Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Insanity, Part 9: Getting Schooled On Economic Realities, Associating Herself With a Nobel Prize, And Digging a Bigger Hole Relative To Amazon

Over the past year, New York City Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has established herself as a human gaffe machine. Her inability to do simple math, her outlandish ideas based on an alternative reality, her economic ignorance, and lack of common sense has resulted in an almost daily stream of idiocy, inane comments, and ridiculous ideas that have no basis in reality.

As a result, most of our recent political class insanity posts have almost always had an Ocasio-Cortez piece of insanity. Thus, we have decided to separately track her craziness and idiotic takes on economics, business, government, and whatever else on a regular basis under its own set of posts. She deserves to have a separate effort that captures all of the ridiculousness she espouses.

The original format we were going to use was to start with a set of her original inane ideas and just continue to build on that initial list as time goes by. But after just three summaries of her idiocy and stupid ideas it has become obvious that we cannot continually add to the existing set of ineptness, that list would get too large too quickly.

Thus, each new Ocasio-Cortez post will have only the latest gaffes out of her mouth. To review her previous idiocies just enter her last name in the search box above.

Let’s get started:

1) Ocasio-Cortez is a socialist, no doubt about it. She naively believes that government is better at doing everything vs. individual Americans and the businesses they run. But in order for government to run everything, taxation on individual Americans and the businesses they run has to go higher and higher which at the same time makes our freedoms less and less.

• In her own words: “To me, capitalism is irredeemable,” even though capitalism created the richest country in the history of humanity, lifting millions of people out of poverty.
• To her, it is “fear-mongering that government is going to take over every corporation and government is going to take over every business or every form of production,’ even though history shows that this is very likely to happen based on the whims and power lust of those running a socialistic country, ala Venezuela.

As always, she has no idea and experience on the topic at hand. Rather than have me explain away her insanity, the following video featuring Senator Rand Paul does a really great job explaining why socialism is so stupid. Most importantly, he points out that while people like Ocasio-Cortez always commit class warfare by demonizing the “1%”, Paul points out that socialism also has its 1%, see Maduro and Chavez examples in Venezuela, but they get there by intimidation and being tyrants vs. actually creating products and services for the betterment of humanity, getting wealthy in the process:

https://www.patrioticviralnews.com/articles/senator-rand-paul-slams-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-for-lying-about-capitalism/

2) Ocasio-Cortez recently sent out this great, self serving tweet: “I could win a Nobel Prize in Physics & they’d still call me dumb. That’s why I don’t give a damn about misogynist takes on my intelligence.”

These are not “misogynists takes” on your intelligence:

• You did not know the simple definition of the unemployment rate even though you have a college business degree.
• You did not know the three branches of our government even though you are a member of Congress.
• You did not understand a simple Pentagon audit report, thinking that the Pentagon wasted $26 TRILLION when its entire budget over the period in question was less than half of that.
• You said that taxing individuals earning over $10 million at 70% would pay for you “Medicare for All” pipe dream but a very simple calculation of IRS data shows it would pay only a fraction of that mess.
• You issued possibly one of the most inane Congressional quotes of all time: “There’s a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct than about being morally right.”

Trust me, putting your name next to the possibility of a Noble Prize in any science is comical to the nth degree.

3) Ocasio-Cortez was one of the main politicians whose childish and idiotic posturing prevented Amazon from moving a major part of its operation to her Congressional district. This was a once in a lifetime economic opportunity for a city, an opportunity that would have brought thousands of high paying jobs to her Congressional district, jobs that would have spawned immense secondary economic growth. 

In addition to the enormous economic boost her constituents would have received from Amazon moving in, Amazon would have executed the following promises it had made to the city:

• Amazon would invest $2.5 billion in developing the location for their headquarters location.
• This $2.5 billion would result in a load of high paying construction jobs and ancillary jobs and economic benefit to the area, e.g. food trucks to service the construction workers.
• Eventually Amazon would station 25,000 employees at the location, highly paid employees that would buy and renovate housing in the area, eat in local restaurants, go to local movie theaters, buy clothes from local merchants, buy furniture to furnish their new homes, spend money on local transportation, etc.
• Amazon promised to provide computer science course to 130 area high schools.
• Amazon promised to hire at least 30 people from a nearby housing complex to work in its call center.
• Amazon would help fund local infrastructure improvements.
• Amazon would help fund a new 600 seat public school
• Amazon would create a 3.5 acre waterfront park open to the public.
• Amazon would set aside 25,000 square feet for a“community facility use/artist workspace.”
• Amazon would set aside 10,000 square feet for an art and tech accelerator.
• Amazon would set aside 263,000 square feet for light manufacturing space.
• Amazon would set aside 10,000 square feet for workforce development and training space.
• Amazon would set up internships for high school students.
• Amazon, starting in 2020, would host semi-annual job fairs and resume workshops at the local housing complex for at least three years.

Like I said, 99% of the politicians in this country would have been smart enough to recognize what a golden opportunity this would be for their careers and their voters. But not Ocaios-Cortez, her harping and complaining was eventually too much for Amazon and they took their economic golden goose elsewhere.

There is an old saying that goes roughly as follows: When stuck in a hole, stop digging. Rather than just shut up and not bring attention to her economic ignorance relative to the Amazon opportunity, she doubled down with her idiocy and recently went after Amazon: "When you have a very large workforce and you underpay every single person and then you also participate in taking billions of dollars of government subsidies, that could be part of it.”

Where to begin to dissect this lie and denial of reality:

• Not every single person at Amazon is underpaid. Many of the jobs that were coming to NYC and her district were jobs paying well over $100,000 a year, hardly consistent with her lie that “every single person [employee]” is underpaid.
• I am sure that Amazon has a huge set of middle managers working there that are also not underpaid.
• If someone felt they were underpaid at Amazon, it is certainly their right and prerogative to quit and go find another, higher paying job. This is not a gulag or forced labor camp, any employee at Amazon is free to leave at any time to seek better pay.
• Amazon responded to this lie and fib with the reality check that they have fully supported the drive to raise the minimum wage at the national level to $15 an hour.

This blast against Amazon not only revealed just another example of her ignorance and penchant for saying stuff she knows nothing about but it also brought back the sour taste of her screwing her constituents out of a golden Amazon economic opportunity. Remember, when in a hole stop digging, When you screw up, do not bring attention back to your screwup.

Another day and another set of lies, ignorance and pompousness from a New York Congresswoman. I wish I could say that is the end of it for this month but that too would be a lie.

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/Walter-Bruno-Korschek/e/B002KYU08Q/ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

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

May, 2019, Part 5, Political Class Insanity: How The Political Class Turned California Into A Socialist Outhouse

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:

Usually we list out several examples of the incompetence, idiocy, greed, and dictatorial tendencies of American politicians. They waste our tax dollars, neglect the major issues of our times, and if and when they do occasionally try to resolve an issue, we are usually worse off then before their solutions. On top of all their ineptness, they usually personally enrich themselves in the process.

In addition, we have often showed how several states across the country have been so mismanaged by state politicians that they are probably going to drive at least one of those states into bankruptcy. The top five mismanaged, bankrupt likely states include:

• New Jersey
• Illinois
• California
• Connecticut
• New York

The politicians in these states have imposed the highest tax rates on their citizens and yet the state government they operate are heading for fiscal collapse. The politicians in these states have imposed more and more regulations on the businesses in their states which raises consumer  costs and drives the same businesses out of business or out of the state. The politicians in these states have allowed lawlessness to explode in their states with major cities across the country (Portland, Seattle, Baltimore, etc.) experiencing soaring violent crime rates, rampant drug abuse, extensive homelessness, and in many cities the turning of city streets into public toilets.

Given this history of posts on these topics, today we are going to do only one piece of insanity, parts of which we have already discussed. Victor David Hanson, recently writing for the Washington Times, laid out how far California politicians have driven the once great state of California into the ground. 

California should be a paradise on earth. Great weather, mountains, beaches, and other diverse and beautiful areas. High income areas like Hollywood and Silicon should be providing great amounts of wealth and great employment and economic growth throughout the states. Ports and farmland should also provide a diverse and strong economic basis for the state's residents.

