Friday, August 28, 2015

U.S. PROPAGANDA ROLLS ONWARD. Q2 2015 DISPOSABLE PERSONAL INCOME SHRANK AT THE ANNUAL RATE OF -2%

Yesterday's, pro-government workers at the Bureau of Economic Analysis promoted their fiction that "real" GDP is now growing at the annual rate of 3.7% when in truth, the economy shrank -1.5% (see: Q2 2015 GDP FIRST REVISION. THE FICTION OF 3.7% "REAL" ANNUAL GDP GROWTH), the story for individuals gets even worse.


Personal income shrank at the annual rate of -1.9% as measured in the second quarter


Of those who work for a living, the hardest hit have been shopkeepers, restaurateurs and other proprietors whose income ex-inventory and capital depreciation shrank at the rate of -2.3%. The next hardest hit have been wage-earning workers whose compensation shrank at the annual rate of -2.2%.



Of everything, unemployment insurance payouts have shrunk the fastest, falling at the annual rate of -8.1%.

Likely, for those who are lucky enough to stumble upon my work, there are some, maybe even many, who doubt my True Dollar™ method. Owing to cognitive dissonance, they feel the need to defend the lies they accept from politicians, agents of Congress, academics and news media talking heads.

That doesn't bother me whatsoever. My graphs do the ultimate talking. My graphs consistently line up with reality, the reality of everyone's experiences.  Reality never lines up with the claims made by agents of Congress like those of the BEA and agents of the President along with the data and charts they present.

If you look at the Personal Rental Income, and if you thought about what happened after the peak of the Greenspan-Bernanke Great Inflation, the biggest credit bubble in the history of mankind, you would expect rental income to go up as millions of Americans defaulted on their mortgages and reverted to living in rentals. My chart shows that exactly.



Sometimes, confusion hits many because they see that welfare doled by Congress has fallen. They would expect such welfare to have risen during tougher times. In current dollars, that welfare spending rose, but in True Dollars™, that spending fell. Why welfare collectees didn't notice because True Dollars™ prices for the things they buy, like food, have fallen at a faster rate.



If you look at the Unemployment Insurance Income chart, and if you thought about what happened after the peak of the Greenspan-Bernanke Great Inflation, the biggest credit bubble in the history of mankind, you would expect unemployment income to go up as millions of Americans found themselves out of work. My chart shows that exactly.  Now that claims have been exhausted, payouts for unemployment insurance have fallen precisely because there are few left who qualify to make claim for benefits. My chart shows that exactly as well.



These Medicare and Medicaid income charts match reality as well.





You should tell all your family, friends and co-workers about Bizarro Theater. You should stop listening to the silliness propagated by academicians, politicians and those who work in financial news media.

Read more ...

Friday, June 5, 2015

WHERE HAS LIVING BEEN BEST SINCE THE GREENSPAN-BERNANKE GREAT INFLATION, PEAK GDP AND THE GREATEST DEPRESSION?

Today, I did some sleuthing. Using income per resident, age 16 and up, expressed in True Dollars™, I compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia to see what Americans have weathered the Greatest Depression storm the best.

While I am not going to put up all 51 curve charts plotting per capita income for each state and DC, I shall present to you a few tables.

The first table shows the change in income per head from various dates in the past.



Nevada has been the best place to live since Peak GDP merely because Nevadans enjoyed the smallest decline in income per resident expressed in True Dollars™.




The second table shows how the states rank by changes in income as expressed in the percents above.



It fails to surprise that car making country — Michigan and Ohio sit at the bottom. Also, who wouldn't expect high-tax states like New York and Illinois to be  near the bottom. It surprises that residents of upstate New York continue to pay taxes to feed the residents of New York City. Likewise, it seems the residents of Chicago have the rest of Illinoisans held hostage.

The third table shows how the states rank by income per head at Peak GDP in True Dollars™, Q4 2007, and for the latest report (Q3 2014 as of this writing). Also, the table reveals the per cap income percentile for each state.

This table can give you an idea in which states living is declining and in which states living is improving.



For any state, if the number in the second column is larger than the number in the first column, living is worsening in that state.





Read more ...

Thursday, January 8, 2015

STATE TAX RECEIPTS. THE GOOD. THE BAD. THE UGLY.

The other day in STATE TAX RECEIPTS LAG TRUE GDP. IS THE RECOVERY ON OR NOT?, I revealed to you how personal income, corporate income, sales and total taxes collected by all the states might have increased from after hitting a bottom. If so, this would support the advances in True GDP and True Loans and Leases as I showed in THE USA ECONOMY ADVANCE LIKELY HAS BEGUN AT LONG LAST.





Now, I show you how the various states stack up against each other. First, let's look at states by Individual Burden as measured by the sum of per capita True Income and True Sales taxes paid against those 18 and old in each state.

True Individual Tax Burden (per capita, 18+ in GW$)


The 21 worst states in which anyone could live are these:

  1. Connecticut
  2. Hawaii
  3. Minnesota
  4. California
  5. New York
  6. Massachusetts
  7. North Dakota
  8. New Jersey
  9. Nebraska
  10. Maryland
  11. Kansas
  12. Wisconsin
  13. Arkansas
  14. Maine
  15. Illinois
  16. Rhode Island
  17. Idaho
  18. Indiana
  19. Iowa
  20. Virginia
  21. Utah
The top 21 states' legislators tax their adult citizens so much of these states skew the average. The top 29 least taxing states' legislators with the lowest individual burdens fall below the average.

That Connecticut tops the list fails to surprise me. Only the other day, before running the numbers here, I came across this work by Annie LowreyWhat’s the Matter With Connecticut? 

