Love My Country, Loathe My Government: January 2019

Thursday, January 31, 2019

February, 2019, Part 2, Political Class Insanity: More Political Class Hypocrisy and More Ignorant Economic Policy

It is another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

Let’s get started:

1) We have often made the case that politicians are totally ignorant and useless when it comes to setting economic policy. What sounds good in their inexperienced minds often turns out to be a disaster when their inane economic policies are implemented. Almost always, their policies often end up hurting the people that their economic policies are supposed to help.

And the one idiotic policy that liberals and Democrats keep coming back to is the $15 minimum wage crusade. Wherever such a minimum was put in place, people lost jobs as businesses had to adjust to a higher cost in their salary line and often the easiest way to do that adjustment is to lay off workers. This leads to the cruel irony in that “your pay went up but your job went away.”

Consider a real life example of that for a small business in Seattle, as reported on the Heritage Foundation website:

The article by Ginny Montalbano on January 18, 2019 explained how a Seattle business may have to close since they cannot afford to pay their workers $16 an hour, the minimum wage in that city.
Fifteen years ago, Heidi and Karam Mann took a chance and purchased a Subway restaurant franchise, realizing their American dream of owning their own business.
They were so successful , that nine years later they bought their second Subway franchise, providing a service to the community and jobs to people living in their community.
But that dream took a serious hit when the local government and political class dictated that they had to increase the wages of their employees to $16 an hour.
As a result, they now predict that they will likely be forced to close down both successful businesses within the next two years.
According to Heidi, the rise in the minimum wage is too much for them to absorb: “Labor costs are too high, our profit margin is too tight, and there is no relief for small business owners like us.”
She went on to say: “We started this business believing in the essential truth of the American dream. But our dreams of being our own boss, earning a living wage for our family, and helping others through meaningful employment is slowly becoming a pipe dream and less and less reality as each piece of legislation is passed.”
First, they tried to cope with the mandated increase by cutting costs including the firing of four employees.
To cover the increased labor costs they raised prices but that did not work out since sales volumes dropped.
Those that were cut were the more inexperienced workers since they cannot afford to hire entry level and inexperienced workers, they do not have the budget for training costs.
This deprives young folks the chance to get real life work experience: “Small business owners are what make America strong. They are the heart of the economy and are a front line of defense, taking on the brunt of raising a solid workforce as employees navigate into careers and higher-paying positions.”

In summary, the city may lose two quality, functioning businesses, reducing the city’s tax base, depriving young people the opportunity to experience the real world work force, the American dream takes a major hit, and in the end people that were perfectly content to earn what they were earning are already out of a ob or will soon lose their jobs. Thanks to the arrogance and ignorance to local politicians who probably never operated a business themselves. More poverty, more unemployment, fewer market choices, nice job. Insanity.

2) We have always considered Sheila Jackson Lee one of the worst Congress people in office. Her gaffes and ignorant statements over time just smack of incompetence. Enter her name in the search box above to see what idiocy she has spouted over the years.

But it is one thing to constantly remind people you have no idea what you are talking about and it is another thing to cover up sexual harassment. And this is where Lee finds herself being accused of in this age of Me Too:

Lee was once the chairperson of the powerful Congressional Black Caucus.
But she recently had to resign that post once the latest Washington sex scandal broke.
A young lady who used to work for the Congressional Black Caucus has filed a lawsuit.
In that lawsuit she claims that Lee fired her after the young lady threatened to pursue legal action regarding an alleged sexual assault.
The lawsuit claims that when the young lady was an intern for the Caucus she was raped by the intern coordinator of the Caucus, a rape she reported to police but took no legal action.
Down the road, when she was working in the Congresswoman’s office, she told Lee’s chief of staff that she was going to pursue legal action against the alleged rapist, a matter she wanted to discuss with the Congresswoman.
She never got that meeting and was fired several short weeks later.

The Congresswoman’s office denied that the two incidents, the rape and the firing, were related.The whole incident reveals two massive and destructive piece of hypocrisy that permeate this country day as it emanates from our current day politicians:

When accusations like this fly against a Republican or Conservative e.g. the Kavanaugh hearings, Democrats and liberals are besides themselves with rage and fury even though nothing has been proven but when it happens to one of their own, liberals and Democrats are strangely, and hypocritically mute.
When accusations like this fly against a Republican or Conservative e.g. the Kavanaugh hearings, the mainstream media is besides themselves with rage and fury even though nothing has been proven but when it happens to one of their own, the mainstream media is hypocritically mute.

Hypocrisy still lives in the American political class, especially the left side of that class.

