"I am convinced that there are more threats to American liberty within
the 10 mile radius of my office on Capitol Hill than there are on the
rest of the globe." -- Ron Paul
Well, Ron, right now our biggest threat is the entire Congress, who haven't a flipping clue what to do to keep us from going over that mythical cliff! Should we call in the unicorns?
That bunch of charlatans and Wall Street's whores have obviously decided it's best to do not much of anything in order to avoid looking like the self-serving scum they are to their lowly constituents! Relax, Capitol Gang, we already know you for what you are, you sold-out vermin! In both houses up there, we may have a half dozen who are not on the take, on the make sucking up to Wall Street, and who aren't hell-bent and determined to see America BANKRUPT! They've long ago handed the reins to lobbyists, bureaucratic 'match-makers', and to that cut-throat FED, handed over the entire finances of our nation to that elitist private banking group of mainly foreign wankers who have but ONE true skill...COUNTERFEITING! They know how to print money and do so with a passion. They've brought many nations to their knees, this greedy bunch of 'gentry', and America has been on their hit list since the 1800s!
And the "god" of our lousy financial 'experts'? Keynesian economics...you know, fast fix, trickle-down, malarkey, baloney, lunacy...aka, voodoo economics, remember that?
What is the Keynesian THEORY of a fiscally sound entity, like, oh, maybe a GOVERNMENT?
Basically, a SHORT-TERM BAND-AID, applied when needed, and it's ALWAYS needed.
Listen to the 'wisdom' of it:
“But the long
run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we
are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a
task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the
storm is long past the ocean will be flat again.”
~ John Maynard Keynes, founder of Keynesian economics.
Right on, Johnny! You got that much right! Thanks to you, America is indeed "dead in the long run", because your way doesn't work!
"GO TO THE ANTS, THOU SLUGGARDS!" They can teach you LONG TERM!
The
Keynesian economists want to forever focus on the short term. Sure it would be convenient if
you could just spend a bunch of money, lay out a "stimulus" and make the economy get
well, but it’s not that simple, and it will never happen! Our economic 'gurus' have been using Keynesian 'logic' for as long as we've kept time in America almost and look what that's done!
Once more, let us chant:"Insanity can be defined as doing the same thing over and over, hoping for a different outcome."
Our financial wizards have not learned anything, obviously, and they've been diving over that "fiscal cliff" year after year, BOTH parties, ALL presidents, EVERY new administration, each session of Congress, the same tired worthless effort to make it all come out better, hoping THIS time will be magic, maybe THIS time Keynes will appear and make all the horror go away.
It is NOT going to happen!
Keynesians maintain the perspective that you can
hit the economy a few times with a cattle prod and get society back
to full employment. Really? When id that work? Remember that so-called “cash-for-clunkers”
program? Maybe it created some new car sales for a month or two,
but it had no lasting impact. Bad economics hasn't been the answer! Walk away from the cattle prods!
The opposing "school" of economic theory, aka the 'Chicago School', makes it clear where the Keynesian policies hit the rocks and sink. Their two theories are the “permanent income
hypothesis” and the theory of “rational expectations.”
The “permanent income hypothesis” was how Milton Friedman
defined the findings of his 'research' on consumer spending behavior . The MIT Dictionary of Economics defines the
permanent income hypothesis : “The hypothesis that the consumption
of the individual (or household) depends on his (or its)
permanent income. Permanent income may be thought of as
the income an individual expects to derive from his work and
holdings of wealth during his lifetime.”
Keynes was
not known for his research or empirical efforts. I guess he just wasn't 'moved' to bother. Maybe that's why it is such a sorry excuse for creating a PROSPEROUS economy? Keynesianism is
definitely nowhere near an evidence-based model of how the economy ACTUALLY works. Repeat: To the best of my knowledge, Keynes did no empirical studies. Friedman was a far
more diligent researcher and data collector than was Keynes. And it shows!
The Keynesian disregard for the need of evidence is crystal clear in their
advocacy for MORE stimulus spending while making certain there is LESS incoming revenue [such as having the mega-rich pay taxes?] even after the blatantly obvious
clue before them that what’s already been spent did not fix it! At a minimum, they could offer some sort of valid explanation for why it hasn’t worked. Don’t hold your breath, nor bet any money on THAT happening because they simply don't know why, their minds can't wrap around the FAILURE!
