President Giveaway and Steps Toward Socialism

FINALLY! Someone finally sees what I see happening in tour government, most people just ignore it or they deny it, or they make excuses. I’ve been learning a lot about the government and economics. You should take a look at, they are both by Richard J. Maybury. The titles are: “Whatever Happened to Justice?” and Whatever Happened to Penny Candy”, you may also want to read “Personal, Career, and Financial Security” that one is on a slightly different topic, but it is still a good book. I would really like to discuss this topic further with anyone, my email is ehed13@yahoo.com feel free to drop me a line.

-Erich

“There has been a lot of noise in the Blogosphere about how we’re headed toward socialism.”

That’s just wrong. Government policies in the last six months of the Bush administration and the first two months of the Obama administration appear to have the same goal: preservation of business as usual. The people who caused the economic crisis are still in charge, both in Government and in the Financial Sector. The only difference is that the people in Government don’t pay their taxes. You’ve been witness to banks as the beneficiaries of government largess (your tax dollars at (sic) work)–bankers on the dole.

There has been no investigation into the real value of bank assets. There has been no investigation into the white collar fraud that caused market melt-down. The people in charge of failed financial institutions before September 2008 are still in charge. They failed. Why are they not fired? If they are rich, it is because they were the people in charge of the payroll. They justified it with creative accounting; in other words, they lied, cheated, stole.

The government doesn’t want it investigated–too close to home. This isn’t sliding into socialism; it’s veiled authoritarianism.

The whining ex-VP of AIG said that AIG executives were paid too much. Although my guess is that he also invested in Sham-wow products.

“I don’t believe the rich should be taxed any differently than anybody else.”

Yep. I’m for a flat tax, too. No more offshore bank accounts. If the president of the company gets paid enough to be able to hire a tax accountant, then the janitor should be paid enough to be able to hire a tax accountant. If the president of the company gets a jet, the janitor gets a jet. Oops, that would be socialism.

Clearly, everybody should be an entrepreneur. That would leave no laborers to work for entrepreneurs. Which would create a labor shortage. Which would send the payroll sky high, unless the entrepreneurs actually worked..

Do some real math. In 2009, the US government will spend 4 thousand billion dollars (you can call that 4 trillion dollars if you want.) Divide that among 138 million taxpayers. You part of the bill (tax), for just this year is $29,000. If you want, you can give a little more to pay down the debt. If your spouse works, your bill is $58,000 and she gets to shop at Nordstroms.

There will be a small problem for some of your neighbors. The median income, for all people in the US earning incomes, is $26,000 per year, or just about the same as a signing bonus for an AIG executive.

20% of the working population earned less than $20,000 last year. If they pay their equal share of the taxes that will be 145% of what they earned. Not to worry though, they can just go to the bank and borrow what they don’t have to pay their taxes. An AIG executive will approve the loan.

As for food, clothing, and shelter, let them eat cake.

I think you are going a bit far on this one. The only salaries to be controlled in this fashion (that I am aware of), are the ones where the United States of America has become the largest shareholder.

If you have something showing difference, please cite it.

You are right about many of the people on both sides of the aisle, but to this point, I must still give the President praise for the many things he is doing to improve our standing in the court of world opinion.

I am very worried about the rampant printing of money, but I am not sure what could be done otherwise. Perhaps those that said “Let them all fail” were right, but ‘W’ pushed that through without much help from this administration.

Either way, that ship has sailed.

One thought before I stop - though everyone likes to speak about how we are moving towards socialism, not many have explicitly expressed why they are against it. If you begin to realize that there has never been a system on Earth that fell purely into one of the tags given to governmental type, you see how changes will not happen quickly in any direction.

Any of ‘em wishing to try to take my money, either through this Performance Pay act or pigs on the street are welcome to try….R.I.P.

Buffet: are you one of those Evil Corporate Guys making untold millions? :)

You may be expecting a reply such as “would that it were”, but, that is most definitely not the case. You see my friend, unlike the “gentlemen” in question, I have a soul.

Who was the “salaries” question directed at? Me? Oh goody.

};-)

Take a close look at how those corporations are run, who is on the board, who the share-holder proxies are, who the government has handing out money to wall street, who the lobbyists are, etc. Wall Street favoritism in government is the tip of the bias iceberg more accurately described as cronyism.

(Hey, kill the Schoenberg and put on some Ravel, maybe the Piano, Violin, and ViolinCello thing, uh, Trio in A minor; I need some mood music here.)

“Pay based on performance” only works if you make them pay to work when the losses show up. We need only discuss the statue of limitations on that one. If you made them buy into the stock they hold and made them hold it forever, or at least, made them sell it back at par value based on a legitimate asset inventory, I guarantee you the business would be run differently. For one thing, the dividend structure would change tremendously.

