Tag Archives: Goverment

The Government funds itself like a Loan Shark

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Loan Shark

I just read an interesting article about five million dollars in late fees that sums up why the government is largely nothing more than a mobbed-up loan shark, bleeding citizens for all their money. In Branson, Missouri, there are four customers who have an outstanding sewage bill of $19,000. With the late fee tacked on top of this, they now owe over five million dollars.

The government has no incentive to make you pay your bills, they want you to rack up fees. It’s not only for utilities, as in the story in question, but it’s driving the Student Loan Crisis. It’s the main reason law enforcement issues as many fines as possible. It’s rampant in private business as well. It largely caused the housing bubble crisis.

How a Loan Shark makes Money

It’s pretty easy to be a loan shark and the methodology isn’t difficult to understand. Basically, get someone to owe you money for whatever reason. Then allow them to pay in installments with an interest fee tacked on. Then simply let your client pay the minimum amount so that the principle never gets paid down.

This is called a predatory loan and the reason loan sharks used them is because government, banks, and established businesses, at one point, refused to loan to someone who could not eventually pay it back. Times have changed.

Envy of the Loan Shark

In modern times the government, in the form of utilities, city fees, penalties, traffic and parking violations, student loans, licensing, and anything else they can think of; uses the loan shark methodology. Why? Because it works.

Sure, a lot of your loans will never be repaid but that’s the cost of doing business and business is booming. Once you’ve bled your mark for more than the principle loaned it’s all gravy at that point. This is how government survives. Penalties, over-due fees, escalating and leading you to bankruptcy. At the end of it all, in the case of this article, they simple turn off your water, having collected far more than was owed. Win!

The Causes

The cause of all this is complicated to be sure but a big part of it is increasing government expenditures largely related to infrastructure and lowering of taxes as a political win. The government simply doesn’t have enough revenue from taxes to pay their bills. Government’s innovative solution was to become a loan shark. They might claim there is a surplus, as here in my home state of Missouri, but this is just an excuse to lower principle taxes for wealthy people, while sticking it to poor people with increased fees.

The Solution

Good luck, there isn’t a solution. Almost every level of government, local, state, and federal; is leveraged up to their ears in loans. Just keeping up with infrastructure maintenance takes up the entire yearly budget. It is never going to be able to pay back the principle. Government takes money from citizens to pay off their own masters, the banks.

Meanwhile, they create misery for an increasing percentage of the population that lives month to month. Is it any wonder people are angry? Their anger is, of course, completely misdirected. They want to blame the politicians on the other side of the aisle.

The job of government is to improve the lives of citizens. Our government has failed.

Tom Liberman

The Bleating of a Conservative about Taxes Funding Our Communities

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Taxes Funding Our Communities

The other day on Social Media one of my self-proclaimed Conservative friends posted a missive about taxes funding our communities. After I cleaned the vomit from my mouth, I decided to write an article about why this is utter insanity rather than berate said bleating Republican in a scathing reply.

You see, loyal readers, my social media friend can certainly call himself a Conservative but his attitude about taxes funding our communities shows his true colors as nothing more than an odious Republican who long ago gave up on all but the word Conservative.

The post in question was in regards to a mall that had long ago lost most of their stores through natural economic forces, a process I discuss in other blogs. The space was being used as a sporting venue for citizens to play games. My self-proclaimed Conservative friend wrote: It is a frequent re-purpose but sad for the economy. The drop in property value, lower property taxes, and less sales taxes to fund our communities.

The mere idea that it should be taxes funding our communities, let alone the delusion they are actually funding our communities is the worst sort of liberalism. Taxes do not fund our communities. They are collected by the government in order to provide services for the citizens. The community funds the government not the other way around.

Government does not build the roads. Roads, pipes, electric lines, green spaces, security, and fire protection is built because of our needs. Yes, the government uses funds collected through taxes to pay construction companies, police officers, and others but that is not funding our communities that is merely streamlining from a central point.