Though Ms. Lowrey has it right that something is wrong in Connecticut, foolishly, she claims that Thomas Piketty's book has the answer. Of course, regular readers of Bizarro Theater know that born-again socialism revivalist preacher Piketty is quite wrong. For those who have yet to learn why the past creates the future rather than Piketty's expressed foolery — the past devours the future — read these:

When politicians take ever greater unearned shares of profits from individuals, individuals have less to spend. The 186 members of the Connecticut General Assembly are not smart enough to know how to spend better than those 2,821,247 adult Nutmeggers from whom they swiped.

Consequently, inefficiencies build up in the economy, with some goods being over-produced and other goods, under-produced. Worse, unearned buying power gets put into the hands of some who then push up prices than what would otherwise be gained by sellers. Overtime, such meddling leads to a wind-down of the economy as true profits become harder to gain both for firms and individuals.

Here are the top 15 Least Taxing States for imposing individual burdens.

  1. Alaska
  2. New Hampshire
  3. Montana
  4. Texas
  5. Florida
  6. South Dakota
  7. Alabama
  8. Tennessee
  9. Louisiana
  10. Nevada
  11. Arizona
  12. Wyoming
  13. Delaware
  14. South Carolina
  15. Georgia

And now, here is the map of True Personal Income Tax paid.

True Personal Income Tax Paid, 18+ in GW$


Not surprisingly, the list for highest personal income tax burdens appears quite alike to the list of individual tax burdens.

Here are the 21 worst states in which anyone could live:
  1. Connecticut
  2. New York
  3. Massachusetts
  4. California
  5. Minnesota
  6. Oregon
  7. Delaware
  8. New Jersey
  9. Virginia
  10. Maryland
  11. Illinois
  12. Hawaii
  13. Nebraska
  14. Wisconsin
  15. Utah

And here are the top 9 best states by least personal income tax:
  1. Alaska
  2. Florida
  3. Nevada
  4. South Dakota
  5. Texas
  6. Washington
  7. Wyoming
  8. Tennessee
  9. New Hampshire

Moving on, let's look at the True Sales Tax burden. Right, because if legislators don't get you one way, they get you another.

True Sales Tax Burden (per capita, 18+ in GW$)


Of the two, income tax or sales, I prefer sales tax. An income tax is an unearned share of profits for which legislators have not invested any capital either in firms or workers. Thus, an income tax is highly anti-capitalistic.

When a sales tax is borne by the buyer, it is up to the buyer to decide whether or not to pay the toll to legislators to enjoy goods bought from the fruits of work sold in purchases and sales of work for cash or credit. Such a tax is a wealth tax.

When a sales tax is borne by the seller, and in some states this is the method even though customers fail to know this and fall prey to the seller pushing the tax upon the buyer, such a tax also is anti-capitalistic, as it is a levy against capital.

For more on the kinds of taxes that exist in life, check out IF YOU DRIVE A CAR, I'LL TAX THE STREET. IF YOU TRY TO SIT, I'LL TAX YOUR SEAT. MR. WILSON. MR. HEATH. Also, you should read, ELITES SEEK TO PUNISH WORKERS WITH A CONSUMPTION TAX, OR A TAX ON WORKERS' WEALTH.

Here are the 20 worst states whose legislators levy the true highest sales taxes while also burdening the citizens with personal income taxes.
  1. Hawaii
  2. North Dakota
  3. Connecticut
  4. Mississippi
  5. Tennessee
  6. Indiana
  7. Arkansas
  8. Kansas
  9. New Mexico
  10. Minnesota
  11. New Jersey
  12. Nebraska
  13. California
  14. Idaho
  15. Maine
That Hawaiian legislators lead this list fails to surprise. When you are stuck on an island with most goods being imported over seas and you need those goods to live, you will do what you need to do to get those goods.

Here are the states whose legislators levy sales taxes but no personal income taxes.
  1. Washington
  2. Wyoming
  3. Nevada
  4. South Dakota
  5. Florida
  6. Texas
The legislators of Alaska neither levy sales tax nor personal income tax.

Now, let's see how states' legislators treat their fictional personhood friends. 

True Corporate Income Tax Paid, per firm in GW$


Straight away, I acknowledge that presenting these figures suffer a small flaw. The firm count as reported in the Statistics of U.S. Businesses by the Census Bureau, though the latest figures available, only runs through 2011. Nonetheless, it's fairly accurate.

Here are the states whose legislators treat firms the worst.
  1. Alaska
  2. New Hampshire
  3. Illinois
  4. Massachusetts
  5. North Dakota
  6. Delaware
  7. California
  8. New Jersey
  9. Tennessee
  10. Mississippi
  11. Minnesota
  12. Pennsylvania
  13. Connecticut
  14. New York
  15. Kentucky
  16. Wisconsin
  17. Maryland
  18. New Mexico
  19. Nebraska
Likely, the legislators of Alaska and North Dakota sock it to oil and nat gas drillers. 

And here are the states with the lowest corporate tax burden, falling in the top 25% lowest.
  1. Nevada
  2. Texas
  3. Washington
  4. Wyoming
  5. Ohio
  6. South Dakota
  7. Missouri
  8. Rhode Island
  9. Montana
  10. Michigan
  11. Florida
  12. Virginia
  13. Oklahoma
This last map reveals the True Corporate Income Tax to Individual Burden Ratio. To make the map, the states of Alaska and New Hampshire have been excluded.

The New Hampshire ratio is 24 times higher than the next closest state's legislators, Tennessee. Alaska is 10 times New Hampshire as Alaskans lack an individual burden of sales and personal income taxes.

