Unions, Socialism and RoadKill?

September 19, 2015 Leave a comment

Just the other day I was verbally assaulted with socialism.

Per my usual workday I was taking the morning commuter into downtown Chicago. As I stand in the train’s vestibule I visit with my fellow travelers. Our conversations run the gamut of silly to bordering on the unspoken: politics, religion and money.

Well, just as I mentioned, I was slimed by socialism.

As I was talking with my friends a guy comes into the vestibule to wait out the rest of the ride. He was apparently eager to get off the train and light up a smoke.

Victory cigarettes

Victory cigarettes

Wearing a chartreuse tee-shirt of a union pipefitter (seen around Chicago) and with a pack of smokes in his one breast pocket, this guy proceeded to let us know that he arrived.

One of our group asked him where he worked and what he did. (We usually try to engage everyone who ‘visits” the vestibule.)

The guy mentioned that he was working in a building downtown “putting in 24” pipe.” He spoke with the raspy demonic-sounding voice of a heavy smoker.

Then, without prompting and like striking flint, he said, “I hate corporate America. I hate the rich, highly paid CEOs. Who needs gold toilet seats?!” “You think union workers get paid a lot. You should see what they take out of my paycheck!”

“OK?” I said to myself. Well, here we go again: typical union griping, now on a Thursday morning.

I have heard the same sort of discontent (putting it nicely) from union postal workers, train conductors, teachers, electricians, plumbers, service workers-from all of them. And, whether the gripe is about pay grade, work time, pecking order, vacation time, labor management (a partial list of complaints, to be sure) I have heard it all. Union people have left their destiny in the hands of others in hopes of being insured against unhappiness. Guess again. Socialism takes regular drawdowns on your account of happiness.

I have heard the same sort of morbid discontent as campaign vote pandering. It slips off the politician’s tongues (here paraphrased) as “zero sum anthropogenic poverty caused by the rich and CO2”, “…limited pie…”, “…we need unlimited government…”, and (verbatim) “Fair share”; “The 1%”.

Victory Gin

Victory Gin

All such materialism driven policies enacted to “unionize” society, in my estimation, reduce life to a boring unromantic dystopia. In other words these politicians want you to, “go drink your 1984 Victory Gin and be happy. We will take care of you. Do what you were told with what we gave you. There is no romance in Socialism so don’t even think of love, only of sex.” (Hah, imagine Hollywood under socialist financial constraints! Morally, Hollywood is already dependent on the lowest common cultural denominator.)

I decided not to talk to the union guy unless others broached a response and decided to go there. I could tell by his demeanor that this guys’ mind was probably as darkened as his lungs must be.

He went on to speak about his working on and off again depending on … when work is made available to him…through the union. Months would go by until he got a call.

Then he spoke of his heart’s desire: “My precious!”-The long awaited-for pension. With wide-eyed craving he spoke of his retirement: “Only six more years of this stuff left.”

Unions have a unique way of making people ache for the ring of retirement. I’ve seen it firsthand. It comes, I believe, from the on and off nature of union work along with boredom and plenty of worrisome smokes in between, a situation this guy and others let others control. Socialism is losing control of your life while waiting for the day you can retire and live off your meager pension and then, likely, smoke and drink yourself to death within a short time. Union-socialism roadkill.  I’ve seen it over and over.

At this point I wanted to ask him who runs his pension and ask if it was invested in something more than a saving account making 0.01% interest or a CD making 0.09 % interest. Or, was his pension invested in equities and bonds, more appreciable (and risky) financial vehicles.

One could easily figure that the “highly paid” union lords control his pension (and get their cut) and that the union pension fund itself is managed by outside financial managers who manage stock and bond purchases of the union’s pension fund.

The “highly paid” overseers of his pension as fiduciaries must look at the composite financials of companies with stock and bond offerings to determine the best option to apply to a conservative pension, to have it grow while minimizing risk.

Obviously this union guy knew pipefitting and welding. But he did not know finances let alone how to find work on his own. He, instead, left others in charge of providing him work and with overseeing his “precious” pension.

Right then and there I wanted to say to this guy that when you leave your life in the hands of others they will charge you for their effort, including “highly paid” labor leaders (e.g., Richard Trumka).

Union treasuries—filled by dues paid by union members—not only fund programs benefiting union members and their families. The money also 

Richard Trumka "highly paid" Union boss

Richard Trumka
“highly paid” Union CEO

pays six-figure salaries and benefits for labor leaders and their top staffs, and provides tens of millions of dollars for Democratic causes and candidates.

-“Scores of union leaders earn six-figure salaries”

Here’s the arrogant and petty AFL-CIO union thug Richard Trumka tweeting his call for “two minutes hate” directed at Gov. Scott Walker who is dropping out of the 2016 presidential race:

 

 

“Highly paid” CEOs are charged with managing a company so as to make its value grow and to make its stockholders happy with the company’s prospects for future earnings. The company’s worth must appreciate in value. And when a company’s stock appreciates in value many people benefit. This includes employees who receive stock as a bonus. Pension funds invested in such a company’s stock also grow in value. Somehow I think any such statement to him would not meld with his union-socialist-collectivist way of life. He would go into Elizabeth Warren override.

I left out this: companies run by “highly paid” CEOs hire people and pay them to function within the company. Together CEOs and the people make the company profitable or otherwise. The people are free to stay or move on depending on their satisfaction with any number of things including pay, management, location, etc. “Highly paid” CEOs increase value. Collectivist governments, socialist governments and unions depreciate value-especially, your value, via coercive egalitarianism.

Those of us in the Kingdom of God must not take the wide way that is offered to us either by a self-described socialist such as Bernie Sanders or by a self-described “Christian” magazine called Sojourners which uses the banner of “social justice.”

Government is not altruistic. Government could never hit the moving “socially just” target without being totally controlling. Government can never offer a hurting person what a Good Samaritan can-one on one help. Government is impersonal, indifferent, insouciant.

And, as we have seen, redistribution of our wealth, filtered through the labyrinth of government funnels, distributes only fractional amounts of money to people government cannot even begin to keep track of and large amounts just to make bureaucracy function. Socialism burgeons while you diminish.

