Americans have lived through several decades of obscene intrusion in their lives brought about by large groups of people who promote, benefit and retire handsomely as a consequence of obscene intrusion into the lives of the very people who fund the obscene intruders. We do not want to celebrate these people today.
In the olden days, the townsfolk would cringe and hide when the bad guys rode in and grabbed their livestock, harvested crops and pubescent daughters for fun and food and teenage boys for recruits. Finally the townies would figure out a way to either ambush the bad guys themselves or employ the “Magnificent Seven” to do it for them. No such luck for us townsfolk’s now. Mostly, the bad guys never even see us. We sign up voluntarily. We let them know about every move we make or someone else does it for us. Today it is done electronically. It is done comprehensively. And insidiously.
You cannot own a bank account, a share of stock, a mutual fund, an automobile, a house, a piece of land, a job, a business or an airplane ticket without registering it with the government. You cannot produce a child without registering him/her with the government. You cannot travel anywhere without being recorded countless times on government, and privately, owned cameras and numerous digital recording devices. They actually view you naked and capture the images at the airport; just for using the services of a private company. You can’t walk many city sidewalks or make a right turn on red without your very presence being captured.
If you wish to self insure your retirement, you can, but only after you contribute handsomely to the social services net the government forces you to fund. If you wish to self insure your retirement health benefits you cannot, because you will be forced to use the government health insurance program and you will be forced to accept whatever limitations may arise, present or future, as a consequence of being forced into that arrangement.
Each of these intrusions is overseen by multitudes of faceless, nameless, careless and mostly ill informed minions known for centuries as “bureaucrats.” In some societies they are called apparatchiks and in the new Europe, “eurocrats.” They have been called “civil servants” although they are neither. In Russia they have been referred to as “nomenklatura.” In China, years ago, they were titled, “mandarins.” Their common characteristics include: ability to follow rules designed to accommodate the very lowest common denominator of human behavior; follow said rules with unthinking consistency and behave in a manner of absolute disconnect and superiority through the process.
In America, the land of Madison Avenue and making all things mediocre (Bud Light is America’s top selling beer – go figure) appear otherwise, the bureaucrat/apparatchik/mandarin has taken to self endowing their highly paid, highly benefitted, highly pensioned activity with the new designation of “public servant.” So, you can now find public servants everywhere. Mostly, you can find them behind secure windows, walls, chambers and doors. They usually occupy buildings that are off limits, except under quite challenging access rules, to the very people who finance their existence. This is what we at TheFundamentals call, “good news, bad news.” You don’t want to go there anyway so it is good news that they make it so difficult for you to even enter much less engage. The bad news is that it irritates us that these servants of ours (giggle; tee – hee –hee) are so insulated because they are so afraid of being targeted because of their very behavior and entitlement.
If you want another decade of this nonsense make sure to cast your vote for one of the PIP or POOP incumbents who are scurrying now to appear to be concerned about the mess we are in. If you don’t want another decade of this nonsense, there is only one way to put an end to this massive shadow over freedom, privacy and entrepreneurial inclinations. No, we are not talking revolution; it is not worth your time, blood, energy or additional financing to engage is that form of disposal. We are talking the simple technique of eliminating the funding. Think of it as stopping the blood flow to cancer cells. There is no other way to cut back on the intrusion and still be civil. We simply need to take extraordinary steps to terminate the funding of these intruders whether they are local, county, state or federal.
The cut back techniques can be both focused and general. What do we mean by that?
Focused cuts would be the elimination of entire gatherings of intruders – for example, the NSA and its massive listening/ eavesdropping/ intelligence (?) gathering intrusion into the American way of freedom and privacy. It needs to be eliminated in one act. If it turns out a small portion of its activity is subsequently missed, such as following students from foreign lands who enter this country with a purposes other than higher learning, we can find a group of existing bureaucrats who will only be too glad to add this task to their dwindling “public servant” task book. Another good example would be the elimination of all funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting or PBS as it is known.
General cuts would include the long overdue 25% cut for all government agencies coupled with 50% cuts across the board of any funding and subsidization activity. Large cuts should be applied to all forms of subsidization – from oil drilling to pharmaceuticals to education to health care to agriculture to research and colleges and universities. The cutbacks should be phased in – 25% the first year; 25% more the second year in order to provide for a manageable period of adjustment. When we see how the first 50% works, we can then assess the next level of cuts. The concept is to make the cuts orderly and with great “bureaucratic compassion.”
The social security net must be limited to citizens who have met certain minimum participation standards and every citizen should have the opportunity to choose their own form of alternative, non- government safety net retirement program and health insurance. Non citizens just need to head home for their retirement; the same way us Americans are expected to head home for our retirement.
Most importantly. There is no purpose or legal basis for any person working for any government at any level to be able to unionize or enforce a negotiation stance that is not in the public interest. If you work for any government agency you do so at the will of the people and that means you can be relocated, terminated or otherwise dealt with for any reason at any time with no consequence. If you don’t like those rules you need to seek employment in the private sector where you will be able to compete with others and rise to the level of your talent, motivation and behavior.
Last, all persons employed by any government agency will abide by pay and benefit scales consistent with the average of those funding their employment. So, if you work for the city of New York, you are paid the average wage for the private sector New York employee. If you work for Los Angeles County, ditto. Now, this last example violates our principle of states’ rights. So, we will modify it as soon as the national government enforces a “no funding of state and local employment” standard consistent with the US Constitution. Further, the same rules apply to both your benefits and your defined contribution retirement plan. Yes, defined benefit plan; no more defined contribution plans. All consistent with the wages, benefits and defined contribution retirement plans that the fine folk who pay your wages, benefits and retirement plans are receiving. We repeat, there will be no federal subsidization of any local or state employment or benefits. Clinton’s idea of a hundred thousand cops across the land paid for with US funds in both illegal and kaput.