True Corporate Income Tax Paid (per firm) to True Individual Tax Burden (per capita, 18+) in GW$


You can think of this map revealing a proxy for competitiveness among the states' legislatures.

Here are the states falling above the average whose legislators like tax corporate entities higher than citizens.
  1. Tennessee
  2. Delaware
  3. Illinois
  4. Mississippi
  5. Pennsylvania
  6. Massachusetts
  7. Kentucky
  8. New Jersey
  9. North Dakota
  10. Louisiana
  11. North Carolina
  12. Florida
  13. California
  14. Montana
  15. Alabama
  16. New Mexico
  17. West Virginia
  18. Wisconsin
  19. South Carolina
  20. Indiana
  21. Arizona
  22. Minnesota
  23. Maryland

And here are the states falling below the average.
  1. Nevada
  2. Texas
  3. Washington
  4. Wyoming
  5. Ohio
  6. South Dakota
  7. Hawaii
  8. Missouri
  9. Rhode Island
  10. Connecticut
  11. Maine
  12. Virginia
  13. Michigan
  14. Idaho
  15. Oklahoma
  16. Utah
  17. Oregon
  18. Iowa
  19. New York
  20. Nebraska
  21. Kansas
  22. Colorado
  23. Vermont
  24. Arkansas
  25. Georgia

True Total Taxes Paid, per capita in GW$


When accounting for other taxes such as licenses, here are the top states with the lowest total taxes levied per capita whose legislators beat the average.
  1. New Hampshire
  2. Florida
  3. Alabama
  4. Georgia
  5. Missouri
  6. Arizona
  7. South Carolina
  8. South Dakota
  9. Tennessee
  10. Texas
  11. Louisiana
  12. Colorado
  13. Virginia
  14. North Carolina
  15. Ohio
  16. Oregon
  17. Oklahoma
  18. Utah
  19. Idaho
  20. Kentucky
  21. Michigan
  22. Iowa
  23. Nevada
  24. Mississippi
  25. Montana
  26. Indiana
  27. Kansas
  28. Pennsylvania
  29. Washington
  30. Nebraska
  31. Rhode Island
  32. Maine
  33. New Mexico
  34. Wisconsin
  35. West Virginia
And overall, here are the worst states in which anyone could live.
  1. North Dakota
  2. Connecticut
  3. Vermont
  4. Minnesota
  5. Hawaii
  6. Wyoming
  7. Alaska
  8. New York
  9. California
  10. Massachusetts
  11. Delaware
  12. New Jersey
  13. Maryland
  14. Arkansas
  15. Illinois
Read more ...

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

OBAMA'S INCOME INEQUALITY SCARE STORY EXPOSED

Mark J. Perry, full professor of economics University of Michigan, Flint, shared a smart piece on Seeking Alpha (account needed) today on income inequality. I've written about income inquality before.

In short, the phrase income inquality makes for great political rhetoric precisely because almost all have an innate sense of 50-50 fairness. That said, income inequality is a bogus concept.

Anyway, Mark Perry shared this table which pulls back the curtain from all that hot air political rhetoric.



What jumps out is 63% of households in the poorest fifth of America do not work. Well, it should be clear that with work comes income.

As can be seen, Americans become (moving toward the highest fifth), richer when they work. The richest households are those where almost everyone in the household works.

As one moves toward richer households, one finds households consisting mostly of marrieds who are middle age with at least a bachelor's degree.

Of course, when guys like Obama take to the podium decrying income inequality, they fail to talk about the effects of rampant immigration upon working age population. Also, guys like Obama fail to talk about how much welfare those in the lowest fifth receive.

To see the effects of immigration on wages, read YET ANOTHER EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES JOBS REPORT DURING THE GREATEST DEPRESSION OF ALL-TIME and SOPHIE'S CHOICE OF CAPITAL OR LABOR. A FREE-MARKETS LIBERTARIAN BECOMES AN ANTI-CAPITALIST AND PERPETUATES AN ECONOMICS MYTH.

Also, Obama fails to mention that GDP has not grown during his presidency, but in fact has fallen almost every quarter save a couple way back in late 2009 and early 2010. To see this, read THE SECRETS OF AUTOMATED CLEARINGS, GDP AND THE ECONOMY. RECOVERY? WHEN?
Read more ...

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

POVERTY AND ENVY

There is profit and loss for everything. We calculate profit or loss by subtracting income less expenses. In the absence of intervention, some things would not get sold for long as the sum of sales could not yield a profit. 

All humans start out at a loss, their lives subsidized by their parents. Calories consumed, be those food calories and heat calories, are their expenses. 



Welfare collectees live at a loss. In short, they do not produce anything that anyone wants and thus even if they produced something and with output surplus, still they produce at a loss. They get kept alive only out of the goodness of others in charity or by the nefarious schemes of welfare-doling collectivists who need them to justify their acts.


WHY POVERTY AT ALL?

Poverty arises because the impoverished do not output at all or fast enough things that can become wealth.


ABSOLUTE POVERTY AND RELATIVE POVERTY

There are two kinds of poverty — absolute poverty and relative poverty. 

Absolute poverty deals with those living by operating at a loss. They do not produce anything that anyone or enough want such that they at least break even. In short, they do not earn their calories.

Relative poverty arises from the Politics of Greed and the Rhetoric of Envy. It's all around you.


"It's not fair that the guy over there gets a $50 million bonus because he works as an investment banker and has gained skills, which lets him materialize wealth that far exceeds his costs in doing so, while I march here in the streets of lower Manhattan sipping on my non-fat, mocha double latte, sending the latest updates of Occupy Wall Street on my 4G smart phone, that my parents mostly pay for the bill! At least I paid for the snazzy case from what I earned working my job at Big Box Retailer, which my snazzy dual major in Transgendered Women's Studies and Ebonics Literature helped me secure, thankfully. I am the 99%!"
Truly, THE GREEDY ARE THE ONLY PROBLEM THE WHOLE EARTH OVER.
 

