I have a new piece on Northwood University’s blog, “In Defense of Capitalism & Human Progress” today on “Debt Reduction Delusions and the Menace of Big Government.”
http://defenseofcapitalism.blogspot.com/2011/08/debt-reduction-delusions-and-menace-of.html
I explain the smoke and mirrors of the Congressional and presidential deal to supposedly “cut” government spending to reduce the government’s debt. The promised “cuts” in government spending merely represent a supposed decrease in the rate of increase in the government’s accumulated debt over the next ten years. Nor do these claimed cuts “match” or balance the agreed-upon increase in the government’s deficit spending ceiling.
This “solution” to the debt crisis, therefore, is no solution at all. The only real answer can be found in a dramatic change in the size and scope of government, and a break in the “iron triangle” of politicians, bureaucrats, and special interest groups who live of the productive efforts of those working in the private sector.
Richard Ebeling
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In one sense however, they are all like drug addicts, i.e. driving the rest of us crazy, costing us money, demanding ever more of the fix, denying the problem, pretending to address it without taking any real action, lying, denying and conniving whilst all the time heading towards their own doom.
The end of this will be messy, but the destruction of the fiat currency system maybe the silver lining.
Quite true. I’ve lived with both alcoholics and gambling addicts and the parallels are rather frighting.
For those lucky enough to avoid to have avoided the above, I offer this story. A few years ago I rented half of a house from a (unknown at the time) gambling addict.
First of all, the worst thing you can say to an addict is “no.” Sure you may have said yes the first 99 times, but that one “no” suddenly makes you an inflexible and intolerable jerk. Even a half hearted yes raises their ire. They ask for $100 to flush down the drain, you give $50, they take the money but you are still a cheap jerk. (The liberal leaning radio stations in my area were frothing at the mouth today at the fact that the tea party dared not only to say no, but promised to do it again when the new debt ceiling was reached. I DON’T HAVE A PROBLEM! NOW FIX ME ANOTHER DRINK!)
So, what happens after saying no? Life gets ugly. If the addict is miserable, then you will be too. I watched the woman I rented off of merrily enjoy a breakfast of rotten milk and expired granola bars because buying food cut into the gambling budget. By the bitter end I was paying the utilities, the bulk of the monthly house payment, putting gas in her car, and putting food on the table. Because if I didn’t do it no one would. (Much like how Obama threaten to pull the plug on SS if he didn’t get his precious debt. If he doesn’t get what he wants, then no one does.)
Then you have the lies and the pie in the sky dreams. If you just hand over your last bit of cash, just one last payment, everything will be just fine. They’ll set everything right. I watched her burn through a $1000 unemployment check in 45 minutes. It went straight from an ATM right into a video poker machine. Still, she beat out Obama by 44 minutes. The ink wasn’t even dry on the debt deal and already he gave a speech where he had the debt spent 10 different ways.
Then there is the resentment. If only I hadn’t waste my money on food and gas, why she could have taken that $100 and turned it into $1000 and the local casino. Americans pay out about 50% of their earnings in taxes, and DC’s only thought is how to get their hands on the other 50%. Because if they could just get their hands on it, they’d use it to fix things right up. If greedy Joe-6-pack would quit spending his paycheck on food and shelter and instead gift it to the state, then the US would become a paradise!
And delusions. Plenty of that to go around. The gambling addict pulled a 14 hours gambling marathon and the next day her back seized up and right leg quit working. The cause? Why she must have threw her back out when she put a suitcase in her car. Sitting the exact same position for half a day in front of a slot machine had nothing to do with it! Honest! At the same time DC is convinced that it is drowning in debt not because of debt based currency or unsustainable debt binges, but because Americans aren’t paying their fair share.
America is a debt addict. The only cure is when they run out of cash completely. The woman I rented off of finally had her friends and family stage an intervention. You don’t stage an intervention on someone with 1,500 nuclear warheads.
I also offer this last tidbit. The head of a gamblers anonymous group put forth the following question: If you won a million dollars in the lottery, went to a casino, and were constantly losing, at what point would you stop? The answers were the same, they’d stop when they were down to around $100…maybe.
