Help Wanted - Born Again Americans Urgently Needed

For nearly two weeks now, I've had a battle royal going on in my head between my voice of reason and my voice of WTF. If you don't know, WTF stands for What The F__k! The voice of WTF won out.

Every day I read on the Internet the principle stories in The Washington Post, CNN International, The Fox News, and the Wall Street Journal. Also, I read a number blogs by conservative pundits and a few by liberal pundits. At the end of the day I find myself screaming inside my head: WTF has happened to America!

It pains me to say this but the majority of Americans have become whining, irresponsible parasites. The majority of Americans want government to rescue them from any and all calamities that life brings their way. Many big unions and many big businesses are guilty of the same. And the political elite love it because this means bigger government, more money to spend and thereby more and more power and control over the American people.

You say " Come on Jim. Sure there are some Americans that think that way; but not a majority." Sorry; but our Congressmen are elected by majority vote from each of their districts. Only Congress can make laws and raise taxes. We can not deny our responsibility.

We didn't become whinning irresponsible parasites over night. The liberals ( read liberals to mean Marxist/Socialist ) have been working diligently for years to get us to this point. By means of our system of education and by way of the predominantly liberal media, they have, over time, succeeded in changing our culture. We Conservatives shake our heads and wonder when will this craziness end. Unless a majority of us become "Born Again Americans" dedicated to the principles of our founding fathers and take responsibility for ourselves, it will end very very badly.

I do see one bright spot out there, the Tea Party Patriots. They are a little helter-skelter but that's alright. They are on the right track. I hope many more Americans will get active in their local Tea Party. Hopefully they will never become a political party but instead grow to become a powerful watch dog over our politicians in Wasington D.C.

I leave you with three pertinent quotes:

" Government is not reason, it is not eloquent, it is Force. Like fire, it is a
dangerous servant and a fearful master." - George Washington

" A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big
enough to take from you everything you have." - Gerald Ford

" A constitution that doesn't mean what it says, means nothing at all." -
Unknown

Enough said for today.

Sense or nonsense?

It's Not Rocket Science

We all complain, with good reason, about the problems of big government's involvement in our daily lives and the high cost of all the various taxes that we pay, and these days, of course, we complain about the state of the economy and the lack of any clear plan on how to fix it.

Recently I read an article by Jim Gamman , in the blog American Thinker, that talked about why so much manufacturing has disappeared from the American scene and gone to other countries. The reason, of course is that we are no longer competitive with these countries. As he says, we typically blame this inability to compete on the fact that labor costs are so much lower in these other countries. But according to Jim, the higher cost of labor is not what makes us uncompetitive. It's the much higher costs for raw materials in the U.S. The reason we pay so much more all has to do with the hidden cost of taxes and the costs of compliance with a myriad of government regulations. In other words, the reason that America can't compete in the world economy is the cost burden of the U.S. Government on busibess.

This revelation made quite an impression on me. Thinking about what Jim Gamman had to say, I arrived at the conclusion that America's problem can be fixed. It's not rocket science. It's just common sense. The only difficulty would be finding enough politicians with the courage to do it. Let me explain.

If ours is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, then whatever We The People ask of government We The People should be willing to pay for. A simple concept. Like I said, it's not rocket science. Here's my three point plan.

1.) Eliminate all corporate taxes, all business taxes, and all forms of income taxes.

2.) All costs for complying with government mandates and regulations would be paid for by the local, state, or federal government responsible for the mandate or regulation. Businesses would submit independently audited invoices for their compliance costs to the appropriate government entity for reimbursement.

3.) Federal, State, and Local governments would fund all of their operating costs by way of a retail sales taxes ( bushesses that buy wholsale woud not pay sales tax ), which would be reflected in every sales receipt. Note: Food and medicines would be exempt from sales tax.

A simple plan, right? Don't be to quick to write it off. Think about it first.

Points 1 and 2 would make the United States the most competitive business environment in the world. Manufacturing would return to America with a vengeance. There would be an investment and business boom like we've never seen before. Full employment would be a matter of course. Also, the costs for American produced goods and services would fall dramatically. Note: If We the People demand certain regulaations be put on corporations or busnesses, then We the People will pay for it in the Federal sales tax.

As regards point 3, bear in mind that I've not advocated any reduction in government or programs, or anything else. Government would be just as big and just as costly as it is now. The difference is that every time we made a purchase, we would see exactly what government is costing each and every one of us. We just might decide we didn't need all those things we've been asking government to do for us ( or that the government has said they must do for our own good).

Enough said.

Sense or nonsense?

Fed Speak, You've Gotta Love It!