PROPERTY AND PROFIT

The entirety of trade, also said as commerce or commercial life, ties up with two words — property and profit. Without profit from effort, anyone would lack buying power to buy anything else. Without property, no one can trade. 

Though most think of property as things possessed, property always has meant the right of ownership and never the thing owned. Only when property gets created, can trade arise between two persons. 

The name for property put to making stuff is called capital. The name for property put to purchase and sale for cash and credit is wealth. 

Persons can profit when they produce surplus property in something such that the sales of their surplus exceeds the cost of their living. 

Labor is the poor man's capital. The wage worker buys living space, food and transport. He gains property in those things. Those things are his capital, which he needs to produce his labor.

From his labor, he expresses skills through time, which all call work. Property in his work is his wealth. 

He trades his wealth in a purchase and sale for wages with his employer. Wages are the wealth his employer trades away.

His wages less his expenses to live become his profit.

Read more ...

Thursday, May 8, 2014

KILLING THE MIDDLE CLASS AND THE "WE WANT YOU TO BELIEVE CAPITAL GAINS INCOME IS DIFFERENT" TRICK



Today, I read Stop Favoring Investors, Speculators over Middle Class by noted demographer Joel Kotkin, who is one of the few eggheads whom I like.



In the article, Koktin laments about being victim of a mafia-style shakedown when it comes to paying taxes to California legislators. 


Many believe they are middle class, but they are not. In BUT WERE YOU EVER IN THE MIDDLE CLASS?, I strip out the political rhetoric to render the most meaningful definition for the phrase middle class


The middle class consists of those who earn at least 51% of their income from labor and who are free-and-clear title owners to an improved parcel.


Most are among the bottom class. The bottom class consists of those who earn 100% of their income from labor or who are given up to 100% of income from welfare or some combination thereof and who rent their living space. 


Few are among the top class. The top class consists of those who earn at least 51% of their income from investments and who are free-and-clear title owners to an improved parcel, which is land with a house upon it.


The elite of the top class earn 100% of their income from investments.


Kotkin is right as have been many others. The middle class shrinks ever smaller day-by-day. In PARTY OVER OOPS OUT OF TIME. YOU SHOULD HAVE PARTIED LIKE IT WAS 1999, I show that Americans enjoyed a Reagan-Clinton prosperity era but have since suffered under a Bush-Obama hard times era.


Adroitly, Kotin points out, "Most galling is that, while the middle class has endured ever-higher taxes, those who have benefited most from the Bernanke-Obama “recovery” continue to get the biggest tax breaks. This is largely the investor class, who have been able to reap the benefits of the stock-market boom..."

In PAID CORPORATE TAXES IN DEPRESSION! CORPORATE PROFITS IN A BUBBLE!, I show how corporate profits have been in a bubble since Q3 2001 while corporate taxes paid has been in a depression since Q3 2007.

Kotin goes further saying that "the rich and corporations have all sorts of ways to avoid taxation – like offshore accounts – but the real class divider is capital gains." In short, Kotin calls for an overhaul of the federal tax code to "to stop favoring investors and speculators over middle-income earners."


The current bad design of commercial life for Americans has gamed the system unfairly for those afraid of competition. Rightfully, Senators and House members of the U.S. Congress are to blame. 


After all, members of Congress are the men and women who devise all the rules under which you live.  Members of Congress establish all of the regulation to stifle competition, thus protecting some who are entrenched with power.

In IT'S ALWAYS CRONY POLITICS, CRONY GOVERNANCE AND CRONY REGULATORY CAPTURE and in THE GREEDY ARE THE ONLY PROBLEM THE WHOLE EARTH OVER, I show how Congress gets away with foisting such a bad design upon you.


Kotin proposes what I have proposed for awhile now, taxing all income the same, whether from capital gains or from selling laborAs bad and immoral as income taxation is, as long as income taxation is going to exist, then capital gains should be taxed at the same rate as ordinary wages and salaries precisely because all income is the same.


All income is the same. Claiming there are different kinds of income and then trying to justify one's false beliefs around such is neither scientific nor accurate.

As I explain in REAPING DAY APPROACHES. THE REAPER COMES TO REAP YOU. ANOTHER TAX DAY IN AMERICA COMES, wage earners get shafted because they lack deduction on their capital. Wage earners cannot write off legitimate expenses such as food, which is energy for the mind and for the body; clothing and rent, which are shelters for the body and mind; transport, which is how wage earners bring to market (their workplaces) their wealth for sale (their work); medicine, which is how wage earners restore damaged bodies and minds; fitness, which is how wage earners educate their bodies; and skills acquisition, which is how wage earners educate their bodies and minds.


All taxpayers, who cannot shift their otherwise compulsory tax burdens upon others, subsidize the capital of incorporated firms since the rules of law let enterprise-adventurers write off capital, sometimes as direct expenses and sometimes as depreciation expenses. In short, for incorporated firms, any profits earned get earned on eventually free-to-them capital.

Any trade is merely a purchase and sale for cash or credit, which can be settled by cash. In WHY IS THE ECONOMY SO HORRIBLE? BECAUSE ACADEMIA ECONOMICS IS FAKE, I show the entirety of trade, or commerce, or real economics ties up with two words — property and profit. 

Without profit from effort, anyone would lack buying power to buy anything else. Without property, no one can trade. 
At less than break even, anyone would stop trying to produce property. No one works at a loss.

