February, 2024, Part 1, Political Class Insanity: A Senator Goes To Jail But A Speaker for the House Does Not, Politico Loses More Credibility, and Treason At The Federal Reserve

 Every month we devote posts to just general political class insanity that is running rampant through the country. The members of the American political class continue to show that they are incapable of efficiently operating any level of government in this country.

Even their best efforts are almost always ineffective at resolving any problem facing Americans. They spend a great amount of time not trying to improve the lives of their citizens but continually ensuring their reelection and enriching themselves, their families, and their friends in the process, all at taxpayer expense.

1)Bob Mendenez is a former New Jersey U.S.  Senator that was recently sentenced to 11 years in prison for corruption after he was found guilty in Federal court. But as we  have discussed over the years, corruption is kind of standard operating  procedure and one of the  most tenured member of Congress is alleged to be steeped in  corruption:

• Podcaster Joe Rogan and former Illinois governor, Rod Blagojevich, discussed the alleged corruption and self enrichment of Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of the House.

• According to a New York Times article, Nancy Pelosi and her husband, Paul Pelosi, are worth about $240 million, up from $171.4 million that they were estimated to be worth in 2021. 

• Thus, they upped their net worth by almost $70 million in three short years.

• “Her estimated net worth has increased significantly since 2008 thanks in large part to the success of her husband, Paul Pelosi, who is a venture capitalist and property investor. It’s not possible to know the precise net worth of members of Congress as they are only required to provide a range of values in their financial disclosures and not specific dollar amounts,” Newsweek noted.

• In 2024 alone, the Peloissi return on investment was much higher than just about every professional investment company in the country, an amazing 720% return on investment over the past decade.

• Thus, given these numbers many allege that her husband drives his investment decisions by insider government information that his wife has provided to him over the decades.

• While this corruption has never been proven, a smart persons(s) has come up with a solution to the alleged insider trading.

• They have developed a phone app called Autopilot which tracks the Pelosis’ investment decisions with the logic being that you too can get outstanding investment returns by simply doing whatever the Pelosi family does.

• According to Rogan: “Oh, it’s so good.  I’m not really a stock market person. I don’t pay attention. But, I do know people that are very invested in the stock market. And ‘Pelosi stock tracker’ is legit. Like, you could find out what she’s buying and you should buy it. She’s a really good stockbroker Rod. She’s super good at it.”

I guess that if you cannot prove corruption and stamp out corruption, you  might as well profit off of it via the app. Maybe Menendez just went about it the wrong way.

Note: long ago we reported on a little bit of shady dealings that Nancy Pelosi was allegedly involved with as it pertains to the VISA credit card IPO:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2011/11/final-proof-of-undeniable-corruption.html

2)We have often asserted that the country can survive bad politicians, e.g. Nixon, Carter, Biden, etc. However,  it will not survive a corrupted press. When the mainstream media in a country becomes a mouthpiece for the political class, then the checks and balances that an unbiased press should be providing in a democracy becomes non-existent.

Only someone with blinders on can say that the mainstream press has not devolved into a mouthpiece for liberal and Democratic politicians. And recent disclosures again prove how corrupt and out of integrity the  mainstream press has become:

• Marc Caputo and Tara Palmeri used to be “journalists” for the left leaning news site, Politico.

• They recently admitted that Politico was guilty of covering up the dirty laundry and other laptop scandal of Hunter Biden’s infamous broken laptop computer.

• Many believe, and opinion polls support their view, that if the public knew what the Biden crime family and Hunter Biden were up to, it would have swayed the 2020 presidential election to Trump.

• Caputo has now publicly proclaimed that when he tried to report on the laptop in October 2020, Politico executives told him to shut up and not report on any aspect of the laptop: don’t write about it, don’t talk about it, don’t tweet about it.

• Instead, Politico wrote about the now debunked and outright lie that Trump and Russia were partners in “disinformation.”

• Palmeri verified his position, that despite doing a real journalist's job and doing in-depth research over several  months, Politico executives also squashed her efforts.

• Caputo also said that his bosses told him to back off in 2019 about a tax problem Hunter biden had back then.

We can survive corrupt and  bad politicians, we cannot survive corrupt and bad journalism.

3)Let’s stay on the corruption angle and go to the Federal Reserve:

• A former Federal Reserve official was recently indicted for allegedly giving China confidential economic data that was developed by the Federal Reserve.

• Federal authorities arrested John Harold Rogers and accused him of conspiring with Chinese intelligence officers while working as an economic advisor to the Federal Reserve.

• His arrangement with the Chinese stretched over 11 years, from 2010 to 2021, and he used the cover story of teaching at a Chinese university where he earned a whopping $450,000 salary, which should have been a sure tip off that he was up to no good.

•  He tried to cover his acts of treason by lying to Federal investigators in 2021.

Another day, another case of corruption, this time at the Federal Reserve.

That will do it for today: corruption in DC be it accepting bribes, self enrichment using insider government information or outright treason of the Chinese.

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If you agree that we need to deseat every member of Congress for their lack of success and accomplishment, then please consider going to the following petition link to help the cause:

https://www.change.org/p/deseat-congress-reset-freedom

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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/Love-My-Country-Loathe-Government/dp/1604942789/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=love+my+country%2C+loathe+my+government&qid=1607716020&sr=8-1

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com

http://www.cato.org

http://www.openthebooks.com

http://www.conventionofstates.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

 

By The Numbers: Out Of Control Government Spending, Out Of Control Chicago Violence, and More

On a periodic basis we do some posts that fall under the theme of “by the numbers.” Rather than trust what the American political class 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 this month 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.