3) Let’s finish up today’s insanity by sticking with the hypocrisy theme. Democrats and liberals always try to portray themselves as heroes to women and women’s rights. That it is conservatives and Republicans that are always “waging a war on women.” Well, according to Warner Todd Huston, writing recently for the Godfather Politics website, a New York Democrat apparently did not get that message:

A New York state politician was forced to apologize to a female state government staffer after telling her via Twitter to go kill herself.
The reason for this threat and outrage was not some dramatic and important and pressing political or government issue, it was over a parking pass.
State senator Kevin Porter from Brooklyn used his Twitter account for the attack after Candice Giove, a legislative aide, accused Parker of misusing a Senate issued parking pass.
Specifically, he directed a tweet at her that simply shouted, “Kill yourself”
The aide found that a parking pass issued to the senator was being used on a car that the pass was not designated or approved for, a rules violation, and as a result, the senator flipped out and told the aide to kill herself.
The senator eventually deleted the tweet and issued an apology: “I sincerely apologize. I used a poor choice of words. Suicide is a serious thing and and should not be made light of.”

Sure he apologized but what type of low life publicly tells someone who is just doing their job to go kill themselves in the first place? Over a parking pass issue? Disgusting behavior by apparently a disgusting individual in my opinion.

Oh, by the way, this guy is who is sponsoring a bill to prevent regular New Yorkers from getting a gun if they EVER made a distempered post to social media. And yet he is going around telling those he deems below him in social status and job status to kill themselves. Pathetic.

And of course, keeping with their ongoing hypocrisy, one has to go to non-traditional news sources to find anything detrimental to Democrats and the myth that they are the party in favor of supporting women’s rights even if one of their own told a woman to kill herself just for doing her job.

That will do it for today’s political class insanity: more hypocrisy and double standards from both liberal politicians and the mainstream media and more heartache and destruction from the liberals’ infatuation with increasing the minimum wage regardless of the harm it does to American workers and business owners.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

February, 2019, Part 1,Political Class Insanity: Voter Fraud in Alabama and Climate Fraud In Washington

Let’s get started:

1) Many people in this country, almost always Democrats and liberals, like to assert that there is no voter fraud going on in this country. We have debunked that myth many times which you can check out in previous posts by entering “voter fraud” in the search box above. And to that list we can add another proven instance of voter fraud as reported in a recent Godfather Politics website article:

Warner Todd Huston wrote on January 28, 2019 that the mayor of Gordon, Alabama was recently forced from office because of voter fraud.
Not only was he removed from office but he was also convicted of voter fraud.
Elbert Melton was convicted of falsifying ballots during his 2016 election which he won by a mere 16 votes.
Specifically, he was charged and convicted of absentee ballot fraud and second degree theft of property.
He apparently notarized absentee ballots while no witnesses were present and ballots that voters had not signed in his presence, violations of the state’s election code.

The good news is that this politician got caught committing voter fraud. The bad news is we have not idea how many other members of the political class get away with voter fraud every election. And it is probably a lot since the Heritage Foundation has compiled a database of over a thousand cases of proven voter fraud:

https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud?_ga=2.62073964.1367881169.1548688637-amp-_1afqOgYMK8dAHsT6hiDYA

As these cases become more and more prevalent and the government and politicians do little to stop it it, the integrity of our election system gets undermined and that threatens our freedoms.

2) Consider some failures when it comes to global warming/climate change predictions and forecasts that we have previously discussed [I have bold faced the fields of expertise that the following experts were from]:

In 1970, high regarded biologist Paul Ehrlich predicted that "all important animal life in the sea will be extinct" in 10 years or so. 49 years later most important animal life is still with us.
Also in 1970, Nobel laureate biology professor at Harvard, George Wald, forecasted that:“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” 49 years later we are still hanging around.
Also in 1970, Paul Ehrlich, also said that the world’s population would soon outstrip food supplies. 49 years later crop yields are as high as ever and the number of humans starving around has dropped significantly over the past decades.
Ehrlich followed up on this starvation prediction when he claimed that, “The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next 10 years.” 49 years later people are still starving but nowhere close to the rate he predicted.
In 1968 he predicted: “If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.” Good thing that he did not lay down that bet since 19 years later England is still hanging around.
Noted British science writer Nigel Calder warned in a July, 1975 International Wildlife article that, “The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind.” So, as recently as about 44 years ago we were all going to die from an Ice Age, not global warming.
Meteorologist C.C. Wallen claimed in 1975 in a Science News article that, “The cooling since 1940 has been large enough and consistent enough that it will not soon be reversed.” But according to other scientists it reversed a few years later when the exact opposite climate trend became popular, global warming.
In 2000, British climate researcher David Viner told The Independent, a British newspaper, that in just “a few years” snow would become a “very rare and exciting event” in Britain and that “children just aren’t going to know what snow is...Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past.” In the next few years, Britain experienced some of its lowest temperatures and snowfall accumulations since records started being kept in 1914. Also, given that most of the U.S. Midwest is suffering through below zero temperatures, 19 years after Viner predicted the death of snow, I do not think they would agree with Viner either.
Ecologist Kenneth Watt told a college audience in 1970: “The world has been chilling sharply for about 20 years. If present trends continue, the world will be about 4 degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990 but 11 degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.” But those predictions never came true.
In 1970, Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin wrote in Look magazine: “Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian (Institution), believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.” Not even close 49 years later.
In 2009, self proclaimed climate expert Al Gore predicted that there was an excellent chance that the North Pole would be melted within five years. Ten years later, the ice cap is still there, generating increment amounts of cold air as witnessed by the American living in the Midwest today.
Scientist Harrison Brown predicted in 1970 that mankind would run out of copper shortly after the 2000 and that lead, zinc, gold and silver would be gone ten years earlier. 49 years later, these elements are still around and in good supply.
In 1974 the U.S. Geological Survey said the country only had a 10 year supply of natural gas left even though according to the latest Federal government estimate, 45 years later, we had 2.47 quadrillion cubic feet of natural gas, which should last about a century.

