Love My Country, Loathe My Government: October 2020

Monday, October 26, 2020

There Is Only One Issue That Matters In This Presidential Campaign and No One Is Talking About It

With the election coming up I wanted to put forth a theory of what is going to happen after the election results are and and totaled. It is my humble opinion, an opinion based on facts and trends, that it really doesn't matter who wins the election.

I say that because I do not believe that the issues everyone is talking about, abortion rights, gun rights, foreign affairs, economic policy, etc. are really incidental issues vs. the only issue that matters and the it is the only issue no one is worried about in the political class, be they Republican or Democrat. And that issue is a simple four letter word: debt.

The political class has rung up so much debt at every level of government in this country that it is a balloon that is going to pop, and pop pretty soon. And when it does pop, the other issues above are all going to fade away as the entire financial and economic structure in this country goes into a very dark space. And it is a dark space that will affect every American. Let me explain, with both existing debt numbers and then with the trends that are already in palace for going to this dark space.

Let's start with the national debt:

The Federal government national debt level is just over $27 TRILLION, $27,000,000,000,000, growing every second of every day.
I could be wrong but I do not believe that the $3 TRILLION that the Federal government spent in the first pandemic economic stimulus program is baked into the $27 TRILLION number.
A second pandemic economic stimulus looks like it will come in at about $2 TRILLION, plus or minus a few hundred billion or so.
So the running rate national debt and the economic stimulus spending will very shortly bring that national debt level to about $32,000,000,000,000.
Let’s stop here and do a couple of calculations.
There are about 129 million households in the country so if every household was asked to equally pay off the national debt it would mean every household, rich or poor, would have to write a check for just under a quarter million dollars which is obviously not possible.
The total wealth of the vast majority of American households is not a quarter million dollars so they are not writing a check for that amount.
But what about taxing the rich to pay off the debt as many liberal would propose?
Not possible: consider that the richest person in the country is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos with about $175 billion of net worth.
Let’s get crazy and assume that we would not tax him more but just take his ENTIRE wealth, liquidate it, and put the cash we got to paying off the $32 TRILLION.
If we did that, taking everything he owned, we would pay off a measly .5% of the $32 TRILLION, not 5%, .5%.
If you took the entire wealth of the 400 wealthiest Americans, somehow sold it off and used the proceeds to pay off the national debt you would end up paying off 10% of the national debt, leaving 90% still to be paid.
But these are silly hypothetical examples, you are not going to confiscate everything that these people own, which means even raising tax rates on these folks will pay off only a tiny fraction of the national debt.
But the problem is much worse than this since according to the Congressional Budget Office, the Federal government is going to have about $82 TRILLION in unfunded liabilities in the next 30 years or so, i.e. the Federal government has promised Americans about $82 TRILLION more in benefits than it will have in the Treasury under current financial policies.
So that $32 TRILLION has to be added to the $82 TRILLION in unfunded liabilities of the Federal government bringing the Federal debt balloon to about $114,000,000,000,000.
Oh, and by the way, a few years ago the American Legislative Exchange Council estimated that state governments had, at that time, about $6 TRILLION in unfunded liabilities.
But that was a couple of years ago and before the states had to increase spending to combat the covid crisis.
So let’s assume that the Federal government’s national debt and unfunded future liabilities along with the state governments’ unfunded liabilities is currently about $125,000,000,000,000, a nice round number.
If every American household was asked to pay off that debt load, every household would have to write a check for about $970,000 just under a million dollars per household.
Repeating the above scenario, confiscating all of Jeff Bezos wealth to pay off part of the $125 TRILLION would end up paying off .14% of the debt, not 14%, not 1.4%, .14%.
Confiscating the wealth of the richest 400 Americans would pay off only 2.6%.
In other words, taxing the rich will NOT get us close to paying off the massive debt hole that the American political class has dug for us.

What happens next - city level:

At some point, the debt load will start to crush the ability of politicians and government to pay for it.
In fact, that process has already started, there are some “canaries in the coal mines” that are already choking for air at the local and state government levels.
At the local level, watch for Chicago or New York City to soon unseat the city of Detroit from being the largest American city to declare bankruptcy.
The Chicago mayor, Lori Lightfoot, has presided over a city that is now the murder captial of the country, has city bond ratings that are just the teeniest step away form being considered junk bonds, has large budget deficits and unfunded liabilities and recently had to plead with businesses not to leave the city, businesses that feared not only for their businesses but for the safety of their employees’ lives.
Residents and businesses leaving the city, reducing the tax base, the inability to get good interest rates on municipal bonds and rampant crime, Chicago is ripe for going bankrupt very, very shortly.
The situation is not much better in New York City, where some of the same issues, rising crime rates, the exiting of businesses from the city and a mayor who is clueless will give Chicago a strong race to the bankruptcy courts.
JP Morgan, a financial giant, now has more employees working in Texas than NYC, a situation that was once unthinkable.
Moving companies in NYC have been complaining for months that they cannot serve the demand for residents wanting to move out of the city.
As people leave New York and Chicago, the tax base shrinks, which likely means either cuts in city government services and cuts to retired city employees’ benefits and/or raising of taxes to serve the budget and debt needs of the city government, actions which will cause more people to leave and the financial death spiral is in full swing.