The unions, the Collective, Progressives, liberal “Christians” and even Pope Francis want “Social Justice”. What is this carrot on a stick dangled in front of us?

~~~

I have written elsewhere about this subject before. When I have I’ve turned to the parable of the Good Samaritan to make the point that we need to be involved in one another’s lives personally (like our Savior) and NOT via the million degrees of separation known as bureaucratic “Social Justice.”

The Rev. Robert Sirico, “American Roman Catholic priest and the founder of the Acton Institute”, provides us with clear-cut insight into the bureaucratization of “good intentions” versus the personification of good (good becoming man):

“The Marxist political analysis that remains popular (if now usually disguised) in many universities and even seminaries, tends to pit the poor against the rich—it’s all about class warfare and alienation. The alternative vision that I have been trying to paint in these pages is beautifully distilled in the parable of the Good Samaritan, a story that has held a persistent fascination for the religious and non-religious readers alike. Of course, like all parables, its primary meaning is Christological and moral, rather than political. But it’s also possible to discern other messages in this story.

In Luke’s Gospel, a Samaritan man (someone on the margins of Jewish society in this period) stops to help a man who was beaten and left for dead on the side of the road. When the Samaritan comes upon him, he helps the beaten man from his own resources. Even when the Samaritan has to delegate the care to the man for a time to an innkeeper, he promises to pay the innkeeper back. The Samaritan was on the scene to see and understand the fallen man’s specific needs—he was the man’s “neighbor”—and he went about meeting those needs. From this standpoint, the Samaritan might be justly described as the principle subsidiary in action. Notice, too, that he would have been hard-pressed to meet the needs of the injured man if he hadn’t first possessed enough personal wealth to hire services of the innkeeper. Lady Thatcher’s memorable insight about this text is to the point: “No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions; he had money as well.”” (emphasis added)

Passage from “Why Smart Charity Works—and Welfare Doesn’t”, “Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for the Economy” by Rev. Robert Sirico

Rev. Sirico recommends reading “Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass” by Theodore Dalrymple. I have read it and recommend it as well.

~~~

Added 9-20-2015:

It’s “1984” all over again…

“Within the book [George Orwells’1984], the purpose of the Two Minutes Hate is said to satisfy the citizens’ subdued feelings of angst and hatred from leading such a wretched, controlled existence. By re-directing these subconscious feelings away from the Oceanian government and toward external enemies (which probably do not even exist), the Party minimizes subversive thought and behavior.” (emphasis added)

“Ostensibly, [Emmanuel] Goldstein serves as a convenient scapegoat for the totalitarian regime in Nineteen Eighty-Four, and justifies its surveillance and elimination of civil liberties.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Minutes_Hate

Union members, as with so many others of the media-collectivist-“It takes a village…” persuasion make use of the “Goldstein Effect”, a term coined by legal scholar Cass Sunstein.

As mentioned above the effect is a means of scapegoating but it is also a means of psychological distraction and redirection.

The subverted thinking of the union member as revealed in my anecdote above is directed with anger at the “highly paid CEOs” and therefore away from the ”highly paid’ labor leaders and away from the “highly paid” Big Brother candidates those “highly paid” labor leaders support. The “enemies” generalized and amorphous existence is a product of the media’s PC Ministry of Truth, the collective’s means to larger-than–life vilification.

[The] “Goldstein Effect”, [is] described as “the ability to intensify public concern by giving a definite face to the adversary, specifying a human source of the underlying threat.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuel_Goldstein

Filed under Culture, Economics, Political Commentary, Progressivism Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

A License to…Look Out For Number One

July 18, 2015 Leave a comment

Living in a Material World, Part Two

Atlas Shrugged and Went About his Own Business

Atlas Shrugged and Went About his Own Business

Not long ago, while riding the commuter train home, I sat down on an upper row seat not far from a young Indian woman. Her head was covered so I believed her to be a devoutly religious person. On her lap was Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”. I wondered what interested her in Rand’s lengthy novel.

***

As you know there has been much in the media-the politically biased-media-about corporate greed, fairness and income inequality. The “social justice “rhetoric is ubiquitous, whether here in the U.S. or in re-salvaged unrepentant Greece.

In op-eds and news commentaries we are lectured to with the by-products of the liberal elites (e.g., Paul Krugman (see my previous post about economist Krugman’s $225K payday in return for his thoughts on Income Inequality!), by Progressive politicians (e.g., Hillary Clinton and Liz Warren) and by their media puppets (e.g., MSNBC), all of whom feign a disdain for money, that “filthy lucre”, while quietly reaping enormous capital gains of their own (See also Vanity Fair’s glossy wealth-guilt sympathy card dated August 2015, the article “The Charlie War”, regarding the French satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo coming into mega-Euros.) Looking out for number one has never been so savoir faire.

Then not long ago we were accosted by the “commoners” – the OWS protesters. Though largely unfocused and self-trivializing we were told by our ‘betters’ that these poor folk just wanted to generate a discussion about what is ethically the “right thing to do” in the world of money and specifically money as a power or a force to use for “good” and not for selfish materialistic pleasure (ahem, Vanity Fair). The Wall Street bulls and bears became the effigies they wanted to burn or, rather, smoke to get their solvency high.

The OWS’ trashy 60’s bohemian style protest became a mixed message diatribe against a ‘rigged” system, a system that didn’t appear (in their cloud computing at least) to offer them a break into the big leagues of the adult material world. Apparently, the OWS protestors ‘just’ wanted to “survive” materially, debt-free, well-off and on their own terms-no pain, all gain, Greek style.

OWS! May Day!

OWS! May Day!

It was noted though by those standing head and shoulders (a stock chart term) above the “Leaning Forward” genuflectors that the protestors was certainly compromised in their messaging. Their signage/texting revealed the protesters demands.

Their demands included gaining “justly” (a word replacement for “freely”) the same materialistic “well-being” that someone else had achieved under the rubrics “income equality” and “free tuition” and “social justice”. Their socialist mantras were remarkably self-centered, covetous and Marxist.

Is the OWS’ ‘just’ quest for materialism-looking out for number one-any different from the Wall Street gang “running with the bulls” down Wall Street in hopes of not being gored by unleashed regulators? And, rigged or not rigged, Materialism, in the light of day, wears the same “envy green” scrubs.

***

Unions are all about looking out for Number One.

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) a federal union, is fighting against reforms of the badly run VA administration. You won’t see AFGE publicly decrying a measure that would mean that their union members may be held responsible and they may be fired or their bonus withheld. AFGE is currently working in Congress to stop VA reform. From a Daily Caller Article:

A union representing government employees on Tuesday condemned a bill meant to reform how bonuses are awarded at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“It’s time to turn the page on morale-busting measures like Rep. Miller’s proposal and focus on the mission of delivering top-quality care to America’s veterans,” AFGE President J. David Cox Sr. declared in a statement.

Yeah, it’s about time to focus on others…

Here is why AFGE’s is against VA reform:

A Koch Brothers-funded front group called the Concerned Veterans for America (CVA) has been making waves on Capitol Hill lately, promoting a long list of anti-VA, anti-worker proposals that would break this sacred promise and leave veterans out to dry. Led by former Wall Street bank employee and failed Senate candidate Pete Hegseth, CVA has been the driving force behind efforts to dismantle the VA health care system and trim service members’ hard-earned disability and other benefits.