But according to Mr. Hanson, the following realities and horrors exist in the state: high taxes, numerous taxes, high regulations, restrictions of freedom, failing schools, high homeless rates.  These conditions have enabled the state's politicians to take a golden opportunity and turn the state into one of the most likely states to not only go belly up in the very near future but also make the quality of life for law abiding, hard working residents to take a nosedive:

• For the past six years, California has had the highest marginal state income tax rate of 13.3%. 
• A measly 150,000 households out of a state of about 40 million people pay almost half of the state's annual income tax burden.
• This leaves the state government vulnerable to a massive revenue shortfall as more and more wealthy residents say no to high taxes.
• California recently raised the gasoline tax by 40% which gives it the second highest gas tax in the country.
• The state has the ninth highest combined state and local sales tax rate with a state sales tax rate of 7.3%.
• As of this past April 1, state residents now have to begin paying sales tax on all online purchases made from out of state vendors.
• When the Trump tax cut legislation capped the amount of state and local taxes that could be deducted on Federal income tax returns, many high earners in the state experienced a virtual doubling of their state and local tax rates that previously had been paid by the country's other taxpayers.
• Not content with the current level of taxes and number of taxes, a new tax is being proposed that would impose a 40% death tax on estates worth more than $7 million on married couples in the state, likely leading to many wealthy state residents to leave the state in order to avoid an onerous 40% estate/death tax. 
• And as we know, despite the high level of taxation, the state has schools and infrastructure that rank near the bottom of the barrel vs. other states.
• San Francisco has the highest property crimes rate per capita in the country despite high state and local taxes.
• The abandoned, expensive ruins of the state's attempt to build a high speed rail line "are already collecting graffiti."
• While 12% of the country's population lives in California, the state is home to 25% of the country's homeless population.
• One third of Americans on welfare live in California.
• 20% of the state's population is living below the poverty line despite the rich enclaves of Hollywood and Silicon Valley.
• One third of the state's population earn so little that they qualify for the state's Medicaid program.
• 27% of the state's resident were not born in the United States, flocking to California for the free medical, housing, food, and welfare benefits.

This is what excessive government taxation, regulation, and disrespect towards residents' wealth and rights have done to a state that once had everything going for it. Now, it is a poor, falling apart, disgusting, and dangerous place to live and visit. 

In other words, socialism sucks. This is a living, growing example of that politicians will do to this country if they are allowed to disrespect the rule of law, disrespect the rights of citizens to keep as much of their hard earned worth as possible, and use the levers of government to give freebies to the lazy and criminal in our society, without holding them accountable, in order for the same politicians to extend their political careers and personal wealth opportunities.

In other words, California is a laboratory experiment in this country mimicking what is going on in Venezuela, according to Mr. Hanson:  "Venezuela, which is driving out its middle class, is apparently California’s model. Venezuelan leaders believed in providing vast subsidies for the poor. The country’s super-rich are often crony capitalists who can avoid high taxes."

Political class insanity can include the simple wasting of taxpayer dollars on stupid programs and projects. It also can lead to the destruction of freedom and the well being of every citizen, rich and poor. 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:

https://www.amazon.com/Walter-Bruno-Korschek/e/B002KYU08Q/ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

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

Americans Beware: See How Socialism and Inept Politicians Are Destroying Three Cities In America Today

As readers of this blog know, we have very little respect, patience, or faith in the vast majority politicians, regardless of what party they are in and what level of government they are serving. They all waste taxpayer money, they are ineffective in resolving any issues, they are greedy and selfish and they divide the country with their partisan, angry, and often violent rhetoric.

But it seems lately that the Democrats have gotten even worse in all aspects of their governing. Many have left the historical Democrat standards and are now socialists bordering on communists by controlling every aspect of our lives:

• Many want to take control of every aspect of our health care via a socialized medical disaster known as Medicare For All.
• They want to significantly raise taxes of everyone….even though they claim they only want to tax the rich more.
• They want to suppress freedom as Obama tried to do with the shredding of the First and Fourth Amendment and the politically correct speech that Democrats love to cater to.
• They want to take control of our travel and energy options via the ridiculously stupid New Green Deal.
• They want even more control of our kids’ education by harassing and shutting down educational alternatives like charter schools, which generally provide a much better education than government controlled public schools, the total failure of Common Core notwithstanding.