Labor is the poor man's capital. Capital and labor are not distinct, separate producing agents. 



The wage worker buys living space, food and transport. Those are his as capital needed produce his labor. From his labor, he expresses his skills through time, which all call work. His work is his wealth.

He trades his wealth in a purchase and sale for wages with his employer. Wages are the wealth  his employer trades away.

His wages less his expenses to live become his profit.

The investor or capitalist sells credit or cash and buys a future contract for profit. The entrepreneur-adventurer or borrower sells forward a profit share and buys credit or cash. 

The profit share gets calculated as a multiple of the sum lent or paid. What gets called interest is merely part of the profit share paid out in parts as insurance against loss.


In INTEREST, CAPITALISTS AND FUTURISTIC TIME COPS, I reveal why interest as a kind of income exists.


Let's face it. The American dream, truly which means entering into the middle class, owning a house free-and-clear, has been foreclosed upon for many.


Read more ...

Thursday, April 10, 2014

REAPING DAY APPROACHES. THE REAPER COMES TO REAP YOU. ANOTHER TAX DAY IN AMERICA COMES.

Income tax on wages is an ongoing sales tax on the product of capital of any wage earner. Said another way, income tax is a series of sales tax levies on wealth traded between wage earner and employer.




Income taxes levied on work sold means that you, the worker, have no right to work. Yet, if you work, you have a duty to yield an unearned share of your profit with politicians who have not invested in your personal enterprise, yourself. Politicians have given themselves the right to an unearned share of your profit without investing in you.

If the requirement for work is paying what amounts to a toll, a fine, a penaltax, are you free?  Can you look at yourself in the mirror and claim to be free?

As I explained in WHY IS THE ECONOMY SO HORRIBLE? BECAUSE ACADEMIA ECONOMICS IS FAKE, the entirety of trade, or commerce, or real economics ties up with two words — property and profit. Though most think of property as things possessed, property always has meant the right of ownership and never the thing owned. Only when property gets created, can trade arise between two persons.

The name for property put to making stuff is called capital. The name for property put to purchase and sale for cash and credit is wealth. 

Labor (skills, body) is the wage man's capital. The work of the wage earner is his wealth. The wage earner sells work, which is the embodiment of his skills and muscles and buys wages, which are bank credits, most often in the form of deposits, but sometimes in cash.

Incorporated firms face an alike tax as wage earners do. However, all taxpayers, who cannot shift their otherwise compulsory tax burdens upon others, subsidize the capital of incorporated firms since the rules of law let enterprise-adventurers write off capital, sometimes as direct expenses and sometimes as depreciation expenses. In short, for incorporated firms, any profits earned get earned on eventually free-to-them capital.

Wage earners get shafted because they lack deduction on their capital. Wage earners cannot write off legitimate expenses such as food, which is energy for the mind and for the body; clothing and rent, which are shelters for the body and mind; transport, which is how wage earners bring to market (their workplaces) their wealth for sale (their work); medicine, which is how wage earners restore damaged bodies and minds; fitness, which is how wage earners educate their bodies; and skills acquisition, which is how wage earners educate their bodies and minds.

Even farmers get to write off all expenses to feed their cattle, to transport their cattle to market, to get medicine into the bodies of their cattle. Even farmers get to write off as depreciation, all barns to house their cattle, all vehicles to transport their cattle. Are you prized less than a Jersey cow? 


The purpose of government is to facilitate justice for a society of property, which is the only society that can form and be among strangers. As I explained in LAW VS JUSTICE. GOVERNMENT VS SOCIETY. POLITICS VS YOU, the only legit reason for government is to protect the individual and his property from a mob and to certify claims about property when in a society of property so that men can engage in trade, which is the purchase and sale of property, rather than war among each other. 

Government isn't supposed to exist to provide jobs for unionized government workers nor for contract workers. Government isn't supposed to exist to provide guaranteed income for welfare collectees. Government isn't supposed to exist to provide contract work and unearned profits, which ends up being little more than largess. Government isn't supposed to exist to create barriers to entry against competitors, thus insuring unearned profits for cowards who can't compete. 

Government isn't supposed to exist to guarantee profits for farmers. That is why futures markets exist.

Yet, all of the foregoing describes the government of the United States of America today as well as the state governments of all 50 states. Through the force of government, many Americans are beggaring many other Americans.

For many decades now, Americans have not lived among a society of property. Instead, Americans live among a society of law-legitimizing thieves, Americans who hide behind wicked, deceptive rhetoric such as "it's your duty, it's for children, it's for the homeless, it's for women, it's for the elderly, it's to protect you against the terrorists."

In 1726, English trader and pamphleteer, Daniel Defoe wrote in his Political History of the Devil, 


Things as certain as Death and Taxes, can be more firmly believ'd

In the episode Two Minutes to Midnight, of show, Supernatural (Season 5, 21), Dean Winchester sits down to share a pizza with Death, aka the Grim Reaper. It's hard to see those of the IRS as little different than one of the Four Horsemen of Congress and the political establishment of the U.S.A.


Read more ...

Monday, March 17, 2014

THE UNREALITY OF SAVINGS, INCOME INEQUALITY AND ECONOMICS

Recently, I came across an interesting piece about academic Michael Pettis, which exposed Pettis' false beliefs about savings and income inequality. Pettis spews gobbly-gook. There is no such thing as savings. There is no such thing as income inequality.





Savings is mere rhetoric. People don't put savings in a savings bank or any other kind of bank. Depositors buy bank credits and sell cash, other bank credits or debt in property trades each known as a purchase and sale. 