Let me illustrate with the example of the original social media post. My self-proclaimed conservative friend laments the loss of tax revenue from giant malls that no one has an interest in going to anymore. Doesn’t that say it all. Darn it, I can’t steal your money to prop up a business endeavor no one wants while paying myself a hefty salary to do so. Why should we pay taxes for utilities, roads, parking lots, emergency services, and a myriad of other things that go to a place no one uses anymore? Hint, we shouldn’t.

That’s the misguided role of government in a declining nation. To prop itself up with money stolen from citizens for things they don’t even want and certainly don’t need.

We want roads that go places useful to us. When a sales tax isn’t collected because no one is going to the store, that’s not a bad thing. That’s not a loss to the community. It’s a natural economic impact and the idea government is responsible for that store in the first place is misguided at the least. We were responsible for the store’s existence and now we don’t need it anymore. Good riddance.

It’s ass-backwards what my so-called Conservative friend advocates. It is not taxes funding our communities. It is our communities funding government and we should only fund what we need, not its bloated and endlessly empty belly.

Tom Liberman

The Unwanted Shake Shack Government Loan

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Shake Shack Government Loan

What does it tell you a Shake Shack Government Loan was returned? For a lot of people, it’s a gesture of goodwill by Shake Shack to the other small businesses that need the money more. That’s not the way this anti-government Libertarian sees it. The Shake Shack Government Loan was simply a way to make the company obligated to the government, the owners didn’t seek it, didn’t want it, didn’t ask for it, but got it anyway. Forcing them to return it.

I’m proud to say the Shake Shack founder is St. Louis hometown hero Danny Meyer. Yet another illustrious graduate of John Burroughs, a fine school my lack of academic prowess disqualified me from attending. That is not the point of today’s article.

Why would anyone get a loan they didn’t want or need? That’s a question you must ask yourself. Why would any entity be given a check they didn’t ask to receive? One of the main reasons is the United States Government is big on giving out loans, our entire financial system is largely based on giving out taxpayer money as loans, this money generally having to be repaid with interest that goes to friends of politicians.

The government is certainly using Covid-19 as an excuse to further entangle the interests of its patrons into every aspect of citizens life. This unwanted intrusion didn’t start with Covid-19. President Trump created a Welfarm State with ridiculous tariffs, the Post Office was intentionally bankrupted, the Airline Industry has been a government subsidy since its inception and resulted in the planned destruction of the highly successful passenger rail system, the entire horse meat industry was destroyed. This is how government operates in a Republic.

In a Republic there are limits to what government officials can do. There are Checks and Balances. This being the case, government officials must wile their insidious evil in different ways. One of the ways they do this is to make people and businesses their unwitting partners. The government is happy to loan you money, purchase your products at inflated prices, because they then become a partner in your enterprise. You owe them.

The Shake Shack government loan is just another in a long line of takeover attempts that have reduced the United States to a system of Crony Capitalism. At least Shake Shack saw through the subterfuge although many others do not.

We no longer have a capitalistic system here in the United States and I suspect we won’t have a Republic for much longer either.

Tom Liberman

United States Government now a Sopranos Associate

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Sopranos Associate

With this latest, and unstoppable, economic bailout the United States now officially declares itself a Sopranos Associate. The government currently owes $22 trillion and, with the stimulus package in the works, that number is going to rise more rapidly that in any time in the history of the country. What you have to understand is that this is borrowed money on which interest is paid by taxpayers.

In the criminal world this is called Loan Sharking which was one of the main methods in which a Sopranos Associate made money, off which they pay a percentage to Tony Soprano and the rest of his criminal organization. In government, they call this debt service but it’s the same thing.

The United States borrows money from bankers and wealthy people, largely Chinese and Saudi Arabians, who purchase Treasury Bonds and then pay interest on this loan with the intent of eventually paying the principle amount back. As any good Sopranos Associate knows, you don’t ask for all the money back at once, you bleed them slowly with what is called vigorish, or vig, in the criminal world but interest in the banking world.

I wrote about how the Post Office of the United States was deliberately driven into bankruptcy in order to take out loans so taxpayer money could be used for the vig to bankers. This is essentially what has happened to the entire United States government and we the taxpayers are paying the bill for the degenerate gambling politicians who, it must be admitted, we elected in the first place.