The government and wall street have a revolving door between them. There’s no need to go into that for the last administration–that flight has left. Too bad Cheney missed the flight.

Look at how Larry Summers (economic advisor to … (drum roll) … Obama) made his pocket money last year — $2.7 million from speaking engagements on Wall Street, including a big chunk from Goldman-Sachs. He also had a part time job with D.E. Shaw (Hedge Fund) which got him $5.2 million–I don’t know how he could afford to work part-time without health or retirement benefits. ( http://uk.reuters.com/article/burningIssues/idUKTRE5326HC20090404 ) .

Tim Geithner can’t figure out his taxes; he was shy $34K, and he’s the Secretary of the Treasury. When Geithner left his position at the Fed:NY the guy that took his place is William C. Dudley. …and where did he come from? Goldman-Sachs. What did they pay him to do? For six years, he was a member of the Technical Consultants Group to the Congressional Budget Office.

Funny, nobody in government seems to think that the cause of these problems could be Fed mismanagement of interest rates, fractional Reserve lending, Congressional spending run rampant, etc., etc, etc.

Well, bunky, here’s how we get out of this mess. Confidence, py jingy. Here’s how to build confidence: simply and straight-forwardly tell investors that toxic waste is (Honest, fellas! Would I kid ya?) actually worth much more than anyone is willing to pay for it.

“Either way, that ship has sailed.”

Find a hot-air balloon so you can have a look over the horizon at the fleet that follows.

For an overall grasp of the ‘Big Picture’, I urge any and all to visit Ralph Nader’s website. All the answers and explanations anyone could want, can be found right there.

Sorry, forgot to include this. When a politician in the US tells you that a bank is “too-big-to-fail”, it means “My 401k plan manager works there.”

I agree with you. I have decided that I will not vote for either major part again. They have both failed us miserably. It’s obvious that they are only self serving. I’ll give you that there are a few (very few) decent politicians in office. Most politician’s are seeking, power, money or both.

It is time we finally vote in a minor party leader and really “make our voice heard”. Unfortunately, I also believe the major part of the damage has been done, especially in the last few months. Economically, we are ruined as a country. I honestly don’t know if we can really ever fully recover.

I can’t believe that so many people are still so deceived and can’t see it.

going a bit far on this one.”

That would be because I do my own analysis. It sounds “a bit far” to you because you buy the myth. You agree that if I don’t sound like the political pundits or your civics teacher (you did study civics?), then I must be a “whack job” living on the fringe with my “crackpot conspiracy theories.”

Here’s an exercise in analysis. This is best done in dialogue, but this is not the venue or media for that kind of dialectic argument. So, just for the fun of it, I’ll play both roles. It’s sort of like talking to yourself.

As a topic for the analysis we’ll pick application of a business model to an institution of higher learning.

Zeno: In a college or university, who are the customers?

Heraclitis: The students.

Zeno: What is the product?

Heraclitis: An education for the students.

Zeno: There is no point in me asking any more questions as your analysis will be flawed. You are starting with wrong premises.

Heraclitis: …What? I just read a paper by Edward A. Snyder, Dean and George Pratt Shultz Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. In that paper, he described students as being told by business schools that the students were customers.

Zeno: See, there’s a few more problems you have. First, you think that somebody who studies economics knows what he is talking about. Second, you think that students should believe what they are told. This bias of yours is preventing you from making a correct analysis in response to my two questions. Besides, while he didn’t identify who the customers are, he did make one insightful observation with regards to telling the students that they were the customers: “Instead of the customer is always right, we ought to go with a version of you get what you put into it.” He went on to say, “We should set high expectations of our students. When they meet them, shine the light and recognize them. When they don’t, kick them in the butt”. In that statement he came very close to identifying the role of the student. With this additional information, can you give me the role of the student in our business model?

Heraclitis: Wait, Snyder said that he wants “abandon the customer model” for students?

Zeno: Yes, he did say that. …but that was because if teachers and other personnel in higher institutions incorrectly view the students as customers, the control of the education institution will be lost to the students. He actually wants to be a “soup nazi”–never lose control to the “customer”. So, he says he wants to throw out the business model analogy for instituions of higher learning. However, the fact that he doesn’t want colleges and universities described that way, does not make the comparison invalid.

Heraclitis: So, actually, you are saying that the student IS the customer?

Zeno: Of course not. I am saying that using the business model analogy is valid. …and my responses to you have been correct. If you start with the premise that the student is the customer, your analysis will be flawed.

Heraclitis: If the student is not the customer in a college or university, then who is?