On the opposing team, Robert Lucas won a Nobel Prize for Economics for his theory of “rational expectations.” It essentially states that
“individuals use all the available and relevant information when
taking a view about the future.” (MIT Dictionary of Modern
Economics)
Lucas' hypothesis is beautifully simple: It states that individuals take into account their best guesses
about the future when they make decisions. That nice, simple
concept has profound implications!
Lucas thinks that people are relatively deliberate and 'sophisticated' in how they
make economic choices! Yes, even us 'little people'! Keynesians and their fans (like Congress, the FED, our Treasury Department?) apparently think individuals are short-sighted and
very simple-minded.
American economy is based on VOLUNTARY exchange, and voluntary
exchange is even more fundamental to our economy than
'the market'. Markets merely bring buyers and
sellers together, but the primary purpose of a market
is to make voluntary exchange possible. Isn't that amazingly simplistic! Markets rely on
carrots rather than sticks, rewards rather than punishment. The participants, therefore, need to be induced to move in certain desired
directions rather than simply commanded to do so. This is the reason why incentives are so important in economics. If it wasn't for voluntary exchange, incentives wouldn’t matter much at all. What actually
motivates people and how do they make choices? Now if you want to change
behaviors in a voluntary exchange economy, you must change
incentives. Keynesian policies don't take that very essential
step.Our federal government’s share of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) has gone from 19% to 24% in the past 4 years. A
larger government share of GDP REQUIRES higher taxes but higher taxes can retard economic
growth because of their impact on incentives. The disincentive
effect of higher taxes shows why BIG government is much
costlier than it may appear.
Keynesianism is popular with
'liberals', because it blends well with their unquenchable thirst for
expansive government. It doesn’t work for the economy but it works
for them. That is the "Brotherhood of ME", or of the "good ol' boys".
According to columnist Ezra Klein,
“Lawrence Summers and Christina Romer were two of the most
influential Keynesians in the country. Obama didn’t just have a
team of Keynesians. He had a Keynesian all-star team.”
Now Obama has a Keynesian all-gone team. It will
be a brighter day for the country when Keynesianism itself is gone
for good. We can dream!
Ron Paul advocated AUSTRIAN economics.
This classic theory says that economic analysis is universally applicable and that
the appropriate unit of analysis is man and his choices. These choices, Carl Menger wrote, are determined by individual subjective preferences and the
margin on which decisions are made.The logic of choice, he believed, is the essential building block to the development of a universally valid economic theory.
He offers propositions: #1: Man, with his purposes and plans, is
the beginning of all economic analysis. Only individuals make choices;
collective entities do not choose. The primary task of economic analysis
is to make economic phenomena intelligible by basing it on individual
purposes and plans; the secondary task of economic analysis is to trace
out the unintended consequences of individual choices.
#2 Focus analytical attention on the exchange
relationships that emerge in the market, the bargaining that
characterizes the exchange process, and the institutions within which
exchange takes place.
#3 In the 'human sciences', the elimination of purposes
and plans results in purging the science of human action of its subject
matter. In the human sciences, the “facts” of the world are what the
actors think and believe.
The meaning that individuals place on things,
practices, places, and people determines how they will orient themselves
in making decisions. The goal of the sciences of human action is
intelligibility, not prediction. The human sciences can achieve this
goal because "we are what we study", or because we possess knowledge from
within, whereas the natural sciences cannot pursue a goal of
intelligibility because they rely on knowledge from without. We can
understand purposes and plans of other human actors because we ourselves
are human actors.
#4 Utility and costs are subjective. All economic phenomena are filtered through the human mind. Just as both blades of a scissors cut a piece of paper, so value and costs determine price, but costs are also subjective because they are
themselves determined by the value of alternative uses of scarce
resources. Both blades of the scissors do indeed cut the paper, but the blade of supply is determined by individuals’ subjective valuations.The cost of any action is the value of the
highest-valued alternative forgone in taking that action. Since the
forgone action is, by definition, never taken, when one decides, one
weighs the expected benefits of an activity against the expected
benefits of alternative activities.
Well, that's the top four, but if you want to read the other propositions and see if they don't run along the lines of how INTELLIGENT PEOPLE handle money, go here:
COMMON SENSE ECONOMICS
[http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/AustrianSchoolofEconomics.html]
If we had all managed our finances like the guys we allow to handle the nation's economy, we'd have never had anything to show for working our tushes off all our lives!