Yeah, those evil Koch Brothers trying to help veterans by removing bad employees-not Number One on AFGE’s list.

Why make the VA better for our wounded veterans when union members are more G_d-Damn important?

Looking out for Number One leaves the robbed and wounded man left for dead alongside the road…until the Good Samaritan comes along to care for him.

 

***

Going Number One Onto Others:

The recent abominable SCOTUS decision made it possible for homosexual couples to look out for their Number One mission-use their new-found legal licentiousness to bash Christians and to seek material gain via law suits against Christian wedding cake bakers who refuse their demands. All done under the guise of ‘true love’ and “equality” (actually, unabated unnatural desires).

Looking out for number one has never been so “User friendly” for lawyers and bullies.

***

A well-known looking out for Number One persona:

Objectivism is my Game.

Objectivism is my Game.

Ayn Rand’s (1905-1982) novels portray the philosophy of Objectivism. The (paper) weighty “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead” clearly identify the key tenets of Objectivism: objective reality, reason, individualism over group-think, self-interest and ego-ism.

Ayn Rand’s Objectivism:

There are four pillars to Rand’s objectivism: objective reality, reason, self-interest and capitalism.

Reason: direct stimuli from nature; there is no God, no soul, no intuition, nothing beyond what we determine though reason.

For Rand Man is all there is. There is no spiritual reality of angels, demons and God. The heroism of man was to be worshipped, as did the Greek stoic philosophers and the food-and-wine-friendly Epicureans who avoided God and enjoyed the ‘heroics’ of pleasure.

Early Greek philosophers taught that man was mortal, corporal, and that sensory inputs were the only reality available to mankind. God was described as elsewhere and angry so therefore the true God was not of any material benefit to mankind. Avoid pain, seek pleasure. Be your own hero. Be Number One.

Rand’s Self-interest: your own self-interest and happiness is what life is all about. You take care of Number One.

Capitalism for the Objectivist is all about individual rights and private property; self-reliance, free trade, entrepreneurship and initiative all operate freely and without coercion within capitalism and the free market system. I have no issues with Rand’s objective definition of capitalism. As a Christian in the Kingdom of God I do have a problem with Rand’s use of capitalism as a means to flee from God and from responsibility towards others and to use it as self-promotion, as a prosperity gospel.

Ayn Rand’s described herself as a romantic-realist. Her Objectivism is atheistic, rejecting faith and religion. It believes only in reason and what the self can determine. For her it was every man for himself, the survival of the fittest. This viewpoint is born out of a godless Darwinian materialist view of life, the Enlightenment era and philosophical naturalism. Objectivism is blind faith in Number One-Yourself.

Rugged individualism, for Rand, was a force like other forces of nature and something to be reckoned with. As you might imagine this type of thinking would certainly feed the ego and especially if the person who embraces Objectivism is successful in life. For these people pride of place means you’ve made it to the top of the heap. Your self-esteem is rewarded. You are recognized by your peers as having objectively “made it.”

Ayn Rand’s extreme philosophy is most likely a reaction to her early life in Russia during the Communist Revolution. As a child she learned to despise coercion, government intrusion and totalitarianism. She came to oppose statism and collectivism while she promoted social systems which protected individual rights and personal initiatives. As a romantic realist she hated the dystopian effects created by those seeking to create a man-made utopia. Though a polemic, Rand never insisted that others be made to accept her philosophy. She was “laissez faire” with respect to others.

A Christian Perspective:

The Kingdom of God’s answer to Looking Out for Number One: kenosis- a ‘self-emptying’ of one’s own will and becoming entirely receptive to God’s divine will.

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” The Apostle Paul’s second letter to the church at Corinth, II Corinthians 8:9

A Christian’s response to Ayn Rand

***

The call of "Number One"

The call of “Number One”

Before Ayn Rand another voice of philosophical naturalism had chosen the similar atheistic force with which to respond to “the law of life”: Jack London (1876 – 1916).

Remember Buck and the rugged ‘individual’s’ response to “The Call of the Wild”? It’s a tale of primitive and bestial survival, of self-interest, of the strong seeking to overcome nature. It’s a tale of reversion to innate instincts and characteristics of our evolutionary heritage-a looking out for Number One and a dog eat dog meal ticket.

Filed under Economics, Political Commentary, Progressivism Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Living in a Material world, The Impoverished Thinking of “Income Inequality”

July 11, 2015 Leave a comment

It’s a mystery to me

We have a greed with which we have agreed

You think you have to want more than you need

Until you have it all you won’t be free

Society, you’re a crazy breed

I hope you’re not lonely without

 

Though the message of the above song resonates within me throughout and though I have seen others on the same road as Alexander Supertramp I do not recommend walking away…

~~~

Two recent events reveal the impoverished thinking of populist economics and “society’s crazy breed”: A mandated minimum wage increase in Chicago (Chicago-Minimum-Wage-Notice) and Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman’s macro-hypocrisy increase.

Let’s start with the subliminal wage increase.

It feels so “Oprah-kind” to know that the minimum pay for your effort will be set at a fixed rate by Big Brother. Big Brother, of course, is not paying for the increase but he is certainly gaining political capital and tax revenue from your increased paycheck.

The media abets the ravenous pols by constantly bombarding us with income deltas as if materialism is the bread of life. Karl Marx did care about how much someone else made, he dined out on it.

On a daily basis I find some financial webpages and articles written about comparative CEO salaries. OMG! Reporter, get the socialist’s dirty needle out of your arm! Are you reporting these numbers so as to invoke class-ic envy?

“There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest, For I did dream of money-bags to-night.” William Shakespeare

~~~

Thomas Sowell, economist

Thomas Sowell, economist

“Minimum wage laws make it illegal to pay less than the government specified price for labor. By the simplest and most basic economics, a price artificially raised tends to cause more to be supplied and less to be demanded than when prices are left to be determined by supply and demand in a free market. The result is a surplus, whether the price that is set artificially high is that of farm produce and labor.

Making it illegal to pay less than a given amount does not make a worker’s productivity worth that amount….” Quote from Thomas Sowell, economist, “The Thomas Sowell Reader”.

~~~

Nothing happens in isolation. Consider also that the Obamacare/health “coverage” is also mandated. So, a worker’s hours are restricted to ensure that a business remains profitable to ensure employee jobs. And, a worker who doesn’t fulfill the Obamacare mandated-Justice Ruth Ginsburg-and-Justice John Roberts-mandated requirements is fined or taxed-actually, both. Big Brother has the gun law of coercion to your back.