Okay, we go through all that just to prove that highly educated. PhD experts in science, education, and the government have been hysterically wrong in their predictions when it comes to weather, climate, and other matters. Most of these people have advanced degrees in pertinent fields and a long list of research in those fields. And they still got it all wrong.

Which brings us to our new favorite political gaffe machine, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a newly elected Congresswoman who:

Did not know the simple definition of the unemployment rate despite having a college economics degree.
Did not know what the three branches of the U.S. government were despite being elected to Congress.
Thought she had uncovered $26 TRILLION in Pentagon wasteful spending over a ten year period even though the ENTIRE Pentagon budget over that timeframe was far lower than $26 TRILLION, making wasteful spending of $26 TRILLION impossible.
Thinks she can fund major socialism projects in this country by simply taxing high earners in this country at 70% when a simple math calculation or two easily shows this to be...impossible.

We could go on but you get the idea: this Congresswoman is quite ignorant about a lot of things. But this ignorance did not hinder her latest escapade:

She recently proclaimed that the world will end in 12 years unless we aggressively wean ourselves off of carbon based fuels.
This is similar to what Al Gore predicted back in 2006 when he claimed that there would be a global emergency in ten years time, a period that end three years ago with a whimper and not an emergency.
As a result of her in-depth insight to the end of the world, Ocasio-Cortez wants to place the country on a crash course of decarbonization, a path that would cripple the economy, raise electricity and other energy source costs, and do absolutely nothing relative to the climate since the rest of the world, especially China and India, have no intentions of doing anything so stupid as what she proposes.
Thus, even if she is right, executing her plan would be an exercise in futility and the degradation of our quality of life with no redeeming benefit given what the rest of the world is doing.

But seriously, if highly trained people with a lot of experience in the climate area never got a prediction right, what are the chances that a novice Congresswoman with no experience or expertise in the climate filed who lacks an appreciation of the failed climate forecasts that came before and who is not smart enough to realize that the U.S, is not the problem, is right in her prediction? If you think she is on to something, let me know and we can put down a little bet, payable in a little over twelve years!

Alright, that gets us started with this month’s political class insanity. The reality of real voter fraud and the reality that Ocasio-Cortez usually speaks without thinking and without a cogent basis for her remarks, be it the structure of the U.S. government or predicting climate demise. More insanity to follow.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

Tuesday, January 29, 2019

The Swedish Experience With Open Borders and the Lack Of A Wall

In the previous post we showed how wrong that American socialist politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren are when it comes to saying that they can turn the U.S. into a socialistic paradise like Sweden. But in reality, Sweden is not a socialist country, it is less socialistic than the U.S. is today as that post discussed:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2019/01/venezuela-vs-sweden-why-ocasio-cortez.html

As the post showed, Sweden and its citizens turned away from socialism decades ago. They got tired of less freedom, more taxation, and worse economic conditions. Our conclusion was that American socialists are more likely to lead us to destruction that socialism brought to Venezuela than the economic revival that Sweden experienced when it turned away from socialism and towards freedom, political, educational, and economic freedom, a reality that Ocasio-Cortez and others of her ilk either realize but are lying to us or are that ignorant of reality.

But Sweden made a different kind of socialism mistake that is not working out so well. Rather than have an orderly immigration process, they opened their borders to just about anyone immigrant from the Middle East. This policy is much like American socialists who want to open America’s borders to anyone and everyone who want to come here, drug cartels, human traffickers, international criminals gangs included. Which raises a basic question: could American socialism politicians be as wrong about open borders as they were about Sweden being a socialism country?

If they are, than America could be in for the same experiences that Sweden is suffering through now:

The Swedish National Council For Crime Prevention (Bra) recently released their latest crime statistics for Sweden.
Bra found that Sweden has experienced a 33% increase in the number of reported rape cases in the past ten years.
The number of rape cases increased 8% in just the past year.
More disgusting, rape reports that allege attacks against Swedish children went up 13% in just the past year.
According to Bra researcher Stina Söderman: “We have seen a clear increase in reported rape in recent years.” Ya think?!
Almost 8,000 rapes were reported in the country last year, an increase of 614 over the previous year.
In 2018, rape reports against children of both genders under the age of 18 rose to 3,420 incidents.
According to SVT, Sweden’s public news network, 85% of the rapes in the country committed by strangers were committed by immigrants.
While rape statistics have jumped over the past few years, overall crime is up only a small percentage and crimes against property actually declined.
Crimes against Swedish women are the highest in decades and according to Politico, crimes against citizens are becoming commonplace: “Social unrest, with car torchings, attacks on first responders and even riots, is a recurring phenomenon,” Politico reported.