I’ve said for many years now that there is no chance the principle amount of the loan will be paid off and the entire debt is largely a way to redistribute taxpayer money to friends of politicians. If you are unwilling to admit this reality now, well, I suppose I’ll never convince you and just stop reading.

The saddest part about all of this is that we are the ones getting run over by the $60K Lexus but it is our elected officials who borrowed all the damn money. We didn’t even get to do any gambling and that Sopranos Associate, the United States government, is having all the fun.

The end of the story? World governments go bankrupt and forgive all the debt. In the meantime, your money is going to a Loan Sharking Sopranos Associate who is buying vacation homes, renting yachts for family vacations, and generally doing all the things with your money that you should be doing yourself.

Tom Liberman

Colonial Injustice and the Border Wall

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Colonial Injustice

I just read an interesting article about how President Trump is diverting a large amount of money from various military projects in Guam in order to build the Border Wall and how it illustrates Colonial Injustice.

In the article the spokesperson for Prutehi Litekyan: Save Ritidian expresses the following sentiment: Our organization is conflicted about the means in which the pause was achieved because these are two instances of colonial injustice, one impacting the other. Let me explain.

The United States is in the process of moving about 5,000 Marines from the island of Okinawa in Japan to Guam. The reason they are doing this is because the Marines and everything required to support them is causing a great deal of congestion on the island. The cost of the move is over $8 billion dollars which includes building all sorts of support infrastructure on Guam including a well, a live-fire training range, and a munitions storage facility.

How is all of this related to Colonial Injustice? It’s a bit complex but basically there are people both in Japan and Guam who have no desire to host a large group of Marines along with their attendant requirements. Now, to be fair, there are also people from those nations who eagerly embrace the U.S. Military presence because of the tax dollars that come with it. That enormous amount of money buys us foreign support but also creates a great deal of resentment.

Imagine the government of France decided to put a huge military base in St. Louis, Missouri. There would be those who would welcome the influx of money but others who would not appreciate the presence of a foreign power’s military arm on their land. The soldiers so housed would certainly commit some crimes as has happened in Okinawa and Guam.

This is part and parcel of Colonial Injustice. We use our money to house our military in foreign lands against the will of some of the people of those nations. We essentially bribe our way into their country.

Some of the people in Guam, the group aforementioned specifically, is unhappy their nation is being further occupied by U.S. troops and their land is being taken for the facilities to house and train the Marines. Again, to be fair, the government of Guam is more than happy to take our money and not everyone is opposed to the expansion. Still, I think it’s reasonable to call how we base our soldiers all over the world against the wishes of at least some of the people of those nations Colonial Injustice.

Prutehi Litekyan: Save Ritidian doesn’t want the United States in Guam and they are happy the money for the project is being diverted and delaying the move. They delay means the Marines will reside on Okinawa for longer than was planned. Thus, the conflict of emotions for the group because they empathize with the people of Japan who don’t want the Marines there anymore.

The United States has become a colonial power committing injustices in foreign lands on a scale almost beyond imagination. This engenders a great deal of resentment in the populations of those countries but serves us by extending our military capabilities.

I’m not saying there are easy answers here, but I absolutely think we have far too many foreign bases and, in the long run, the activities associated with being a colonial power do not serve our interests.

Tom Liberman

Big Government Liberal Josh Hawley at it Again

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Big Government

Once again big government liberals, Republicans that is, are proposing intrusive laws into an industry they barely understand. Senator Josh Hawley from my beloved home state of Missouri wants the federal government to tell Facebook how to arrange their page and limit you to thirty minutes of time on Facebook a day. Yay, saved by big government liberals again.

Hawley thinks endless scrolling and auto-playing advertisements play upon human addiction patterns and must be controlled by the government. His new bill in Congress goes so far as to force Facebook to inform you every thirty minutes that you’ve been on their site with a conspicuous pop-up, yes, I know, the bill rails against pop-ups but wants to enforce itself with pop-ups. Even if you specifically allow Facebook not to ban you after you’ve been on for more than thirty minutes, you’ll still get reminded about it if this law is passed.

