You totally blow off the debt situation, which needs to be subtracted from that supposed wealth. Current U.S. Debt of $136,479 per every man, women and child.
Posted on 07/18/2005 12:40:00 PM PDT by datura
Since democracy is the worldwide goal of the Bush Administration, we must face the stunning fact that the integration of different nationalities under a common European Union (EU) Constitution was rejected by decisive democratic votes. President Bush can thank conservative leaders for saving him from the embarrassment of endorsing the EU Constitution, shortly before it was so soundly defeated in France and the Netherlands.
The EU Constitution was defeated, because Western Europeans don't want to be politically, economically, or socially integrated with the culture, economy, lifestyle, or history of Eastern Europe and Muslim countries. Western Europeans recognized in the proposed EU Constitution a loss of national identity and freedom, to a foreign bureaucracy, plus a redistribution of wealth from richer countries to poorer countries.
Will the political and business elites in America hear this message, and stop trying to force CAFTA (Central America Free Trade Agreement) on America?
The Senate Republican Policy Committee appears to be tone deaf. Its just-released policy paper argues that CAFTA should be approved, because its purpose is "integrating more closely with 34 hemispheric neighbors - thus furthering the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA)," which the 2001 Quebec Declaration declared would bring about "hemispheric integration."
Americans don't want to be "integrated" with the poverty, corruption, socialism, and communism of our hemispheric neighbors, any more than the French want to be integrated with the Turks and Bulgarians.
Just as the French and Dutch were suspicious of the dangers lurking in the 485-page EU Constitution, Americans are wary of the dangers hiding in the 92-page CAFTA legislation, plus the 31 pages that purport to spell out the administrative actions the U.S. must take in compliance. No wonder CAFTA's supporters are bypassing our Constitution's requirement that treaties can be valid only if passed by two-thirds of our Senators.
The Senate Republican policy paper argues that CAFTA "will promote democratic governance." But, there is nothing democratic about CAFTA's many pages of grants of vague authority to foreign tribunals, on which foreign judges could force us to change our domestic laws to be "no more burdensome than necessary" on foreign trade.
We have had enough impertinent interference with our lives and economy from the international tribunals Congress has already locked us into, such as the WTO (World Trade Organization) and NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement). Americans don't want decisions from another anti-American tribunal any more than the French and Dutch wanted their lives micro-managed by Belgian bureaucrats.
The EU political elite ridiculed the French and the Dutch for not realizing that globalism is on the march, and we should all get on the train before it leaves the station. The French and Dutch woke up to the fact that the engineers of the EU train are bureaucrats in Brussels and judges in Luxembourg, who invent regulations and judge-made laws, without so much as tip of their hats to democracy.
The pro-EU political bosses blamed the "non" vote by the French on worry about losing their jobs to the cheap labor of Eastern Europe and Turkey. But the worry was grounded in reality, and Americans are likewise correct, to worry about how CAFTA will put U.S. jobs in competition with low-wage Central America, where the average factory worker is paid about one dollar an hour.
CAFTA would even prohibit U.S. states from giving preference to American workers when taxpayer-funded contracts are granted.
CAFTA is not about free trade; it's about round-trip trade. That means multi-national corporations sending their raw materials to poor countries, where they can hire very cheap labor and avoid U.S. employment, safety and environmental regulations, and then bringing the finished goods back into the United States duty-free, to undersell U.S. companies that pay decent wages and comply with our laws.
The promise that CAFTA will give us 44 million new customers for U.S. goods is pie in the sky, like the false promise that letting Communist China into the WTO would give us a billion-person market for American agriculture. Or, the false promise that NAFTA would increase our trade surplus with Mexico to $10 billion when, in fact, it nosedived, to a $62 billion deficit.
Knowing that Americans are upset about Central America's chief export to the U.S., which is the incredibly vicious MS-13 Salvadoran gangs, the Senate Republican policy paper assures us that CAFTA will diminish "the incentives for illegal immigration to the United States." That's another fairy tale, like the unfulfilled promise that NAFTA would reduce illegal aliens and illegal drugs entering the U.S. from Mexico.
By stating that CAFTA means the implementation of a "rules-based framework" for trade, investment, and technology, the Senate Republican policy paper confirms that free trade requires world, or at least hemispheric, government. You can't have a single economy, without a single government.