Barneke responds to the latest results on second quarter GDP growth of 1.6% as opposed to the 2.4% that the Fed had been forecasting. Clearly Barneke has mastered the art of Fed Speak. The following are some examples along with my interpretations:

Barneke describes the 1.6% result for the second quarter as being "somewhat less vigorous" than expected. In English that means it was a friggin disaster. 1.6% is only 33% below the Feds forecast. A little more than "somewhat less vigorous" I'd say.

Trying to calm market jitters, he goes on to say "The issue at this stage is not whether we have the tools to help support economic activity and guard against disinflation....We do....The issue is instead whether, at any given juncture, the benefits of each tool, in terms of additional stimulus, outweigh the the associated costs or risks of using the tool." Wow! That is quite a mouth full. I take this to mean that he believes that the Fed is damned if it does and damned if it doesn't and he has no idea what to do next.

Barneke went on to say that Fed policymakers "will certainly use its tools as needed to maintain price stability....and to promote the continuation of the economic recovery." Assuming that he is still talking about the U.S. economy, I think this is Fed Speak for "Evey man for himself, things are about to get real ugly."

As for the notion that some economist believe the Fed should temporarily increase its target for inflation, Barneke responded "I see no support for this option on the Federal Open Market Committee." This obviously means that the Fed is never going to admit that it may have been wrong.

There are many more examples of Fed Speak, in the article cited above, that you can read an interpret for yourself.

I shouldn't be so hard on the Fed chairman, he is after all only trying to keep Wall Street and the rest of the world's market from panicking and to that extent it appears that he has succeeded for the time being.

Enough said for today.

Sense or nonsense?

Limited Purpose Banking - The Time May Be Right

Two years of recession and the Fed seems not to know what to try next. Our political elite can only suggest that the the stimulus wasn't big enough and therefore more of the same should be done. The conservative voices continue to ring clear about the errors of the current approach and cry for less government and less taxes, which would be great; but we are really talking about is a complete overhaul of government and creating or recreating a whole new American consciousness and that type of revolution takes a lot of time. So mean while back at the ranch, we need to be doing something positive as of yesterday!

About a month ago, I came across an article, written by Professor Laurence Kotlikoff and Christopher Chamley. The article is written as an Action Memorandum to Secretary of Treasury, Timothy Geithner. The good Professor starts out by very politely explaining

"you appear to be misdiagnosing the problem and consequently applying
medicine that won't work." Kotlikoff goes on to explain that the the problem is
not liquidity, the problem is trust."

The article was written back in Ma y of 2009 and he was referring to the well earned lack of trust in the financial sector. His solution to resolving this lack of trust is to institute " limited purpose banking". If you are not familiar with this concept of banking, this article is a great place to start.

Although Kotlikoff was focused on the lack of trust in the financial world, I think the lack of trust is much broader. Currently the banks are sitting on trillions of dollars; they don't trust government and the unknown new financial system of controls that are coming. Business is sitting on trillions of dollars and they don't trust government or the bankers for good reason. The American people are saving instead of spending because they don't trust government to know what they are doing and they don't trust the financial manipulators either. There would appear to be plenty of money everywhere, but there is no trust and the economy is practically at a standstill.

Putting aside the changes that will occur with the November elections, the conservatives are not going to be able to make the sweeping changes that are necessary any time soon. But the American people with their lack of trust of government in general are desperate to hear just one good idea that they can clearly understand and that makes sense to them. They want something they can grab a hold of and say " Yes, this will work. Let's do it and let's do it right now."

I think limited purpose banking just might be the idea that the American people could get behind. It's easy to understand and it will make sense to them. Imagine , no more bank failures, no more market manipulations, no more fractional reserve banking, and it would greatly reduces the ways that the Fed would have to screw up the economy. Promoting and selling this idea will give a lot of credibility to the conservative movement.
The journey of rebuilding America in the image of our Founding Fathers, like all journeys, must start with the first step. Maybe limited purpose banking could be that first step.

Enough said for today.

Sense or nonsense?

The Freedom Project

I'm dedicating today's posting to a blog I just came across called " The Freedom Project " ( http://freemktprojectcom/ ). The blog is published by one Pat Slattery who states that the purpose of The Freedom Project is "to promote free market capitalism as the economic system that is best able to produce wealth....for the people of the United States of America and the world." There is something about the simplicity of this statement of purpose that I find appealing. Also, the title is perfect in my opinion because " Freedom " only truly exist in a free market economy; every degree of socialism is that much less freedom and that much more government control over our lives.