~~~

Under the “People should and do trust me” department…

Hillary Clinton and Income Reality Inequality! Hillary Clinton Broke?

Why “income inequality”? Because good money is thrown after bad. 

Paul Krugman, pop economist

Paul Krugman, pop economist

Paul Krugman Sticks It To Poor People With $225,000 Salary To Study Income Inequality

By Eric Owens, Education Editor:

“This week, trustees of the cash-strapped, taxpayer-funded City University of New York (CUNY) system approved a hefty annual salary as well as the fancypants title of “distinguished professor” for Paul Krugman.

New York City’s public college system pays Krugman $225,000 each year to analyze the vexing problem of income inequality at the CUNY Graduate Center’s Luxembourg Income Study Center, Gawker notes.

Krugman’s $225,000 salary — which is $18,750 per month — does not include his undisclosed earnings from other ventures, the sum of which could be substantial.”

 

Why “income inequality”? (You don’t have to pay me!)

A Fool and his money are soon parted. Duh!

A Fool and his money are soon parted. Duh!

-Folly:  A fool and his money are soon parted.” That’s what state lotteries and casinos count on.

-Government and Progressive Income tax: I made a few dollars as a store clerk at age thirteen. Now I make a whole lot more money closer to retirement. And this is because I have worked a lifetime to obtain skills that have been of value to my employers. Should I be taxed more because I make more money due to the manifest effort on my part to take care of my family and to pay my bills, just to satisfy the ‘social justice” gnosis?

–Time and experience: Over the course of decades I have had “income inequality” every year of my life. Should I demand equal pay because someone is making more at some point in time? No way! I need to make myself of more value to my employer and then ask for an increase in pay or find a better paying job. This brings me to my next point…

-Denial: Degreed Millennials, as an observation, think that their academic credentials buy them a ticket to ride without much effort on their part. Some even think that blue-collar labor is beneath them. This denial of reality of their situation and a lack of healthy self-awareness is the result, in part I believe, of the effects of psychotherapy’s delusional self-awareness pharmacopeia on our culture. Psychotherapy provides the illusion that you can live an existence free of any tension over time, through endless sessions of… therapy. An analysand’s every thought must be reviewed, be given equal doses of “hmmm” and then before the open-ended session’s time is done, be given equal value. “You are not to blame yourself. XYZ is responsible. Look, our time is up. See you next week. Pay up front.” And, psychotherapy’s moral deficit is not a cure for a person’s lack of awareness of the obvious-many a Millennial thinks he is entitled. And, of no value is the politician’s “Hope and Change” pharmacopeia. A Minimum wage is not a cure at all. It is a placebo that generates no economic health whatsoever. In fact it denies the existence of bad economic choices an individual has made. Yet, perverse politicians say “it’s not you. You didn’t build that problem. The institution of big business is the problem. It must take our ‘medicine’ for your cure.

-Misdirected Self-awareness:  Millennials tend to think of only what they need and not what an employer needs. Naiveté.

Money Well Spent?!? sodahead.com

Money Well Spent?!?
sodahead.com

-Some people have a spending problem: Some people reinvest their money and create jobs. Others will spend their money and ask “Why am I ‘poor’ when others are rich?” The makeshift poor will demand the doctors of politics to up their dosage of cornucopian wealth.

-Lack of wisdom: “He that wants money, means, and content, is without three good friends.” William Shakespeare

-Lack of wisdom: “It is senseless to pay tuition to educate a fool, since he has no heart for learning.” Proverbs 17:16

-Lack of wisdom: “Lazy people want much but get little, but those who work hard will prosper.” Proverbs 13:4

-Lack of wisdom: “Work brings profit, but mere talk leads to poverty!” Proverbs 14:23

~~~

In a twist of a Thomas Sowell quote, ”It is amazing how many people seem to think that the government exists to turn their prejudices into law.” I say, ”It is amazing how many people seem to think that the government exists to insure them against their bad decisions.”

~~~

Added 7-15-2015:

Thomas Sowell – Minimum Wage Exploitation (Economics 101)

Filed under Current Events 2015, Economics Tagged with , , , , ,

Humanity Thrives on Moral-Guided Free Market Economics and Acts of Creation

April 12, 2015 Leave a comment

In response to the collectivist ideologies of Barack Obama and Elizabeth Warren and their proposed free market epitaph “You didn’t build that…” I offer two videos that provide insights about our humanity, creation, transcendence and economics. Epicurus, by the way (see previous posts regarding Epicurus), knew about humanity at a base level. Epicurus withdrew from transcendent.
The first video includes an interview with Rev. Robert A. Sirico of the Acton Institute. I first heard this interview while watching Fox Business’ Varney & Company. It contains a surprise ending.

In the second video Rev. Robert A. Sirico speaks at Creighton University about his conversion from Marxism and socialism and his reckoning of justice with a God-given humanity and transcendence. He speaks of going on to embrace a morals-directed free market economics which in the act of creation produces a bigger pie for all to share in.
Transcendence takes acknowledgement and submission to the Sublime. It takes one to be faithful in small things. .And, what you create-“build”-transcends all the output of man-made ideologies and political jingoisms. Grab some coffee first before you sit back and enjoy truth.

Filed under Christianity, Economics Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

2014 End Notes, Part One: The Battle of Wits

December 31, 2014 Leave a comment

I finally realized after all this time that the cartoon character Jon Gruber is based on-the Vizzini character in Princess Bride!

I also realized this past year that even though “marriage is a dream within a dream” Americans are now wedded to Obamacare!

Dealing with the Jon Grubers and Paul Krugmans of the world brings one to the “Cliffs of Insanity” and to the immortal indignant word “Inconceivable!”

Don’t worry, my Wesley will save us from the cartoon character who used MIT ‘wits’ to create Obamacare-“to the pain” Obamacare!

Filed under Economics, Political Commentary Tagged with , , , , ,

Be Wary of Progressives in Finance Article Clothing or Down Where the Tax Meets the Bone

November 15, 2014 Leave a comment

Let’s talk taxes. Be wary of Progressives in finance article clothing.  monopoly man

The illustrative article/video, “Income taxes are lower than you think” posted on the Yahoo! Finance webpage uses the good finance cop/bad finance cop ploy to get the reader to come around to their terms. This type of social manipulation could be one reason why America’s Judas MIT con artist Jon Gruber spoke of voters as “stupid”, suckers for any ivory tower talking talking-head in a suit bloviating about the glories of redistributive economics. .

 The article begins: “You probably think your taxes are too damn high. Chances are, you’re wrong.”