CAFTA may serve the economic interests of the globalists and the multinational corporations, but it makes no sense historically, Constitutionally, or democratically. Americans will never sing "God Bless the Western Hemisphere" instead of "God Bless America."
Damn Paul, you know more about Winnie the Pooh than my four year old. This being so, you'd know what kind of animal Eeyore is. So, I guess, that would make you a laughing one of these.
Even though Toddsterpatriot has already debunked your feeble attempt to assert that inflation is understated, I thought I'd add this article from Alan Reynolds to the discussion who makes it clear that inflation is actually overstated.
Illusionary inflation
Alan Reynolds
April 28, 2005
"When the March consumer price index showed a 0.6 percent rise for the month and 3.1 percent for the year, many claimed inflation had suddenly become a big problem the Fed will have to battle with a series of interest rate hikes.
Those same people did not, however, argue the Fed should lower rates in January simply because the monthly CPI then rose by only 0.1 percent. Nobody should try to find inflation trends in such monthly wiggles. We should be watching for sustained changes in year-to-year inflation rates. And Fed governors should take greater care than they did in 1990 not to confuse energy prices with a general uptrend in other prices.
Aside from energy, there has been no increase in inflation for at least three years. Take out energy, and CPI inflation over the past 12 months was just 2.4 percent -- lower than the 2.5 percent average of 1998-2002. Yet that 2.4 percent rate still overstates inflation, as the Boskin Commission explained in 1996. So, in 2000 the Fed began to focus on a chain-weighted price index for personal consumption expenditures (PCE). Such a chained index is superior to the fixed-weight CPI because people react to prices. If gas prices soar while food prices slow, people are likely to drive fewer miles and eat at home more often. By assuming they're driving just as much as before and eating out just as often, the CPI overstates the cost of living.
The PCE index covers rural areas, not just urban consumers, and it assigns more weight to medical services than does the CPI, and less to housing and new cars. Yet a newer chain-weighted version of the CPI tells the same low-inflation story as the PCE deflator. Both PCE and CPI figures for "core" inflation exclude food as well as energy. That's misleading right now because food is not why the regular CPI exaggerates inflation. Over the past three months, the CPI for energy rose at a 21.1 percent annual rate, compared with 1.3 percent for food.
For the year ending in February, the "core" PCE deflator was up only 1.6 percent. A comparable but preliminary chained CPI estimate was up only 1.9 percent in March. That latter measure is lower than it was even in December 2001, at the end of the recession (2.2 percent). It slowed to 1.9 percent in March 2002 -- the same as today -- yet energy prices were down by 10.9 percent and are now up by 11.6 percent. If we had a figure for the chained CPI less energy alone (rather than energy and food), that would be up about 2 percent over the past 12 months.
Aside from energy, inflation over the past 12 months has been lower than the 1998-2002 average -- even though price indexes that exclude direct costs of energy (electricity and fuel) nonetheless remain distorted upward by such oil-driven remaining items as taxi services, shipping charges, etc.
Some argue that increases in the producer price index portend faster price increases ahead for consumers. But the PPI does not predict the CPI, and there's no reason to expect it to. The PPI measures prices businesses charge each other, and it only covers goods. Half of the CPI is services, and many goods in the CPI are imports, unaffected by U.S. business costs.
Aside from energy, prices of imports have also not been noticeably affected by last year's decline in the dollar. Import prices of non-automotive consumer goods were only 1 percent higher in March than a year ago -- cars and parts were 1.3 percent higher. The overall Bureau of Labor Statistics index of all import prices less fuels (which includes business imports) was up just 2.5 percent for the year ending in March. Besides, the dollar is up, not down -- it rose 2.1 percent against major currencies from Dec. 1 to April 22.
Other indicators of incipient inflation are benign. The price of gold, a classic hedge against inflation, is the same as a year ago. The 4.2 percent yield on 10-year Treasury bonds and nearly flat yield curve would be a "conundrum" only if inflation was actually worrisome, which it evidently is not. The gap between that nominal rate and the yield on inflation-protected Treasuries implies expected future inflation (including energy) of about 2.6 percent.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman recently wrote, "In the 1970s, soaring prices of oil and other commodities led to stagflation." In reality, combining inflationary monetary policy with suffocating tax policy gave us broad-based inflation and three increasingly nasty recessions. At that time, unlike now, oil was a sideshow. Aside from energy, CPI inflation was 6.1 percent in 1970, 9.8 percent in 1974, 8.9 percent in 1975, 10 percent in 1979 and 11.6 percent in 1980. How could anyone rationally compare such figures with today's 1.9 percent non-energy inflation?