Look, I am all for a vibrant,robust immigration policy and philosophy. I am not for a wide open border that let’s all and everyone one in regardless of their intentions, legal and criminal alike. Ellis Island allowed millions of immigrants to come live in this country but turned away those that were criminals, penniless, and disease ridden. Sweden did not do that and American political socialists do not want us to this either, allowing open borders on our border with Mexico.

Given that American socialists were so wrong about Sweden being a socialism heaven, I would wager they are also wrong that Sweden did the right thing by allowing everyone to come into their country without methods and procedures to screen them. Increased rape incidents of Swedish women and children has been the result and yet American politicians on the left again do not want to learn from the Swedish experience.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

Monday, January 28, 2019

Venezuela Vs. Sweden: Why Ocasio-Cortez and American Socialists Always and Ignorantly Get it Wrong

Over the past few months we have talked about how the socialists in Washington, e.g. Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, etc., have proposed plans to turn us into a socialistic country with the government controlling most aspects of our lives and charging us ALL very high taxes to do so. We have proven over and over that their plans cannot be financed by taxing only the wealthy but they would need extremely high taxation of ALL Americans to finance their pipe dreams while stripping us of our freedom.

They make two stupid mistakes while trying to convince Americans that socialism is good. The ignore the reality that socialism in Venezuela has failed miserably, turning a once rich country into a desperate hell hole on earth. And they totally do not understand what is really going on in Sweden, a country they like to hold up as a beacon of hope for socialism.

Let’s start with how socialism has destroyed Venezuela, as described by a recent Fox News article by Maxim Lott:

Venezuela was once the wealthiest country in South America.
Its vast oil reserves provided a high standard of living for most people throughout the country.
Today, its oil industry is in steep decline, millions of citizens have left the country, there is mass starvation among just about the entire population, and violence reigns supreme, which much of it carried out by government thugs.
Consider what social activist and Venezuelan Giannini Raffo says about the current situation in his home country: “Socialism not only takes away from people the access to basic food and medicines, but also creates an environment in which life is worth nothing.”
The country starting slipping into this socialism hole back in the 1990s when Hugo Chavez was elected president.
During his campaign he promised that he was not a radical socialist even though he was a great admirer and friend of Communist, Fidel Castro, claiming that he was ''neither for savage capitalism, nor socialism, nor Communism''.
But some Venezuelans saw through his lies and news reports reported at the time that some of the wealthier citizens had started to move some of their wealth out of the country, afraid that the socialist in waiting Chavez would start seizing assets once elected, a wise move in hindsight.
Chavez started his term as President by re-writing the country’s Constitution in order to consolidate and grow his power.
The new Constitution promised free healthcare, free college, and “social justice,” all of which sound like a typical press release from American socialist like Ocasio-Cortez.
Chavez went on to stack the country’s Supreme Court with 12 additional justices, all of which he handpicked, further consolidating his control, and a tactic that liberals in this country have proposed.
Chavez now proceeded to terrorize the country, seizing private assets, raising taxes on the wealthy, making dissent a crime, nationalizing private businesses, and generally controlling everything that went on in the country.
And once oil prices collapsed, the industry that was holding the country together, the economy collapsed, having been destroyed by Chavez’s economic actions.
As a result, annual inflation today is about 12,000%, oil production is down about 40% form the peak, and basics like toilet paper are in very short supply.
Many have fled their home country, and those that stayed behind have waited in line for hours just to get some meager food supplies with studies showing that on average, the Venezuelan adult has lost 24 pounds as a result of food shortages brought on by socialism.
A former citizen and current activist is quoted in the article: “Living in Venezuela was not living anymore. [My family] only spent their time trying to find food and medicines to survive. The apartment that [my family] left behind – my home for 24 years – is now empty. They are not coming back. Don't let someone ruin your next generations with absurd ideas of socialism. Educate and disseminate ideas of freedom as far you can.”

Nasty stuff, a country literally managed itself into oblivion with the resultant human suffering as a result of rampant socialism practices.

But wait! There is hope! Socialism politicians in this country now try to tell us that they practice a “different type of socialism,” more like the socialism in Sweden. But do they even know what they are talking about? According to a recent article by John Stossel, ”Sweden Isn’t Socialist,” they are clueless as to what actually is going on in Sweden:

He starts out his article with the following true statement: “For years, I've heard American leftists say Sweden is proof that socialism works, that it doesn't have to turn out as badly as the Soviet Union or Cuba or Venezuela did.”
But that is not the case, according to Swedish historian, Johan Norberg, someone who probably knows a lot more about Sweden than people like Ocasio-Cortez: "Sweden is not socialist — because the government doesn't own the means of production. To see that, you have to go to Venezuela or Cuba or North Korea," says Norberg."We did have a period in the 1970s and 1980s when we had something that resembled socialism: a big government that taxed and spent heavily. And that's the period in Swedish history when our economy was going south."
But unlike what Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez would tell you, when Sweden started down the socliams path, GDP fell, the country’s economic growth lagged other countries, inflation increased while taxes increased.
So the country and its socialism policies resulted in higher taxes and less economic growth.
Taxes were so outrageously high that Astrid Lindgren, author of the Pippi Longstocking children's books, had to pay a tax of 102% on any new book she sold, i.e. by increasing her wealth she would be paying more taxes than what her marginal income was.
But even taxing people at such ridiculous rates did not bring in enough money to fund the country’s socialism.
"People couldn't get the pension that they thought they depended on for the future," recounts Norberg. "At that point the Swedish population just said, enough, we can't do this."
As a result, the country took a massive step back from socialism hell, cutting government spending, reducing taxation, un-nationalizing industries, getting rid of government monopolies and selling off state-owned businesses.
The government also reduced pension [aka their version of Social Security] promises that were not possible to be funded.
According to historian Norberg, these steps turned an "impoverished peasant nation...into one of the world's richest countries."
Norberg goes on to state that “when it comes to free markets, when it comes to competition, when it comes to free trade, Sweden is actually more free market."
Sweden’s economy has fewer business regulations, fewer special interest subsidies, and no government bailouts than the U.S. government and economy.
This decline of socialism in the country allowed the government to viably fund a national pension system, 18 month parental leave, and government paid child care.
But while they fund these programs, the government and the Swedish political class do not operate them since when the government did run these operations it did not go well: "Having the government manage all of these things didn't work well.”
Norberg again: "We realized in Sweden that with these government monopolies, we don't get the innovation that we get when we have competition."
Thus, in Sweden there is no public school, it is all voucher system to private schools, which resulted in much better education once you took the politicians out of the equation.
The country also privatized their version of Social Security, again getting politicians out of the process as much as possible.
According to Norberg, this switch to a private version of Social Security saved the system from financial collapse and ruin.

As a result, Sweden now ranks higher than the U.S. on many economic freedom measures, hardly making it more socialistic than us. Thus, Sweden got the government and political class out of education and retirement programs, reduced taxes, reduced government regulations, sold off assets it had not business operating in the first place, and sold off and privatized nationalized industries. All of which made it richer and stronger and provided better lives than before for its citizens.

But in this country:

Socialists like Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders want to raise taxes and increase business regulations (e.g. the inane New Green Deal.), the opposite of what Sweden did.
They want to cap personal earnings (Ocasio-Cortez), the opposite of what Sweden.
They want to give out taxpayer wealth to special business interests (crony capitalism), interests that usually align with their political attitudes and financial sources, e.g. “green businesses” like the ones that failed miserably when Obama went all socialistic with Solyndra, A123, Spectra, and a whole bunch of other Democratic run companies that siphoned off renewable energy grants before going bankrupt, the opposite of what Sweden did.
They want to expand government programs like Medicare and Social Security rather than getting themselves out of the business like Sweden did.
Others like Presidential candidate socialist Elizabeth Warren want to nationalize industries, the opposite of what Sweden did.

Given the positions that American socialism politicians are taking, it sure smells more like Venezuela than it smells of Sweden. In Venezuela the political class took over more and more of citizens’ lives with catastrophic results. In Sweden, the political class took over less and less of citizens’ lives, and wealth and freedom, with great results.

So, when people like Sanders, Warren, Ocasio-Cortez and other socialists tell you that their programs are good and humane and only the rich will have to pay, remember that Chavez told his countrymen in Venezuela the exact same thing. And now those people that believed him are hungry, freedomless, fearful, poorer, and desperate.

Side note: Sweden went and blew the whole program when they went to an open borders immigration policy, allowing millions of Middle East immigrants to enter their country without limits or background checks. As a result, rape, homicides, and other violent crime is up in the country with Swedes ever more fearful for their lives and the safety of their wives and daughters.

Hmmm, open borders? Isn't that a rallying cry of Sanders, Warren, Ocasio-Cortez and other socialists in this country? Given how wrong these people are about Sweden's lack of socialism, I would bet they are just as wrong about open borders.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

Saturday, January 26, 2019

By The Numbers: Why Ocasio-Cortez's Socialism is A Pipe Dream and Plain Ignorant of Reality

We have had a great time talking about the ignorance, verbal gaffes, and lack of historical context of newly elected Congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:

Despite having an economics degree, she did not know how to compute the simple unemployment rate.
Despite being elected to Congress, she did not know what the three branches of government are.
Despite having a college education, she somehow thought that she alone had found $26 TRILLION in wasted Pentagon spending over a ten year period when the ENTIRE Pentagon budget over that same time period was a fraction of $26 TRILLION.
She says she would rather be morally right than factually right, in other words she would prefer to live in a fantasy world than reality.
She is a hypocrite since before being sworn into office, she chastised those in Congress that were accepting their salaries during the government shutdown but once in office and drawing that salary she refused to donate it to needy Federal workers or forego it altogether.

We could go on and on but you get the idea. Tough to believe anything this politician says.

She has big, socialistic plans for this country, plans that would make us all poorer and less free. But as always, she never thought through her plans to see how inane they are. For instance, she wants of implement such socialist programs as Medicare For All, the New Green Deal, free college, guaranteed Federal jobs, etc.