So, I looked forward to reading some of Pat's most recent postings and I wasn't disappointed. This past Sunday, 22 August, the post was titled "Blaming Business is Absurd". The issue raised in a nut shell is: Why is business so vilified in this country especially by the elite in government and the news media but also by the public in general? This is not only an excellent question it is an important question that too often is not addressed by mainstreams conservative thinkers and writers. Free market capitalism can not hope to win the battle against the ever growing socialist tendencies in this country unless this question is honestly answered and a workable plan is put in motion to overcome this erroneous perception.

I certainly am not going to pretend that I have the answers; but maybe I can get the dialog ball rolling with a few opinions:

1.) We free marketers must accept that we have, both historically and currently, a number of unscrupulous actors that continually give capitalism a bad name. The actions of Goldman Sachs and friends in manipulating and defrauding their investors and the Erron scandal are just two of the more recent scandals. But it's not just big business its also local businessmen when the they get caught in a corruption scandal. These events make big news and it is understandable that the public begins to think that all business as corrupt. Maybe the the more important voices of free enterprise need to be much more vocal in condemning these criminal activities.

2.) The media are by in large biased. But that doesn't mean they won't accept a letter to the editor for publication. These letters should be less about attacking government policy and more about the virtues of free enterprise and smaller government. It will take some imagination to formulate our message in a manner that doesn't come across so typically cold and heartless. Not easy I know.

3.) Our children graduate from high school and for that matter from college with very little understanding of the importance of free enterprise. Well, I suppose that's an understatement, right? We're not likely to have much luck in getting the public schools to alter their curriculum but maybe there is another approach. What if retired businessmen and women offered to volunteer their time to teach a course on the role of business in the community and in the country that the students could take for extra credit.

4.) The liberals, the left, the socialist or what ever it is that we're calling them these days, are represented in government by the Democratic Party and, therefore, have a powerful voice in the direction of policy in this country. On the other hand, we the right, the conservatives, the free marketers, or what ever we are calling ourselves these days, have no representation in government and, therefore, no voice in policy making. The Republican Party use to be our voice but that has changed over the years and I suppose that we have mainly ourselves to blame for that. I think that we must become much more politically active from grass roots on up. Possibly we need to take some lessons from the Tea Party movement, but hopefully much more focused. Forming a third party might have some merit; not so much in the idea that we can elect enough candidates to have any real impact, but in the leverage we might gain in getting the Republicans to put up more candidates that truly believe in free enterprise and free market capitalism.

Well, that's enough for today.

Sense or nonsense?

Transparency and Honesty; is that too much to ask of government?

Its an unfortunate fact that the majority of Americans do not take the time or do not make the effort to analyse and understand what government is or is not doing and the impact that these actions have on their daily lives. In part this is because we are all too busy with our daily lives to have the time that it takes to analyse and understand what government is doing to us and it does require a lot of time; it's not easy. We've elected people and pay people to look after our interest. But are they looking after our interest or are they more interested in their own position of power and increasing that power. Over the years, the government; the elected officials and the bureaucracies that they have created, have intentionally tried to make government a mystery to the vast majority of its citizens. Hence the title of this essay. It is clear to me that apparently it is too much to ask of government to be transparent and honest with the American people.

What changes would make government more transparent and honest? I have some ideas.


The first change that I would recommend is to take the Federal Reserve System out of the hands of the private investment bankers and adsorb it as the fourth branch of government. Their is no reason on God's green earth that the United States should have to buy their money from the now privately owned Fed. As it is , the Fed is not responsible to anyone, their actions are secret, and they can not even be audited. The new Fed, as the fourth branch of government, would need to be independent of the President and of the Legislature; but unlike the Supreme Court, they would be responsible to the people. I suggest an elected board of directors; one from each state. The Board would be charged with hiring and firing the management of the Fed. The Board would meet no more than once a month to review and approve the Fed¡s actions. Whenever the economy had grown to the point that additional dollars were needed in circulation, the Board would review and approve the Fed's recommendation; the new dollars would then be spent into circulation by the Legislature on projects for the benefit of the people and the President would retain veto power over the Legislature. Board members would serve for a maximum of four years with half the seats being elected every two years. Similar to a State of the Union address, the president of the Fed would make an annual report to a joint session of both Houses and the President.

The second change I would recommend is giving the President the power of line item veto. This way there would be only one person responsible if hidden pork legislation is passed into law or in spending appropriations bills. It is incredible how much crap our Congressmen and Senators try to hide from us.