Zeno: Ah, very good. You have asked a question that will start you on the road to a correct analysis. How do you tell who the important customers are for any business?

Heraclitis: There are so many measures of importance for customers. I don’t know.

Zeno: This is true. However, one of the things that happens in the actions that transpire within a business is that the president of the company takes important customers to lunch. Does the president of the University take students to lunch? No. Who does the president of the University take to lunch?

Heraclitis: Alumni?

Zeno: Any alumni?

Heraclitis: No, the alumni that make big contributions to the University.

Zeno: Now, you have successfully identified a customer and a product. Alumni make big contributions to the University so they can have a big, impressive building with a polished brass plaque, named after them. The product is a monument. The monument business is big.

Heraclitis: Well, that doesn’t pay for the costs of running the University. The students pay for that.

Zeno: I’m going to help you out a bit here. A University is a unique business. At a University, students pay for the privilege of being molded into product. In what other form of business, does the product pay the cost of being twisted, bent, and hammered into final form? Education is not the product. Education is an enhancement of the product.

Heraclitis: Well, who is the customer then?

Zeno: The president of the University also takes Bill Gates to lunch.

Heraclitis: Bill Gates is a customer? How does that work and why is the University president taking him to lunch?

Zeno: Mr. Gates is going to donate a lot of software to the University and that’s going to run the University servers. He’s going to provide the University with a hot line to free technical support. He’s going to provide discounts to students for buying Microsoft software. That’s his payment for the product.

Heraclitis: That makes no sense at all. Bill Gates is not buying students.

Zeno: Au contraire. He is buying students. First, he gets students that used Microsoft software for the duration of their time at the university. When they go into the workplace, they will know how to use that software as part of their enhancement as a product. People who hire those students will buy Microsoft software. Students at the University that become computer industry professionals will have cut their teeth on supporting Microsoft software. Gates goes to business and sells them software and promises the business that there is plenty of bright young students who can run and support that software just waiting to be hired. While the students are paying for the enhancement, Microsoft is controlling how the enhancement is made. The students are the product. Microsoft is the customer.

Now, having illustrated the process of analysis, I would argue that not only have I not gone “a bit far on this one”, but that, actually, I’ve been back-pedaling a bit.

We do not live in a democracy and it doesn’t matter if the democracy you think you live in heads in the direction of socialism. We live under a government with the trappings of a democratic-republic which actually functions, in its different roles, as an military-industrial-financial authoritarian state supported by cronyism marred by an oligarchical elite. If the democracy you think you live in becomes a socialist state, that socialist state will operate within the framework of the authoritarian state that is in control. The power struggle in government for control of the resources (material and labor) has nothing to do with any opposition between different forms of democratic (or other political form of government) ideologies held by 300 million people.

Within the framework of authoritarian control, you are allowed to play a game where the rules make your environment looks like a democracy. Eat the red pill.

You can call this a conspiracy theory if you like and you can go back to sleep. Or you can observe that something that looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and squawks like a duck, might be a duck.

The politicians are a bit worried. As long as they treat you well, you don’t really care if you live under authoritarian rule, do you? When they tell you that the reason you are treated well is because you live in a democracy, you buy that story. I would argue that you can’t connect those dots.

The thing here, today, is that a few of the players got a bit greedy and upset the apple cart. The oligarchical elite over consumed the resources. They argue that it was everybody who overconsumed, but I would argue that they were the architects of any over-consumption because that is the mechanism they used to feed their own faces. The noise from the overturned cart has awakened the masses that were previously content to be lulled to sleep by the seeming beneficence of the authoritarians. It was good enough to almost be considered egalitarian. Now, it is going to be painful for a lot of people.

Unlike some of the wingnuts, I don’t think that the authoritarians are about to lose power. I just don’t pretend that they will change our form of government (the one you don’t play in) because of any pressure from the population. They’re still in control and likely to remain there. They’ll just tighten the screws a bit more.

“I have decided that I will not vote for either major part again… …It is time we finally vote in a minor party leader and really ‘make our voice heard’.”

…but you will vote. This is like answering spam. When you answer spam, the spammer knows he’s got a “live one”. When you vote, they know you think that government works the way they told you it works. A vote for a minority party in this psuedo-system is what is called a “spoiler” vote. It will only succeed in getting you a George Bush instead of an Al Gore, but thanks for voting. The real message would only be sent if nobody showed up at the voting booth. This would mean that the authoritarian government was a real failure because their job is to control the resources. No voters would be an indication that they lost control of the labor piece of the resources. A vote with a big turnout is an indication that the myth is alive.

The beauty of America is that we have the least nasty of the possible gangs in charge of government. Other countries are not so fortunate.

Have a nice day. :-)