Stop Pulling the Wagon

Typical Workplace Entry Level Job

LOOKING BEYOND THE “GOOD INTENTIONS”

Like most folks I want everyone willing to work to make as much money as possible.

I am always suspicious of Government efforts to “fix” perceived problems with “Feel Good” Legislation which is often just a way for Congress to “buy” votes.

If the Government mandates a $15 hour minimum wage, who are the Winners and the Losers?

While some workers who currently make less than that will get a boost in pay,  other workers will lose jobs which will be replaced by automation or simply eliminated because the job they were doing is not viable at $15 an hour.  

A mandated $15 an hour minimum wage would not allow me to accept less than $15 an hour even if I want to.    What about the freedom to work out a compensation plan with a prospective “employer” that is mutually acceptable?  What about working for less than $15 an hour to help a friend in a struggling “start-up” business?  What about apprenticeships? 

I believe that there is value in having entry level jobs where workers can learn the discipline and basics of creating value in the marketplace through their efforts while they develop skills and habits to increase their value to those who pay their wages.  It is fair to say that many entry level employees are getting paid while getting an education in the “real” world of work – sort of “cheap” College. 

If you require employers to pay wages that can’t be compensated for in the price of the goods and services they are selling, those jobs will be eliminated by either automation or bankruptcy of the place of business.  It is what it is.

Minimum wage jobs were never meant to be career jobs frozen at minimum wage which cannot adequately support a family.  Think of them more as “training for better things” positions or supplemental jobs.  Often these jobs are filled by students or others looking for extra spending money or to subsidize special purchases.  

Question?  If $15 an hour is good, would $25 an hour be even better?  Why not $50 an hour?  Or $100 an hour? 

Whatever the hourly rate is the money to pay it has to come from somewhere.  Some would say to take the higher wages out of the greedy employers profits.  That may sound good till you realize that without profits the so-called “greedy” employers have no incentive to put up with the grief and headaches of being in business.  At some point the cost of automation starts looking pretty attractive to those who are actually paying “salaries”.  Robots don’t call in sick on critical days.  They don’t come in late to work because the dog hid the car keys,  they don’t …… fill in the blank. 

In my life I learned that if I wanted more income, I needed to make my efforts worth more to either my employer or my customer.  Discipline, education, effort.

If enacted into law, a $15 an hour minimum wage will benefit some number of current minimum wage employees who will see a boost in pay but the real beneficiary of a higher minimum wage is Government.  A higher minimum wage means Government gets to skim more off the top of larger payments confiscated from both employees and the employers and funneled into the Social Security Ponzi Scheme.  

There will also be losers due to the inflationary pressures from higher labor costs: 

• Folks on fixed income (like the elderly and disabled).
• Those whose jobs would be eliminated (students, entry level workers etc.).
• Many who are currently in “apprenticeship” positions.
• Many employees for marginally profitable to non-profit businesses.

For more about Government and the Social Security Ponzi Scheme just type Ponzi Scheme into the Search window on the left side of  the Home page and hit enter on your keyboard.  It will take you to an article I wrote back in March of 2018 about what the thieves in Congress did with “your” Social Security “Trust Fund” dollars.

You can agree or disagree but I offer this as food for thought.

Bob Bandy

May 2019

THE NEW MILLENNIAL GENERATION

Forgive me – This is a bit long but too important to shorten.

Young “Millennial’s” are widely reported to be fearful of their financial futures and blame the current and previous generations for the fiscal mess they are inheriting.  

They have a valid point.

Following the “Great Depression” and starting with the “New Deal”,  America has been on a spending spree, much of that on “borrowed from the future” money.  A sort of national credit card with no spending limit.  Some of it was caused by wars but most of it was greatly aggravated by a combination of the collateral costs of the Vietnam War and introduction of the “War on Poverty and The Great Society” in the 1960’s with its ever expanding  beaurocracy and growth of Government Social Programs  – aka – Big Daddy. 

In just the period between 2008-2016 our Government doubled the National Debt mostly through expenditures on Social Programs.

Our Government is now 22+ Trillion Dollars in debt with no way to pay for it except prohibitive taxation or through inflation, and if continued, hyper-inflation.  Government even pays the interest on the debt with more borrowed money.  Like paying your Visa Card with your Mastercard.

Fiscal discipline was thrown to the wind as Congress spent borrowed dollars to buy votes for election and re-election.  Modern day “Robber Baron’s”.

Over the last 50 years Government at all levels has become a sort of undisciplined, poorly managed, authoritarian, dis-organized criminal enterprise unable to manage any kind of reasonable budget. Taxing everything at every level and still unable to pay its own way.

Example: College Student loans were at one time made by local banks to students, usually with a parental guarantee of payment.  During the Obama Administration the Federal Government took over the Student Loan Program with Government funds and Government guarantees on a virtually unlimited basis.  