The list goes on and on but you get the idea: they think that they are better suited to run our lives, make decisions for us, and control every aspect of our lives by using our own money, confiscated at almost slave like taxation levels, to do so.

But maybe we are wrong, maybe these newly minted socialists, communists are onto something. Maybe they are smarter than us and are better suited to control our fates then we are. I doubt it but let’s consider three cities across the country, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle, who are really already being run by Democrats/socialists/communists and see if they are actually doing a better job than the freedom that was promised in the Constitution and Bill of rights.

Before doing this, though, let’s refer back to a post we already did about San Francisco:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/07/july-2018-part-3-political-class.html

If you remember that post, or go read it for the first time, you will see that the Socialism utopia that Democrats promise is not quite working out in San Francisco. Poverty, drug addiction, homelessness, and feces in the streets is what the Democrats/socialists have brought to that city when we last discussed it.

But let’s update that discussion and throw Seattle and Los Angeles into the mix, as laid out by the Freedom Outpost website, as reported by Michael Snyder on April 21, 2019:

• As we go through this discussion, keep in mind that the U.S. economy has been recession free since 2009 and that under Trump, economic conditions have been great with rising wages and very, very low unemployment and yet the following situations exist in three socialist run U.S. cities: imagine what is going to happen in these cities when the economy hits its next eventual recession.
• According to the article: “But because of their ultra-liberal policies, some of the major cities on the west coast have become magnets for drug addicts, serial criminals, sex offenders, illegal immigrants and people that have simply heard about all of the “free benefits” that are being offered. As a result, the streets of those cities have become a showcase for the social decay that is sweeping across our nation.”
• Officially, San Francisco has 28,000 homeless people living on its streets but it is generally assumed that this number is way too low relative to reality.
• Given that the city government hands out about 5.8 million free syringes every year to people in the city means that if there were 28,000 homeless and they were all drug addicts, each drug addict would be getting about 200 free syringes every year, meaning that there are more homeless than 28,000, many non-homeless have their drug addiction subsidized by taxpayers or both.
• In San Francisco, over the past 8 years there have been over 118,000 official reports of human feces piles on city streets as a result of a lot of homeless people and the reality that the politicians in power decided that it should not be a crime of any sort to relieve oneself in public.
• This means that this 118,000 leads to about 400 reports everyday for 8 years of a pile of human feces being reported in the city, 400 a day!
• And the trend is not good since there were 28,084 cases reported just in 2018, about 25% of the 118,000 reported over the past 8 years with 2019 on a similarly high pace.
• Drug addicts and other criminals have given the city a property crime rate that is four times the rate of the property crime in New York City or about 6,000 property crimes a year.
• The mayor is trying to get the homeless off of the streets but liberal, rich voters, as we have previously reported, want nothing to do with the mayor’s effort in their neighborhood: “A wealthy liberal neighborhood in San Francisco whose residents cast the most votes for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election is fighting against a proposal to build a new homeless shelter near their gated mansions. Mayor London Breed has sponsored legislation to fast track a homeless shelter that would house 200 people. However, wealthy liberals living in the affected area have set up a GoFundMe to stop the project which has already hit $80,000 of its $100,000 target.”
• Los Angeles is not doing much better with about twice as many homeless people as San Francisco.
• The homeless population in the city is up 75% in just the past six years.
• According to the article: “When I was running for Congress, one of the people that came to help the campaign had spent a lot of time in some of the worst parts of Los Angeles. He told me about the public drug use, the constant crime and the human degradation that is seemingly everywhere.”
• Seattle is not doing much better, as vividly illustrated by the video, “Seattle Is Dying”.
• The video points out that the crime rate in Seattle is now two and a half times greater than the crime rate in LA and four times higher than the crime rate in NYC.
• Taxpaying citizens in Seattle have finally hit the breaking point with 53% now supporting a “zero tolerance Policy” on homeless encampments, 62% believe that conditions in their city are getting worse, and that current politicians are wasting money, are not accountable and have the wrong approaches to resolving the homelessness and crime problems in their city.

Heavy taxation by Democrats/socialist in these cities with dismal, dangerous, and unhealthy results. Problems and issues never getting resolved, they just get worse. These problems are not Trump’s fault, they are not Republicans’ fault, Trump and Republicans have not been involved in governing these cities for decades or never. These horrid conditions exist because of Democratic and socialistic policies. And to think that Washington Democrats want to bring this same type of governing to the rest of the country.