What happen next - state level

The same problems happening in Chicago and New York City have already started at the state level, especially in Illinois, California, New York and New Jersey.
All four of these states have huge budget shortfalls short term and even larger, unfunded liabilities debt long term.
These states have led the country in the number of people leaving those states vs. those moving to those states so that their tax base has been shrinking as residents and businesses move which required them to raise tax rates which caused more residents and businesses to leave which shrunk the tax base, and their death spiral has started.
In a recent United Van Lines study, Illinois, New York and New Jersey were the three states that had the worst ratios of United Van Lines moving people into those states divided by the number of people United Van Lines is moving out of those states.
For example, for every move into New Jersey, United Van Lines registered two moves out of New Jersey, not a good trend for the tax base.
In California, famous podcaster, Joe Rogan, moved his operation out of Los Angeles to Texas and immediately saved himself about $130 million in California state income taxes and he likely will not be the last millionaire to do the same, further reducing California’s tax base.
At least the New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, is starting to see the trends, having recently begged rich New Yorkers to return to the state (and bring their taxable assets with them) promising these ex-New Yorkers that he would have them over for a barbecue and drinks.
He also showed that he has no clue how to handle the New York debt balloon, publicly lamenting that he needs the Federal government, and taxpayers across the country, to bailout his budget hole.
As the tax base shrinks, the state budget deficits grow, and the unfunded liabilities get larger and larger, residents left behind in those states will see a huge reduction in government services (e.g. police force, firefighters, teachers, road crews, etc.), retired state workers will see their pensions and medical benefits slashed, and the political class probably continue to raise taxes.

Thus we have at least six coal mines where the canaries are dying a slow but steady financial death spiral: Chicago, New York City, Illinois, New York, New Jersey and California:

But what's next for the Federal Government:

The same early warning signals we see above will soon start to appear at the Federal government level.
The Medicare Part A trust fund will run out of money in about five years.
The Social Security trust fund will run out of money in about ten years with both of these programs already theoretically bankrupt in that they pay out far more than they take in in taxes.
But won’t the Washington politicians pass laws to make sure that these programs stay solvent?
But to do that they will have to raise taxes to pay for these programs, incurring more debt.
At some point, there is too much debt to be serviced by selling more debt which means that services will be cut, benefits will be cut, and other Federal government programs will get cut.
In an effort to save all of these programs, Washington will likely raise taxes, much like the local and state governments discussed above are doing, but raising and raising taxes will sap economic growth which will result in lower tax revenues despite higher tax rates.
At that point, as a past gasp, the Federal Reserve may be pressured to step in and start printing money as the debt balloon gets larger and larger, leading to hyperinflation and before you know it, we are Venezuela, a once rich prosperous country whose politicians drove it into bankruptcy and dictatorship.

Lower pension and Social Security payments, more expensive and lower quality Medicare programs, fewer and worse government services, and hyperinflation which eventually crushes not only the economy but our democracy. It happened in Weimar German and it happened Venezuela.

You see, there are only three ways to get rid of government debt: raise taxes, fund more debt, or print money. (I left off the obvious other way which is to strategically and smartly reduce government spending over time but Americans politicians have been shown incapable of doing that.)

And at some point you cannot raise taxes fast enough without snuffing out economic growth and activity which actually reduces your tax stream. At some point you cannot issue more debt because on one believes you have the ability to repay that debt, as the Chicago coal mine canary has learned, once you are almost junk rated bond wise, forget about borrowing more.

So if you are worried about anything but the government debt level in this country, relax. All of that is not going to matter in a short couple of years as the debt balloon pops and the chaos that we see already starting around the country envelopes the whole country: higher and higher taxes, lower pension payouts, lower Social Security Payouts, lower Medicare care, fewer and worse government services and eventually hyperinflation. Have a great day!

PS. It is my prediction that Chicago will beat New York City to bankruptcy court and that Illinois will be the first state to go bankrupt. Any other views?

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:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=loce+my+country%2C+loathe+my+government&ref=nb_sb_noss

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

Saturday, October 24, 2020

October, 2020, Part 9, Political Class Insanity: Congresswoman Omar's Alleged Self Enrichment Actions, LA Crime Grows and Grows, and How California Became a North Korea With A Tech Industry.

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane and idiotic politician comments, etc.

1) In the previous post we discussed two examples of how low American politics has sunk. On a local politician level, we have a New York politician arrested for trying to trade opioid drugs he had for sex behind a Goodwill store, hardly the type of distinguished behavior one would like from a community leader. We also discussed the many recent indictments of people that were illegally funneling foreign money into Democrats’ election campaigns including, but not limited to, the campaigns of Hillary Clinton, Cory Booker, and other Democrats.