In a purchase and sale, selling cash or perhaps other bank credits and buying an interest-bearing account, a bank customer becomes a capitalist who buys a share of future bank profits, which gets called interest. It's mere deceptive rhetoric to call such a capitalist "a saver" or one "who has savings" even when the bank customer capitalist is a wage earner. 

Depositors get deposits as evidence of their right of action against bankers when in a purchase and sale, selling their cash, other bank credits or debt. Bankers become owners of said cash, bank credits from other bankers and debt bought in a purchase and sale from depositors. 

Bankers and other capitalists deal in property with confidence in forthcoming profits, transmuting property that lacks saleability into property that does, enabling the adventurer-entrepreneur to transmute property as capital of production into property as wealth for trade. 

There is no such thing as "savings." There is only profit and loss. 

People work to get profits. People don't work and produce to make savings. To believe that people work for savings rather than profits is to reject reality. 

Anyone produces property in hopes of the gain of profit in a purchase and sale. Property always means the right of ownership and never what is owned. 

People trade property in stuff because before people can enjoy stuff, they must own it. People pursue profits to buy chattel, services and rights of action. Without profits there can be no purchase of another thing. Cash and bank credits are means to ends. 
  
Profits provide buying power because people seek buying power to buy the things they want from the surpluses they produce owing to efficiency. Otherwise, people would live at bare subsistence content to make little of a few things they need to survive. Under such a state, trade would not exist, nor would credit.  

People trade their property in chattel, services and rights of action (credit). People don't trade biens (goods) as the Physiocrats called them nor do they trade utilities as the Mill from Bentham utilitarians called them. 

Pettis errs again when he claims income inquality exists and is causal for anything. Income inquality does not exist and thus cannot be causal.

In THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS INCOME INEQUALITY, I use Robert Downey, Jr., to reveal that truth. If someone earns more than another, that is so because those paying for the one earning more pay higher bids than those who pay others less. 

Comparing the wages between a brain surgeon and a fast-food drive-thru cashier is deceptive, false comparison.

In both BUT IT IS FOR INEQUALITY! AT WHAT POINT DO PEOPLE STOP EXPONENTIALLY DOUBLING DOWN ON STUPIDITY?, and SPREADING WEALTH, INCOME INEQUALITY AND OTHER MANURE, I reveal crony politics keeps people poor through minimun wage and welfare subsidy and how it is impossible to spread wealth. 

Whether as individuals or in tandem for a firm, people work to get profits. And to get those profits, people work to make property in surplus. 

In trade, all get governed by infrangible, inescapable law of trade, the Law of Prices. All get constrained by the Axiom of Profit. The Law of Prices holds the winning bids of purchase and sale in the face of what is on offer set the price. The Axiom of Profit holds the sum of sales must at least equal the cost of production, otherwise the producer goes to run.

For workers, profit gets measured by the difference of wages less living expenses. For firms, profits gets measured by the difference of sales less outlays. For a given productivity of property made at surplus, if living expenses and outlays rise faster than wages and outlays, profit falls.


If living expenses rise above wages, workers live at loss. If outlays rise above sales, firms operate at loss. 

Prices have been rising owing to reckless cash accretion and reckless cash accretion has arisen owing to quantitative easing. 

Since cash are bank credits circulating in perpetuity, with cash anyone only can pay taxes, buy goods or buy bank credits. Residual bank credits become reserve against more bank credits traded in a purchase and sale. 

When bank credits grow faster than output, prices rise. Individuals caught in such a profit squeeze cannot buy vacations in the Bahamas, music lessons, dinners eaten at upscale restaurants, tailored suits and so on.

In YOU LIVE AT THE MERCY OF A CLOWN-CAR DRIVEN BY MEN AND WOMEN OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE, I reveal how those at the Federal Reserve continue to err because they believe in economics rather than trade. 

Pettis is quite wrong when he babbles that there can be excess thrift as well as insufficient thrift. That is akin to saying there can be degrees of prosperity. 

Pettis fails to understand what thrift means, conflating thrift with savings. In THE WEALTHY PEOPLE EFFECT AND WHAT IT TRULY SHOULD MEAN TO YOU, I explain the word thrift as a Middle English word from about 1300 meaning "thriving, prosperity" and comes from the Old Norse meaning the same. 

In prosperity, anyone who wants to work can find work. Profit abounds. Wages increase faster than living expenses. Sales increase faster than outlays. The creation of property grows at an increasing rate.

Pettis errs again when he quotes Eccles who spews silliness about distribution. 

The whole mythology of production and distribution comes from the Physiocrats and their effort to support false claims that only farmers and the land produces while all other classes are unproductive and thus should be the ones upon whom taxes should be borne.

It's no wonder why Pettis doesn't get reality. Pettis parrots much of what gets taught by academicians and their economics mythology. Academia economics mythology fails to comport to reality. 

Academia economics, regardless of neoclassical school, fails to deal with the phenomena of trade — property and profits. Instead, academia economics focuses upon utility and scarcity, both of which have nothing to do with commerce, which is also called trade.

Trade, which is the purchase and sale of property as wealth made from property put to production, which is capital, to produce property in surplus, is the only reality. 

Here are three more must-reads on Bizarro Theater to help you disabuse yourselves from the unreality of economics and income inequality:

  1. GREEDY CAPITALIST COMPLAINS ABOUT UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE EXPENSE AND QUITS HIS BUSINESS
  2. WILE E. COYOTE, CAMPGROUND BUSINESSMAN SUPER GENIUS
  3. LIVING IN THE AGE OF IDIOCRACY

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Tuesday, January 28, 2014

BUT IT IS FOR INEQUALITY! AT WHAT POINT DO PEOPLE STOP EXPONENTIALLY DOUBLING DOWN ON STUPIDITY?