And she proposes to fund these massive government bureaucracies by taxing income made by Americans over $10 million at a 70% tax rate. But we did the math for her, something she obviously did not do, and proved conclusively that her plan to fund these idiotic programs with a 70% tax on earnings over $10 million could fund only a tiny fraction of a single program, Medicare For All, never mind using high earners to fund the other socialist programs listed above. That complete analysis can be seen at:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2019/01/january-2019-part-8-political-class.html

Do not like my math? Consider a much more detailed analysis by someone smarter than me, as laid out in a recent National Review article by Brian Riedl on January 8, 2019, “Why 70 Percent Tax Rates Cannot Finance Socialism.” His entire article can be accessed at:

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-70-percent-tax-cannot-finance-socialism/

The highlights, or lowlights for Ocasio-Cortez, are as follows, with Mr. Riedl reaching the same basic conclusions that I did: the country is not nearly rich enough to support the socialistic programs of this Congresswoman [Note: there are a lot of numbers here but Mrl. Riedl lays out the numbers and the reality they represent logically and simply so bear with the numbers, they are quite eye opening and necessary to understand how stupid these Ocasio-Cortez ideas are]:

His overall conclusion is that the country cannot fund her programs without “hammering the middle class.”
He believes, and we have proved it already, that, “A 70 percent tax bracket would raise very little (if any) revenue, while damaging the economy and sending income and jobs overseas."
Of course, as with most Ocasio-Cortez ideas, there are no details about her plans, just pie in the sky pontificating, since, as we discussed above, she would rather be morally right than factually right.
Regarding Ocasio-Cortez’s socialistic “New Green Deal” program, a comparable program proposed by Green Party Presidential candidate Jill Stein would have cost between $700 billion and $1 trillion a year for ten years, requiring anywhere from a 20% to 29% increase in taxes for the Federal government to fund.
As we calculated in the post above, taxing those Americans’ earnings over $10 million would fund less than 10% of Stein’s program.
Stein’s proposal would have eaten up 4% of the entire nation’s GDP.
But this is just for the New Green Deal, Ocasio-Cortez also wants to fund Medicare For all (annual cost = $3.2 TRILLION), Federal jobs guarantee program (cost = $6.8 TRILLION), student loan forgiveness (cost = $1.4 TRILLION), free public college ($270 billion), Social Security expansion (cost = $188 billion), family leave (cost = $270 billion), and infrastructure improvement (cost = $1 TRILLION).
These programs alone would eat up 21% of the country’s GDP, twice what it is now.
Additional Federal budget deficits would bring the total up to 28% of GDP.
Since taxing the rich at 70% would pay for just a fraction of one program, either these program would have to go unfunded or ALL Americans would have to pay SUBSTANTIALLY more in their taxes, so much so that they would be wage slaves to the Washington bureaucracy.
The article’s analysis shows that if ALL income over $1 million was taxed at 100%, IRS data shows that would raise government spending by 3.8% of GDP, which would not even balance the budget never mind fund the New Green Deal and all of the other programs listed above.
And that assumes that Americans would still work just as hard to earn what they earn now which is a stupid assumption since who would work hard to earn more than a million dollars if the government was going to get all of it.
Rather than a 100% tax rate, what if Ocasio-Cortez and the rest of the socialists in Washington doubled the top two tax brackets, 35% and 37%?
This doubling would raise 1.6% of GDP, even further away from funding the New Green Deal and all of the programs above,
What about Ocasio-Cortez’s example of taxing income over %10 million at 70%, the analysis I did in the post above?
According to the article, it would raise only $50 billion annually, a pittance that would be used to finance the New Green Deal, Medicare for all, free college, etc.
Note: my analysis showed that her 70% idea would raise about $105 billion, still not nearly enough, but twice what this article predicted.
The difference is that the $50 billion estimate realized that half of what these high earners usually earn is from capital gains which would not be subject to the 70% nonsensical tax rate and thus is more accurate, and smaller than my $105 billion estimate that assumed all of these high earners’ income was wages.
The $50 billion is also probably too high since as the author points out, people this rich would have super smart accountants and lawyers working to shield their income taxable income from the 70%, something regular Americans could not afford.
For instance, “Jeff Bezos [founder and chairman of Amazon] may be worth $160 billion, but in 2017 he reportedly paid himself an annual salary of just $81,840, with total compensation (including deductible expenses) of $1.6 million. Taxing 70 percent of all salary and wages above $10 million (or even $1 million) would not even touch the Amazon founder.”
The article then moves on to other tax raising schemes, all of which come nowhere close to funding Ocasio-Cortez-s socialist pipe dreams: “Realistically, additional income and payroll taxes on families earning $400,000 or more could raise at most 1 or 1.5 percent of GDP. So, let’s move outside the income tax. Popular liberal proposals to impose a 30 percent minimum tax on “millionaires” and to more aggressively tax banks, hedge-fund managers, and oil and gas companies would raise a combined 0.1 percent of GDP, according to CBO data. Doubling corporate tax rates would add 0.7 percent of GDP until the entire Fortune 500 moves its headquarters to the Cayman Islands or Ireland.”
All of these tax schemes would raise taxes equivalent to 2% of GDP, not close to the 4% needed to fund the annual cost of the New Green Deal before talking about the other programs.
And this 2% assumption does not take into account how Americans would take tax avoidance steps, be it to stop working as hard, hiring accountants to shelter their income, or move their companies overseas to avoid the onerous business tax increases.
Mr. Riedl then goes about killing the liberal fantasy that the country and economy survives 90% marginal tax rates in the 1950s and 70% marginal tax rates in the 1970s.
In reality, the rich paid LESS in effective income tax rates during those eras than today, where the marginal tax rates are half of the high rates back then, since there were so many exclusions and shelters that Americans could use to avoid these slavery level tax rates.
An interesting reality that I didn't know is that in 1960, eight American taxpayers paid taxes at the 90% level, not 800, not 8,000, but just 8 in the whole country.
Today, Federal income taxes are equivalent to 8.2% of GDP while in the 1950s it was 7.2%, in the 1960s it was 7.6% and in the 1970s it was 7.9% despite tax rates in the 70% and 90% levels.
Another reality is that no developed country in the world has anything close to Ocasio-Cortez’s 70% nonsense including socialistic Norway and England and Germany.
These European countries finance their socialism with steep value-added taxes, i.e. a sales tax like mechanism that is added to everything purchased, a tax that savages not just the rich but every citizen.
And finally, since the top 5% already pay 42% of ALL Federal income taxes, that tax well would get quite dry really soon since they already pay a lot despite what Washington socialists claim.
The Congressional Budget Office did some analysis that showed that to fund this inane socialistic programs ALL Americans would have to endure a 55% increase in their tax burden or there would have to be a 115% value added tax implemented, e.g. that car that costs $20,000 would now cost over $40,000, which would mean a lot less cars got bought which means a lot less cars would be built which means a lot of Americans in the car industry, and every industry, would be out of a job which would further reduce the tax stream and the death spiral is underway.