Colleges took advantage of this by raising costs.  The Government made these “New” Student loans “Secure” by demanding, in some cases, a near lifetime of payments and the condition that the loans cannot be discharged in Bankruptcy.  

Colleges and Administrators got rich and graduating students, (and in many cases “drop-out” students), found themselves poor with a mountain of debt and degrees in fields for which there are often no waiting jobs.  

Many of these young students would have been much better served with an  apprenticeship in such things as auto mechanics, building trades, Plumbers, Electricians, Carpenters etc., as well as “on the job” Business Management training for which there is a real world need at attractive wages.

In the process, taxpayers find themselves “on the hook” for 1 1/2 Trillion dollars in taxpayer money transferred to the nations colleges via student loans.

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“College debt is crushing an entire generation. Colleges are richer than ever. It’s a scam. Student loans are the biggest source of personal debt in the U.S..  Student debt crisis is impacting young American’s ability to thrive, purchase homes.”  …..Tucker Carlson Tweet and video –  5:35 PM – 19 Mar 2019

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College’s get rich  and too many students graduate to find there is no way to pay their loans and live in hyper-inflated housing looking for jobs that don’t pay enough for loan payments, housing and inflated living costs, so they end up “back home” angry and frustrated while College Administrators  are sipping Mai Tai’s at expensive resorts on bloated salaries which are paid for by Government Guaranteed Student Loans.

I don’t blame the Millennial’s for being very, very angry and feeling betrayed. 

Can this financial crisis be “fixed”? 

Some running for office are calling for College debt “forgiveness” which is just another word for Bankruptcy.  If Government does this what do we say to all those who worked hard and paid their own way through College?  What do we say to those who committed several years of their life to Military Service with the promise of College Tuition money?  What do we do about those who exhausted Unemployment Compensation and became “College Students” so the loan program would provide them with an income till they could find a job?  And, what do you say to those who have paid off their Student Loan debt?

Can this financial “mess” that our Government created and the Millennial’s are inheriting be fixed?   

I fear Government “Solutions”.  Government Solutions invariably lead to large expenditures of more deficit spending with the end result of making things worse. 

A day of accounting is inevitable and may be upon this generation. 

Would I be being too cynical to suggest that the Government intentionally created the Student Loan Program as a pipeline to channel too much money to  too many Colleges with too many Professors whose main agenda is teaching too many heavily indebted, now angry voters to hate America as it was founded and exists today?  

Bob Bandy 

April 2019

Rule#3 – Increase debt to unsustainable levels. This will allow Government to increase taxes, produce more poverty and further control the people.   Saul Alinsky – How to Create a Socialist State – Rules 4 Radicals

CONGRESSWOMAN ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ

I have secret inside information from unnamed sources that Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is in reality a covert Republican operative  masquerading as a Progressive Democrat. 

I trust this information because it is from the same unnamed sources so often quoted by the New York Times, Washington Post, MSNBC and CNN in their coverage of the Trump Collusion Investigation.  How can you be more credible than that?

We should all do whatever we can to keep from “blowing” the Congresswoman’s cover story about being a Progressive Democrat.

As part of this long range, carefully crafted operation, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez is reported to have graduated “with Honors” and a degree in Economics from Boston College.  A very clever cover with no doubt a realistic looking diploma hanging on a wall somewhere.

Lets look at the facts.  

• It is reported that Boston College charges students $70,000 a year tuition.  Even without a degree in Economics I believe that totals $280,000 for a four year degree. 
• No one with a degree in Economics who graduated “with Honors” from Boston College could really be as mathematically ignorant as she appears (pretends?) to be.  Could they? 
• Common sense tells us that a  real economics student would not expend that amount of effort and money  to graduate from a “respected” college and lack the ability to do simple math.  

Logically, the college degree ruse is just a cleverly orchestrated cover to provide her with the “credentials” to be a voice for the “Green New Deal” hoax.

To believe otherwise we would have to conclude that  Boston College is just a “Degree Mill” in business only to make money for overpaid Professors whose real mission is indoctrinating students with a “Progressive Liberal” agenda.

I have to surmise that the Congresswoman’s wide eyed,  “pretend to be a moron” act is just part of her clever cover story and that as a covert Republican operative she is working on a plan to  destroy not only the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party but, in the process she plans to cause Nancy Pelosi to lose her tenuous grasp on whatever remaining shreds of reality she clings to.

Let’s all support Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez!  We want to help her get as much support from her colleagues as she can.  

But…… Don’t tell anyone.  Let’s just keep this little secret to ourselves.

Bob Bandy

Rule #6   …….Control what children are taught in school.  Emphasize Progressive ideals only. (Saul Alinsky – Rules 4 Radicals).

Captain Jean-Luc Picard/Locutus Borg

Being old enough to remember  “Star Trek – The Next Generation” series I am finding similarities between the “New” Progressive Political movement and the Borg ‘Collective’.

The Borg were major players in some Twenty One episodes total but I remember them first in Season Two – Episode 16 – titled: “Q Who?”  