We continue that discussion today with the following discussion of malfeasance by a Congresswoman:

Ilhan Omar is a first term Congresswoman from Minnesota.
Recall that we have talked about her potential misbehaving before including the alleged act of marrying her brother to get him into the country and having an affair with a consultant to her Congressional campaign that eventually led to the consultant and her both getting a divorce after the affair and marrying each other.
During that time she was alleged to illegally use campaign funds to pay for travel expenses for the consultant to travel around the country with her to continue their alleged affair on the road.
For the second quarter in a row, Omar’s campaign has been found to have funneled around 70% of all of her campaign funds to her current husband’s consulting firm, The E Street Group.
The consulting company has received $1.1 million from Omar’s campaign between July 23 and September 30 of this year.
This is out of the $1.6 million the campaign received from donors in total.
In the first three weeks of July, her husband’s company got $787,000 of her campaign funds, 77% of the total the campaign received during that time, $806,000.
Of course, the Congresswoman claims that these are legitimate expenses spent in support of her reelection campaign.
But 79% of a campaign’s money going to a single company is not common and the fact that her husband is getting the money is even more suspicious.

Sometimes the perception of conflict of interest is as bad as a conflict of interest. In this case, we may have both, the perception and reality of conflict of interest. Funneling campaign money to your husband’s company at such large levels should be totally banned from politics. I'm sure there are other consulting firms that can do the same job that the E Street is doing without having a Congresswoman scam campaign donations for family purposes. Despicable.

2) We have often and recently discussed the insanity that is called “defund the police.” Local politicians have decided that the reason their cities are so screwed up in so many ways is not because of their failings as politicians but because of their local police forces.

The cities that have embarked on this defund the police insanity without having a replacement plan to control crime and protect law abiding citizens’ lives and property include Minneapolis and New York City, situations that we have previously discussed on how the defunding and disrespecting of police by local politicians has resulting in skyrocketing crime levels.

Los Angeles is not in any better shape as they continue to defund their police department, the LAPD, recently lopping off another $14 million from its budget and transferring the money to support illegal immigrants in the LA area.

But like elsewhere, defunding and demanding the police in the LA area has gotten the same bad crime results as elsewhere:

In a recent stretch of just a few days in LA, over 50 people were shot despite some of the stiffest gun control laws in the country.
Of those 50+ who were shot, over a dozen died from their wounds.
According to Assistant Police Chief Robert Arcos: “We haven’t seen that type of week in over 10 years,”

Nice going LA politicians. Like your peers in Minneapolis and NYC, as you continue to defund and disrespect your own police forces, your ability to provide the very basic government services of protecting lives and property goes down the drain.

3) This inability to protect lives and property in California cities like LA has resulted in Californians leaving the state like never before. But this inability is not the only reason why state residents are getting out of Dodge, as a recent analysis and article by the Mises Institute points out in their article, “The Great California Exodus:”

People were leaving California at a greater rate than people were moving into the state even before the latest political class insanity and the pandemic.
Two recent studies show that it is not only the rich and wealthy that are leaving California, with higher and higher state taxes driving that wealthy exit, but also lower and middle class income families leaving also.
Probably one of the reasons the wealthier are leaving is because the already high taxes are likely to get higher with state politicians proposing that the already sky high marginal state income tax rate of 13% be raised to a whopping 16.8% and making it retroactive to the beginning of the year.
The governor recently signed an executive order that will ban the sales of new gas powered cars in the state\ of 2035, forcing people to buy electric cars and putting even more strain on a state power grid that cannot supply enough electricity today, never mind what happens when millions and millions of cars plug into that faulty grid for power.
That same governor also wants to get rid of fracking in the state, an action that could cost the jobs of upwards of 360,000 Californians who work in that industry.
Getting back to the lack of enough electricity, the state now has a formal plan of rolling blackouts that block homes and businesses from getting electricity on demand, a characteristic of many third world nations.
State government and political mismanagement of state forests has resulted in millions of acres of wildfires throughout the state due to bad forest management policies.
The state is also facing water shortages in addition to electricity shortages due to the short sighted and faulty environmentalist policies.
The ridiculously stupid and recently enacted state law AB15 is likely to cost the state’s gig economy hundreds of thousands of jobs if fully implemented, upsetting the lives and financial stability of thousands of families and individuals who were perfectly happy working in a gig economy job.
Despite a huge current budget deficit and an even bigger lump of unfunded debt shortages the state is weighing the possibility of paying out slavery reparations.

The state could not be any worse shape even if the state politicians tried to screw it up. Higher and higher taxes, not enough electricity, not enough water, ever rising crime rates, etc. Somehow California politicians took an utopia of weather and countryside and turned it into a version of North Korea with a tech industry. Take Silicon Valley out of the state and you have a bigger version of North Korea.

That is enough insanity for now: California heading down the drain, LA short changing its police force with the resulting higher and higher crime rate, and Ihlan Omar allegedly enriches herself and her family using campaign donations.

