The Federal Boondoggle Continues

It's 2013.  Obama and his cronies are still in office and the federal deficit has grown to $16,700,000,000,000.00 and still climbing as the federal union keeps raising taxes, borrowing from the Federal Reserve by exchanging Treasury Bonds and T-Bills for freshly printed fiat Federal Reserve Notes backed by nothing and worth less and less in purchasing power.  Inflation is very noticeable now and more businesses are failing, more people are filing bankruptcies in record numbers, and foreclosures are backed up by the thousands in many states.

Unemployment benefits were extended several times (now up to 73 weeks), paid for partially by raising the federal unemployment taxes on businesses from .8% of payroll to 6.2% of payroll--a a whopping 675% increase of this payroll expense item on top of other state rate increases--and partially from borrowing from future generations.

Businesses are hurting not only because of these payroll tax increases but inventories are still high because people don't have the cash to buy the nonessential products they used to buy, so revenues are down while the cost of goods (materials used to manufacture the products) is increasing due to the devaluation of the dollar.  It's a vicious cycle that causes retailers to order fewer goods, manufacturers to reduce production and layoff workers so the unemployment ranks swell and even fewer people have the money to buy more products.  Moreover, the suppliers to the manufacturers, the producers of raw materials and components, have to cut back as their sales figures drop.  The same is true of service industries, the engineers that develop new products or modify the old; the software developers; the truckers and railroad workers, even restaurants and entertainment outlets.  Casinos have tightened their slot machine payouts and reduced their incentive programs.

But there are lots of new opportunities for contrarians to make money betting on the losing side of the proposition by shorting stocks or buying put options on the stocks of floundering businesses or by picking up cheap foreclosures or bank-owned properties and renting them to former home buyers.

As people cut back on local shopping to save money on gas, more of them are shopping online, so entrepreneurs who sell stuff online are making a killing.  Meanwhile states are losing sales tax revenue so are pushing harder and harder to tax Internet sales which currently are taxed only if sold in the state in which they are physically located.  Interstate sales can not be taxed without amending the federal constitution, something I hope never happens. The Internet is the closest thing to free trade in the world and is beyond the reach of most money-grubbing politicians regardless of country or state.

Where this will end is anybody's guess, but my extensive research convinces me that it will not end well.  Unless our politicians start facing reality and start cutting down the size, scope, and cost of government, the nation is doomed to continue borrowing and printing phony money until our credit is exhausted and like Brazil, Argentina, Greece and other countries in the past, we default on our debts (go bankrupt) and start over again.

It's time for the People to holler, "We've had enough, and we're not going to take this anymore!"  Fire the politicians and lawyers and start America over again with no formal national government but 50 sovereign and independent States (nations) free to operate as their individual citizens choose, remembering Jefferson's words that "the government that governs least, governs best."  Little Iceland did it a few years ago and is thriving today after returning to a gold-based currency.

Government's ONLY function is to protect the natural rights of its citizens--those being the rights to life, liberty, property, and contracts.  Services such as road and bridge building and maintenance, street lighting, sewerage treatment, police and fire protection, and other public services should be paid for from property taxes and use taxes and not from borrowing (read robbing) from the next generation.

Natural law makes no allowances for the unfit.  In the wild, animals either feed themselves or die so that only the strong survive to reproduce the next generation.  Droughts and famine keep over-population in check.  Floods and forest fires clear out the weakest vegetation.  The same should hold with economics.  Recessions should clear out the under-performers and make room for newer, stronger, or better-managed companies.  But when the government starts meddling in business, subsidizing the failures and propping up the lenders who took on too much risk, they interfere with the natural cycles and only make matters worse.

Welfare should be left to private charities funded by voluntary contributions from those willing to support the nonproductive members of society and not forced from the productive who may be opposed to supporting them.  Retirement should be the responsibility of the individual and the employer.  If the workers put the current 7.65% of their wages, matched by the same amount from their employers, into an annuity with any reputable insurance company, their return on investment and monthly income after retirement would be substantially higher than they can ever get from the Social Security system, and the money they accumulate in their annuity policy can be passed on to their heirs, rather than left to the government to mismanage.

Until next time.

Joy and abundance,

Cory Layne
Reno, Nevada, America

Nearly Two Years Later - More of the Same

Barak Hussein Obama won the 2008 presidential election and took office January 20, 2009.  The recession he inherited has gotten worse.  By fudging the numbers regarding unemployment, jobs lost, and new jobs created, his administration has avoided calling it a depression, but it IS a depression.  