That is the mindset that now rules DC. Let the proles starve. Let the nation collapse. We need that last bit of wealth because that is what will get us the big score and let us set everything right.
Good comments… there were also some similar and good comments by The Dollar Vigilante today in a video interview with Stefan Molyneux: http://www.dollarvigilante.com/blog/2011/8/2/video-dont-be-fooled-by-the-debt-solution-delusion.html
http://original.antiwar.com/lobe/2011/08/02/hawks-upset-with-debt-deal/
As both houses of Congress began debating the 11th-hour debt-limit deal hashed out Sunday night by senior lawmakers and the White House, neoconservatives and other national security hawks complained bitterly Monday that the final package may force major cuts in defense spending in the coming years.
“If this deal governs policy for the next decade, it will be hard for the U.S. to remain a sole superpower,” warned Weekly Standard editor and leading neoconservative ideologue William Kristol.
…
“To avoid reductions that are arbitrary and capricious requires clarity of strategic purpose,” noted Andrew Bacevich, a retired Army colonel at Boston University who has published a number of books critical of U.S. Cold-War and post-Cold War strategy.
“The big question is not how many billions should come out of the Pentagon’s bloated budget,” he said. “No, the big question is: given our straitened economic circumstances and in light of the monumental catastrophes of the past decade, what is America’s proper role in the world? Simply reciting clichés about ‘global leadership’ won’t cut it. The time to make hard choices is at hand.”
“The promised “cuts” in government spending merely represent a supposed decrease in the rate of increase in the government’s accumulated debt over the next ten years.”
That was absolutely funny to read, we live in interesting and entertaining times, LOL
So you bought a fully loaded top of the line Mercedes. But you saved $100,000 by not buying a Rolls Royce. The problem is that you can’t even afford a Honda Civic. Note that using this logic, you could save over $1 million by not buying a Bugatti Veyron!
Thank you Ron Paul for bringing this to our attention.
** Wanted: John Mica, Job Killer **
By ThinkProgress War Room
“The Man Who Wants To Kill More Than 560,000 American Jobs”
You’ve probably never heard of Rep. John Mica (R-FL), but he’s someone every American should know about because if he get his way, thousands of people in your home state will lose their jobs in the next year. There’s even a good chance some already have.
Here’s the rundown.
WHO: Rep. John Mica (R-FL), Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, the committee that oversees the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and which is responsible for writing the bills that fund transportation and infrastructure projects across the country (often simply referred to as the “highway bill” even though it funds much more than just highways).
WHAT: Going out of his way to kill American jobs in all 50 states at a time when we already have 9.2 percent unemployment (unemployment is a staggering 16.3 percent in the construction industry).
HOW:
1) Shutting down the FAA: The FAA has been operating under temporary bills since 2007 and it partially shut down a week ago last Friday because the House GOP refused to back down from an anti-worker provision that would make it harder to unionize airlines. Delta Airlines, the only non-union major carrier, happens to be in the midst of a pitched battle against attempts to unionize it. FedEx is also involved in a related battle on Capitol Hill as it also attempts to fend off unionization. The air transport industry, for its part, also happens to be Mica’s single largest campaign contributor, having given him $642,993 over the course of his career.
2) Slashing Transportation Funding: Our transportation infrastructure is crumbling, even as countries like China spend hundreds of billions of dollars in sleek, new high-speed trains and airports. John Mica’s solution: slash transportation funding, even though our current infrastructure spending as a percentage of GDP (2 percent) is already at half what it was in 1960 and less than one-quarter of what China spends today (9 percent). If Mica’s misguided transportation plan were to be implemented, it
would be an economic disaster and throw hundreds of thousands of Americans out of work. Even the right-wing U.S. Chamber of Commerce attacked Mica’s plan, writing: “Cuts will destroy – rather than support — existing jobs and will not enable creation of the additional jobs needed to put the 16.3% of unemployed workers in the construction industry back to work.”
I’m all for shutting down the FAA. What’s the problem here?
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