screws up our lives.  As parting examples you have Medicare (the program that wasn’t supposed to cost more than $4 billion, but now cost more than $400 billion), the Department of Energy (created in the 70’s for the purpose of decreasing our dependence on foreign oil, now a huge bureaucracy costing billions of dollars and producing no results), and the Department of Education (as the number of billions of dollars poured into this money pit grows higher, our children’s test scores and education level gets lower).  The list of government failures goes on and on and on.  Tell me again why you want government in charge of ANYTHING other than national defense?

Fourth, government control removes incentive to excel or improve.  Let’s say you work for Gidget, Inc. manufacturing widgets.  You are paid by the number or properly manufactured widgets you manufacture.  You will first learn how widgets are made.  Then you will begin to make them and become proficient at making them.  Once you are proficient, you will likely try to become faster at making them so you can make more money.  This will either be done by you becoming a faster laborer, or by figuring out a way to improve the process of making widgets.  Either way makes you more valuable to the company because you are allowing the company to produce more widgets more quickly for less money, thereby increasing the company’s profit.  When government takes over Gidget, Inc. they change the wage structure for workers to an hourly wage.  Now, regardless how many widgets you produce you will get paid the same amount as someone who produces far less than you.  The natural reaction to this situation is to ask yourself “why am I killing myself for no reason?”  Workers production decreases to the minimum level that will keep them employed.  Without further incentive, workers are not likely to increase their output.

Fifth, government stifles competition.  A government run entity does not have to make a profit.  It will be propped up by taxpayer dollars regardless of how much it costs, or how much money it looses.  When government entities “compete” against private businesses that MUST make a profit, THERE IS NO COMPETITION.  The government will undercut the private business every time until the private business simply can’t afford to stay in business.

Don’t think that just because your business didn’t take the bailout that you will be exempt from the intrusion of one or more of Comrade Maobama’s Czar’s.  They have already dreamed up ways to justify controlling just about everything.  They are just waiting for a big enough “crisis” to justify the takeover.

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http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/22/pay-czar-feinberg-obama-decision-slash-executive-pay/

Pay Czar Feinberg, Not Obama, Behind Decision to Slash Executive Pay

White House pay czar Kenneth Feinberg did not seek President Obama’s approval to order steep pay cuts from bailed-out executives.

FOXNews.com

Thursday, October 22, 2009

White House pay czar Kenneth Feinberg was the driving force behind the move to order steep pay cuts from bailed-out executives, and did not even seek the president’s approval before making his decision.  (Lie.  This is a smokescreen to give Obama deniability.)

The Treasury Department is expected to formally announce in the next few days a plan to slash annual salaries by about 90 percent from last year for the 25 highest-paid executives at the seven companies that received the most from the Wall Street bailout. Total compensation for the top executives at the firms would decline, on average, by about 50 percent.

The sweeping decision, though, came from Feinberg and not from President Obama. (“You lie!”)

One official told Fox News that Feinberg from the start had the independent authority to work with companies and make such a call. Obama was never required to sign off before final decisions were made. (No, but Obama told Mr. Feinberg what he expected.)

On Thursday, the chairwoman of the panel that oversees the $700 billion federal bailout fund said the Obama administration is serious about the new plan. In an interview, Elizabeth Warren said reports of pending slashes in executive salaries are “real.”  (Of course they are real.  By dictating pay an bonuses, they are ensuring that no one who is qualified to do the job will want to work there.)

“It’s real in the sense that it says, ‘Guys, you have to understand that you can’t party on like it’s 2007. (Unless you are Barack Obama, who can have lavish weekly parties in the White House at tax payer expense while “Rome” burns.) If you’re going to take taxpayer dollars, then the game has to change. In that sense it’s real,'” she said on CBS’ “The Early Show.”

The seven affected companies are: Bank of America, American International Group, Citigroup, General Motors, GMAC, Chrysler and Chrysler Financial.

Smaller companies and those that have repaid the bailout money, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., are not affected.  (Yet.)

Treasury said that Feinberg scheduled a news conference at the department to discuss the matter Thursday afternoon.