CLUELESS KENNY

Instead of taxing the rich to help the poor put there by the rich, we should do something different. Raise minimum wages to match inflation, ban tax rebates while employees are on welfare, the list goes on. We must have equal power to negotiate or we will lose every time.

Here is an argument for raising minimum wage that does not involve bleeding heart rhetoric.

People on minimum wage spend everything they earn to survive. They cannot thrive because the opportunities to improve their lot take capital they don't possess and never will at their wage level.

We want the economy to improve. Raising wages will accomplish this goal on a macro economic level. After all, if the majority of your employees don't earn enough to buy your own products you have limited your consumer base. If this wage level is industry standard, then most other companies pay their employees insufficiently to buy your products as well. Pay them enough and they will have the choice to buy your products, go to school for an education, earn even more and buy yet more products. Do it for the economy.


ME

A tad more than 5% of all hourly-paid workers get paid an hourly wage at or below the minimum wage. That is a scant 1% of the total U.S. population!

You would have us believe that raising the wages of 1% of all Americans who have the lowest incomes is going to do anything?

Do you not see the absurdity of your beliefs, how silly-minded your beliefs are?

The Federal Minimum Wage is $7.25. One percent of the U.S. population is 3.139 million (2012).  Full-time work amounts to 2,080 hours a year. The 2012 U.S. GDP was $15,680 billion ($15.68 trillion). So if all 1% of Americans who minimum wage earners worked full-time, they would have earned a scant 0.30% of GDP, that is ZERO POINT THREE PERCENT. Said another way, that is three-tenths of one percent.

If Congress doubled the minimum wage to $14.50 an hour and all minimum wage earners worked full-time for a whole year, they would only have earned six-tenths of one percent of GDP! If Congress tripled the minimum wage to a whopping $21.75 an hour, the do-you-want-fries-with-that workers would only have earned about 1% of GDP (0.996%)!

So rather than calling for minimum wages to rise, people who barely buy anything, why don't you call for the pay of CEOs to be increased one-hundred fold? After all, rich people buy the most stuff.

Why are you calling for wages to rise for people who have limited wants rather than calling for wages to rise for those with insatiable wants, those accustomed to spending much and often?

By your thinking, giving people more to spend causes more trade and thus creates growth in what most call the economy. So why anoint those least capable of knowing how to spend to do the task?

Either way, merely injecting more cash and consumer credit does little more but to raise prices. Scholarly men have known this since the late 1690s at least (John Locke, Sir Dudley North). Why don't you know this?

Giving people more cash does not increase production. With a few extra dollars each week, the poor suddenly are not going to call for new Cadillacs and Lincolns to get manufactured.

The poor won't eat more pasta nor more bread nor will the poor drink more milk merely because they have a few extra dollars each week to spend. Giving the poor a few more dollars will do nothing but raise prices. More cash chasing the same output results in RAISING PRICES ONLY.

All prices conform to the one, true , infrangible law of trade — the Law of Prices, which holds the winning bids of purchase and sale in the face of what is on offer sets the price.

If minimum wage were the answer, why hasn't it ever been the answer? In the United States, statutory minimum wages were first introduced nationally in 1938.

In a whopping 76-year trial run, minimum wage never has alleviated poverty. SEVENTY SIX YEARS OF MINIMUM WAGE LAWS have done nothing.

Aid to Dependent Children (ADC), later renamed AFDC and later still TANF has been around since 1935! In a 79-year trial run, welfare never has alleviated poverty.

So, why should 77 and 80 years suddenly be the turning point years for those failed programs, the expression of failed thoughts and false beliefs?


CLUELESS KENNY

But, but, but ... What about the children?!


ME

If you want to see a righteous rise in wages, you should call for an end to minimum wage as well as an end to specific welfare. The combination of minimum wage and welfare amounts to a subsidy to employers whose capital structure gets predicated on using minimum wage workers on the whole.

No one would work at a loss (wages - living expenses). It is only because of subsidy of welfare that many choose to be workers at minimum wage.

The right move is the end minimum wage laws and all political interference in trade. That idea frightens more businessmen to a greater degree than it does the people as too many businessmen fear authentic, manly competition.

Another right move would be to restrict immigration for the next 10 years and perhaps longer as all net population increase in the USA since 1980 or so has come from immigrants and their descendants. In conjunction, if the Congress could evict the 20 million or so illegal aliens residing in the USA, a significant chuck  of the pool of low wage bidders would be erased. That would go far to pressure wages upward for no-skill workers.

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Monday, January 6, 2014

THE TRUTH BEHIND OBAMA'S INCOME INEQUALITY TIRADE.

Income = sales over time. Sales = price x quantity. 

People with higher incomes sell more of what it wanted at higher prices over time.

Why?

Wages are prices. All prices adhere to the one, true infrangible law that governs all of trade, the Law of Prices. The Law of Prices holds the winning bids of purchase and sale in the face of what is on offer set the price.

Work is skills expressed through time put into property form, which another can acquire. 

Working is the capital of the one who works. Work expressed is the wealth created by the one who works.

Those who earn more do so because what they do is wanted by more who have more buying power to secure the property on offer as work.

Should all 6'8" forwards in the NBA have their legs cut permanently to the average height of 5'9" so average height guys can have a shot at an NBA career?

Should all persons with 130 IQs and above be given partial lobotomies until their IQ hits the American average of 99?

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Tuesday, October 22, 2013

TYRANTS BIG AND SMALL. DYSTOPIAN UTOPIANS FORCING SOCIAL COMPACTS UPON YOU WHETHER OR NOT YOU LIKE IT

The other day on G+, someone shared this picture into his stream:


Welfare is the means to power. Power must be grabbed first.Once anyone wrests control of power, then that one can achieve one's political goals.

