An article in the New York Times Magazine lambasted the President. Economic woes were blamed for abject failure of his administration. The end of economic turmoil is not yet in sight for the United States. It is not one president and not one administration that is to blame rather a succession of irresponsible politicians that never took long range approaches to running the country.
A national economy cannot be reinvented every four years. While every president prepares a budget and programs to be funded, it is the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate that vote on the appropriations. Since their political careers depend on success in the short term, it is not in their best interests to consider national interests on a long term basis.
In these times of economic crises media pundits and talking heads turn to academics that teach economics in college. Brilliant scholars have no more wisdom than the average person, likely far less since none of them that I’ve ever seen interviewed has made a penny for themselves outside of the halls of protected Ivy League. They do not pay for their health insurance. They get big breaks when their kids go to the institution they teach at and receive adequate salary and retirement to stand them in good stead the rest of their tenured lives. One brilliant scholar suggested that inflation is good. People can then repay their mortgages with worthless dollars. Some even suggest investments in bullion. You can’t eat gold.
The person to ask is the rancher, small business owner or farmer. All occupations vital to any national economy. These hard working people will likely be of one mind when asked about government. “Keep them politicians out of my business.” Depending on how drastically government interference has ruined their businesses will be the vehemence of that reply.
Stay out of it. Let free enterprise find its own way. Let market economics govern the way things run. It has always worked in a free society and will always work. CRP, or government Crop Reduction Programs pay farmers and ranchers not to plant crops. To reduce supply thus increase overall prices. It is tantamount to fraud perpetrated on taxpayers by corrupt elected officials. Regulatory agencies interfere with the food supply to the point where it is not profitable for farmers and ranchers to continue operations. Fishermen are paid not to catch fish. Laggards are paid not to work. The programs now have different names but they amount to the same thing.
To accomplish what someone on welfare receives, that person would have to earn $40,000 per year. Since the person in question has limited skills, the minimum wage of $7.25 is about the best they could hope to receive in the work force. That comes to working 5517 hours or some 230 full 24 hour days. If they worked 8 hour days that would amount to 690 days. Do the math. Then there is no free Medicaid which means they pay their own dentist, emergency room visits, doctors office visits, chiropodist visits, chiropractor visits, don’t get the new credit card replacement of food stamps and have to get up every morning to go to work, rain or shine.
A farmer I know just sold his hay. He was paid $30 per bale (550 pounds) delivered. In the condition of his farmland that required some 30 acres to produce the hay. He had to mow, rake and bail it. Equipment and supplies, tractors and wagons were required to haul it. Fuel is at an all time high. The farmer’s labor was required all year to care for his fields, fence and fertilize them. He then toiled in brutal summer sun to harvest his crop. The travail was compounded by weather. Bad weather would mean extra toil, rain could mean ruined crop. Lack of rain would mean no crop. But his toil in heat of summer for so little gain in the end amounted to $3000. No food stamps, no free hospital if injured on the job, no health insurance since it would cost $5000 yearly at a minimum. Yet he works at it and other jobs besides.
The man is an American. His life had been toil and labor. He is proud and fiercely independent. His farmhouse is neat and cozy and he’s raised his children and cuddled his grand children in his arms at the end of a day’s work. If there remains extra money after real estate taxes are paid on the farm and machinery mortgages settled with the bank each month, it is put in the bank as savings.
The great minds in government give no credence to this man’s ethic. It is not their ethic and not the ethic of the majority of supporters that have voted them into office. Anyone can vote. It makes no difference that they are good citizens or bad, that they have ever paid taxes or not, that they are on the dole and remain children of generations that have been on the dole before them. They can and do vote. They do not save. One New York governor put in place a voter registration program that allowed derelicts to use their park bench as a residence.
Nor does the average new-age Yuppie have the farmer’s work ethic. The age of entitlements sees this new age college grad in a fancy German motorcar, his wife in a Japanese SUV their family of four ensconced in a mansion. They new age Yuppie’s parents could not have afforded that mansion until married twenty years and having previously labored to earn a house in the country. No, these new age Yuppies will not wait until they can afford it. They want their mansion now. They get it now and have debt.
Debt is not a worry. There is no shame in defaulting on debt. Let the mortgage bankers try to get them out, let the repo man try to find their sports car, let the credit card company collectors’ threaten. The good life, designer coffee and pastry every morning $12, lunch in the city with pals $27, dinner out $300 shopping sprees on the credit card bearing interest rates from 17 to 22% for shoes that cost $800. No lie one New Ager recently told her mother that’s what she wanted for her birthday and got them.
It doesn’t matter. They can be made judgment proof. If they listen to the radio every station proclaims ads from Shyster and Shyster, LLC, to help them evade their debt, their foreclosure and their stigma of shame. They certainly do not save. Why should they. Government will bail them out if they howl loud enough. Might as well get more tattoos on the credit card.
If we are to save America politicians must offer incentives to hard working people. They are not the very rich that phony politicians like to blame every time they stump for increased taxes and economic recklessness for America. They are those that earned what they have and achieve through their own ingenuity and hard labor. The Federal Reserve system must be eliminated. The eccentric ways in which the system has been run must be stopped. Any U.S. official that tells people to spend, not to save, must be sent back to college. Let those economists live in their ivory towers away from the levers that control printing money.
The U.S. Treasury must regain control of the dollar. Its value must be strengthened not diluted. Unemployment will continue to rise if jobs are exported to other nations. India pays 40 cents per hour, China $2 per hour. An engineer in the U.S. earns $90,000, in India the engineer is paid $12,000 annually. The average U.S. hourly wage now is $20 per hour plus $1.24 in social security taxes per hour. Here again you can do the math.
Call your credit card company’s 800 number. Call an airline reservation number. Ask for help with your Chinese computer. The person on the other end of the telephone line speaks English, is courteous and knowledgeable. The do not live in the U.S., do not pay income taxes here and do not have any relationship to American other than having been hired by U.S. corporations saving money on hourly wages and benefits. These outsourced employees do not have all manner of entitlements and job rights that can subject companies to expensive and often frivolous lawsuits for non-compliance.
No, the climate for business in the U.S. is not good, not healthy. The patient is diseased. If there is one good idea that has come along it is to encourage people to build for their own future. Have a savings account that pays a decent interest rate. Insure a fair interest rate on savings. Exempt a certain level of interest income from income taxes. Currently interest income from savings, from government bonds and treasury obligations is taxed at the highest rate as ordinary income. This form of savings is the highest form of patriotism, yet patriots are punished and scalawags and spendthrifts rewarded. The rewards come from the taxes honest citizens pay.
It can’t last. Human nature is such that if one person sees another getting away with a colossal scam, keeping a mansion after defaulting on the mortgage, getting off after all those fancy meals and libations at the best restaurants, paying 10 to 20% of their credit card bills, why not me? Why not? It’s not their fault really. Temptation did it and 545 elected politicians continue that temptation. Let’s hope there is correction before rioting that rocked other nations occurs in our streets. Save, America. The comma is in the right place.
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Note: The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and are not necessarily representative of Epoch Times.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: John Christopher Fine investigated government activities around the world while attached to the U.S. State Department’s Inspector General’s Office. He served in many posts including Special Counsel to U.S. Senate Investigating Committee and Senior Assistant District Attorney in New York County.