Wednesday, March 4, 2009

thoughts on the stimulus package

You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

~~~~~ Dr. Adrian Rogers,
1931 - 2005

You also can't generate wealth out of thin air and expect their not to be consequences.

In other words, printing more money doesn't increase the wealth of our country. DUH!

6 comments:

Green-Eyed Momster said...

I couldn't agree with you more. I wish they would print me a million dollars or more. Hey, maybe they should print a million dollars for everyone while they are at it! LOL!! Then we'd all be rich, right? ;)

Hugs!!

Richard said...

You are SO right, Fiery.

These things really do matter!

Why? Because there is no life after death!!!

That is, screw up this life, morally, whether for oneself or for others, and that's IT! One has screwed up the one chance one has to be Good.

So, how does that sync with Obama's Stimulus Package? The Stimulus Package tries to right moral financial muddles by blatantly false economic principles.

It is particularly galling to me that the Obam-istration, and his political and economic supporters, think that printing paper money will spur the economy, by encouraging SPENDING! They are seeking to FORCE the Keynesian view of economic prosperity on 360 million people.

Contrary to Keynes, wealth is caused by PRODUCTION, not Spending!

First, all that Obama's printing of money accomplishes is the devaluation of any and all American dollars kept by others. That does only not refer to the dollar bills in one's wallet, but also to all investment dollars, and all dollars in foreign countries.

Printing money, dilutes the value of all circulating money, including that registered in investment accounts.

The end result is that prices go up, because 'money' becomes more 'easy'.

Worse, it serves as a kind of hidden tax on each and every dollar already out in the World. After all, LOOK THERE IS ANOTHER ONE!! It is this abundance of paper money that is the true cause of inflation.

But, it gets worse. Such fiat money is not evenly spread across the nation. First it goes to certain corporations and banks that a) borrow the most and b) have the highest cash flow. The result is that they benefit first, by being able to lend or buy as they wish, whilst the seller or borrower is working with undiluted original dollars! They have an advantage over other buyers and sellers too.

Nonetheless, they too, face a dangerous risk. Thinking that their product is in demand, because the paper money makes them believe they can expand their business, they naturally organize towards more production...

Soon many, many businesses start to think things are looking better, and modify their operations accordingly. They raise their prices because they find that more people are willing to pay those prices using all that, new, readily available, money. That is, when more dollar bills are available, the price of things goes up, because at least some people have more dollars than they thought they had.

Interestingly, if Gold metal were the Standard of Exchange, then prices for most things would always be dropping, except during unexpected natural shortages. It works that way because a) there is only so much gold to go around and, b) the more stuff people produce the more valuable gold becomes. That means the LESS gold one needsdto pay for a given good!!!!

In contrast, as paper money spreads through a society, and as prices rise to match, the more businesses find that they are caught in a temporary expansion, ...a 'bubble' ...a false economic 'churn'. Over time, they discover their products are actually not in any greater demand than before. Of course, they do not see it that way. To them, there was a growth period and a shrinkage period. Nonetheless, all their increased production capacity goes to (F'ing) waste, as the paper money proves to be a fraud. It is a fraud committed by their government!! ...whether by Bush OR Obama.

Those businessmen have invested in equipment, inventory, & perhaps even employees, on the basis of, what they thought, money was worth —only to find out that the whole thing was an illusion! Once again they, and the economy, collapse in yet another 'bust'.

More than any circumstance of laissez faire Capitalism, such monetary interference, by the government, causes the boom-and-bust cycling that far exceeds "market corrections".

Unfortunately the two notions, of market cycling and boom-&-bust economics, have long been conflated.

The fact is, "boom-&-bust" cycling is not at all typical of the "corrections" laissez faire Capitalism.

Market corrections never get so large. Only government intervention creates such great, false, understandings of the market: consider the Fed's policy of fixing interest rates below market value; consider
the Fed and Treasury issuing fiat money, consider the government's establishing lending rules (over 70,000 of them); and consider the
numerous government and quasi-government agencies altering the "rules" of doing business, via legislation.

Even taxation, whether on income, on sales, on imports, on travel, on mail etc., distorts how people do business with one another. Each tax influences how one or another approach to doing business turns out.

The businessman may not know whether he has succeeded or failed because his own miscalculations, or because of the effect of government but, all the same, his success or failure is influenced by those statist influences.

Fortunately, businessmen are smart, and can find ways to deal with all sorts of interference.

However, all that interference also creates situations that are ripe for dishonest businessmen and politicians, to manipulate the rules to obtain unearned wealth.

That said, there IS also a limit to honest inventiveness. American businessmen can only stave off statism so much, then 'market' correction can only do so much. If Statism is the most consistently accepted social view, statism will win.

Many people believe America is approaching that limit. Such statism is already winning in Europe and Canada, and in most other nations in the World. I can support that claim, but doing so would be lengthy. However, if one considers one nation, Ireland, one can get an idea of what economic freedom can do.

Consider that the recent Irish government, which has offered its citizens a reprieve. Their economy has BOOMED. Such a boom has not happened in New Zealand, Canada, England, nor Australia, and those are pretty free nations!

What is needed for a proper recovery, is the removal of taxes and of other laws that inhibit PRODUCTION.

Their governments cannot argue for SPENDING, when such spending is achieved without real money. Real money is produced when one can honestly trade his productive work for the productive work of another.

One cannot spend money on things that have not been produced! It is the PRODUCERS who "make" the most money, because they "make" goods and services.

Only THEY make money!

If a government prints money, it has not produced goods and services. Nor have the PRODUCERS. Such a government has not MADE money, they have only made paper look like money.

The government is no different from any counterfeiting operation, —except it can get away with it!

The Obama-stimulus does not enhance production, it simply encourages spending. But it does so, FALSELY, as I stated above. Obama is America's greatest counterfeiter, ever!

'God' Bless America.

Pink said...

Damn straight. All I know is, we have stockpiled 6 months of food and water for our family of 4. And, we are stockpiling ammunition for our soon-to-be illegal firearms (AR-15, for one).

I'm ashamed to admit that this is the first time we have planted a garden on our acreage. I'm excited about it and learning how to can the veggies too.

That Chicago fucktard scares me to pieces.

evolveintobirds said...

I guess nothing really ever changes in Washington. Bush did the same thing when he was in office.

T T Eyes said...

Just taking a quick look at Calculated Risk
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/
will scare the pants off you...I would be stockpiling staples as well!

HumbleHumanity said...

This in not the Obama I voted for.

hahahaha