Whoa! I am not wrong! No matter how much they spin this clay argument will my taxes ever appear small and sought-after. Caveat emptor mi amigos! And don’t forget, taxes are the coercive means (ala “Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.00”) used by government to fund more out-of-control deficit spending.

Let’s see. There is the personal income tax, the payroll tax, FICA, MICA, property taxes, sales taxes, Obamacare mandate and “Cadillac” taxes (thanks for memories Justice Roberts), the differential tax of government wage and price controls and stagnant wages.  Wage controls include the minimum wage tax placed on employers.  I now buy a more expensive to sell hamburger as does the teenager earning minimum wage.  Nothing happens in isolation.  And, of course, there is the let’s pummel evil business CORPORATE TAX which depresses all forms of economic growth. The direct and indirect taxes are too numerous to mention. I am not cheap or stupid.  I am tired of being taxed to the bone.

Forty percent of the nation pays taxes for the remaining recipient sixty percent.  Twenty percent of the forty percent pays most of the tax burden. Progressive tax rates, among other redistributive programs, are making the U.S. into a socialist European bankrupt-susceptible entity where the individual is no longer important. The individual is just another “stupid” number on Jon Gruber’s chalkboard.

 The video screen reinforces the manipulation of the Progressive dialogue: “Your taxes aren’t as high as you think.” I think both speakers are high on government fumes.

 The article refers to the “nonpartisan “CBO to soften its social engineering blow: “ The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office just published its annual analysis of Americans’ income and taxes, and guess what–American taxpayers continue to get a pretty good deal. The average household pays 19.3% of its income in federal taxes, CBO estimates.” Isn’t that special!

We are TOLD that we are getting a pretty good deal. That’s Progressives for you! They think they know you better than you know yourself! And, that’s when they begin their snake oil salesmanship…

The article goes on to tell us that the currently low (in their minds) tax rates “ought to be good news for consumers, except there are three problems (only three?!?) that explain why Americans don’t feel cheery at all about the government they pay for.” (Here they sweet talk us hoping to play on Progressive ‘sensibilities’.)…

First, while federal tax rates have fallen over time, incomes have stagnated. For middle-class earners, real income, adjusted for inflation, has risen just 16% since 1979, and it has actually fallen by a few percentage points since peaking in 2007. That means the typical middle-class family has experienced declining living standards during the last 7 years—which makes the sting of taxes much sharper.

Next up, they pivot to take a pot shot at the 1%: “The only exception to this pernicious trend of flatlining incomes is among the top 1% of earners, whose incomes-nobody will be surprised to hear-have risen 174% since 1979. Tax increases that went into effect in 2013 actually impacted the wealthy more than everybody else, which is why even the 1% earn less than they did several years ago. But nobody needs to worry about America’s millionaires.”

How nice of them to again tell us what to think!

Listen to the words being used to sell their ‘product’: “Pernicious flat lining,” “Exception,” “(the1%) Incomes …have risen.” With a know-it-all Jon Gruber-like condescension they reassure us that they are looking out for us. (“Our ends justify deceitful means.”)

Well, I care about the 1%. The 1%’s money creates industry, jobs, wealth, stockholder dividends, overall economic growth and lo, and behold, personal dignity from an individual’s labor. Besides philanthropy the 1% investments help feed 401K, IRA and pension retirement accounts. The 1% and I pay for the other 50% of the country that doesn’t pay any tax. It is very short sighted to demonize the 1%. In fact, to do so is a form of social manipulation meant for already in place redistributive ends. Progressivism’s Politburo ‘think tank’ of course do not want you to know this, again in Jon Gruber-like fashion.

“Second, while federal tax rates have stabilized at relatively low levels, state and local taxes have risen in many areas. Property taxes, often levied to fund schools, have become a particular burden, because education costs have outpaced inflation.”

The talking heads left out the nonpartisan national debt. Each us, (our children and grandchildren will not be debt free when we die) now owes ten of thousands of dollars.

They also left out that the U.S. dollar is worth less because of the fiscal and monetary policies (printing fiat money for bailouts and financing losers (i.e., Solyndra) to name only two bad GOVERNMENT economic choices) of which these knuckleheads would gladly support. I have no doubt. It’s only money. They go on with the good finance cop talk:

“The third reason Americans are glum about taxes is they don’t feel they’re getting their money’s worth from the government. The Republican sweep of Congress in this year’s midterm elections was an expression of frustration with the economic status quo and the Democrats most associated with it. Poll after poll shows satisfaction with government to be at or near record lows. In Gallup polls, nearly as many people say the government is the nation’s biggest problem as cite the economy. Most people would rather pay a little bit more for something that works well than pay rock-bottom prices for a lemon.” (Yes, government is the nation’s biggest problem along with the nation’s moral bankruptcy.)

Their last line kills me! Be careful! It is a subtle trap. These financial ‘cognoscenti’ are toying with us commoners! Of course, nobody want’s to pay for garbage! But their words imply that we will gladly pay more, just not for a lemon government (read: “It is the institution of government that needs more of your hard earned money to make it less lemony.”)

Our lemon government has paid Jon Gruber $5.9 million for various analyses including The Sting operation known as Obamacare and Amnesty.

Heard at the WH door: “Knock, knock.” “Who’s there?” “Jon Gruber.” “Jon Gruber who?” “Jon Gruber with an invoice for the snake oil you ordered.”

Gruber is listed on the WH visitor list multiple times. He was paid $400,000 to bury the financial truth about Obamacare and to abuse the trust of the American people. Now you want more tax money from me to pay for more abuse? Frick and frack are implying that I should gladly bend over for more of the same.

No, I do not desire to pay more for more bureaucracy, morons! I want a miniscule government and more of my own wages-my personal property-to keep and to give charitably as I see fit. Along with higher aspirations I also seek to be the 1%, at least in the coffers of my mind.

We Americans just loved it, didn’t we, when Obama threw ‘green’ money at Solyndra and then the company went almost immediately into the ‘red’, bankrupt. Most likely, then, the ‘green’ money was laundered into Democrat campaign donations. BTW: When you mix green and red you get a dirty brown color, the color of you know what.

At this moment in time we are paying a huge, huge price for lemon government. You can see this with your own eyes. Our increasing national debt alone is a huge breach in our national security. Frick and Frack don’t mention that government’s revenue collection, via the Founder’s written intention, was intended to provide mainly for our national defense. Our government has failed to do so. 

Our government has failed to do so. By creating a national debt payable to other nations, nations that would like to put us under their thumb and make us submit to their will. And, don’t forget the lack of border security that weakens our national security. Taxpayer money is diverted to climate change nonsense or to some inane study of every deviant specter. Sufficient taxpayer money is not headed to secure our sovereign borders. Instead Obama wants to offer taxpayer funded amnesty, offering your taxpayer dollars to buy votes and popularity with his peeps. You, America come last.