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:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=loce+my+country%2C+loathe+my+government&ref=nb_sb_noss

October, 2020, Part 8, Political Class Insanity: Failure To Protect Lives and Property In NYC, A NY Politician Trades Drugs For Sex, and Eight Indicted For Illegal Foreign Donations To Democrats

1) A very, very basic function of government is to protect the lives and property of citizens. It does not get much simpler than that, protection. But recently, cities across the country have failed miserably in providing this basic service to its taxpayers. Stupid politicians have talked about defunding police operations or eliminating police forces altogether without having any plans in place to protect lives and properties as a result of these changes.

The mayor of NYC, Bill de Blasio has insulted, belittled and defunded the NYPD since the first day in office, demeaning police officers and reducing the respect they get from criminal elements in the city. As a result, NYC has seen significant jumps in crime, violence, and murders perpetrated against citizens and businesses. This in turn has caused a lot of people to start moving out of the city, taking their jobs and tax money with them.

And it doesn't look like it will get better any time soon from a protect lives and property perspective:

The number of NYC police officers retiring is up almost 90% so far in 2020.
2,400 officers have filed for retirement in 2020 vs. 1,300 in the same period in 2019.
A police spokesperson said: “The NYPD has seen a surge in the number of officers filing for retirement. While the decision to retire is a personal one and can be attributed to a range of factors, it is a troubling trend that we are closely monitoring.”
Chief of Patrol head, Fausto Pichardo, retired recently after more than 20 years of service to the NYPD.
The PBA commented on his retirement saying that he resigned because of “elected officials” who were playing “political games” with the police force in the city.
NYPD PBA President Patrickj Lynch stated: “This is the highest attrition rate we have seen in over a decade, during a time we are battling enormous spikes in shootings and murders. And thanks to the City Council and Mayor’s ‘Defund the Police’ lunacy, no help is coming any time soon. Our elected leaders need to be held responsible for the dangerous path they’ve chosen.”

Reduced funding for the NYPD at the same time that crime is soaring is not a viable long term strategy to protect the lives and property of the citizens in the city. But that is the failure that is Mayor Bill de Blasio and the rest of the fools that run the city, reduce funding, demean the force, lose valuable, experienced police officers and the city goes down the criminal drain, causing the city to fail in its basic responsibility to protect lives and property.. Nice job, Bill.

2) As we have said so many times, one would hope that those that enter politics would be fine, honest and upstanding citizens, setting a good example for the rest of us. And every time we say that we realize what a pipe dream that hope is with the current people in the American political class:

A New York state politician, Dr, William Spencer, is also an ordained minister and prominent doctor.
Sounds like he really has his stuff together.
Until you find out that he was recently arrested trying to trade opioid drugs for sex behind a Goodwill store.
Besides being a sitting New York politician, he has worked on fighting the opioid crisis as well as trying to reduce the use of tobacco, energy drinks, and caffeine.
And yet he was willing to trade drugs for sex in an alley, arrested because of a law enforcement sting operation.

Nice guy but not surprising given how low so many American politicians have stooped when it comes to lacking integrity and actual criminal conduct.

3) But shady and criminal behaviors are not confined to trading drugs for sex in a back alley:

Attorney General Bill Barr has recently announced he has executed eight indictments for people who illegally funneled overseas donations to Democratic politicians in this country.
One of those indicted was a star witness in the Robert Mueller failed collusion witch hunt that tried to link Trump to Russian influences, further damaging the credibility of that whole fiasco.
That witness, George Nadler, was indicted for illegally funneling foreign money to Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 Presidential campaign and other Democrats.
Nadler was not only arrested but, according to Justice Department sources, he was one of the leaders of the whole effort.
According to the Gateway Pundit: “An indictment was unsealed against the CEO of an online payment processing company, and seven others, charging them with conspiring to make and conceal conduit and excessive campaign contributions, and related offenses, during the U.S. presidential election in 2016 and thereafter.”
This illegal dirty funnel money found its way into the campaigns of Democrats Hillary Clinton, Senator Cory Booker, Congressman Adam Schiff, and others.
According to the indictments: “The 53 count indictment charges Khawaja with two counts of conspiracy, three counts of making conduit contributions, three counts of causing excessive contributions, 13 counts of making false statements, 13 counts of causing false records to be filed, and one count of obstruction of a federal grand jury investigation. Nader is charged with conspiring with Khawaja to make conduit campaign contributions, and related offenses.”
The money involved totalled over $3.5 million.

Another indictment of how dirty and perverted the American class has turned the political process into in this country. What is not apparent is if any of those who received the illegal and dirty money or their staff will be indicted and punished. Obviously those that donated the foreign money to the Democrats' campaigns knew they were breaking the law but what about those that received the dirty money, how did they not know they were also breaking the law?

If history is any indication, those that received the money will make sure that they never face justice because for American politicians laws always seem to be merely suggestions, not hard and fast rules that the rest of us have to live under.

That will do it for today: politics gets dirtier and dirtier, whether illegally getting money from overseas sources or trading drugs for sex in a back alley and the ability of New York politicians to provide the basic service of protecting lives and property continues to deteriorate as they dismantle the NYPD.