1)For over ten years we have pointed out that the Federal government was living and spending well beyond its means. Every year it has had to sell government bonds to make up the difference between what it spends and the taxes it collects. In fact, the Federal government has not run a budget surplus since the Bill Clinton Presidency, over twenty years ago and that was for only a short time.

The problem with such deficit spending is that the interest has to be paid on those government bonds every year, which means the interest line in the Federal government budget gets larger and larger every year as the national debt gets larger and larger every year. We have reached a point where tax dollars spent just on paying down the incurred debt is one of the biggest national expenses every year.

Under the Biden Presidency the national debt of the Federal  government just exceeded $31,000,000,000,000. That’s a mind blowing $31 TRILLION. To give you an idea how imposing and dangerous that debt level is, consider the following numbers:

• In order to pay off that debt, every American taxpayer would have to write a check for over $221,000.

• If you put that debt burden on every American citizen, then every American citizen, including newborns, toddlers, and kids would have to write a check for over $84,000.

• If you had spent  $1,000,000 (one million dollars) a DAY since Christ was born, you still would have  not spent one trillion dollars, nowhere close to the $31 TRILLION national debt.

• The Federal Reserve recently estimated that the total wealth in the country was about $123 TRILLION which means that every man, woman and  kid in the country would have to give up about 25% of everything they owned to pay off the national debt.

We are so screwed since, as readers of this blog know, the $31 TRILLION is only the current debt level of the Federal government. The unfunded future liabilities of the Federal government, debt and expenses coming due that cannot be paid with current tax streams, is a whopping $80+ TRILLION plus. Add in the debt incurred at the state and city level and a conservative estimate shows that the American political class has created a government debt crisis of about $125 TRILLION.

In other words, if the Federal Reserve total national wealth estimate of $123 TRILLION is correct, all  levels of government in this country owe more money than what the entire country is worth. Well done, American political class, spending more money than assets are available to pay for those expenses and debt, a classic definition of bankruptcy.

For a detailed account of the Federal Reserve total  wealth analysis, go to:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2021/01/happy-new-year-and-welcome-to.html

2)Continuing with the Federal  government budget crisis theme, in fiscal year 2021, the Federal government collected more tax revenue than at any time in its history.  And yet, it STILL spent $2.8 TRILLION more than it collected. 

This means that theoretically, every American taxpayer in 2021 would have paid an additional $20,000 in Federal income tax to make up for the budget deficit that Washington incurred. Many taxpayers do not make $20,000 a year, never mind paying an additional $20,000.

And the very sad part of this wild deficit spending is the following problems:

• We still continue to under educate our kids despite a $2.8 TRILLION budget deficit.

• Our roads, bridges and dams continue to fall apart despite  a $2.8 TRILLION budget deficit.

• Millions of Americans are homeless, hungry, and drug addicted despite a $2.8 TRILLION budget deficit.

In other words we get heavily taxed, the politicians continue to run up massive budget deficits, and no issue, no problem ever gets resolved despite the government spending trillions of dollars on what?  We do not have an under taxation problem in this country, we have a political overspending problem in this country.

3)No by the numbers blog post is complete without reporting on the carnage of death that continues in the city of Chicago:

• According to CBS news, at least 62 Chicago residents were shot during a mid-September weekend. 

• Nine of those 62 who were shot died from their wounds.

• At least 6 of those 62 were under the age of 18.

• As of October 10, 2022, the Chicago Sun Times reports that a whopping 527 Chicago residents have been murdered in the city, over 50 a month on average.

This has been going on for years and yet no one in the Chicago, Cook County, or Illinois political class has a clue on how to stop the violence or who cares to stop the violence.

4)A lot of Americans are relying on their IRA and 401k plans to have a healthy retirement. And a lot of their investments are in the stock market. And the underlying numbers supporting that approach is not looking good in the second year of the Biden presidency:

• So far this year, falling stock prices have reduced the wealth of all American households by $9,000,000,000,000, nine TRILLION dollars.

• And while $9 TRILLION is a big number, the scarier number is that this $9 TRILLION represents a whopping 25% or so of the entire stock market value, dropping from $42 TRILLION to $33 TRILLION.

• With the stock market still  floundering, the total loss of wealth for the year could be over $10 TRILLION.

• Granted, a lot of this loss was incurred by billionaires like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, who has lost billions of dollars in wealth this year, but many ordinary Americans are looking at their retirement accounts and getting worried.

• CNBC  has reported that this might be the biggest loss in wealth in the stock market ever.

Massive failure by Biden, the Washington political class, and the Federal reserve when it comes to economic policy and management. It is endangering the quality of lives of millions of Americans.  The numbers are approaching catastrophic.

Enough numbers for today: Americans getting poorer by the day, Chicago getting deadlier by the week, and the country getting closer and closer to a massive government default every year. 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/Love-My-Country-Loathe-Government/dp/1604942789/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=love+my+country%2C+loathe+my+government&qid=1607716020&sr=8-1

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com

http://www.cato.org

http://www.openthebooks.com

http://www.conventionofstates.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

 

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

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