After Bankruptcy Then What?

By Rich Kozlovich

On Friday April 5, 2013 Wynton Hall posted an article titled, “BOOMTOWN 2: Taxpayers Have Spent $15 Trillion on 'War on Poverty'.  He starts out saying:

“.....since President Lyndon Baines Johnson declared “war on poverty,” U.S. taxpayers have spent $15 trillion on so-called anti-poverty programs—a figure slightly less than the national debt.”  

Remember, this article was posted in 2013, and all the figures are based on that year, and in ten years we've gone from 15 trillion in debt to just under 35 trillion dollars in debt, and it's climbing at a rate that's startling, and the leadership in both parties is supporting that insanity.

He notes that in 1969, just 2.8 million Americans received food stamps. Today he notes that over 47 million Americans are on food stamps, and some of the biggest supporters of these programs are big business, which he describes as “crony capitalism”.    And now the “U.S. Census Bureau revealed that nearly 50 million Americans live below the federal poverty line. “

When Johnson was president in 1966 the nation had a population of 196,560,338.  By 1969 there were 2, 700,000 recipients on food stamps, presumably mostly families. Which translates to approximately 1.4% of the population.   Let's suppose we had given every family on food stamps a million dollars and said....that's it....we're done....you're on your own now forever.  What would have happened? 

Presumably we would have ended poverty and we would have saved twelve trillion three hundred billion dollars.  

So then the obvious question is this: Where did all of that money go?  

It certainly didn't go to the poor because we haven't any fewer poor than we did then.   So who has the money?  Fifteen trillion dollars is a lot of darn money!  Surely someone has to have it! Don’t they? You just can't hide fifteen trillion dollars without someone noticing! Can you? Surely someone has to have kept records somewhere!  Didn't they?

Whatever happened to all that money there is one thing that is crystal clear. Government money used to end poverty doesn’t work, and with all these programs, many of which are duplications of programs already in existence, all of which we know are abject failures because in 2013 figures, we have 47 million on food stamps representing 1.5% of the population creating a long line of unending government dependents, and it's growing.    

But there's no money, so, what do we do?  We keep borrowing, and printing, calling it "quantitative easing" and no matter the amount of clabber they're spewing out to redefine this practice, it still means printing money with no value.  And we're told we have to keep doing it to keep these failed programs running in order to prevent people from suffering. 

But I keep asking myself:  What happens when we go bankrupt?

Those who promote this stuff keep saying that we can’t go bankrupt and the banks must keep loaning money and the Fed must keep printing whatever money is necessary.  I wonder if they ever read a history book in their lives.  Do they not grasp that it doesn’t work that way!  Do they not grasp the consequences?

Unfortunately many of them do, and all of this is deliberate.  It’s called the Cloward–Piven strategy.  A socialist power grabbing strategy outlined in 1966 by leftist activists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven.  The goal was to overload the public welfare systems which would then institute a complete breakdown of the financial systems.  This, they reasoned, would install a system of central planning for income distribution at the national level, ending state and local control over welfare and assuring a national income minimum.  All sounding good, except for one thing.  These things have never worked in all of history.   

Countries that tried this collapsed into anarchy because the money wasn't worth anything.  Inflation destroyed the value of the currency and the entire social structure suffered collapse. In many cases these countries were then taken over by radical central planners (socialists, which include fascists and communists) whose only real skill was murdering 100 million of their own innocent citizens during the twentieth century.  And make no mistake about it; these insane leftists still think the same way. As David Horowitz points out, "Inside Every Progressive Is A Totalitarian Screaming To Get Out". 

Obama’s buddy Bill Ayers, who’s official title within the leftist Weatherman Underground movement was “National Education Secretary”,  participated in the bombings of the New York City Police Dept., the United States Capitol, and the Pentagon.   He also may have taken part in other bombings that killed innocent people.  His views of the bombing of the Pentagon:   

“Although the bomb that rocked the Pentagon was itsy-bitsy - weighing close to two pounds - it caused 'tens of thousands of dollars' of damage. The operation cost under $500, and no one was killed or even hurt.”

The reality of Bill Ayers is far scarier than is currently depicted.  As National Education Secretary of this radical leftist organization his plans after their victory including the creation of “re-education camps” in the American Southwest, and if that wasn’t adequate in re-ordering society then he felt it might be necessary to eliminate as many as 25 million Americans who won’t go along.

We know this is factual due to information provided by Larry Grathwohl, a Weatherman informant, who saw Ayers order the bombing of the Detroit Police Officers Association building, in spite of the fact that customers -  largely black- in the adjacent Red Barn were sure to be killed.  Ayers view was that it might be necessary for some innocent people to get killed in his quest.  After all, he noted that you can't protect everyone. 

