Thoughts for Friday 12-28-2012
Fiscal Cliff is a bitch.
The problem is not the cliff per se, but the reasons we are are standing at the cliff’s edge. Our politicians cannot develop a game plan to financially run the USA. Because politicians love to spend money in their districts, they know that they cannot stop. It is like a fat person who was ordered by their doctor to lose weight but could not stop eating. The eventual solution is gastric bypass surgery. In a way, the politicians operated on themselves and imposed fiscal bypass surgury.
When you operate on yourself, you cannot control the consequences. The Fiscal Cliff is a sloppy solution caused by an uncontrolled “fiscal” procedure.
But first, let us understand some terms like the ‘Fiscal Cliff’ and ‘Debt Ceiling’.
‘Fiscal Cliff’ As Seen By The US Government.
* U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
* Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000
* New debt: $1,650,000,000,000
* National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
* Recent budget cuts: $38,500,000,000
For most, removing 8 zeros will make these absurd government numbers look more familiar and somewhat like a real household budget.
The ‘Fiscal Cliff’ As Seen By A Household.
* Annual family income: $21,700
* Money the family spent: $38,200
* New debt on the credit card: $16,500
* Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
* Total budget cuts so far: $38.50
The actual numbers change on an hourly basis but you can see where shaving a few bucks off the outstanding balance is NOT going to lower the debt ceiling nor will it help cut the spending. This insane arguing between the political factions is about politics and not about solving the financial crisis these elected officials got us into in the first place.
Debt Ceiling: Remove the Sewage
The common folks, like you and me, have to have a ‘balanced’ budget to run our households and businesses if we do not want to end up in bankruptcy court or worse. Whether one believes a government needs to “balance” a budget, there is no disagreement that a country needs to have a sustainable spending path. The growth of debt since 2000 much faster than GDP growth is proof positive that the government does not have its fiscal house in order. The can keeps being kicked down the road, saying it is too early to impose austerity.
Maybe it is too early for austerity, but it is too late in setting up future revenue to match future expenditures. The politicians want to continue to eat icecream even though it is bad for the country.
Let’s say, you come home from work and find there has been a sewer backup in your neighborhood. Investigating further you discover your home has sewage all the way up to your ceilings.
What do you think would be the sensible thing that should be done?
Raise the ceilings, or remove the sewage?
Seriously, the governments around the World are a joke when it comes to handling or solving financial state matters, including the most sophisticated one, the United States of America.
Substance and Solution
Here is we get down to the substance and perhaps the solution to the governments problem of Keynesian beliefs. Welcome to the ‘Free Ponies and Ice Cream Party‘.
Politicians are corrupt and what they are doing is morally wrong but few see this or even understand the concept of ethics. The following article by Larry Doyle clearly addresses the futility of the US political factions pointing fingers at each other.
America awakes this morning to the realization that our federal government is collectively unwilling and/or unable to tend to the people’s business.
Many in America might like to point fingers at one side of the aisle or the other. Many others would bemoan the general lack of real leadership in the most senior positions within the federal government. Folks, we can point fingers all we want and apportion blame however we might like . . . but pointing fingers gets us absolutely nowhere.
Businesses in America have no ability to proactively plan for 2013 and beyond without knowing what our tax code may look like. Families have no ability to proactively plan their own personal budgets faced with the tremendous uncertainty of their own tax bills.
You would not run your own families and businesses this way. Yet, our federal government is running in exactly this fashion. It is an absolute joke. Unfortunately, the joke is a bad one . . .”
Keynesian’s Madness
I opined recently that Going off the ‘fiscal cliff’ might be the best thing to happen.
If we do fall off the cliff the voters may awaken, sit up and demand that the morally inept dolts currently running the show be dismissed summarily and replace them with responsible civil servants. Thus ending decades of looting of the public coffers and the constant positioning of political power that does nothing more than divides the populace and fill their pockets with ill-received benefits.
I wish for nothing more than to have the Keynesian financial madness done away with. The realization is that, we the people, are responsible as we elected these morally decadent slobs. I may call them fools and idiots, but they are anything but. Some of theses elected officials are VERY smart and are knowingly jerking you around like a puppet on strings. If you have been sprinkled by this fairy dust then you have no one to blame except yourself.
The Sleeper Must Awaken
The awful truth is that WE are responsible. We elected these people. We . . . we end up with a choice between the mediocre and the inferior.
We are left to choose between the fool and the idiot . . . those focused on the health of the nation are left behind because they . . . cannot survive the taunts and tricks of those that have no other interest besides their own ego and their own self-interests.
This is our fault and until and unless WE start demanding a government that represents our interests and values and morals . . . we have no one to blame but ourselves.
That is the sad truth of it which is why going off our present fiscal cliff may be the best thing that could happen to the United States. We might just wake up!
I wish I had a wizardly potion, that if generously spread around, would mystically awaken those people to elect civil servants that would ‘fix’ this financial mess. In the meantime, we have to listen to the manure spewing forth out of politicians mouths on a daily basis. The pseudo intellectual garbage that the ‘stupids and the fools’ believe to be true.
It is a sad note that 25 million registered voters in the US did not bother to vote in November, 2012 and I suspect the percentage in other countries, across the free world, is the same. The number of people who could make a difference just doesn’t care it seems or maybe they like their ice cream.
If you haven’t guessed the ‘real’ cliff is the chasm between the promised free ice cream and what can plausibly be collected by tax revenues.
I have faith that someday this financial sodomy being carried out on its peoples will all be corrected, but probably not in my lifetime and certainly not in 2012.
Your views are encouraged and always welcome.
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Written by Gary