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:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=loce+my+country%2C+loathe+my+government&ref=nb_sb_noss

Wednesday, October 21, 2020

October, 2020, Part 7, Political Class Insanity: Bad Political Priorities In California, Democrats Corner the Market On High Murder Rate Cities, and the California Financial Death Spiral Continues

1) We have often and recently pointed out what a terrible place California is becoming:

The unfunded liabilities of the state government is skyrocketing.
The state and local tax levels are among the highest in the country.
There is a massive homelessness problem throughout the state.
Out migration of state residents heading out of state to other places to live is among the highest in the country.
The state has one of the highest poverty levels in the country.
The state’s public schools generally do a horrible job educating the kids in the state.
Faulty state government emphasis on renewable energy sources has resulted in regularly occurring rolling blackouts of electricity and electric rates that are, on average, 55% higher than the rest of the country.
Wild fires have burned out millions of acres in the state because of stupid government regulations on forest management.
The state’s physical infrastructure is collapsing.
The state, like every other state, has been fighting the coronavirus for months.

Given these dire problems facing the state's residents, one would have thought that the state’s governor and other politicians would be laser focused on addressing and resolving these issues. But alas, you hopes would be wrong:

From the beginning of time, California prison inmates were separately based on their birth gender, males and females.
But the state politicians decided to work on and actually enact legislation that will allow prison inmates to choose their gender and it does not have to be just male or female, it can be transgender, intersex, or nonbinary.
After they decide, what out of a multitude of genders they want to be, the state will separate the prisoners via their announced gender which, again, is not restricted to male and female.
The law also requires prisoners to be called by their preferred pronouns, which again, is not restricted to simply he or she.
Despite state government budget shortages, this law will obviously require money be spent to build facilities for more sex designations.

High taxes, unfunded government liabilities, forest fires everywhere, high crime, low educational system performance, etc. and these state politicians spend time, energy and resources on a prisoner gender identity bill.

2) I could have included the following discussion in one of our “by the numbers” posts but lets do it here:

We have always viewed every segment of the American political class as being inhabited by people that are not that smart, brave, or effective in doing their jobs.
Democratic Congressman Hank Johnson once worried that the island of Guam could tip over in the Pacific Ocean, Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee thinks the Constitution is over 400 years old and that two distinct Vietnams still exist with North Vietnam ruling South Vietnam, and Democratic Congresswoman Alexnadria Ocasio-Cortez who provides a never ending array of ignorance.
But when it comes to being safe in a city, it is pretty clear that you probably do not want to be a city operated by the Democrats.
According to a New York Times report, 18 of the top 20 cities in the country, when it comes to homicides, are run by Democratic mayors.
The top 13 cities with the most homicides are run by Democrats.
Only Miami (#14) and Tulsa (#18) are among the top U.S. cities not run by Democrats when it comes to murder rates.

Correlation is not causation (i.e. having a Democratic mayor results in a high murder rate city) but it may be a good thing to avoid cities run by Democrats if you want to stay alive, the numbers don't lie.

3) We recently talked about how famous podcaster Joe Rogan was leaving high tax California and taking his operation to low tax Texas. Mr. Rogan has recently signed a $100 million deal and by moving out of Los Angeles to Texas he immediately saves about $13 million, the amount he would have paid in California state income taxes since the state of Texas doesn't have a state income tax.

We have often discussed the reality that hard working, tax paying state residents are fleeing high tax states for lower tax states with Mr Rogan probably being the most prominent person to do so. But we know that moving companies cannot get their hands on enough moving to satisfy the out migration of NYC residents out of the city.

I believe it is a basic human drive to want to live as free as possible. But when the state’s politicians start taking more and more of your hard earned wages and offering very little in return, people decide that economic freedom from high taxation requires them to take action to preserve whatever economic freedom they can garner.

Ben Shapiro is a famous conservative commentator and pundit. He recently announced that he is also leaving his home state of California, mostly driven by the higher and higher levels of taxation with little incremental benefit in return. He described the reason why in a recent article on his website:

Mr. Shapiro is a true Californian, having lived there most of his life.
He was born in Burbank, California, went to college in Los Angeles at UCLA, founded his media company in the state, met his wife in the state, and his three kids were born in the state.
He believes California is the most beautiful state in the union, the state climate is great, the scenery is breathtaking, and there is so much to do.
And yet he is moving his family and business out of the state.
Some of his reasons include: “We’re leaving because all the benefits of California have steadily eroded — and then suddenly collapsed. Meanwhile, all the costs of California have steadily increased — and then suddenly skyrocketed.”
Like we have said about California (and Illinois, New York and New Jersey) the financial death spiral has started, which is what Mr. Shapiro describes using a medical analogy: “It can be difficult to spot the incremental encroachment of a terrible disease, but once the final ravages set in, it becomes obvious that the illness is fatal. So, too, with California, where bad governance has turned a would-be paradise into a burgeoning dystopia.”
He points out that the homeless population in Los Angeles County alone has gone from less than 40,000 in 2011 to 66,000 today, an over 50% increase.
This has resulted in homeless encampments and resultant trash in every neighborhood in the county.
But homelessness is not the only quality of life issue: “The most beautiful areas of Los Angeles, from Santa Monica beach to my suburb, have become wrecks. My children have personally witnessed drug use, public urination and public nudity. Looters were allowed free reign in the middle of the city during the Black Lives Matter riots; Rodeo Drive was closed at 1 p.m., and citizens were curfewed at 6 p.m.”
As crime has gone up the funding for police forces has gone down.
He also points out the same reason why Mr. Rogan left: the top state income tax rate is 13.3% and the state politicians want to raise that retroactively to 16.8%.
The state also has a 7.5% sales tax and high gas taxes.
According to a survey of 650 business CEOs, California is the worst state in the union to do business.
Out migration has risen for the past seven years as people flee the ill run state which taxes high and provides low quality government services in return.
And finally: “I want my kids to grow up safe. I want them to grow up in a community with a future, with more freedom and safety than I grew up with. California makes that impossible. So, goodbye, Golden State. Thanks for the memories.”