This has been the pattern of all socialists.  What makes me wonder about their sanity is that history shows once one of these leftist regimes take over it isn’t long before one person is in complete charge.  And they accomplish that eliminating their competition within the movement.  Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Castro and all the rest have repeated this pattern.  Are these American promoters of socialism somehow under the impression it would be different with them? 

Unfortunately after the leadership is firmly in the hands of one person the real disaster starts.  They don’t have a clue as to how to run an economy.  As a result agriculture suffers, manufacturing suffers, retail as we know it is eliminated and commodities become scarce, people starve and people die from a lack of proper medical care. 

This brings me back to the thus far unanswered question:  What happens when we go bankrupt?   Answer:  The insane will begin to rule by consent of the ignorant and then millions will die and those who are left will live in dystopia!  That's history, and that history is incontestable.

Has anyone read a history book lately?  If not, I would like to recommend:

• Jonah Goldberg’s, “Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Change” 
•  Daniel J. Flynn’s, “Intellectual Morons: How Ideology Makes Smart People Fall for Stupid Ideas”
• David Kupelain’s, “The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised As Freedom”. 
  

Biden’s Economic Alchemy: $3.5 Trillion = Zero

September 28, 2021 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty 

Last week, I wrote about a new study which estimates that Biden’s fiscal agenda of bigger government and higher taxes would reduce economic output by about $3 trillion over the next decade.

Perhaps more relevant, that foregone economic growth would translate into more than $10,000 of lost compensation per job. And a lifetime drop in living standards of more than 4 percent for younger people.  And these numbers are based on research by the Congressional Budget Office, which is hardly a bastion of libertarian analysis.  The Biden White House has a different perspective.

How different? Well, the President actually claims that expanding the burden of government won’t cost anything.  I’m not joking. Here are some excerpts from an article in the Washington Post by Seung Min Kim and Tony Romm.

President Biden promised Friday that his sweeping domestic agenda package will cost “nothing” because Democrats will pay for it through tax hikes on the wealthy and corporations… The remarks were an attempt by Biden to assuage some of the cost concerns pointedly expressed by the moderate Democrats about the size of the legislation… The total spending outlined in the plan is $3.5 trillion… “It is zero price tag on the debt we’re paying. We’re going to pay for everything we spend,” Biden said in remarks from the State Dining Room at the White House.

Biden’s strange analysis has generated some amusing responses.  For instance, Gerard Baker opined in the Wall Street Journal about Biden’s magical approach.

…this is a novel way of estimating the cost of something. That eye-wateringly expensive dinner you had last week didn’t really cost you anything because you paid for it. …You could have used the money to invest in your children’s college fund. You could have paid off some of your credit card bill, the debt on which has quadrupled in the last year. But you chose instead to blow it on a few morsels of raw fish and a couple of bottles of 1982 Château Lafite Rothschild. Don’t worry, It didn’t cost you anything.

Biden and his team definitely deserve to be mocked for their silly argument.

For all intents and purposes, they want us to believe that there’s no downside if you combine anti-growth spending increases with anti-growth tax increases – so long as there’s no increase in red ink.

But there’s actually a fiscal theory that sort of supports what the White House is saying.

• Capital (saving and investment) is a key driver of productivity and long-run growth.
• Budget deficits divert capital from the economy’s productive sector to government.
• Budget deficits raise interest rates, reducing incentives for investment.
• Therefore, budget deficits are bad for prosperity.

For what it’s worth, all four of those statements are correct.

But the theory is nonetheless wrong because it elevates one variable – fiscal balance – while ignoring other variables that have a much bigger impact on economic performance.

For instance, the Congressional Budget Office at one point embraced this approach – even though it led to absurd implications such as growth being maximized with tax rates of 100 percent.

For further background, here’s a table I prepared back in 2012.

The White House today is basically embracing the IMF’s “austerity” argument that deficits/surpluses are the variable that has the biggest impact on growth.

P.S. Folks on the left must get whiplash because some days they embrace the Keynesian argument that deficits are good for growth and other days they argue that a big expansion of government will have zero cost because there is no increase in the deficit.

P.P.S. The folks on the right who focus solely on tax cuts also are guilty of elevating one variable while ignoring others (humorously depicted in this cartoon strip).

The Communist Takeover of the United States?

The floodgates are open. 

Wayne Allyn Root Mar 3, 2021

This is part deux of my series on the communist takeover of the United States. Part one, last week's column, centered on the real new president: Barack Obama. I do believe the new president is, in fact, the old president. This is the third term of Obama.