Our government with the aiding and abetting of good finance/bad finance cops and the likes of NYT’s Keynesian economics columnist Paul Krugman ‘cook the books’ ala Jon Gruber, ala ad hoc CPI calculations, ala serendipitous GDP calculations, ala smoke and mirrors unemployment numbers and other snake charming incantations. They consider you ignorant and therefore produce junk videos to charm you into paying more taxes, to demonize the 1% and to redistribute your wealth to a ‘higher cause”–bureaucracy

The demand of the collective: “Government give us jobs that pay more!”

 In 2016 we will vote again. We vote for a leader of our nation.

 One leader may demand more direct and indirect taxes to implement crony policies, he or she may redirect your income to pay for bankrupt ideas like climate change fix-its, college debt bailouts and other Christmas wish-list items. The choice, most likely, is between one of two untrustworthy progressives: Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren

 OR, we vote for a leader who would unleash the power of the American people to create wealth.

 Litmus test: How do you tell political non-leaders from leaders? Those who do not lead will denigrate opponents; divide the nation up into special interest groups. They will make excuses, lie, pronounce judgment on the 1%, raise taxes as the means to greater government and talk about ‘fixing’ government waste while creating more uncontrollable government.

 Those who lead will propose the growth positive reforms necessary to create wealth (not redistributive-wealth as implied in the Yahoo! Article)-for all individuals, not just the Progressive’s chosen elite1%. Leaders have real-life experience in creating wealth and not by deceiving others.

 You will know a leader not by the swagger or their buff BS. You will know them by their sworn duty to uphold the rule of law, by their common sense to reduce the burdens put on the people of this nation and by their stand against corruption in any form.

The Yahoo!Finance article ends with them salivating about their main talking point-“the taxman cometh”: “It’s a good bet tax increases of some kind are coming. For all the dissatisfaction today with underperforming government and the price we pay for it, these could seem like the glory days once tax rates go back up to the more sustainable levels of the past.”

Up yours! (“Up your own taxes” is a nicer way to say this.)

Sincerely, Taxpayer Hadden Nuff

Here are some book recommendations. These books are written in plain, nongovernmental, non-Jon Gruber English. They will give you insight into how our tax system came about (e.g., the 16th Amendment and the Federal Reserve were both created in 1913, fancy that.).

These books will give you the taxpayer a basic and I consider necessary understanding of economics apart from the saccharine Yahoo!Finance articles.

“Free to Choose” by Milton and Rose Friedman

“The Real Crash: How to Save Yourself and Your Country- America’s Coming Bankruptcy,” the latest revised edition by Peter Schiff

George Gilder’s “Knowledge and Power: The Information Theory of Capitalism and How It Is Revolutionizing Our World”

 

Required reading:

Obamcare’s Three-Legged Stool of Deception Regarding Employer Health Plans

Filed under Economics, Political Commentary, Politics, Progressivism Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Income Inequality Anonymous

October 18, 2014 1 Comment

 “Hello, my name is Sally. I am addicted to income inequality.”

 Group: “Hello Sally.”

 Group Leader: “We’ve asked Sally here tonight to please tell us her story, how she deals with income inequality addiction.”

 “Thank you for the invite Charis and Irene!”

 “Well, my income inequality addiction began at a very early age. At five years of age I saw kids in my neighborhood receiving an allowance from their parents.

 These friends of mine were able to buy gum, baseball cards, dolls, G rated Archie comic books, you name it. They bought it with their 25 cents or with their 50 cents or with their dollar bill right in front of me. I felt deprived, anxious and angry.”

 Group Leader: “You must have felt a tremendous urge to make demands of your parents.”

 “Yes I did. Income inequality anger began to grow deep inside me. I began to covet my friend’s hoard of pennies. “It’s not fair!” I told my parents.

 Well, my parents, good folk that they were, gave me an allowance but only after I had washed the supper dishes, made my bed daily, memorized my Scripture verse for Sunday and completed other value-received chores.

 Still, you must know, my allowance of 25 cents wasn’t enough. I couldn’t buy what my friends could buy. They had bags of marbles. I had a handful. “It’s not fair,” I told my parents again.

 So, I was given the option of washing the family car for two dollars once a week. Cutting the grass was a regular chore so no money was gained from yard work. I had to really think hard as to how to compete for that societal equality that would ultimately, I thought, make me bubble-gum ice cream happy.”

 Group Leader: “What did you do?”

 “Well, nothing for a while. I stewed and, sometimes, I stole candy and small items from the “Five and Dime” stores.” I wanted my fair share.

 As I grew older I did receive COLA allowances but I also received W-O-R-K obligations to match the COLA allowances.

 So, you must know, I began working at age 12. The pastor of our little church must have seen the march for equality goose stepping its way though my nervous system as I sat squirming in the pew every Sunday. One day he recommended me for a job at a local photo shop. The store owner, upon the pastor’s recommendation, hired me for PT work. Every week after that day I received a paycheck.

 With that piece of the monetized industry I began to spend, to save and to tithe. I stopped saying “It’s not fair!” on a regular basis. “Minimum wages”, unheard of in my youth, were what I got for what I agreed to do. I did not complain. In fact, I beamed.

 Still, you must know, that after two years of behind the counter film canister envelope prep and returning unexposed or badly lit pictures to irate customers I was promoted to selling cameras. Nikons, Canons, Hasselblads-the whole gamut of photo gadgetry. I was paid more and beginning to forget about childhood’s income inequality fixation until someone else was hired.

 The addition of the another staff member made me wonder if I was paid more or less than the new hired help. I became anxious, secretly hoping to exercise my detective skills to determine income inequality. My addiction was flaring up once again.

 Group Leader: “Did you ever find out about the other worker’s pay?’

 “No, I didn’t. Circumstances changed: the high school bus started arriving every week day morning. What I hadn’t thought about till then was that the owner of the photo shop had anticipated my leaving for high school and needed to hire a replacement. I kept my anxiety in tact anyway. I wasn’t sure I could trust people to be fair. Nobody else knew how important I was.

 Still, you must know, I was at financial odds with my generation. People I knew were going to Woodstock or to San Francisco or to Paris. The unlucky went to Vietnam-no envy was elicited from me on that matter.

 And, you must know, that in high school, I wasn’t equal with a good friend who got a car from his parents. It was a car with an eight-track player! “It’s not fair,” I revved up again.