The third change I would recommend has to do with hidden taxes. Take for example something simple like gasoline. Do you know when you drive up to the pump what the price of the gasoline is per gallon and what the tax is per gallon. When you ask for a receipt, it should show how much your paying for the product and how much your paying in taxes. All sales and excise taxes should be clearly stated on every receipt. This thought leads me to my principle recommendation on taxes. I suggest that the only tax that any government can demand of it's citizens is a sales tax because sales taxes are the most visible and transparent of all taxes. What I'm saying is that all income taxes should be abolished and all business and corporate taxes should be abolished as well. Why would I want to do away with business and corporate taxes? Because businesses and corporations don't pay taxes; but instead act as an unpaid tax collection agency for the Federal government. The cost of these taxes and the cost they incur in complying with the tax laws are reflected in the price of the goods and/or services that they sell to us. We the People pay these hidden taxes every time we buy a good or a service. Imagine if businesses and corporations didn't pay taxes how much cheaper everything would be. That just might spur investment and job growth like nothing ever did before. Imagine, also, If government at every level, but especially the Federal government, had to come up with a sales tax to cover 100% of the of their cost, what an eye opener that would be to the voting public. If every sales receipt was required to show an itemized tally of the price of the product or service, the local sales tax, the state sales tax, and the federal sales tax, we would finally know what we were paying for government services an we could better determine if we thought we were getting our moneys worth and if not , maybe we would get off our duffs and do something about it.

So these are my three recommendations for making government ant taxes more transparent. In and of themselves they don't make government more honest but with the far greater transparency, maybe we can do a better job of keeping them honest. Surely people smarter than me can come up other ways to improve government and make for a more economically sound future for all of us.

Enough said.

Sense or nonsense?

The Year That Changed U.S. History

I haven't made any postings in a while. I've been busy trying to understand what has gone wrong with the United States. I don't mean just in recent times but for many years. In the last few weeks, I've read again the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and all the other Amendments and I'm about 25% through reading of the Federalist Papers. My intention was to reacquaint myself with the original intent of our founding fathers. Besides all these documents that have to do with the Constitution, I've also read the history of the Federal Reserve System.

Politicians have reaped havoc with the original intent of the founding fathers, for a federal government of defined and limited powers, from day one. Politicians, in general, have mostly put the interest of their own personal power above the interest of the nation. This is not news to anybody. But 1913 seems to have been the year that the original intent of the Constitution was completely abandoned. This is the year that the16th Amendment was ratified establishing the right of the Federal government to tax all forms of income , the 17th Amendment was also ratified this year which provided for the election of Senators by popular vote rather than being appointed by the various state legislatures, and this is the year that Congress passed the law establishing the Federal Reserve System. I've no doubt that the Founding Fathers would have found these changes appalling. These three changes set the stage for the ever increasing power of the central government and the subsequent decline of the power of the states.

Income Taxes

Laws giving the federal government the power to tax income ( individual and corporate ) were passed more than once prior to 1913 but were struck down by the Supreme Court as being unconstitutional. The progressives, i.e., socialist of the time, didn't give up until they were finally able to get their way when 36 states ratified the 16th Amendment. This is what the conservatives of the day had to say: " ...a first step toward complete confiscation of private property....to oppress the middle classes and increase the lower class who would have to depend on government for their survival.". Those in favor of bigger government now had the tool to forever fund their programs. Programs ostensibly to benefit those who can't take care of themselves; but what they really want is to make their constituents dependent on them for their well being and thereby guaranteeing their continued reelection and thereby increasing their personal power. When the conservatives come out against these programs that waste money and resources and in the long run make for a weaker country, they are pilloried as cold and heartless and greedy. Those on the left loved to tell the public that under conservative administrations, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and they love to point out that the majority of the wealth in the country is in the hands of a small percentage of the population. These people better hope they never achieve their goal of becoming a socialist country because then they will see very clearly how few will be the people that control all of the wealth. They will also see how little incentive there is for people to work and be productive. Conservatives, on the other hand, have just as much empathy for the poor or more than do the socialist. The difference is that conservatives know that progress comes from jobs and jobs come from investment and investment comes from wealth. Taxes and the threat of more taxes are disincentive to investment and more and more social programs are a disincentive for people to give their maximum effort to care for themselves. Remember, government can't give anything to their citizens without first taking it from their citizens. Someone by the name of Harriet Rubin is credited for saying: " Power is about what you control....Freedom is about what you unleash.".