The first time around, Obama tried his best to destroy America, American exceptionalism, our Judeo-Christian values, our capitalist economic system, our health care system (17.7% of the U.S. economy in 2019) and the great American middle class.

Obama gave it his best shot. He crippled America, but he couldn't quite finish the job. He needed Hillary Clinton to be elected to do that, but we all know how that turned out. Former President Donald Trump managed to bring out the biggest turnout of white middle-class voters in history for the 2016 election. Obama vowed to never let that happen again.

Hence the election of the old, weak, feeble, brain-dead Basement Biden, who's clearly hopelessly lost and confused with dementia. He's fallen, and he can't get up. Obama likes it that way. Joe Biden is Obama's puppet and front guy. Obama can now finish the job and do it under the cover of darkness. He can carry out his plan more ruthlessly than he ever could when he was the first black president and wanted to convince American voters he wasn't "radical" or "extreme." Back then, Obama had to move with caution; he had to boil the frog slowly, as I warned in my 2013 No. 1 national bestseller, "The Ultimate Obama Survival Guide.".........To Read More.....

 

The Battle Lines Have Been Drawn – it’s a Strategy of Cloward-Piven

By Ron Edwards, Columnist, Talk Show Host| August 15th, 2019

Many people walk around believing that leftist media personalities, leftists Democrats, rino Republicans and leftists in the academic fields are not literally seeking to literally destroy the United States. I pray for their ability to grow mentally and face reality. To be honest with you, the variety of efforts to exterminate our republic are so numerous.

 

Though I am tempted to begin with obvious participants in the massive battle against our exceptional republic, it is most fitting to start among the ranks of “We the People.” Sometimes when battle lines are drawn, there are those who shoot themselves in the foot. Or they simply are not an asset either unwittingly or on purpose.

On both sides of the political battle lines, there are those declaring they are fighting for freedom and justice. However, I am compelled to ask, “freedom to do what?”

We may have often times heard or read about the leftists declaring they are fighting for freedom. That concerns me because the leftist pursuit of freedom presents either danger or major inconvenience for others. When thousands of left leaning Muslims decide to kneel on little prayer rugs in the middle of New York City to bump their foreheads, they say that they are free to do so. But the problem is, those Muslims are obstructing the freedom of their more numerous non-Muslim neighbors to freely drive or walk down the street they freely blocked up with their bullying presence...........To Read More....

Democrats Using Cloward-Piven as their Midterm Hail Mary Pass

October 29, 2018 By Brian Joondeph

Cloward-Piven is a political strategy first described in 1966, by two Columbia University sociologists, Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. This was published appropriately in the far-left The Nation, the oldest continuously published news magazine in the country.

Cloward-Piven’s goal was the creation of, “A political crisis would result that could lead to legislation for a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty.” The objective was chaos and turmoil, or in their words, “A massive drive to recruit the poor onto the welfare rolls.”  This would be followed by, “A federal program of income redistribution has become necessary to elevate the poor en masse from poverty.”

The strategy uses community organizers to mobilize welfare recipients. Then, “As the crisis develops, it will be important to use the mass media to inform the broader liberal community about the inefficiencies and injustices of welfare.” It’s more effective when a community organizer is the leader of the country for eight years assisted with a compliant and nonobjective national media. Or as Rahm Emanuel said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”.......... Read more

Guess What: ‘The Cloward-Piven Strategy Working Perfectly — in Europe’

By Jonathon M. Seidl May 7, 2012

If you follow Glenn Beck, you know who Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven are. They are the dynamic teaching duo who championed the revolutionary idea of restarting the U.S. economy by collapsing the system and remaking it into one more favorable to the unions and socialist ideals. And that’s done by getting as many people on public assistance as possible.

Now, intrepid blogger Zombie is out with a new piece detailing how that “Cloward-Piven“ strategy is ”working perfectly” across the pond.

Zombie points to the weekend’s big news from Europe: the French elected an avowed Socialist, and the Greeks sent a strong signal by voting against the parties that supported austerity (even the Socialists) and then voted in droves for a “neo-Nazi” group. (Business Insider put that in perspective with the following headline: “16% of the New Greek Parliament Is Communists and Nazis.”)
 
“The message is clear,” writes Zombie. “Once enough voters are on the dole, regardless of your party’s ideology or what label it has, you will win elections if you promise to keep the free money flowing. This was Cloward-Piven’s point, and they turned out to be frighteningly correct.”…… You can read the rest of the intriguing post here (which includes the line, “Will the revolution spread to America?”).  .............. To Read More…..