Unless men and women are willing to arm themselves and kill enough others to gain control by violent overthrow, the means to power is welfare doling.

Politicians can not gain power without securing enough votes. Without enough voters, any pol can not gain office and thus do as his financiers bid her or him. The way poles secure votes is through bribing voters with welfare doling. 

Politicians can not exist without your enemies. Welfare recipients are your true great enemy. Likely, your Medicare grandmother is your enemy, your SSDI cousin is your enemy. The Pell Grant recipient college student from down the street is your enemy.


And then this gem of a fellow, Chuck, chimed in:


By Chuck's words, Chuck seems to be unwilling to rob someone directly, so Chuck champions men and women with real balls to rob everyone else, merely so Chuck can get his  kickback crumbs for supporting them.

Likely, Chuck prefers sweet sounding rhetoric like welfare instead of what he seeks, kickback. So, like millions of others, Chuck shall accept the lie that a kickback is welfare.

Under the constraint of his kickback crumbs, Chuck can express his preferences dishonestly rather than making himself valuable and thus exchange worthy in a voluntary fashion, which would let him get his preferences expressed voluntarily.

I  asked Chuck why, exactly, should anyone be forced to pay income taxes or face prison merely because Chuck wants to live at their expenses? What makes Chuck so important and thus so deserving that anyone not related to him and not voluntarily wanting to give to him should be forced to give to him or become imprisoned?

I  asked Chuck where are his relatives? Where are his mommy and daddy? Why didn't Chuck forge better relationships or perhaps any at all with his relatives and neighbors? Why aren't they paying for him voluntarily? However, Chuck failed to answer. 

Ironically, it seems as if Chuck hasn't been living up to the social compact through voluntary action, action he had complete control over doing. 

All contracts are voluntary. There is no such thing in law as an involuntary contract. Imposing action upon another by force while no voluntary contract has been agreed upon has a name. We call that slavery. We call that servitude. We see that one has become the chattel and thus the property of another.

Using "society" is disingenuous to mean a people under rule, or a people living within a defended, bounded area. Yet, all too many do so when trying to justify their Dystopian visions.

Men can attest the word society to the 1530s meaning friendly association with others, entering English from the Old French societe, in turn from Latin societatem in turn from socius meaning companion.

Though he differs in degree, how does Chuck differ in kind to any tyrant in the history of humans who wanted others to use force on his behalf so that he could live without honestly producing something wanted by others and then engaging in honest exchange? 

At day's end, humans want to get their preferences expressed and met. If they can't do so voluntarily, they will seek other means.  

Few humans have bravery. Yet, some do. They will impose their will upon others.  

Most who can't get their preferences expressed and met voluntarily, shall seek the few who have bravery to help them achieve their wants. 

And there you have it. This is what is wrong the earth over with humans. This is why there is suffering as there is. 

Even if Chuck isn't seeking welfare, but merely supporting politicians who dole out welfare in exchange for gaining and locking power, then Chuck is as bad as the ones who accept welfare and thus have revealed your immorality, the same as they do.

It's only a matter of degree, but not different kind, when someone champions politician-doled welfare acquired by involuntary means or when someone champions politician-doled subsidy to bomb makers and farmers.

At least an immoral man of bravery would acknowledge reality and say something like ...but I want stuff and I don't want to earn the buying power to get that stuff through honest exchange by first packaging up my skills through time into something all would call a product, selling that product to the highest bidder, so I am going to use my muscles and willingness to murder to get what I want.

The problem with all of the Chucks of our world is their intellects are insufficient while their greed — their want to get something without giving up something else wanted in a voluntary exchange — is all too sufficient for them not to see reality. They try to justify their immorality, their  inhumane action, their  misanthropic action to get their preferences expressed and met by any means, if necessary. 

Others be dammed! As long as the Chucks get their way and gets to live their lives, free-to-them, getting their preferences expressed and met under constraint of what robbers shall dole to them for his pledge of loyalty, well screw everyone else who wants to be free, free in mind, body and soul, free in self. 

To support his push for PPACA, Obama argued that in future, a person is going to need medicine and thus a person ought to be compelled by law to buy medical bills paying insurance, now, to cover that alleged actuarial eventually.

If everyone accepts Obama's premise as true and thus his conclusion, it's then easy to apply the same template and logic to other things.


  • All persons shall need housing. Sometimes bad things happen, thus all persons should be compelled by law to buy rent / mortgage bills insurance.
  • All persons shall need food. Sometimes bad things happen, thus all persons should be compelled by law to buy food bills insurance.
  • All persons shall need electrical energy. Sometimes bad things happen, thus all persons should be compelled by law to buy electric bills paying insurance.
  • All persons shall need food. Sometimes bad things happen, thus all persons should be compelled by law to buy food paying insurance.
  • All persons shall need new work skills. Sometimes bad things happen, thus all persons should be compelled by law to buy education bills paying insurance.

So I asked Chuck, 

  • Why didn't you buy rent / mortgage bills insurance?
  • Why didn't you buy food bills insurance?
  • Why didn't you buy clothing bills insurance?
  • Why didn't you buy electrical energy bills insurance?
  • Why didn't you buy higher education, new skills acquisition bills insurance?



The irony is that Chucks fail to honor the social compact and fail at responsibility to themselves and to all others with whom you might have relationship, if any. Instead all Chucks advocate tyranny and violence, forcing and coercing others to behave and comport to their Dystopia vision, that in your vacuous, weak-intellect mind seems to be Utopia.

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