If you think that this is a good thing, consider the best possible description from the article of what you will have to look forward to if they succeed:  “The entire video is about an hour long, but it is pretty easy to see where Seattle continues to go wrong. A heavy tax burden, regulations that push out businesses, and a power-hungry group of totalitarian sociopaths have been slowly eroding the city. The decay of Western civilization can be seen up and down the entirety of the West coast. Some say it’s by design, others disagree. But the commonality is that all of the cities are being pushed into poverty by illusions and lies of socialists. Calling Seattle anything other than a leftist’s paradise would be inaccurate. The city has all of the laws the socialists want, yet it’s killing itself because of it.”

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/Walter-Bruno-Korschek/e/B002KYU08Q/ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

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

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:

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

July, 2017, Part 5, Political Class Insanity: Stupid in L.A., Poorer In Europe, and Busted Everywhere

As we do every month, we review the latest idiocy, lunacy, ineptness, and general insanity from the American political class. The members of the political never cease to amaze us with their greed, idiocy, gumption, and criminal activities. And just when we think there is no new way to disappoint us and tick us off, they manage to find a way to do it, wasting our tax dollars and destroying our freedoms in the process.

The political class has been very busy this month so let’s get right to it:

1) One of the biggest pieces of political class insanity that has been going for decades is the reality that the Washington political class and the government operations it oversees is extremely inefficient and crime infested. A little while ago we reported on a government inspector general report that found that Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security basically lost at least $144 billion a year in taxpayer wealth due to fraud and inefficient operations. The wasted wealth gets higher if you include government welfare, food stamp, and other horribly run government operations.

All of this history is bad news. But there is some good news recently, as reported on the Dennis Micheal Lynch website by reporter Anneta Griffee on July 13, 2017:

• Recently, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that a massive set of arrests had been by the Medicare Fraud Strike Force that helped break up a ring of Medicare fraudsters.
• The fraud involved $1.3 billion in criminal Medicare and Medicaid billings.
• It is the largest bust in the history of the Justice Department and it involved arresting 412 people across the country including 114 doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel.
• In addition, 295 health care providers can longer participate in any Federal health program.
• The arrest operation involved 1,000 Federal, state, and local law enforcement officers and 350 agents from the office of the inspector general.
• The press release also said that, “Over 120 defendants, including doctors, were charged for their roles in prescribing and distributing opioids and other dangerous narcotics.” 
• Criminal charges included filing fraudulent billing schemes including Medicare, Medicaid and the military’s TRICARE program for medically unnecessary and false drug prescriptions which involved the illegal distribution of opioids.
• According to the Justice Department press release, the schemes involved such elaborate setups a, “One fake rehab facility for drug addicts in Palm Beach is alleged to have recruited addicts with gift cards, visits to strip clubs, and even drugs-enabling the company to bill for over $58 million in false treatments and tests.” and “Another illegal clinic in Houston allegedly gave out prescriptions for cash. Just one doctor at this clinic allegedly gave out 12,000 opioid prescriptions for over 2 million illegal painkiller doses. These defendants have been charged and they will face justice.”

This is obviously great news for the American taxpayer who is the real victim in this criminal activity. But let’s be clear this is one tiny, tiny step. $1.3 billion is less than 1% of the annual fraud we documented above, $144 billion. It is doubtful the entire $1.3 billion will ever be recovered and how much additional taxpayer money had to be spent on the task force and law enforcement to bring this criminals to justice, for less than 1% of the fraud. 

The numbers and waste is mind boggling even in the face of the biggest bust EVER in the history of the Justice Department. The numbers are insane.