The Borg are “beings” with both Organic and Cybernetic Implants that function as a “One Mind Collective” of Drones who are incapable of independent thought and function more as a single purpose “Hive” controlled by one central entity.

Hmmmm.  

Just the other day I heard Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi inform Democratic members of the “House” that they were to vote as a “Team” and voting with the Republicans was not allowed.  

Later, Democratic Freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told fellow Democrats that any of them caught voting with the Republicans would go on a “List” that would be used against them at the next election.

I don’t know about you but this sounds a lot like the Borg to me.  No independent thought allowed. No independent action allowed.  All are just “Drones” subject to the direction of “Central Command”.  

It gives me the feeling that the Progressive Left plans to convert all of us into “Borg Drones” trained to obey while they Create a Socialist State.  Maybe like the one in Venezuela or Cuba?

Below is a checklist for creating a Socialist State.  Please tell me a single one of these items that the “Progressive Left” does not have on its agenda and now demands total compliance to from the Democrats  in congress. 

I can even add a couple or more items to this list.  Just one example: the”Green New Deal”. 

Copied from “The Federalist” – January 15, 2018

Are you ready for your “Cybernetic Implants”

Bob Bandy

Star Trek the Next Generation is available on NetFlix and from other sources.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome

(Warner Bros. 1985)

As I am writing this the country of Venezuela is in chaotic economic collapse with government troops confronted by angry and desperate mobs of hungry people in the streets.  Stories are coming out of the country of people eating their own pets and long lines for a loaf of bread that now costs a huge pile of the hyper-inflated, devalued currency – when bread is even available.

Venezuela was a country with huge oil reserves, rich in natural resources and a vibrant hospitable people.

How did this happen and could it happen here in America?

In short, what happened was Hugo Chavez and his promise of a Socialist Paradise.

Nationalization and/or Government control of many/most productive industries and destruction of the “middle class”.  Affiliation with Communist Cuba and the Soviet Union.  Alienation from the United States and eventually most of the more moderate countries in Central and South America.

Once inflation, followed by hyper-inflation set in, what has followed was assured.

COULD THIS HAPPEN IN AMERICA?

Lets see how we are doing.

As of Feb. 11, 2019 the total U.S. Public Debt was $22,012,840,891,685.32

Source:  U.S. Government site:  https://treasurydirect.gov/NP/debt/current

America is now over 22 Trillion Dollars in debt.   According to public reports the Treasury Department is in the process of “borrowing” another 800 Billion Dollars for the balance of this year

Just the yearly interest on this debt is $364 Billion Dollars.  With projected annual interest by 2028 of  $761 Billion.

Source: https://www.thebalance.com/interest-on-the-national-debt-4119024

If the above numbers do not frighten you, they should.  The government does not even have the money in current funding to pay the interest on the debt.  So they borrow money to pay interest and keep on spending.  “Creative Accounting”.

Our Nations Debt has more than doubled in the last 10 years!

If the debt continues to grow, and I doubt there is the discipline in our country to stop it from growing, at some point in the not too distant future, just the interest on the debt could exceed current annual Federal Tax revenues.  

The word “unsustainable” is one of those words that we hear but the full potential impact of the word does not really register in the minds of the average citizen.  And if confronted with it most folks don’t want to deal with it. The effect can be catastrophic.  

While individuals, corporations, even cities can file for Bankruptcy, the Federal Government cannot.  The only option they have is to print money.   That means inflation and often leads to hyper-inflation.  From the Romans to Post World War I Germany to Zimbabwe to happening right now in Venezuela, governments throughout history have tried to use inflation to escape debt.

I don’t see a solution on a national scale.  So much of government spending is on “auto-pilot” with built in increases year by year.  There is no desire or will to slash spending on a government level and if such a plan were put forth it would have no chance whatever to pass congress.

Just my opinion based on observation but I believe as individual citizens we need to make plans for survival for ourselves and those we care about if the wheels come off the Government Wagon.  A word to the wise.

Bob Bandy

North Korea’s Dear Leader, Kim Jong Un, made a speech to his people the other day calling on them to do their duty by producing 200 pounds each day of “human fertilizer” to fertilize the farm fields of North Korea.

The radio commentator made some comment that, due to the generally diminutive size of the average North Korean because of their near starvation diet, it might be difficult for them to produce human waste in excess of their total body weight.    

I have an idea that should not only help solve North Korea’s fertilizer problem but also further the cause of Peace while bringing joy to the American heartland.

Let’s load up the United States Congress and send them on a combination extended field trip and peace mission to North Korea. 

If Congress can spread it around there the way they do here,  North Korea’s fertilizer problem will be solved and its agricultural fields will be a rich, verdant green in a short period of time.  

Further, when Congress returns to Washington D.C. we could permanently move the United Nations Headquarters from New York City to North Korea.  That should keep North Korean farmlands green for decades to come.

Everybody wins.  What could possibly go wrong?

Just trying to help out.

Bob Bandy