Watch America grow under these changes. Watch the bureaucrats squeal. Watch jobs grow under these changes. Watch competition accelerate with these changes. The time to begin is November 2, 2010 at the ballot box. The challenge is to find a few good women and a few good men to embrace and spread the change and then get back to their day jobs. The era of the professional politician and massive government employment is over. We just need a good “two by four upside the head election” to get the message crafted and a few brave short term politicians to start the implementation. If not now, when? If not us, who? Do you want another decade of this nonsense? LABOR DAY celebrates the toil of the American worker; not the American bureaucrat. Let’s make sure we reestablish this fundamental by Labor Day 2020.
2 comments:
There is so much here with which to disagree. Very little makes any rational sense.
If you wish to self-insure your retirement, you can. That should end the discussion. Unfortunately, somehow contributing 8% of your wages to a safety net is a bad idea. Why exactly is that true. Is there any empirical evidence that Americans would save 8% if they did not do so voluntarily?
Medicare is an expensive benefit. The young do not want to pay for the old. That is the American/anti-Christian way. Let’s worry about ourselves and everyone else can go scratch. Moreover, the statement that one cannot self-insure is false. There are Medicare supplement programs readily available to those with the resources along with private, albeit very expensive, health insurance programs.
The peculiar idea of cutting all expenditure across the board is one of those terrific sounding, yet horrible, ideas. I suppose that cutting dollars will eliminate the food safety issues that we just saw in the egg industry. I presume that less money to regulate Wall Street would have helped us avoid the current depression. I am sure that most Americans want to slash spending on illegal immigration and defense.
The idea of managing subsidization is not necessarily a bad idea, but the broad brush the author used is not well applied. Last Monday, Rice University and Intel announced that researchers at Rice made a dramatic breakthrough in increasing semiconductor speed. There was no doubt a public funding component to this discovery. Was this a bad use of government money? I think not.
My question is what share of the profits goes back to the government to either reduce the deficit or fund additional research? It is the allocation of profits in which we, as taxpayers/funders, should share that is the problem. Subsidies in and of themselves are not wrong. Blocking market driven alternatives through subsidies is the problem. Subsidization of oil drilling that fosters our dependence on oil and gas is probably counterproductive. Keeping sugar cane out of the country and funding the use of corn for use as ethanol is foolish. Giving money to research clean energy and technology doesn’t sound lack a bad idea to me. The idea that the government finances research in the areas of improving education or health care, which the author criticizes, on its face seems like money that may be well spent. Like most ideas, it is the non-economic reasons behind the decision that the government could manage better.
The United States was once a leader in post-high school education. It is falling back. If we cut grants for research, I presume that this is supposed to make American universities better in the sciences. I am lost on the logic of this point.
I liked the idea that “Non citizens” should head back home for their retirement. This somehow implies that an illegal immigrant can collect social security or Medicare. From where exactly did that idea come? Setting up false point to inflame readers does no good.
End of Part 1
Part 2
What the author seems to suggest is a race to the bottom. If we reduce wages and benefits to public employees, our country can ensure that only the least talented people work for the government. If we follow the author’s ideas, how is it that our government will get better or more efficient? I thought the ideal in our economic system was that those who show talent should get ahead. The author completely eliminates merit as a basis for pay. If one caps the public employees’ wages at a low level, I presume that the author thinks that government will become more efficient. The authors “great idea” takes away any incentive for doing a good job completely out of public work. A better idea would be to design a system that provides for more accountability. If a talented business owner can make a million dollars, why is it that a talented public employee cannot receive a bonus equal to 1/10th of that sum? If someone is doing a poor job teaching, the trend is that he will be fired. Look at Washington DC. Setting, monitoring and using standards, rather than artificial wage constraints can make government more effective. Automatically reducing wages sounds like something from the USSR.
The idea that government is either good or bad is a mistaken idea. The idea that by necessity private businesses are better run than governmental agencies is also a false claim. There are well run businesses and poorly run businesses. There are well run political subdivisions and tragically mismanaged one. The author, for reasons that escape me, points with pride to private health insurers. I have no idea why he or anyone else would say that private health insurance companies do a better job than the government. The private insurers are bloated bureaucracies with inefficient personnel. The only difference is that the people at the top get to make a boatload of money. One cannot even say that the private insurers provide their insured with a better opportunity to see the doctor chosen by the patient. If a doctor is out of network, the insurer will impose a substantial penalty for going to this doctor.
Just because I do not like the government storing extraordinary amounts of information about me, does not mean that I am okay with private companies doing so.
The idea of the privatization of social security is ill timed. If George Bush had been successful in doing so in the early part of this decade, how devastating would the effect have been on people approaching retirement? The idea that the stock market is going to continue to rise or that fund managers will always pick the winners is just another example of the hubris that led to the dot com and real estate bubbles. Social security is a safety net. What is so bad about a middle class person, who is not destitute getting benefits? I suppose we could agree that Bill Gates will not and Warren Buffett does not need a social security check or Medicare. The problem is line drawing.
If the question is solvency, why can’t we just raise the cap on social security wages? If I make $125,000 and I pay 8% all the way up on social security, the funding problem would be solved. Of course, many “Christian” Americans would complain that they are giving money to fund other people’s retirement. There is irony in that.
There are positive ideas. NSA wiretaps without court orders on private citizens are both scary and unnecessary. The idea that public employees should switch to defined contribution plans has merit. The problem is that the positive ideas are so hard to find.
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