 Well, my dad-he worked two jobs-let me use the family car. I became somewhat mollified. I could then at least listen to WLS with Larry Lujack, “Little Tommy” and “Animal Stories” on the punch dial radio. Not only that, the Top Forty Countdown aired between a dozen or so commercials. I sat in the family car or drove the car just for the existential experience of radio “ON” and windows open. Music helped soothe the savage inequality beast.

 High school was a challenge for me. I was too busy with band, orchestra, track, tennis, honors math, boyfriends, etc. to worry out loud about income inequality. But, I did want the same clothes, the same shoes, the same pink troll pen tops-you know, the essentials.

 Group Leader: “How did you manage without money during high school?”

 “It wasn’t easy. My dad worked two jobs and my mom worked a night shift. They were both tapped out. I babysat my younger siblings gratis, biting my nails and watching “Father Knows Best.” I had to wait till summer to abate my income inequality anxiety.

 Every summer between my high school years I worked my butt off. Each job was different and demanding. I gained knowledge quicker than I gained income, but again, I would leave my envy intact as a backup. There was always something I felt that was missing, something that I thought I needed to have even when I couldn’t picture it in my mind or on the TV.

 Group Leader: “What happened after high school?”

 “My father and mother gave me $750.00 and sent me off to Moody Bible Institute, a tuition-free school. That was all the money I ever received for my college education. I worked PT at Garrett’s Popcorn shop and did janitorial work for Moody to cover room and board.

 After Moody I began working in the only jobs that I could find-industrial jobs. It had become clear to me that childhood had run its course and that now I must provide for myself. This was scary anxiety driving stuff. Envy was still waiting in the wings hoping that I would rejoin her party.

While I worked different shifts I began studying correspondence courses from Moody-New Testament Koine Greek, New Testament Survey and other courses.

 Later, working at various day jobs I made myself learn what I needed to increase my income. So, at night and the weekends I went to a community college.

 There, I studied sundry subjects: computer programming, trigonometry, physics, macro and micro economics, accounting, business, and welding! I could stick weld, MIG weld, TIG weld, flame weld, use a blow torch, calculate rates of acceleration, balance your books and code Programmable Logic Controllers. This unique skill set paid more, much more. I found that if I made myself indispensable to my employer I earned more and was kept on staff when there were layoffs. And there were layoffs.

 Group Leader: “It sounds like you began making personal decisions that turned your life around.”

 “Yes, I forced myself to grow. I am inquisitive by nature so most learning comes naturally. Some learning comes the hard way-through stupid stuff and not paying attention to detail.

 At one point after I had worked as electrical panel builder I taught myself how to use CAD software. After that I began doing design work. I then became a designer of electrical automation schematics. I enjoyed the creative aspect of engineering. Income inequality became less of an issue because I felt I was in the game. Then I had a family.

 Little materialists popped onto the scene and like the rest of us they were contentment challenged.

 Being a Tiger That-Eats-Ones’-Self Parent that I am I put more pressure on myself when I decided to become a partner in a newly formed corporation.

 To make a long story short, three of us, two guys and me as Tiger Parent, started a manufacturing business. Each of us brought a different set of skills accrued over time. We felt we could make it happen and we did. The company became a worldwide multimillion dollar company. It also became a 24/7 job in my role a VP of Engineering. So, after fifteen years and thousands of miles of air travel I sold my shares and quit. A little late, but family needed to come first.

As a business owner I certainly had plenty of income as well as other perks. Income inequality addiction was no longer a driving force of my life. In fact a quest for learning had replaced it.

 My life’s paradigm shift occurred somewhere along the path of pages and paychecks.

 And, as a parent I wanted to make sure my kids knew God and they understood how the world works from God’s perspective.

 Group Leader: “”Can you tell us how you came to that perspective?”

 “Sure. As I mentioned I studied Scripture. Three verses stand out: “Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added.” and “Godliness with contentment” and w/o The Real Housewives of Orange County” “is great gain.” Also, “To whom much is given, much is required.”

 My addiction to income inequality began to erode when I chose to cling to those things which are eternal above me, in me and in my children. Then, I was able to love others and rejoice when they gained. I did not need to be equal. I needed to be thankful.

I had finally realized that income inequality addiction is a character flaw. I had used my envy like a baseball bat. I beat the air hoping to smash open the paper mache piñata that held the material goodies I felt should rain down on me.

“I dropped the bat and put away childish things. Thanks for having me here tonight.”

Filed under Culture, Economics, Education Tagged with , , ,

“I Should Have Anticipated the Optics” and Other Progressive Aphorisms

September 13, 2014 Leave a comment

“…civilization as we know it would be in jeopardy if the Republican Party recaptures control of the US Senate later this year,” a recent quote of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Here, once again, Nancy Pelosi is seeking to manage our common resource of liberty by terrorizing the populace with her Malthusian alarmist version of the tragedy of the commons.

Now compare Pelosi’s statement with Frederic Bastiat’s words below. Bastiat, a French classical liberal theorist and political economist, “asserted that the sole purpose of government is to protect the right of an individual to life, liberty, and property, and why it is dangerous and morally wrong for government to interfere with an individual’s other personal matters.” Source: Wikipedia.

“It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.”

Frederic Bastiat 

Let’s talk about that plunder.

In a previous post I quoted an old preacher who said “That if it is new it is not true. If it is true it is not new.” So, for our purposes today we must take a trip in the Wayback Machine and go back twenty years when you will hear Walter E. William s say “The growth of the leviathan state is undermining our moral priorities.” (emphasis mine)

Here is economist Walter E. Williams, back in 1994 (!!), talking about America’s moral decline, the government being used to steal from one another, the making of America into a nation of thieves, socialized medicine, criminalizing just about everything we do, taxation, lumping the trivial in with the barbaric and doing battle with the Hun-big government.

 

 

Next, Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman, in a highly entertaining 1993 speech given at a CATO Institute dinner, claims, as Walter Williams infers, that Bill Clinton, that “agent of change” is actually a Bush-o-nomics successor writ large.

 Friedman goes on to say that current economic policy is “Starving the market that has been working and feeding the (gov’t.) market that has been failing.” And, sadly, that we as a nation are now more wealthy but less free, less secure.

He reminds us that Ronald Reagan sought low taxes, less regulations, a restraint on government spending and a stable monetary policy. Aphorisms begin here.

 

 

“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies.”

Frederic Bastiat

 

 

“When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.”

Frederic Bastiat

 

Anticipate the optics when you vote this fall and later in 2016. And, more importantly, look behind the Kabuki theater curtain of political optics at the moral character of those who are supposedly representing us. At the very least, look at the character of those who will read a bill before signing it.