2) A lot of people in this country think it would be great if we changed our current economic system to those that are in Sweden, Denmark, Germany or other more socialistic countries around the world. We have already shown how stupid an idea that is relative to Denmark in the following post:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2017/07/july-2017-part-4-political-class.html

But what about Sweden, and Germany, countries that liberals and Democrats like to point out are virtual heavens on earth from an economic perspective? Ryan McMaken writing for the Mises.org website on October 26, 2015, went through an analysis that should sober up even the most socialistic Democrat or liberal:

• According to the analysis, if Sweden and Germany were part of the United States, their citizens would rank among the lowest states from a wealth perspective.
• His analysis was more sophisticated than just dividing a country or state’s GDP by the number of citizens since that ratio can be skewed if a state or country has a lot of really, really rich people.
• Instead, this analysis “takes into account taxes, and include social benefits (e.g., "welfare" and state-subsidized health care) as income. Purchasing power is adjusted to take differences in the cost of living in different countries into account.”
• Thus, in this better and more accurate analysis approach it turns out that Sweden would be poorer than all but 12 United States states with a median income of just $27,167.
• States such as Colorado ($35,830), Massachusetts ($37,626), Virginia ($39,291), Washington ($36,343), and Utah ($36,036) have incomes that are over 30% higher than in Sweden.
• German does even worse, having a median income that is higher than just 9 U.SA. states. 
• In fact, with the exception of just Luxembourg ($38,502), Norway ($35,528), and Switzerland ($35,083), all other countries shown would fail to rank as high-income states were they to become part of the United States with most of them being far, worse than Mississippi, the poorest U.S. state.
• According to the article, “Mississippi has a higher median income ($23,017) than 18 countries measured here. The Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, and the United Kingdom all have median income levels below $23,000 and are thus below every single US state. Not surprisingly, the poorest OECD members (Chile, Mexico, and Turkey) have median incomes far below Mississippi.”
• Even the richer countries in the study only rank as middling U.S. states from a median income perspective, Australia ($29,875), Austria ($28,735), and Canada (28,288). 
• The analysis was then taken a step further and the cost of living was factored in since a median income in low cost MIssissippi might be okay vs. a higher median income in New York which has a much higher cost of living.
• When this more sophisticated layer is added on, Sweden ranks higher than only six states while German ranks higher than no state.

The analysis goes on and on and can be viewed at:

https://mises.org/blog/if-sweden-and-germany-became-us-states-they-would-be-among-poorest-states

The point to be made here is that as liberals and Democrats continue to try to push us towards a European socialistic economic system, the numbers above prove that this is a sure fire way to make every American poorer. The overreaching government intrusions into our lives not only robs us of our freedom and privacy but deprives us of economic opportunities to beas well off financially as we can be. The numbers do it lie even if politicians do. To try and be more like Sweden, Germany, or just about any other country in the world is economic suicide over time.

3) One last piece of disgusting political class insanity for today. California as we have discussed many times is going down the drain from a financial, job creation, economic, and poverty perspective. Their government liabilities, both funded and unfunded are astronomical. The state and its cities have more citizens living in poverty than any other state in the union. 40% of Los Angeles residents are so poor that they qualify for Medicaid. The LA schools massively under educate their kids. Businesses, companies, and residents are leaving the state in record numbers. State politicians have done a great job destroying what they like to call the sixth largest economy in the world.

But apparently their major screwups did not get to the local politicians running the city Los Angeles these days:

• An L.A. city commission recently voted to give members of the city’s board of education a massive pay raise.
• Board members with no outside income sources will see their board pay go from $45,637 a year to a cool $125,000 a year.
• Those get income from other sources will see their pay go up from $26,437 to almost double, $50,000 a year.
• They are getting these raises even the San Francisco Gate recently found in their analysis that the L.A. school system ranks in the lowest ten school districts in the COUNTRY.
• Upwards of half of L.A. senior high school students are not educated enough to graduate.
• The school district faces an operating expense deficit of over $400 million in the 2019-2020 school year as enrollment continues to drop as parents take their kids out of the L.A. public schools and into charter schools, private schools, or move out of the state altogether, all of which results in fewer tax dollars for the city’s public school kids.

And yet despite these massive failures, some politically connected commission people decided to vastly enrich school board members for their massive failure in serving mostly poorer kids in the L.A. school district. And the politicians running the city government let them get away with this robbery. Unbelievable insanity.

That will do it for today’s insanity: paying more for abysmal performance, wanting to be like poorer countries makes no sense, and Medicare fraud takes a minor but well deserved hit. 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:

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:

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

Venezuelan Cereal and United States Health Care Reform - One and The Same?