It's the Keynesian logic that the American bankers were foisting on borrowers that caused that BIG bubble to burst back during Bush 2's regime.
I don't know about you, but if someone I handed MY finances to began embezzling and driving me into bankruptcy, I'd FIRE them the minute I found out! And I'd prosecute them with extreme prejudice!
And about those "entitlements"!
We would have never had those except for Woodrow Wilson and FDR who began wrapping America in the warm and fuzzy blankets of social welfare and a central bank that had its own agenda on bringing Americans under subjection.
Something many don't know is that organizations such as
business corporations, local governments, and even political parties have special "entitlements" under certain programs. THAT has to cost a bundle!
My main beef is with Congress incessantly screaming about Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Veterans "benefits". If the federal government hadn't CREATED those things, and if millions of citizens hadn't been FORCED to pay into the first two on that list for GENERATIONS now, and if the Feds hadn't gotten INTEREST on those forced payments for decades, they might have a genuine gripe when they balk at PAYING IT BACK! I can scarcely wrap my mind around HOW MUCH INTEREST has been drawn off what workers have paid into Medicare/Social Security by TAXES on their earnings! Whoever came up with that plan should be dug up and re-buried face down in a manure heap!
As for VETERANS, if they've been to war while Congress sat on their cushioned seats and created pork barrel ideas for spending our money, the money of those veterans, and if, by the grace of God they SURVIVED, who will argue that they deserve NOTHING, after they were paid less than the most junior member of that fat-cat Congress, who, by the way, gets a LIFETIME check even if they "serve" just a wee bit of time up there filling their pockets with payola? And those greasy politicians have the BEST health care plan money can buy! I wish our elderly and our veterans and our CHILDREN had that kind of plan!
As to the other 'entitlements'...well, if you CREATE A WELFARE STATE, expect to pay for that! Congress did it, pushed into it as they may have been back during FDR's days of lunacy [they probably didn't bother to READ THE BILL!) so why carp about a self-created MONSTER you have to FEED? Either get rid of the monster, or feed it and shut up!
OR, here's a wild thought...stop creating UNEMPLOYMENT by doing insane things like NAFTA accomplished by SENDING AMERICAN JOBS OVERSEAS! Stop bankrolling UNDECLARED, CONCOCTED WARS! Stop spending for a military which you've kept afield for decades! That bankrupted ROME, and it's been bankrupting us since Bush 1 got the hots for Iraq!
Now, citizens, also realize YOU have been complicit in all this! Yes, YOU have ALLOWED things to slide into the sewer by your apathy and your outright STUPIDITY, by being dumbed-down, by falling asleep at the wheel, by ceasing to make YOUR desires known and then FAILING TO IMPOSE THE WILL OF WE, THE PEOPLE on the harlots you elected to run the show in D.C.! By doing NOTHING, by laying down (or bending over?) for this, YOU have been aiding and abetting these CRIMINAL, UNCONSTITUTIONAL acts, these philanderings, these acts of TREASON!
You may choose to continue to do so, or you can choose to get together with all the rest of us, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Libertarians, ALL of us, and toss aside those ludicrous tags that have kept America divided for two centuries and counting, and march up to the HILL and DO something!
Posting your silly cartoons and useless slogans to your Facebook page, or Tweeting how much you hate your politicians, or TALKING about it in online forums...TALK WON'T FIX IT!
WE MUST FINALLY GET OFF OUR DUFFS AND DO SOMETHING!
We won't perish if we "go over the fiscal cliff, trust me. It may be a good thing!
After all, if we suffered some natural, world-wide catastrophe today, those of us who remained would just brush off the dirt, take stock of things, and start over, right?
My maternal grandfather had a 'saying'..."Hold their feet to the fire THEY built until they get enough of fire. They'll be careful about fire-building from then on!" I didn't really comprehend what he was saying until I was almost 50. I have a really good grasp on it NOW!
Congress built this cliff...let them fall off it! Maybe next go, they won't build such a high one?
Keynesian economics has FAILED. Tell your Congressional whore-dog to stop selling out and get back to work FIXING this thing....OR ELSE...then DO SOMETHING EXTRAORDINARY!
Put your feet on the ground and take this whole thing back!
WE, THE PEOPLE are the REAL bosses! ACT LIKE IT! FIRE THE BUMS, FIND GOOD REPLACEMENTS!
And send your electeds print-outs on common sense economics! They seem blissfully unaware that there is a BETTER way, one that WORKS!
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