Wednesday 20 April 2011

How yuan much are you worth?

The news media has ignored an obvious story for a long time that Possible Presidential candidate Donal Trump has been attempting to highlight these last few weeks. China is subverting our economic stability and profiting from it. It's very obvious that there intentions are to cause the financial destruction of the US economic machine. The only thing one has to do to see this is follow the money. Too easy.

Go to your local super store and look st buying something you want or need. Let's say it a TV or a new cellphone or even something simple like cleaning brush for your dishes. Now look for the "Made in" mark. 9 times out of 10 it will say "Made in China". Now look for a competing product that was made domestically. Either it is impossible to find or very difficult to find. Even if you do find something it will cost you more than the equivalent Chinese made product. These facts typically result in Domestic consumers buying foreign made products. This is only the first step on the money trail.

That money you paid for that product can be broken down to several different components. Labor makes up the bulk of the cost of any product. Following that is materials and expense of bringing the product to market. All of those things are of course taxed by the Chinese government at both the central and local levels. So a lot of your money that you made by working for a company here in the US goes right to the Chinese Government. What dose the central government do with this revenue? It loans it to foreign governments in order to prop up there economy.

So basically China is slowly buying us out and our government is letting them, in fact they welcome the opportunity cause they can get low interest loans worth trillions of Dollars. Why would they do that? This is a very interesting question in fact. I suspect the reason for this is that large corporations and very wealthy individuals are also profiting from this chain of events. When Republicans are in office they yell Trickle down economics, Give tax breaks to the rich. This is basically giving people with the most money more money for free and it's tax payer money that not only has been laundered but has also had a good bit of interest attached to it via the Chinese Government. "But what about the left surely they wouldn't do this?" Not true my friends. The left dose it with entitlement programs. "But those programs are made to help the poorer people." It only seems that way. Take for example medicare and medicaid. These two programs are to give people who cannot afford it healthcare at a reduced or no cost. Well the government is giving someone those dollars, right. Health care is a very expansive proposition in our country. In fact health care int the US Cost more per capita than in any other modernized nation. We pay per capita$7,290 in comparison with the closest country Australia at 5,910. Who gets that money. Large corporations that run huge hospital networks. The Physicians don't make as much as you think. They have to carry very expensive malpractice insurance. So there are large insurance companies make billions of dollars. All of that expanse is passed directly to the government for each and every patient covered by these entitlement programs. Don't worry China is in the loop here too. They make a large portion of the medical supplies used by the healthcare system.

China is destroying our economy and anyone who can do anything about is not going to because they are profiting too much to screw with the system.

Sunday 17 April 2011

The Debt Ceiling to raise or not to raise?

Recently the national political news has been debating this question to some extent. I understand that there are several differing opinions on the matter. One being that the government must continue to barrow money in order to run as it currently exist. Another, that the government must be fiscally responsible and not spend more than its revenue.

The news recently came to light that Obama in 2006 voted against raising the debt limit while Bush was in office. This was simply a political vote for him at the time as the conventional wisdom in Washington is that no matter who is in power that the debt ceiling will be raised regardless. This also makes sense as well, because who would voluntarily limit the amount of money they have to spend? The debate really isn't about the debt limit itself. The republican held House is simply using this as a political tool in order implement policy that is inline with there ideology.

I suspect that the debt limit will be raised but with some policy riders the Republicans desire to have. It will likely have something to do with funding of Planned Parenthood and some other miscellaneous social programs that conservatives don't agree with. So in the end the debate will be really about "what are we gonna get if you get to continue to spend money without regard to responsible fiscal policy?".

I have a novel idea how about we don't raise the Debt Ceiling because it's the responsible thing to do. I personally don't agree with a lot of the Right has to say nor do I the Left. Both parties have lost touch with reality and are perusing there own ends according to what they think is right. The reality is that I don't empty my checking account buying eye candy and when out of cash max out my credit cards and then apply for new ones each month. I have to use the money I work for in a responsible way or I begin to suffer negative impacts.

Currently the Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner says that the borrowed money will be spent by May 16th. Okay so here is a question. What happened to the $800 billion we gave to big corporations during the bailout? Dot the tax payers get that money back? It wasn't the governments money to give away, it never is. Will that money help give the government a buffer to restructure it's spending habits?

Here is the bottom line, from the current look of thing nothing has really changed. Both sides are still operating under the same old tired ideals. The Democrats desire to tax the rich and spend it on failed programs that are supposed to help the poor and disenfranchised.  The Republicans wish to shrink and remove government regulation the hinders large corporations from making more money. I say choose the hard and difficult thing. Don't apply for another credit card cause it's only coming back to bite us, the people who actually pay the bills around here.