Election of Senators

The 17th Amendment provides for the election Senators by popular vote of each states residents rather than being appointed by the legislatures of each state. That's not a bad thing, right? We are after all a democracy, right? No, we are not a democracy we are a republic and I'll leave it to you to investigate the difference between the two, if you don't already know. What is important here is that the founding fathers had very good reasons for preferring that Senators would be appointed by their respective states rather than being elected.
Bare in mind that these men were representatives of the original thirteen states and were united in the goal to create a federal government that would unite them into one nation; but in doing so they wanted only to give such powers to this federal government to do, for the good of all states, what they could not reasonably do for themselves and nothing more. One of the ways that they intended to keep the federal government from trying to grab more and more power was to be sure that the states themselves were represented in this central government. The purpose for having two houses in the legislature was for the Representatives would represent the people and the Senators would represent the states, i.e., state's rights. Effectively the Senators were to be employees of their respective states and subject to recall if their state was not in agreement with their actions. Not a perfect system but what system is. I dare say that if were not for the 17th Amendment, we probably would not have any of these unfunded mandates from the Federal government that are helping so many states to go bankrupt.

Federal Reserve System

Now we come to the Federal Reserve System. Creating the Federal Reserve System was probably the most crippling blow of all. I wonder how many Americans realize that the Federal Reserve is not an agency of the Federal government but is instead a private corporation who's shareholders are the principle investment banks of the world, such as, Rothschild's, Lazard Brothers, Warburg Bank, Chase Manhattan,and Goldman Sachs and many some what lesser banks. That's right. The worlds biggest banks own the U.S. monetary system and as best as I can determine, they control the monetary systems of Europe too. It seems insane but is true. The government does get to appoint a Board of governors and the chairman of the board. But guess where they come from . Yup. They invariably come from the investment banking sector. The Feds operation are secret and they are not responsible to anyone; not to the Congress nor to the President. The government is not even allowed to audit them. They control fiscal policy and they have the power to create money out of thin air, and more; they need only ask and the Treasury will print what ever number of dollars they ask for, free. They in turn can use these dollars to purchase government bonds from the Treasury, which must be booked as a debt. The government now owes this money with interest to the Fed even though the Fed did nothing to earn that money in the first place. Beautiful! The Fed determines the interest rate that banks banks must pay for over night loans and, there by, the interest rate that governments, industry and individuals must pay for borrowed funds. In general, if the the Fed perceives the economy to be sluggish, they lower interest rates and vice verse if they perceive the economy to be growing to fast. The idea behind the Fed or any other central bank is to try to maintain a stable currency. I guess that's why the dollar has lost 95% of its value since the Fed came into existence.

Jeff Fisher is an ex-hedge fund manager that sometimes writes articles for LewRockwell.Com. A while back he wrote an article titled " The Dollars Third and Final Act". Fisher asserts that the U.S. is currently submerged in its third credit crisis since the creation of the Federal Reserve System. The first crisis resulted in the Great Depression. The second resulted in the stagflation of the 1970s. The third crisis is what we are currently living through. According to Fisher " All three episodes were the inevitable result of the prior credit inflation orchestrated by the Federal Reserve System." I highly recommend that you read the entire article. I t is very well written. Fisher, however, is not very optimistic for the future. I include here his summary.

" In summary, for the U.S. economy to improve, many unlikely things must occur.

Saving must rise, productive capital must be accumulated, government must shrink to a fraction of its present size in real terms, and the Fed must stabilize the dollar.

Centuries ago, men realized that for there to be peace, Church and State had to be separated.

In order for civilization to survive going forward, the Market and State must be separated.

The role of government in the economy must be eliminated.

The age of central banks and central planning must end.

I think you can see why Mr. Fisher is not optimistic.

The Feds discount rate is effective zero at the present time. The only arrow left in their quiver to continue this credit inflation is to start the printing presses and create more greenbacks that will be necessary to fund the governments apatite for deficit spending. Things are out of control. David Stockton, former Reagan Budget Director points out: " It takes $25 in Federal deficit to produce $1 of GDP.". Not exactly a formula for success. One of the popular phrases of the moment is " the Fed is pushing on a string". Well, Obama and Company are also pushing an a string.

This brings me to a dilemma that I've been wrestling with. I can understand why politicians behave like idiots. What I can't understand is how the Fed can behave like an idiot. The people who run the Fed and their owners are extremely astute money people. Yet it seems the the Fed is and always has acted in a manner that would appear to be against the interest of their owners let alone the Nation. I don't see the logic. I mean these investment bankers, one would believe, are the capitalist of all capitalist. So why do they appear to be acting against their own interest? It doesn't make sense unless they have some ulterior motive. There are many who say that these investment bankers want to collapse the major economies of the world so that they can institute a system of one currency for the world and eventually one government for the world. Sounds like the basis for a Hollywood film, but who knows. Like I said, their actions seem to defy logic.

Enough said.

Sense or nonsense?