I came across an interesting article in the March 22, 2010 issue of Business Week and it got me thinking about Obama care again and how it has very little chance of being successful. The title of the article is "Cereal Socialism In Venezuela" and was written by Geri Smith. It seems that President Hugo Chavez has taken over much of the farming and agriculture businesses in Venezuela in order to fulfill his dream of providing inexpensive food to the masses and at the same time exert more control over the country and its citizens. According to the article, the nationalization (from farms to supermarkets) of the agriculture industry has resulted in the following:

• Since 1999, sugar production is down 8%.
• Fruit harvests have declined 25%.
• Beef production is down 38%.
• Annual food imports that were $1.3 billion in 1999 are now $7.5 billion.
• Food riots sometimes erupt when scarce items arrive at a store.
• State run supermarkets are generally cheaper than privately run supermarkets but many times do not have the variety of food options that customers want. The example given was that during a trip to a state owned supermarket, there was no availability of beef, chicken, or sugar. Instead, there were overwhelming supplies of cooking oil (almost a 1,000 bottles), corn flour, and dried oregano and curry.
• Private supermarkets are constantly under the watchful eye of tax authorities, consumer groups, workplace safety inspectors, and even the National Guard, any one of which can automatically and immediately shut down a store.
• Since the government regulates prices on many food items, the private supermarkets have to raise prices on other items to make up the profit they lose on regulated items.
• Chavez's approval ratings are slipping as a result of the government takeovers and the ineffectiveness of the management of those resources after the takeovers.

To compound Chavez's problems, inflation is over 30% annually, the currency was recently devalued by 50%, oil revenue is down, and the overall economy is shrinking. Does this sound like a good place to live? Your savings buy less, a mainstay of life - food - is under heavy, heavy control by a government bureaucracy, you have less and less choice of food either due to scarcity or prices, government agencies dictate price levels, etc.

Now consider the recent passage of Obama care. Do we really think that Obama can manage this large part of the economy any better than Chavez has managed the food economy in his country? Obama has just instituted a major new bureaucracy to oversee health care (just as Chavez has done to manage the food industry), Obama is dictating to the private market (in this case, insurance and drug companies) what prices they can charge (much like Chavez is doing with food prices), and Obama's plan will likely result in less choice for Americans seeking health care plans that match their needs and wallets (much like Venezuelans can buy any food they want as long as it is cooking oil, corn flour, oregano or curry.)

History has proven many times that centralized planning and control of major segments of a nation's economy are never efficient, nimble, and least expensive. Think back to how inefficient the old Soviet Union was with their centralized planning approach and how miserable and unfree the Soviet people were. Only the free market can simultaneously produce lower prices, more variety, ample supplies, and innovation at the same time. Chavez and his central food planning is a disaster as will be Obama and his central planning and control of America's health care industry.

Obama care comes down to three serious faults that will doom it from the start:

1. Obama care never figured out what the root cause of rising health care costs are in this country and as a result, without understanding the root cause you cannot come up with the root solution.
2. The American political class, and for that matter any political class, has proven that they cannot effectively run even the simplest programs. Remember that simple little visitor center that the Federal government recently completed in D.C.? Over budget by about 100% and way over schedule. Remember the Big Dig in Boston? Over budget by a factor of about ten, still leaks, and has killed at least one innocent motorist. I find it hard to believe that the American political class will get this right given that they have gotten nothing else right, ever. If the food economy of a small country like Venezuela is too complicated to be run effectively by politicians, the health care economy of a large complex country like the United States is impossible to be effectively run by politicians.
3. Most Americans do not want to be miserable like the old Soviet citizens. no choice in how to run their lives and no freedom. That is what Americans are reacting to today, the restriction of freedom that is being imposed on them in a life sustaining part of their life, health care. Chavez's popularity is waning because he also imposed restrictions on freedom in a life sustaining part of his citizens' lives, food. Given that the majority of Americans view Obama care as a restriction of freedom, it does not matter how good or how bad the legislation is, America has already spoken that it will not accept it.

Both Obama and Chavez are moving in opposite directions from what their respective citizens are saying about cereal and health care. According to the closing sentence in the article: "People look at everything the government has taken over and they're seeing that the companies (the companies and industries that have been taken over) have become dysfunctional." Chavez and Obama, perfect together but dysfunctional for us and freedom.

Our new 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.