The chatter on the net is that the federal government is running out of buyers for treasuries. The traditional buyers like China, England and Japan are either unable or unwilling to buy US treasury bonds. That leaves Timothy very short of buyers. Something must be done. There must be a piggy bank somewhere that can be raided. Sure enough, two new piggy banks have been identified and will most likely be raided. The first is the cash that resides in money market funds. The second is the cash that resides in retirement accounts, IRAs or otherwise. The idea would be that our legislature would pass a law requiring that in order for a retirement fund to qualify for deferred taxes, i.e. IRAs, a certain percentage of the fund must be invested in federal treasury bonds. A similar requirement would be placed on money market fund deposits. The beauty of this would be that the person with investments in money market funds or in a retirement account would not “feel” the affect. It would not be perceived as a new tax and the government would get to use the money to prop up the general coffers. Great idea huh? In effect this would make at least a portion of your retirement fund operate like social security. You would only be able to draw an annuity from your fund. At the moment you can withdraw any amount you want after your retire. That would end. This has already happened in the United Kingdom.
There is one little problem with this. Once the government spends the money in all the retirement funds what piggy bank will they raid next? It is estimated that there are only $15 trillion dollars in all the retirement funds combined and with the anticipated Obama budget shortfall of around $2 trillion a year, the entire collection of retirement funds would be exhausted in about 7 years. I’m sure that by then he will have the “paygo” system working like a finely tuned watch. But, in my opinion, it is just one more way to “pretend and extend” the fantasy economy that we currently enjoy.
I read an article today that made the brazen claim that only 15% of the population is directly employed by a government agency. Of course, that is a deceptive statement and hides reality. What needs to be considered is what percentage of the people who receive a regular income get that income directly from a government agency? When the question is asked this way, you get a very different picture. One of my business associates told me back in 1980 that at that time, 50% of the people who receive a regular income work directly for a government agency. I did not believe him. I got an almanac and checked it out for myself. Sure enough, as long ago as 1980, 30 years back, 50% did receive their incomes directly from a government agency. Today the percentage is much higher and, if you include all the indirect ways that governments pay people, I would be inclined to guess that only about 15% receive incomes from something other than a government agency. Every time the navy orders a ship, that generates jobs at the ship yard But, it also generates jobs at steel mills, railroads, iron ore mines, goal mines, electrical power generating facilities, restaurants, grocery stores, truckers, farms, fertilizer factories, highway construction crews, hospitals, etc. None of those jobs would be required if the ship was never ordered. This is one of the reasons why Obama et. al. believe that the government can create jobs.
We are in fact a socialist country, like it or not. But, if the government does not stop acquiring the wheels of industry I will have to call it something different. With controlling interest in big banks and the automotive industry along with the fact that the federal government and its quasi federal agencies like FHA, Freddy Mac and Fanny May and the fact that they have what seems like a burning desire to take control of more like health care, we are sneaking up on becoming a fascist government. But, that is political and I can’t go there.
I do not know how old the oldest book is. But, if we take the oldest history books and read them, we find that somewhere in the very first chapters that human kind has been fighting wars for as long as anyone can remember or record. So, is war a fundamental part of the very nature of humankind? If so then, it would be impossible to find any culture that is or was not war like as a fundamental part of their culture. Right? I mean cats are predators. Predation is a fundamental part of their nature. We simply do not expect to find a cat species somewhere on earth that is a docile vegetarian. Right? So, what if we can show that at one time humans were not war like? If we can show that to be true then we would be forced to drop the notion that humans are by their very nature war like.
Then I discovered the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture.
These were people who lived in Romania and the Ukraine from 5500 BC until 2750 BC. That is a period of nearly 3,000 years and the reason that this is important is because,
“Many tools, weights, and accessories have been found at the Cucuteni-Trypillian sites. Among these artifacts are clubs, harpoons, spear and arrow points for use in hunting and fishing, made from an assortment of materials, including stone, bone, antler, wood, leather, clay, sinew, straw, and cloth. Towards the end of this culture’s existence, a number of copper weapons and tools began to appear. However, there has been only a very few weapons found that were designed for defense against human enemies. The implications of this seem to lead to the conclusion that the inhabitants of this culture lived with very little threat from possible enemy attack for almost 3000 years.” — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucuteni-Trypillian_culture
So, let me see. Here we have people who managed to live together in villages of as many as 15,000 people for 3,000 years and there is no evidence that they were killing each other in wars! Wow! Does this mean that the basic nature of man is really not war like? If so, does that mean that there is something about human cultures that makes people war like? Does that mean that if we could figure it out then we could redesign human cultures to be “nice to each other”? It is something to think about.
I’ll bet the progressives are already working on it. It would be a feat of social engineering that they would just love to tackle. I mean this would be really big. Taming humans so we could have “peace in our time” is such a big notion that it might inspire Hillary to really go for it and run for the presidency as soon as Obama vacates the position.
But, that is politics again and I should not go there.
I have noticed that in the last couple of weeks there has been more than one article proclaiming that “peak oil” is eminent if not here already. Sir Richard Branson is the latest to make the proclamation. For some reason, when he says it, people find it easier to believe. The question I would put to folks is simply this, “What does the arrival of peak oil mean to the man on the street”? The answers that you are likely to get for this question are going to be very dependent on the respondents world view. I would not pretend to tell people how to respond to peak oil. Responses are wide ranging.
Some 6 day creationists have an apocalyptic world view and simply shrug the notion of peak oil or anything else that might take place say 10 years from now as not worth thinking about because the world will end before then and no one will actually have to deal with it.
There are those who are absolutely convinced that technology will come to our rescue. They take the position that humans are really smart, technology is capable of almost anything and in fact will provide us with a fantastic future. Peak oil? Who cares? We will have fusion reactors to save the day. Why, they almost have one working now.
Then there are the pragmatic business school graduates with MBAs who assure us that if the price of oil rises too high then there will be an alternative to take its place such as bio-fuels or wind. But, we are not to worry because the world is not going to run out of energy. I mean we have the tar sands in Canada, deep sea oil, arctic oil, methane hydrates along the continental shelves, shale oil in the Rocky Mountains, etc. Each of these is capable of meeting all of our energy needs. Energy is setting right here in our back yard and all we have to do is go after it.
Then we have a group who do not believe the Apocalypse will happen any time soon. They also believe that fusion reactors are the energy of the future and “always will be” and that at some point, it will take more than one barrel of oil to extract one barrel of oil from the deep sea, or anywhere else. When that happens its game over. This group does not believe that there is a “solution” to peak oil and they further believe that man, being war like in nature, will drop civilization in a heartbeat. Anarchy will rule the day. Their advice is to buy lots of guns and ammo.
But, there are those who think it is a lot of hooey and probably a conspiracy between the big oil companies as a way to justify charging more for oil. It is nothing more than big corporate greed!
I don’t know. I have my eye on a couple of acres of bottom land with a double wide on it and I am looking forward to raising chickens and planting a big garden.
Regards
