The Useful and the Useless, by Robert Gore
It will come as a surprise to many, but governments cannot suspend reality. Their arsenal, when things break down, comes down to their arsenal: the capacity to coerce. Violence or its threat enables governments to exact compliance. Proponents of government power invariably see themselves exercising it. Once the ship hits the iceberg, it will be obvious that governments’ guns are not wands, freeing citizens from the necessity of producing as much or more than they consume. They cannot compel innovators to innovate or producers to produce. While coercive power comes from one end of a gun, none of the powers that produce progress (and the gun) magically materialize at the other end.
This is an excerpt. For the complete article, please click the above link.
This is an excerpt. For the complete article, please click the above link.
I do know, that the useful's will help, as best they can, the once useful, (our sick/ retired family members and friends)...their wisdom of the ages will be priceless.
The rest, as you say...can go to a place of real global warming.
1. Levels of borrowing are unsustainable.
TRUE
2. This will inevitably lead to catastrophe that only a few in the know can see.
Catastrophe can always happen, but it's just as likely that the prospect of catastrophe will lead to reforms. I suspect it will be in between, but I assert there's no way to know. Hopefully dramatized explanations like this article will prevent the more dramatic scenarios from happening.
3. The problem is caused mostly by people milking the gov't, not the gov't controlling too much of the productive economy.
False, and dangerous in that it actually perpetuates unsustainable gov't spending. Everyone who reads this thinks most of gov't spending goes to waste, and we can cut the waste and keep their SBIR grants, subsidized schools, Medcaid nursing care for their parents, jobs in the military and prison complexes, and we can still solve the problem. In reality those things would have to be privatized, causing a loss of customers and jobs who would be replaced by new customers and jobs funding my money that used to go to taxes.
4. The 2016 presidential election relates to this.
Confusing on many levels - Borrowing had been steadily decreasing for a few years due to modest economic growth. Both mainstream candidates promised more borrowing. The candidate who got more votes, Clinton, seemed slightly more open to borrowing. President Trump promised to increase borrowing and appears to be following through. Since the both promised borrowing and Trump only lost by 3 million votes, nothing can be gleaned about confronting fiscal sustainability from that election, except that both mainstream candidates thought increased borrowing was a winning strategy.
Then it says that more productive people tended to vote for Trump. The reverse is true, but I don't see what tells us about steering clear of the iceberg. To me the whole thing shows we're not serious about the problem yet.