Most of the jobs lost have been in manufacturing, distribution, and services.  Most of the new jobs created have been government jobs which add nothing to the GDP, they are expenses in the federal budget.  As to the unemployment numbers, they only count those currently receiving unemployment insurance payments.  They omit those whose coverage has expired.  Those people may have found new jobs or created their own business (as I have), but few are earning what they earned before losing their previous jobs.  

Personally, I'm earning about a third of what I was earning in 2005.  I've scaled down from a 6 bedroom house to a 1 bedroom motorhome and moved from high cost Reno, Nevada, to much lower cost San Benito, Texas.  

Until I get my online business producing sufficient cash flow on a consistent basis to upgrade to my more mobile lifestyle, I'm content with my laid-back, small-carbon-footprint, motionless lifestyle. I do miss my mountains and four seasons though.

Meanwhile our illustrious "leaders" at the federal and state capitols continue to spend, borrow, and spend some more.  With bailouts of the banking, mortgage, and auto industries and more easy credit programs with low interest mortgages designed to put foreclosure "victims" back in houses they can't afford.

The federal deficit now stands at $13.4 Trillion mostly owed to the Federal Reserve Banking System.

Joy and abundance,

Cory Layne
San Benito, Texas, America

Take Back Your Government: The Financial Crisis – Cause and Effect

Take Back Your Government: The Financial Crisis – Cause and Effect

Update on 2008 post about the Financial Crisis - It Still Continues

As we all know, Barack Hussein Obama won the 2008 election promising "change."  As we enter 2014, halfway through his second term, I think most of us realize that any changes that have been made have only made conditions worse.  The federal debt ceiling has been raised repeatedly, making the whole idea of a "ceiling" ludicrous.  There seems to be no ceiling on how far in debt our politicians are willing to put us.  The national debt now exceeds $17.2 Trillion Dollars, up another $6 trillion from 2008.  Yet net wages and salaries are down, and starter jobs for our recent high school and college grads are almost nonexistent.

Politicians get themselves elected and quickly forget that they were elected to represent us, to protect our rights from infringement by the government.  Instead they believe they were elected to RULE us and lose no time in making more rules to restrict us and further restrict the free enterprise "capitalist" system that made America great.

Some of the "changes" include ObamaCare, misnamed "The Affordable Care Act", which was rammed through Congress without being read by any representative or senator.  In the words of the inimitable House Majority Leader at the time, Nancy Pelosi, "We have to pass it to see what's in it."  What's in it has caused havoc within the medical insurance industry.  Existing policies are being cancelled because they don't comply with the new law, businesses are downgrading their employees to part-timers so they don't have to comply with the law requiring them to provide insurance for all of their full-time employees, doctors are giving up private practice to avoid all the red tape (some of them going into politics).

The wars against terrorism continue to cost a trillion a year and have accomplished little toward eliminating terrorism and have instead produced more hatred toward Americans by those who have lost loved ones and property in U.S. attacks.  U.S. military fatalities continue to rise.  In Iraq, the casualties have declined steadily since the so-called "handover" in 2004 with only 256 deaths since Obama's 2009 inauguration.  U.S. wounded during same period totaled 15,036.  In Afghanistan, our dead numbered 569 at the time of Obama's inauguration.  As of 31 Dec 2013 they stand at 2,162.  Wounded over 23,500 under Obama's watch.  The Veterans Administration is years behind in processing disability claims of wounded veterans, even those that should be no-brainers, those who've lost limbs or suffered permanent brain damage.

The IRS and NSA scandals have raised the hackles of many, but not much has been done to correct or restrict either agency.  The Affordable Care Act included the addition of 30,000 IRS agents and auditors to insure that everyone who chooses not to purchase insurance is fined (read taxed) each year.  How many of them were actually hired to persecute Obama-bashers, liberty-seekers, and tax protestors I can only guess.

But life in America goes on, and we will survive this depression as our grandparents or parents survived the 1930s.  Hopefully, we won't have any more world wars and people will eventually learn to get along with each other.  After all, "people" don't start wars, politicians do.  When we withdraw our consent and start limiting the assumed power of the political class, we will begin to see more freedom, more self-rule, and less of being ruled by others who don't have the good sense to leave well enough alone.

Make 2014 the year we start questioning authority at all levels and start holding our elected officials accountable to us, the People.

Joy and abundance,

Cory Layne
Reno, Nevada, America