SAVING, SPENDING AND LEARNING BY HJS

HJS Comments: I was considering posting a brief study on something from the Middle East today, but my friend Rudy Gehm sent me a copy of his latest published article. Before I finished reading the article, I knew it had to go to Politico Mafioso; Rudy’s analyses are always just too good to pass up. We can all learn from this, but it is very obvious that some of us who should know, don't! Thus we are in deep trouble. Whenever Liberals point to Europe and say we need to be just like them in everything we do, please get the tar, feathers, and a sturdy rail! The USSR (another Liberal favorite) has failed and Europe has failed. We do not want to follow failed policies and failed systems. As the Gipper said about this new crisis, "Government is not the solution to our problem (as Obama indicates), Government IS the problem." hjs

Published in Daily News-Sun on 12-31-2011

SAVING, SPENDING AND LEARNING

There are two fundamental economic principles that must be embraced for the successful life of an individual, and for that of his governments, State and national:

• 1. One should not spend more than is earned
• 2. A portion of what is earned must be put aside…saved.
  
  
  
  These principles, however, have been increasingly violated over the past century, and most notably since the 1960’s, eventually to create more than 14 trillion in government debt, and more than $4 trillion in personal debt. Each marks a level of economic destruction, not growth.

 The question is….how do we restore a balance between what is earned and what is spent?


We must educate ourselves to realize that it is not in the interest of politicians to educate and govern a society that is not wholly dependent upon them for succor, therefore we must defy them, and return to the principles of self-reliance.

Principle #1 is simply common sense: if we spend more than we earn, we must borrow, or do without what we perceive to be necessary….and if we borrow we must return it, with interest. That is an additional cost that can, in most instances, be avoided. One of the best ways to do that is to avoid using the credit card. When they first appeared I recall an acquaintance opening his wallet to reveal at least a half-dozen; that sort of stupidity prevails today within the $4 Trillion of personal debt extant. Those “cards” too often encourage expenditures for products or services we don’t need, being simply the result of uncontrolled desire.

Principle #2. Both State and federal governments have practiced virtually the same errant philosophy. Only a few of the States have awakened recently to challenge the debt philosophy espoused by the vast majority of our population, emerging then from costly political struggles with positive balance sheets. How have they lost for such prudence? Federal policy has not been re-directed toward recovery, with trillions of more debt on the horizon.

Banks are sitting on trillions of dollars, as entrepreneurs fail to invest for the growth of their businesses, or to start new ones, because present government regulations, mandates and taxes stifle any possibility for growth. Yet, a truly uneducated general public fails to understand that government does not create productive jobs, producing only more debt.

But the free market economic philosophy does not seem to connect with the general public today; it is no longer taught in our public schools, where government, not the student family, controls the classrooms. We fail to understand that the Department of Education (government) directs what is taught, and what it reflects in the mirror best serves the federal government…to create a subservient and dependent population, rather than one imbued with the philosophy of freedom and self-reliance.

Freedom should be the governing principle for our social and economic philosophies; it is what our Constitution was all about; (Note, I use the past tense “was”). That document has been abused almost from its inception: political expediency overcame constitutional authority over the succeeding 200+ years: federal social and economic controls have served the political establishment rather than the public at large.

 There is a road back to the freedom philosophy: our citizens must take the initiative and re-direct our educational system into the free market, initially by closing the Department of Education, a fundamentally destructive force that threatens the survival of our society, for Its objective is subordination, a dissembling of the fundamental principles of our Constitution…..by controlling the minds of our young, and the future of our society.

Rudy Gehm
Sun City