Under the plan, at the financial products division of AIG, the giant insurance company which has received taxpayer assistance valued at more than $180 billion, no top executive will receive more than $200,000 in total compensation, one person familiar with Feinberg’s plan said.

The administration also will warn AIG that it must fulfill a commitment to significantly reduce the $198 million in bonuses promised to employees in its financial services division, the arm of the company whose risky trades caused its downfall.

The pay restrictions for all seven companies will require any executive seeking more than $25,000 in special benefits — things such as country club memberships, private planes and company cars — to get permission for those perks from the government. (You’re only allowed to have things like that if you’re the government.)

Feinberg’s decisions on pay come after administration officials voiced sharp criticism in recent days of the plans of Wall Street firms to pay huge bonuses at a time when the country is still coping with rising unemployment and the effects of the recession.

It was unclear exactly how much the executives would be allowed to make, or how that would be determined. Each case is being handled individually, and no details were available on how the calculations were being made.

Tom Wilkinson, a GM spokesman, said Wednesday that the auto company was “currently in discussions with Mr. Feinberg’s office regarding executive compensation. We will have further information once those discussions have concluded.”

Gina Proia, a spokeswoman for GMAC, said the finance company has “been working on a proposal that aims at embodying the principles set forth for compensation along with balancing the need to retain critical talent necessary to execute our turnaround. Until we receive notification about that plan, we have no further comment.”

Chrysler Group issued a similar statement.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Can You Define “Wasteful?”

How Obama defines wasteful spending is beyond me. Let me see if I have this straight. Funding new tanker aircraft for the military is wasteful, but spending $3 Billion on a wasteful cash-for-clunkers program that does nothing for the economy isn’t. Buying F-22’s to ensure we have a fighter force capable of defeating anyone threatening our dominance of the air (such as China and a resurgent Russia who are fielding 5th generation fighters in large numbers) is apparently wasteful, while pouring billions of dollars down the black hole of a failed auto company only to give a majority stake in said company to the unions apparently isn’t wasteful. In summary, supporting and funding the one and only thing the constitution mandates the government to fund via taxes or other means (national defense) is wasteful in the eyes of Obama and the liberal left, while doubling the national debt of the entire history of this country in 6 months and plans to double it again within 10 years spending on wasteful social programs that mostly reward political supporters and only put our nation in more debt apparently is not wasteful to Obama and the liberals. Hope and change. Not quite all it was cracked up to be.

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http://www.airforce-magazine.com/Features/modernization/Pages/box081909obama.aspx

Inexcusable

Inexcusable

At VFW, Obama chides Congress over wasteful military spending.

August 19, 2009—President Barack Obama on Monday reiterated his staunch opposition to funding what he calls wasteful military projects such as the F-22 and the F-35 competing engine.

In a speech at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Phoenix, the President said it didn’t make sense to spend nearly $2 billion on more F-22s in Fiscal 2010—as the Senator Armed Services Committee had supported, but the full Senate later overturned—when the nation “can move ahead with a fleet of newer, more affordable aircraft,” meaning the F-35.

Obama also decried the ongoing attempts by Congress to fund the General Electric-Rolls Royce F136 engine for the F-35, the competing powerplant to Pratt & Whitney’s F135, saying it’s wrong to continue to invest in the F136 “when one reliable engine will do just fine.” (Defense Secretary Robert Gates also recently reaffirmed his desire to ax the F136, downplaying any purported cost and development issues with the F135.)

Obama continued, saying such “waste would be unacceptable at any time, but at a time when we’re fighting two wars and facing a serious deficit, it’s inexcusable.”

(Full transcript of Obama speech)

Obama Closing GM Dealers Because They Donated to Republicans

Why didn’t this get any air time in the mainstream media? Because the mainstream media has dirty knees for Obama. They don’t just have a liberal bias, they are liberal through and through. They are doing everything they can to sway public opinion in favor of Obama and his socialist agenda. They have been caught in lie after lie, and they have abandoned all pretense of objectivity. Obama is channeling the spirits of Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and every other dead socialist dictator you can name. He is openly and aggressively dragging this country toward socialism and ruin, yet the media still portrays him as a savior.

It’s time to pull the plug on the mainstream media, along with all of the dead weight from both parties in Washington, D.C. who are there for themselves, not for our country.

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