 Remember, too, as you go to vote, that if you are one of the mega-millions in the lottery of unemployed or underemployed “that you don’t have to be job-locked.” – Nancy Pelosi, Progressive aphorist, reminding us that we each of us can feed off the government because Obamacare is our salvation:

“If you like your healthcare you can keep your healthcare. If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor.” Aphorist-in-Chief Barack Hussein Obama

Another Progressive aphorism: “Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself.” Franklin D. Roosevelt. More bullish nonsense catapulted into Aphorism Infamy.

We had better fear Big Brother because he is more Cain than Abel.

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The Vision of the Anointed is Our Nightmare; Ivy League Progressives and Creeping Racism

August 23, 2014 Leave a comment

Ferguson, Missouri; Michael Brown; the race industry’s huckster’s ‘Reverends’ Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson; “No Justice, No Peace”.

 Should we listen to and embrace the inflammatory NeveReverending racial rhetoric that bellows out from under a sheep skin, rhetoric that leads to societal schism? OR, should we listen to and follow the wise words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s niece Dr. Alveda King as she says: “Know peace and you’ll know justice”? You tell me.

 And, should Obama be just as arrogant as President Lyndon Johnson?

 Since the earliest days of my youth I have been seeking wisdom, knowledge and a good understanding. This pervasive endeavor was birthed in me as my mother read from the book of Proverbs at the dinner table each night after dinner.

 Please, please, please sit down with your coffee and listen to the wisdom, clarity and common sense that Thomas Sowell brings to the issues of race, affirmative action, minimum wage, the negative effects of today’s intellectualism, multiculteralism, social justice, environmentalism, political correctness, diversity and a host of other hot-button cultural and economic topics. You will be doing yourself a favor – wisdom is like that. 

 

Wisdom’s, Rebuke (Proverbs Chapter One)

 

Out in the open wisdom calls aloud
she raises her voice in the public square;
on top of the wall she cries out,
at the city gate she makes her speech:

 

“How long will you who are simple love your simple ways?
How long will mockers delight in mockery
and fools hate knowledge?
Repent at my rebuke!
Then I will pour out my thoughts to you,
will make known to you my teachings.
But since you refuse to listen when I call
and no one pays attention when I stretch out my hand,
since you disregard all my advice
and do not accept my rebuke,
I in turn will laugh when disaster strikes you;
I will mock when calamity overtakes you—
when calamity overtakes you like a storm,
when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind,
when distress and trouble overwhelm you.

 

“Then they will call to me but I will not answer;
they will look for me but will not find me,
since they hated knowledge
and did not choose to fear the Lord.
Since they would not accept my advice
and spurned my rebuke,
they will eat the fruit of their ways
and be filled with the fruit of their schemes.
For the waywardness of the simple will kill them,
and the complacency of fools will destroy them;
but whoever listens to me will live in safety
and be at ease, without fear of harm.”

Filed under Culture, Economics, Education, Politcal cartoon, Politics, Race Relations Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

There is No Gravy Train So Don’t Buy Tickets

July 20, 2014 Leave a comment

Chciago 6-5-2013 027 - R1

“Income inequality” is a false flag waved by socialist-redistributionists. They want your attention.  They want to sell you tickets for a ride on their gravy train. Don’t buy it!!

 Just as with the global warming hoax, income inequality as a universal ‘social justice’ mantra makes everyone in the world a victim.

 Politicians, ‘social agenda’ oligarchs and the international ‘do-gooders’ employ others to create fear mongering ~ much like the under-the-table paid/tenured insured/grant-awarded global warming ‘scientists’ who ‘cooked the books’ to create global warming.

 The above socialist’s cabal needs willing low information victims to join their crusade. With lemmings in tow a power grab is easy. Then, those in power can simply coerce money from wallets everywhere. Yet, in doing so, THEY create disproportionate income inequality.

 That is, in fact, the main purpose of a union these days: gather ‘victims’ into the fold so as to “fight the ‘man’.” “Hand us your money and we will do battle against the ‘injustice’ of the ‘rigged’ system.” The deceit is compounded with the likes of Elizabeth Warren the poster child of a Grapes-of-Wrath-animus-driven-low-information class warfare.

 In a growing and dynamic world economy income inequality can and should be expected. It means among other things that good things are happening. People are thriving, moving forward, the tide is rising. People everywhere on earth want to reap plentiful harvests and make profits. Is it “income inequality” to want to succeed rather than to fail? Is that “trickle down” economics or rising tide economics? Rising tide economics, of course! Except when government gets involved.

 In stagnant low information Paul Krugman type economies Stagnation and its bedfellows Socialism, Egalitarianism and Going-Nowhere-Nihilism dusts off Keynesian policies to try and stir up ‘things’. But again, these policies lead to disproportionate income inequality, e.g, our current U.S. economy and the gap between the very poor and the very rich; the middleclass suffers the most.

 There are several factors which contribute to “income inequality”. One is geo/political. Do you live in a resource rich area or a desert? Is there a rule of law where you live where contract laws are upheld?

 Another factor is how you use what you have. For example: squandering money on Solyndra type money laundering projects, on bailouts, on $44 BN POTUS trips, etc. or perhaps buying lottery tickets, dope and malt liquor instead of investing in your future. (FYI! Charity can only happen if you haven’t squandered your money.)

 More important than capital transfers is the transfer of knowledge.

 Warren Buffet, as an example, and other successful investors know the companies they invest in before diving in with their capital. Being knowledgeable and using that knowledge to grow your pie also allows one to be pie-charitable.

 Obama, on the other hand, doesn’t want knowledge transferred to you. He, without you knowing, will dive in with taxpayer money to gain political leverage for himself. ‘And, speaking of the importance of the transfer of knowledge, please don’t read the ACA law before you pass it!

 Obama, as will Elizabeth Warren if she is elected to be POTUS, offers to us, the proles (see Orwell’s 1984) trickle down economics: Obamacare/food stamps/minimum wages/tuition reimbursement/throw-them-a-bone-to-keep-them-distracted fiscal polices. But then you already knew this.

 What you need to know:  Capitalism is knowledge based. You must know what the other person’s needs are before you try to sell them something. You think about others first. Is this inequitable?

 If anything we have “knowledge inequality:” ~ a “love your neighbor as yourself” type inequality. That is something we can ask God for help with and he will answer our prayers.

There is no gravy train or free lunch. A focus on materialism feeds envy. Envy feeds materialism which feeds envy which feeds materialsm and so on.   There is no train, only an insane carousel that never stops.  You just have to get off. Don’t buy the tickets being offered.

There is no gravy train or free lunch. There is only faith, hope and charity ~ and knowldege:

 “The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom.
Though it cost all you have, get understanding.”

Proverbs 4:7

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