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Health & Fitness

This is what a "Progressive" recovery looks like!

Paul Chotkowski, Neighbor

Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 1.8 percent in the first quarter of 2013, the Bureau of Economic Analysis announced Wednesday. The final revision for Q1 2013 GDP is a huge and disappointing decrease from earlier estimates of an annual growth rate of 2.4 percent.  And how did we "earn" this piddling growth?

  • 100's of billions of dollars of stimulus spending,
  • $418 billion spent on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP),
  • A $973 billion dollar current year's deficit [for those of you educated in union controlled public schools please allow me to translate, that's spending almost 35.9% more than we are scheduled to collect in federal taxes and fees this year - try that with your personal finances],
  • Almost $17 trillion dollars in recognized federal public debt [that's about 6.25 times what we are budgeted to collect in all federal taxes and fees this year - what would happen to you if your credit card debt was 6.25 times your annual earnings?],
  • $84 trillion in unfunded Federal liabilities [that is roughly equal to 31 times the total federal tax, penalties, fees and funds of all types estimated to be collected in 2013 - 31 times!!!],
  • We will not even mention the $1.2 trillion in unfunded state pension and post retirement medical care liabilities for mostly unionized public sector employees,
  • 100s of billions of dollars in giveaways to "green contributors" to the Democrat party [oops should have said green energy companies whose economic model didn't have a snowball's chance of success without government subsidies even in a pre-climate change world], or
  • the Federal Reserve inflating the money supply with EQ I, II, III, Operation Twist and most recently by pumping $85 billion a month into the economy [just wait until the Velocity of MZM Money Stock (MZMV) or the interest rates on federal debt increases to norminal levels - or higher].

When reviewing the above bullet points, please recall that according to the definitive source the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER], the recession ended in June 2009.  In other words, the recession has been over for 48 months and we are only growing at a rate of 1.8% per year? Why is that? Could it be that

  • It is still George Bush's fault,
  • It is Congress's fault, 
  • It is the Republican's fault,
  • It is the fault of the Tea Party and other fiscal conservatives who want to lower taxes and reduce government spending,
  • It is the fault of the reduction in the future rate of the growth in federal government spending [sequestration],
  • It is the Sheeple's fault [oops should have said the voters] who since BHO's immaculation twice voted the Democrat party out of their rightful majority in the House of Representatives,
  • alternatively it is the EU's fault, the BRIC nations fault, and now BRICS fault with the inclusion of South Africa [a gateway to Sub-Saharan Africa],
  • Japan's, Australia's and New Zealand's faults because they have agreed to conduct their trade with China with directly convertible currencies [not exchanging into dollars first],  
  • the fault of the rest of the world who are abandoning Bretton Woods, Bretton Woods II and the US Dollar as the world's reserve currency [rats leaving a sinking ship], but
  • It is most certainly NOT THE FAULT of BHO, Progressives, the Democrats Party or their Union supporters, illegal aliens, Obama Care, the EPA, DOL, IRS [well maybe one or two rogue employees in Cincinnati], or the 49% population that live in a household where at least one member received a direct benefit from the federal government!
But the Sovereign Citizen might also want to consider that under the Progressives in general and BHO in particular America is abandoning Free Market Capitalism in favor of what can best be described as crony capitalism and at worst a CCCP style centrally planned economy where party elites decided which industries and companies prosper and which ones do not. Also consider that over the last 48 months of the Obama Recovery the economy has endured

  • The largest federal income taxes increase in recent years with BHO's refusal to renew the Bush era income tax cuts,
  • a 33% plus increase in the social security tax [it was cut then increased again],
  • The largest recorded power grab by the federal government with the implementation of Obama Care and the general uncertainty associated therewith,
  • The taxes, fees, penalties and costs associated with Obama Care,
  • The increased executive branch regulations of the economy without congressional approval especially by the EPA, DOL and DOJ,
  • The war on coal, 
  • The war on pipelines, 
  • The war on drilling for oil or natural gas,
  • The war on new refineries,
  • The DOL's war on non-union shops [remember Boeing's 777 plant in South Carolina],
  • The IRS's war on political opposition,
  • DOJ's selective prosecution based on party affiliation / fund raising [see Gibson Guitar vs C.F. Martin & Company's]
  • Running guns to Mexican drug gangs [Fast and Furious] and to the same organizations that attacked us or supported the attacks on us on 911 and subsequently in Iraq [the Al-Qaeda affiliated Al-Jama’a al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah bi-Libya in Benghazi, Libya and the Al-Nusra Front or the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria],
  • Open borders and 11 million plus illegal aliens placing downward pressure on wages and absorbing charity [oops entitlements], 
  • The president's war on makers and his glorification of takers,
  • I think there was a war on women but I am not certain, and 
  • We are ending a war in Afghanistan [did we win or just decided to declare Mission Accomplished and leave?] 
It doesn't take the President of the Harvard Law Review [by the way has anyone ever read an article written by BHO and published in the Law Review?] to know that Makers are concerned about the direction of the country, our economy, and their businesses.  BHO promised to "fundamentally transform" America. It is a coin toss as to what form of Collectivism that transformation will lead to Socialism, Communism, Maoist Statism, or even Fascism.

Progressives and Collectivist economic theory has many flaws but one of the most glaring is that they believe that the Comrade Citizens should works as hard for the State as they do for themselves and their family.

Why is it a surprise that as America slips towards Collectivism, the Sovereign Citizens who are also Makers are reluctant to go further at risk and are husbanding their resources. Their government is already forcing them to endure excessive regulation, increased costs, reduced markets, significant uncertainty, and near universal demonization by the Commander and Chief.  

With only 1.8% annualized growth in the economy, the country can not support its organic population growth at the same standard of living [never mind the illegal immigration of more takers] nor can it improve the standard of living.  Add to this decline the coming abandonment of the US Dollar as the world's reserve currency, a debt that can not be paid back without massive inflation [and subsequent devaluation of the savings of everyone who has every worked hard and put aside a buck or two for a rainy day or retirement], and eventual rising interest rates preempting most other discretionary spending  and we have a recipe for a fiscal disaster that will make the great depression look like a holiday [did someone say Bank Holiday - get your NEW DOLLARS hear at a significant discount]!

Without growth our debt based financial system can not be sustained. With growth, we delay the day of reckoning and hopefully we use the time to properly prepare ourselves, our families, and our communities.  Either way each day we move closer to a world that as the Fabian Socialists would say, will be reforged in the fires of turmoil and remade closer to the heart's desire [eerily evocative of the Shīa Twelvers]! The only open question is whose heart's desire?

So Sheeple don't worry that the government got the GDP numbers wrong by 25% the first two times they were published, they got it right [or was that left] this time!  There is nothing to see here keep moving.
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