This is what happens when the political class gets too big, too greedy, and proves that they have neither the brainpower, the courage, or wisdom to operate oversized, malfunctioning government operations. People want to be free and when that becomes too much of a hassle or impossible where they live, they move, be it out of California, or out of NYC, be it rich or middle class, people want to be free.

California, Illinois, New York and New Jersey are the canaries in the mine. They have started their descent into a financial and quality of life death spiral. Learn from them or we all will be living the nightmare that is California: high taxes, low quality government services, loss of freedom, high crime, bad schools, poverty and homelessness, and violence, etc.

So, we have bad priorities in a distressed state, California, it looks like Democrats operate the top murder cities in the country, and the famous and not so famous continue to abandon the sinking ship that is California.

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:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=loce+my+country%2C+loathe+my+government&ref=nb_sb_noss

Monday, October 19, 2020

October, 2020, Part 6, Political Class Insanity: The Clinton Books Bomb, The Chicago Mayor's Horrid Priorities and A Texas Politician Who Lives In California

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

1) I have always felt that those who serve in the House of Representatives should live in their Congressional district. It has always made no sense to me that someone would be elected to represent a group of people in Congress but not live among them to get an up close feel of the issues that their constituents face every day.

For example, Congresswoman Maxine Walters in California represents one of the poorer Congressional districts in the state and country. But she does not live in that district that she represents in Congress, preferring to live in a mansion-like home in a much more affluent area with other rich folks, not the poorer voters she is supposed to represent.

But Ms. Walters is a saint compared to a politician in Texas:

Helane Sawsan Seikaly is running as a Democrat to represent Texas voters in the House of Representatives.
Specifically, she wants to be the Congresswoman for the 3rd Congressional district in Texas.
But there is a problem in that Ms. Seikaly lives and works in California.
Despite living in California she has voted in Texas for at least the past four years, falsely using her parents’ Dallas address as her own address, misrepresenting herself to the state and its voting procedures.
She has tried to position herself as someone who “understands the challenges facing North Texans”.... even though she has been living in California.
Thus, it makes it a little difficult to see how she understands the needs of the Congressional district she wants to represent when not only does she not live in the district, she lives in an entirely different state.
When responding to a questionnaire from the Dallas Morning News earlier this year, in true political doublespeak, she lied without appearing to lie:"My parents came to North Texas in the late 80s when I was a year old. It's been home ever since."
No, it's been the home of her parents since then, not her home.
She became a member of the California bar in June, 2014, she is listed on their website as an active attorney in California, her bar information says she lives in Roseville, California, she was an adjunct professor at the University Of California Davis law school from 2015 to 2017, and she worked for a California law firm from January 2015 until March, 2020, Churchwell White LLP, a firm “with deep roots in California.

So, not only is this politician likely in violation of the voting laws of Texas by voting in the state but no doubt not living in the state, she somehow wants voters to ignore this criminal infraction and vote for her, someone who is worst than folks like Maxine Walters: not only does she not live in the Congressional district she wants to represent, she doesn't even live in the state of that Congressional district. Insane.

2) Somehow politicians and those related to the political scene think that the rest of the world is dying to find out their inner thoughts and insights to life and will pay good money if they write a book about their wonderful selves. Most of the time these books get an initial rush of readers but fade very quickly to the discount rack in the local Barnes and Noble store.

Thus, you know a book is really, really bad if a political operative writes a book that does not even get that initial rush as we see from the latest efforts from Chelsea Clinton and her mom, two political operatives that refuse to fade away and who constantly have to feel they are important:

Let’s be clear, I am not a fan of either Chelsea or Hillary.
Chelsea has absolutely no life experiences that I care to hear about and her mother in my opinion, ran a crime syndicate that enriched the Clinton clan while she was Secretary of State.
And apparently most of the rest of the world now feels the same way.
A recent book that Chelsea Clinton co-authored, did not crack the top 15,000 titles that Amazon sells.
The book, “Governing Global Health,” ranked 17,748 in a recent Amazon listing of book sales.
And those that did read it gave an average rating of only 1.6 out of five.
One Amazon reviewer called it “As superficial and boring as its author, who has received a free ride her entire life.”
And her mother's recent book, “Stronger Together: A Blueprint for America’s Future,” did even worse despite Hillary’s name on the front.
It sold less than 3,000 copies its first week and somehow did far worst than her daughter’s book, ranking a whopping 89,681 on Amazon’s Best Sellers Rank.

