Look At It This Way (#LAITW)

You all know I’m a train lover. But for the record, I want you all to know that I’m totally against California spending billions on high speed rail and all for California spending billions on water solutions.

“Water” is the correct choice.

So what if the economy gets messed up. So what if we lose a few freedoms, liberties, or rights. So what if some suffer a bit. No big deal. It’s for the better good, blah, blah, blah.

Well, the game just notched up.

The first time Iran uses nukes, the deaths are on those of you who have supported this administration whether by action or inaction. And some of you are my friends. Sad day.

“A businessman cannot force you to buy his product; if he makes a mistake, he suffers the consequences; if he fails, he takes the loss. A bureaucrat forces you to obey his decisions, whether you agree with him or not—and the more advanced the stage of a country’s statism, the wider and more discretionary the powers wielded by a bureaucrat. If he makes a mistake, you suffer the consequences; if he fails, he passes the loss on to you, in the form of heavier taxes.”

Ayn Rand

When capitalism is left alone to function cleanly, it works.

In the U.S., for at least 27 years now, capitalism has been hampered by all manner of government intervention and story telling.

“As documented in Parts 1-3 (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), the Fed has generated a $50 trillion financial bubble since Alan Greenspan took the helm in August 1987. After 27 years, honest price discovery has been destroyed, thereby reducing the nerve centers of capitalism—-the money and capital markets—-to little more than gambling casinos.”

The real unemployment rate in the U.S. today is much closer to 42.9% than the reported 5.5%. Stockman’s approach to calculating this is very straightforward. How many potential work hours are available from the work-age population, and how many are actually fulfilled. If you have been paying attention at all, you would recognize that with 90+ million Americans no working, the real unemployment rate can’t possibly be 5.5%.

Read David Stockman’s article…

The number of childfree women is at a record high: 48 percent of women between the ages of 18 and 44 don’t have kids, according to 2014 Census numbers.

So, there will be roughly half as many kids as might be expected to pay off our $17 trillion debt.

Uh-oh.

There are morals and ethics of a higher nature. Whether you think they’re “by God” or “of nature” may matter a little, but the point remains. There are ethics and truisms that are above reproach. I know, there are moral relativists out there. And those who believe there are no rules. Screw ’em.

Thou shalt not steal. Notice that there are no qualifiers. Not even “but I was starving” counts.

That doesn’t stop the government. Roughly 1/3 of government spending is on welfare (social and corporate) and other “redistribution of wealth” programs. This is stealing from Peter to pay Paul. It’s immoral. All that crap should be cut from government at all levels. Supporting those who need support is much better done charitably and locally.

But, you say, if we don’t extract the money from some people, they won’t be charitable. And you know what, that’s their right not to be charitable. Live with it.

Here’s the biggy. ONE HUNDRED PERCENT OF THE DEBT (which is what, about $17 trillion these days) is stealing from the future. It’s stealing from my kids, and grandkids, and kids that aren’t even born yet.

It’s immoral. I think it’s criminal.

Remember the population scare from the 60s/70s? Right.

It’s important to remember this crap so when you’re listening to the doom scenarios the left puts out if we don’t solve the problem the way they see it, your BS-meter will go off.

Like with climate change.

In more negative moods, I can see quite clearly that the U.S. is bound for hard times. I can convince myself that we’re headed for third world status.

If that’s true, here’s an interesting article, “10 Forgotten Truths to Help You Get Through Hard Times“. It’s more geared to personal hard times (loss of loved one, job loss, etc.), but I think it will help in a bigger “bad times” sense as well.

Don’t forget your Faith. There have been plenty of times in human history when Faith was all people had.

Look throughout history. How can anyone not see that “government” is nearly always the problem, the oppressor? The U.S. governmental experiment, as documented in our founding papers, was truly a one-of-a-kind attempt at forming a government for and by the people. And it worked for a while.