Here is the reality about big government liberals. They are rampant in both the Republican and Democratic party and their goal is largely to legislate their perceived enemy out of business. Would you stand by if there was a law proposed about how many cigarettes you could smoke? How much alcohol you could drink in the privacy of your home? Why aren’t Hawley and his big government cohorts on board with sugary drink bans that play upon human addictions? Because the sugary drink companies aren’t in his crosshairs.

This is the problem with big government. It uses its power to attack perceived enemies rather than governing. This is why Libertarians rail against such, regardless of the good intentions espoused by the legislative branch. The more power we give government to control our personal lives, the more they will use it to hurt their foes, it matters not that they are Republicans or Democrats. There is only one party that largely wants to leave you to your own devices.

Libertarians trust you to spend as much time on Facebook as you want. They trust you to smoke as many cigarettes as you want, to drink as much alcohol and soda as you want, to purchase as many loot boxes in video games as you want; even if doing so is unhealthy or unwise. It’s your money, it’s your life, it’s your time; not mine. I absolutely do not know better how you should you lead your life than you do yourself. That’s the mantra we should all embrace. That’s the kind of women and men we should elect to avoid big government liberals of all political stripes taking away our freedom.

Cling to your big government party all you want, that’s your business, but don’t come crying to me when it’s your freedom they decide to take.

Tom Liberman

Twenty-One to Purchase E-Cigarettes or Tobacco Products

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E-Cigarettes

Senators Mitch McConnell and Tim Kaine are co-sponsoring a bill to increase the federally mandated age for people to purchase tobacco products and e-cigarettes to 21. It has bi-partisan support and is being done to protect the children so I expect it will pass. You’ll not be surprised to find I oppose such legislation.

I could talk about how e-cigarettes are not even a tobacco product by nature or how the federal age to purchase is already 18, the age at which we become legally adults. Instead I want to focus on the idea the federal government should have no control at all over what we voluntarily put into our bodies.

I can hear you now: but, Tom, it’s to protect the poor, innocent children. The federal government must save them from the terrible scourge of tobacco. They are too young to make a decision for themselves. They will ruin their lives if the federal government doesn’t step in to save them. You can’t be against saving children? Do you want children to die? Are you a cruel, heartless, child-murdering monster?

No, I’m a Libertarian. The Constitution of the United States grants the government certain powers and they do not have any outside those as decided by the courts. The Constitution is also quite clear about who has these rights. The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution declares explicitly that powers not delegated to it are for the States and the people to decide. Whether or not your child buys an e-cigarette or any form of tobacco is up to you to decide.

It seems so simple to me. If community wants to prevent a store from selling such products to people under 21, the local politicians can pass an ordinance to that effect. If they do so and the people are unhappy with that decision, they can make their opinions known in the next local election. If the state makes such a law then the municipality can counter it with a law allowing such merchants to sell e-cigarettes and tobacco products within the jurisdiction of their city.

There are specific limits to the Constitution of the United States and if the federal government is not granted the ability to pass a law in certain regards, then it falls to the States and to the people. It seems obvious to me that the entity closest in relation to the effect of the law should have precedent. This gives the greatest control to the people, where the framers largely wanted it.

Frankly, there should be no such law at all. If someone wants to purchase e-cigarettes or tobacco products it should be up to the local merchant if they want to sell them or not. If the people in a town don’t like it, their representatives can pass a law.

Another important thing to remember is that a ban on a particular product doesn’t generally have the effect of preventing people from purchasing it; it just creates a black market. Let’s imagine the federal law passes. Does anyone imagine there won’t instantly spring up a black market for 19 to 21-year-olds to purchase as many e-cigarettes or tobacco products as they want?

The only thing the law does is give power to the federal government over aspects of our lives they should not have. If we allow the federal government to tell a legal adult of 20 they can’t purchase an e-cigarette, and the state and local community has no right to override such a rule, then what power are we not granting it?

Tom Liberman

What do Unused Water Bottles in Puerto Rico say to You?

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Water BottlesThere’s been an interesting image of a large number of water bottles sitting on a runway in Puerto Rico circulating throughout the news and my social media feeds. It shows tens of thousands or perhaps millions of water bottles sitting on a runway apparently unwanted and unused. What conclusions have you drawn from this event? I’m going to tell you what conclusions I originally drew and then what I found out when I investigated the issue.