Wow, could it be possible that America is finally growing tired of the Clinton’s, people who have added very little to the welfare and benefit of Americans but who enriched themselves beyond every American’s dream in the process? We can only hope that these book failures means they will finally just...go...away.

3) We have far too often discussed the reality that Chicago as a city is a mess:

It is the murder capital of the country with hundreds and hundreds of city residents getting killed and thousands getting wounded every year.
It is a city that very well will go bankrupt very soon, unseating Detroit as the largest American city to ever go bankrupt.
Its ever rising crime rate has forced the mayor, Lori Lightfoot, to plead with businesses to not abandon the city because the city cannot protect the assets or employees of those businesses.
The city is so unsafe that the same mayor has allotted herself and her neighborhood extra police protection while not providing enough police protection for regular citizens.

Given the dire situation in the city, one would hope that the mayor was hard at work on these major issues and taking her job very seriously. But of course, if you made that assumption, you would be wrong:

I am sure that the whole covid crisis continues to threaten the lives and health of people in Chicago and needs to be taken seriously.
Unfortunately, the serious part did not make through to the mayor,
In a recent news conference she showed up dressed in a bizarre Halloween outfit.
She showed up not as a dignified leader of the city but as “Captain Corona,” wearing a cape and giving out Halloween candy.
She was there at the press conference to discuss the city’s Halloween procedures.

Over 3,100 Chicago residents have been shot in the city this year and she takes time out of her day to dress up in a bizarre Halloween outfit. Hundreds of city residents have been killed by the violence in her city and she devotes a press conference to Halloween procedures, something that a simple press release should have handled. Tough to take any politician seriously when dressing up for Halloween trick or treating is a high priority for them and they are dressed like this:

Chicago Mayor Lightfoot Wears a Bizarre Costume to a News Conference

So, today we have a California resident that wants to be a Texas Congresswoman, the long awaited failure of anyone in the Clinton family to reinsert themselves into our lives, and the continued failure of the Chicago mayor to resolve any issue and who acts like a clown in the process.

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:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=loce+my+country%2C+loathe+my+government&ref=nb_sb_noss

Sunday, October 18, 2020

October, 2020, By The Numbers: Why There Is Only One Issue In This Election, Nothing Else Matters

On a periodic basis we do some posts that fall under the theme of “by the numbers.” Rather than trust what the American political tells us about reality, we like to examine the real numbers and the real reality in the world to understand what is actually going on. Relying on politicians, and their cohorts in the media, to tell us what is reality is always a sucker bet. They have their own agendas and goals, usually centering around their needs and self-enrichment. So we need to look at the reality of the numbers to determine what is really going on.

Previous analyses of “by the numbers” can be accessed by entering the phrase in the search box above. This is the third and final post in this series where we look at the numbers to truly find out how good, not likely, or bad, most likely, the American political class is doing in managing our tax dollars, protecting our freedoms, and resolving major issues that affect all of us.

A short post today that involves the only issue that I believe matters when it comes to the Presidential election. Forget about abortion rights, gun rights, taxes, jobs, etc. The only overriding issue that matters is the incremental amount of debt that government entities across the country have incurred and continue to incur every minute of every day.

How bad is the debt problem that governments have today? Let’s do the numbers:

The ‘regular” national debt of the Federal government is just over $27 trillion and counting.
The first covid economic stimulus plan cost the Federal government $3 trillion.
The next follow up stimulus plan is likely to cost about $2 trillion.
Thus, in short order the Federal government will be servicing a debt of about $32 trillion, a number that will continue to grow.
Recent government analysis estimates that over the next few decades there will be about $82 trillion in unfunded liabilities in Social Security and Medicare, where unfunded liabilities is the difference between the money the government expects to have to fund these programs and the larger amount of money that will be actually needed to fund these programs in their current state.
But state governments also have unfunded liabilities with a recent analysis putting those unfunded liabilities at around $7 trillion.
But this is before the unforeseen state government covid expenses so lets estimate that there are an additional $4 trillion in state government unfunded liabilities.
Add up all of these debt loads and unfunded liabilities and we see that state governments and the Federal government have about $125,000,000,000,000 ($125 trillion) in some form of debt, a level that grows by the minute.
How big is $125,000,000,000,000, let’s do some numbers.
There are about 331 million people living in America today so if that $125 trillion debt load was spread out over every American, each American, including kids, would have to write a check for about $377,000 to cover the government debt load.
Thus, a family of four would need to write a check for about $1.5 million to cover the $125 trillion government debt.
There are about 129 million households in the country so if each household was to pay for the debt, every household would need to write a check for $972,000.
But what about the liberal mantra of “tax the rich” to pay for the debt?
Let’s start with Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the country.
Although his wealth level varies according to what happens to Amazon's stock price every day, most estimates put his personal wealth at around $175 billion.
Rather than increase his tax rate or put a tax on his wealth, let’s assume the government could seize his ENTIRE personal wealth ($175 billion) and sell it off to help pay for the debt.
But his $175 billion, even if it could be liquidated and used to pay down the debt, would account for only .14% of the $125 trillion, no 14%, not 1.4%, a measly .14%.
Elizabeth Warren once proposed a wealth tax on the rich of 2% of their total wealth and belongings, which means that if her stupid tax was applied to Bezo, that .14% would be 50 times smaller.
Not convinced that taxing the rich would not pay for the $125 trillion, consider the latest estimate from Forbes which says the richest 400 people in this country are worth about $3.2 trillion.
If we confiscated their entire net worth and somehow liquidated it we would be able to pay off only 2.6% of the $125 trillion.
If we used Warren’s 2% number then the richest 400 people would only be able to pay off .5% of the $125 trillion.