Great article with some brutally honest and reality based numbers. There is just not enough wealth generated in this country, the greatest wealth generating country in the history of the world, to fund stupid Ocasio-Cortez fantasies. The economy would be ransacked, every American, not just the rich, would end up paying tremendously more in taxes, and the benefits would be minimal.

And consider this reality: name a Federal Government program that ever came close to being right from a budget estimate perspective? The Big Dig highway program in Boston is a classic Federal government budget example: it was supposed to cost a few billion dollars and ended up costing over $20 billion dollars. The Washington political class has shown time and time again that it can not properly budget upfront or manage a budget during the implementation of a program. Thus, while the above numbers are definitely unreachable, history tells us that the above budget estimates are likely to go higher and be even more unreachable.

Oh, and one other thing. We have previously shown that the Federal government and the state governments already have a huge $109 TRILLION revenue shortfall problem with budget deficits and unfunded liabilities. $109 TRILLION! This comes out to a debt burden of about $870,000 for every American family BEFORE trying to fund Medicare for All, the New Green Deal, free college, etc. The good news is that we are probably heading for an economic collapse long before these socialism program get much underway, these programs would only hasten that collapse.

But as always with people like Ocasio-Cortez, they never do the math. In fact, they have no idea what reality is and/or have little experience with reality, which is probably her problem on both counts. The numbers don't lie even as politicians continue to do so.

The article points out this following reality: if the socialists in Washington knew how to fund these programs, why have they not laid out their plans and funding levels and tax mechanism already? It is either because they know these are pipe dreams that would never be possible but use them as political points, i.e. they lie, or they really are that ignorant. Until they prove they can fund these program without destroying the country they are out of integrity and/or plain lazy, not doing their homework before opening their mouths with tripe.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

Wednesday, January 23, 2019

The Epic Failure Of The Philadelphia Soda Tax - Another Lesson In Politicians' Economic Ignorance

People, mostly Democrats and liberals, constantly want to raise Americans’ taxes to fund programs that never work and often cause more damage to an existing problem. The problem is that raising taxes often backfires on these folks since Americans are very good at protecting their assets or politicians never to do the math to understand the idiocy of raising taxes.

We have previously discussed what happened when the state of Maryland raised the tax rates for state millionaires. Although they raised the tax rates on millionaire earners they ended up getting LESS tax revenue from millionaire earners since these folks just moved to other states:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2011/05/why-overtaxing-rich-is-usually-stupid.html

We have discussed the idiocy of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who wants to raise the tax rate to 70% on Americans’ income over $10 million. She thinks that raising tax rates just on these high earners high income will fund such socialistic pipe dreams like Medicare For All, free college, the New Green Deal, etc. The problem is she did not do the simple math analysis of IRS records, something we did which we showed her 70% tax rate would fund a only tiny, tiny portion of only one of the programs listed above, never mind funding most, if not all, of the programs:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2019/01/january-2019-part-8-political-class.html

Raising taxes rarely works, and it did not work in Philadelphia when it decided to significantly raise taxes on soda purchased inside the city limits. We have previously discussed this insanity but Kyle Smith, writing for the National Review on January 14, 2019, recently did a great job dissecting what has happened in Philly because of a simple soda tax:

Back in 2017, Philly politicians decided they wanted to start a universal Pre-K program, with the additional benefit of fighting obesity, and to fund it they would put a tax on all soda sales that went down within the city limits.
As with all politicians who are almost always ignorant of basic economics, namely price elasticity, they assumed that people would buy the same amount of soda and gladly pay the higher prices on that soda caused by the new soda tax.
The tax they agreed to was 1.5 cents per ounce and so a two liter, standard sized bottle of soda would see its price go up over $1.00.
But hopeful results never even got much off the ground.
First, a study by Stephan Seiler of Stanford, Anna Tuchman of Northwestern, and Song Yao of the University of Minnesota found that, “The tax was ineffective at reducing consumption of unhealthy products.”
So out of the gate we see that putting a soda tax in place neither resulted in healthier consumption or the reduction in sugary drinks’ sales.
In addition, it found that the tax hit the poorest residents the hardest since they did not have the ways and means to leave the city limits to purchase their soda, forcing them to pay the higher tax in higher numbers than the less poor.
Turns out that the non-poor decided that they would rather drive outside the city limits to purchase their soda than stay inside the city limits and pay far more.
As a result, it turns out that soda sales within the city limits dropped 42% as a result of the tax, resulting in far less money than the politicians had planned for since they did not take into account the simple economic principle of price elasticity.
Soda sales jumped up significantly in stores within a two mile zone just outside of the city limits.
“In summary, the tax does not lead to a shift in consumption towards healthier products, it affects low income households more severely, and it is limited in its ability to raise revenue,” the study said. “We find no significant reduction in calorie and sugar intake,” the authors concluded. (A different study in the U.K. found that those who consume the most sugar are the least likely to reduce soda consumption.)
In addition, since many poorer Philadelphians are on food stamps, the so-called SNAP Federal government program that allows them to use their food benefits for the purchase of soda, indirectly the American taxpayer ended up funding some of the Philly soda tax revenue stream since poorer city residents just used their Federal benefit to pay the higher soda prices.
Previous studies have found that almost 10% of SNAP dollars are actually used for soda purchases so it is no surprise that there was no improvement in healthier living in the city since it was the Federal government still subsidizing soda purchases.
Another ironic side effect of raising soda prices so much is that in some cases, beer is now cheaper than soda on a per ounce basis which has resulted in beer sales going up within the city limits.
And it gets worse: a 2017 study found that supermarkets within the city were losing $80,000 a month on average in beverage sales alone because of the soda tax.
Even worse, they were losing $300,000 a month in total grocery sales.
This was because as city residents went out of town to purchase their soda, they decided to do their other grocery shopping while they were there, resulting in grocery sales also migrating outside of the city limits.
And as a result of losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a month to lost sales, some in city supermarkets were forced to shutdown like one of the Shoprites shutdown by owner Jeff Brown.
Mr. Brown’s overall sales were down 15% which is a gigantic loss in the slim margin supermarket business, causing him to shut down one of his supermarket stores and lay off 200 employees.
Mr. Brown had made a point of hiring hundreds of people with criminal records to give them a second chance at life, with many of them now unemployed.
One such employee, Anthony Jackson, told The Wall Street Journal, “I’d probably be dead, to be honest” if one of Brown’s ShopRite stores hadn’t taken him on. “The Brown family saved me. They showed me something different, that I could be a man in society,” he added.
In a sign of total political arrogance and ignorance, the mayor of Philadelphia, Jim Kenney, publicly stated that Brown is “a crybaby, basically.”

So, simple ignorance about economics on the part of Philly politicians has resulted in the poorer residents paying more to live inside the city, Federal taxpayers continuing to fund not only soda sales but also the Philly soda tax, migration of grocery sales out of the city resulting in closing of stores and the laying off of likely lower income residents within the city limits including ex-cons who were getting their lives together through the generosity and compassion of people like Jeff Brown who was labeled a crybaby by the local political class.

Oh, and by the way the revenue expected from the tax never came close to what was expected. Higher living costs, lost job opportunities, increased alcohol sales, no public health benefit, and low tax revenues. Seems like the local political class could not have tried harder to be unsuccessful if they tried to fail.

Proving again, that often raising taxes resulted in less not more when it comes to the benefits.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

Love My Country, Loathe My Government

Thursday, January 31, 2019

February, 2019, Part 2, Political Class Insanity: More Political Class Hypocrisy and More Ignorant Economic Policy

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

February, 2019, Part 1,Political Class Insanity: Voter Fraud in Alabama and Climate Fraud In Washington

Tuesday, January 29, 2019

The Swedish Experience With Open Borders and the Lack Of A Wall

Monday, January 28, 2019

Venezuela Vs. Sweden: Why Ocasio-Cortez and American Socialists Always and Ignorantly Get it Wrong

Saturday, January 26, 2019

By The Numbers: Why Ocasio-Cortez's Socialism is A Pipe Dream and Plain Ignorant of Reality

Wednesday, January 23, 2019

The Epic Failure Of The Philadelphia Soda Tax - Another Lesson In Politicians' Economic Ignorance

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