Government waste of my tax dollars. Some stupid government agency either ordered way too many water bottles, didn’t arrange for transport of the bottles to needy citizens of Puerto Rico, or simply forgot about them and left them on the runway. Then I did some research. In my original guess as to what happened I thought it was one of three stupid things; surprise, it was all three.

FEMA purchased, loaded, shipped, and unloaded far too many water bottles. The water bottles on the runway were not needed. FEMA didn’t release the water bottles to the government of Puerto Rico until they had been sitting in the open, exposed to the elements, for months. FEMA didn’t make any arrangements to distribute the water. Finally, someone noticed the water and contacted FEMA, who released them to the government of Puerto Rico, who then began to distribute them but found the water was fouled by its exposure. So, there it sits. Now someone has to clean it all up, again, using tax dollars.

Yay! Government hard at work as usual. Is it any wonder the disaster relief in Puerto Rico and other places has been less than stellar in its execution? I’m not saying disaster relief is an easy thing to do. There are many moving parts and a huge amount of coordination is required. We need professionals in charge of this sort of thing, not people who raised a lot of campaign dollars and want a nice salary. People suffer because of failed government and my tax dollars are given to bottled water companies for no good purpose. At least those businesses are happy.

My final question is to you. What did you assume when you read the story about those water bottles? Something different? Don’t lie.

Tom Liberman

Allison Mack and the Multi-Level Marketing Sex Traffickers

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Allison MackA relatively famous actor named Allison Mack has been charged with sex trafficking for recruiting women to join a multi-level marketing company called NXIVM and an associated group called DOS. What is interesting about all of this is the supposed crimes were committed largely against eager and willing victims.

When it comes to the idea of human trafficking, the United States is currently in the midst of a Moral Panic. Supposedly 15,000 people are so trafficked every year but there is almost no actual evidence to support this number. That hasn’t stopped the government and a large number of well-meaning but largely self-deluded citizens from passing useless laws and spending hundreds of millions of dollars to combat the largely non-existent problem.

That’s where Mack and a fellow named Keith Raniere get involved. Raniere is a despicable fellow. He runs a multi-level marketing company called NXIVM which is slightly different than others of its kind. Instead of simply bilking people of their money with barely legal promises, he also uses the company to convince women to serve as his sexual slaves. Under his charismatic control they allowed themselves to be branded with his initials in their pubic regions. Mack served as leader of a subsidiary organization that recruited women to serve sexually. DOS stands for dominus obsequious sororium which is Latin for master over the slave women.

There are allegations that Mack and Raniere used blackmail to keep women in NXIVM and this is against the law. The fact that women joined a group and served as sex slaves is not, much as many would like it to be, a crime. Legally competent adults should be able to choose what they want to do with their lives, even if sexual perversions are involved. Where there are charges of coercion and blackmail, they should be investigated.

If Mack was involved with blackmail she should be so charged. The problem here is we are using laws created to stop a non-existent problem to prosecute people for a particular activity we find distasteful. Something that should never have been illegal in the first place. This is a microcosm of the entire War on Drugs and also the needless traffic crimes which result in the theft of billions of dollars from citizens.

I think it is telling when the government went to Mexico to arrest Raniere, the woman at his compound hopped into their cars and chased the police all the way to the airport trying to rescue him. They are clearly not victims here. Certainly, they are dupes and fools but they are participating in something and they eagerly want to continue to do so. The government should not be trying to prevent us from doing that which we desire, even if it isn’t in our best self-interest. That is our job.

Raniere is scum. Mack is as well. But unless they drug an unwilling victim and keep them imprisoned either physically or through blackmail, they haven’t committed a crime. I know the headlines are shrieking human trafficking but that’s not what happened.

As much as my stomach is turned by the behavior of Raniere and Mack, their freedom is my freedom. If they can be arrested for convincing someone to be a sex slave can I be arrested for convincing someone to purchase my books because the government might not like their content? It’s not as big a stretch as you might imagine.

We must guard not only our freedom, but those who we dislike as well, particularly those whose behavior is most disturbing.

Tom Liberman