Dang, we obviously cannot pay off the debt by the rich even if we steal their entire fortune and wealth. We cannot pay off the debt if every American household has to pay almost a $1 million each to pay off the debt.

And no one, absolutely no one, neither the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, cares about this dire situation. And like I proposed above, nothing else matters because when this debt bubble blows, assuming no one in a position of power ever gets around to attacking the problem, the consequences will be huge:

There are analyses around that say in about five years or so, Medicare Part A will go belly up, meaning less affordable and less available medical care for Medicare recipients.
Shortly after that, the Ponzi scheme known as Social Security will begin to implode which will likely result in a drastic reduction in Social Security benefits.
Given that Social Security is now in a cash negative position which is growing steadily larger every day, this implosion is not that far off.
In a desperate attempt to fill the debt hole in government budgets, state governments and the Federal government will raise taxes.
But the raising or taxes will reduce consumer spending and business investment which will crash economic growth and result in lower, not higher, tax revenues.
At the same time, desperate governments will start cutting spending, way too late, which will result in immediate draconian cuts in police and fire forces, reduced number of teachers, crumbling infrastructure, etc.
In another desperate move, the Federal Reserve will start printing money which will likely lead to hyperinflation.
And before you know it we look like Venezuela: high taxes, higher and higher prices, shortages of all sorts, reduced government benefits and services, and quite possibly the collapse of our democracy and freedoms.

We are already seeing the beginnings of this type of debt collapse. Detroit, Stockton, California and other cities have already gone bankrupt. New York City and New York’s state government are desperately pleading for the Federal taxpayer to bail out their inept spending and budgeting skills which have resulted in massive debt loads.

Illinois and California are looking to raise taxes even higher than their existing high rates to cover their out of control spending and debt even though there is a steady migration of state residents in both states moving out. Thus, these two states are already in a financial death spiral: they keep raising tax rates which drives taxpayers to other, more affordable states which reduces state government tax revenue which forces them to raise the tax rates more, etc. and the death spiral is in effect.

So, yes, please go vote, it is your responsibility to make your voice heard. But before voting for a Republican or Democrat, ask yourself if you really think that they will be able to resolve the debt bubble before it is too late. Given their history of only incurring more and more debt, I doubt that either party and all of their candidates they are putting forth have the wisdom, the courage, and political will to fix what is going to severely and negatively affect every American, a crisis that will make all other problems insignificant in comparison and a crisis that is going to likely happen pretty quickly.

If you do take that moment to pause and consider what the existing two party system will not do, may I suggest that you look into the Libertarian Party for an answer to the debt issue. The Libertarian Party is the ONLY national party that recognizes the tragedy that this debt issue will bring and actually has the plan and will to address it before it is too late:

https://jo20.com/issues/

Have a great day!

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:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=loce+my+country%2C+loathe+my+government&ref=nb_sb_noss

Love My Country, Loathe My Government

Monday, October 26, 2020

There Is Only One Issue That Matters In This Presidential Campaign and No One Is Talking About It

Saturday, October 24, 2020

October, 2020, Part 9, Political Class Insanity: Congresswoman Omar's Alleged Self Enrichment Actions, LA Crime Grows and Grows, and How California Became a North Korea With A Tech Industry.

October, 2020, Part 8, Political Class Insanity: Failure To Protect Lives and Property In NYC, A NY Politician Trades Drugs For Sex, and Eight Indicted For Illegal Foreign Donations To Democrats

Wednesday, October 21, 2020

October, 2020, Part 7, Political Class Insanity: Bad Political Priorities In California, Democrats Corner the Market On High Murder Rate Cities, and the California Financial Death Spiral Continues

Monday, October 19, 2020

October, 2020, Part 6, Political Class Insanity: The Clinton Books Bomb, The Chicago Mayor's Horrid Priorities and A Texas Politician Who Lives In California

Sunday, October 18, 2020

October, 2020, By The Numbers: Why There Is Only One Issue In This Election, Nothing Else Matters

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