Krugman went on to ask: "What's driving inflation? ... Oil prices are a big part of the story, but not all of it. Other commodity prices are also rising." Former Fed Governor Wayne Angell showed otherwise in The Wall Street Journal -- his index of 21 commodities includes oil, yet it has not risen at all over the past 12 months. The Economist index of commodity prices for the year ending April 19 was down 4.3 percent.
Aside from energy prices, which have probably peaked, there has been no acceleration of inflation in the past three years. Overpriced oil matters, not because it's inflationary but because it quickly turns profits into losses in energy-intensive manufacturing. Industrial production has fallen for a whole year in South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Italy, Spain, Belgium and Denmark. Fourth quarter economic growth was barely above zero in Europe and Japan. Slumps are infectious. The United States is not necessarily immune, as the three-month drop in durable goods orders might portend.
I have avoided complaining about the Fed being too tight since co-authoring a Wall Street Journal article to that effect in October 2000 (and before that, only in mid-1982 and 1984). If asked today if the Fed should again raise interest rates anytime soon, however, my answer is no. The domestic and global economic risks of raising dollar interest rates are real -- the inflation scare is not."
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Should we believe Alan Reynolds and Toddsterpatriot with their take on how inflation is measured or, some guy you found who wants us to believe that GDP growth is zero (or negative), inflation is 5.7% (even though the 10-year note is only yielding 4.28%) and our unemployment rate is really 12.5% (more than the basket case economies of the EU)?
Another softball, Mr. Ross?
Even your leftist buddies at E.P.I. have forsaken you. They have now admitted that this is a pretty good economy and that we are seeing solid growth in higher wage jobs. Could they possibly be abandoning the race to the bottom talking points of the lefties and the right wing demagogues?
E.P.I. Says Higher-Paying Jobs Increasing
Just keep bobbing and weaving and, whatever you do, ignore those numbers on household net worth. Life is good Paul and it's a shame you can't enjoy it more.
How can you support an international agreement that implements sustainable development? ... you favor a Leninist global trading system that imposes restrictions on human freedom ... ... You're a fake.
The black helicopters are gone now so we how about we take off the tinfoil. The full text of CAFTA is here. The environment clause mentions sustainable development here:
Article 17.9: Environmental Cooperation
1. The Parties recognize the importance of protecting, improving, and conserving the environment, including natural resources, in their territories. The Parties underscore the importance of promoting all possible forms of cooperation and reaffirm that cooperation on environmental matters provides enhanced opportunities to advance common commitments to achieve sustainable development for the well-being of present and future generation.
Fine-- we recognize how important it is, we underscore its importance, and we reafirm that cooperation provides opportunities. I can handle that. In fact, if it passes, I promise to do all your underscoring, reafirming, and recognizing. If it doesn't pass, you can pay all my import taxes.
Deal?
Wrong, bent one!
Oh, and BTW, Bill Clinton supports CAFTA.
Imposes? Strong word. Yes, I deny that CAFTA imposes sustainable development on everyone.
Your support of this agreement is support for loss of sovereignty and the imposition of a global socialist regime.
No it's not.
You can't deny any of this so you call me names. Classic Alinski.
Yes, you're an assclownski.
BTW, the evil Chinese, Castro and Chavez are against CAFTA.
Sounds serious; but thanks to the wonders of the info age we can check it our ourselves --it ain't in there. Article 20.9 doesn't cover a tribunal, it describes a Panel where the US can remove any member they want.. In fact, the only place I could find the word 'tribunal' shows up in the final text is
Article 8.3.1: Administration of Safeguard Proceedings:
Each Party shall entrust determinations of serious injury, or threat thereof, in safeguard proceedings under this Chapter to a competent investigating authority, subject to review by judicial or administrative tribunals, to the extent provided by domestic law. Negative injury determinations shall not be subject to modification, except by such review. The competent investigating authority empowered under domestic law to conduct such proceedings should be provided with the necessary resources to enable it to fulfill its duties.
There is no transfer of sovereignty in this treaty-- it don't work that way. International treaties are contracts between governments. CAFTA is a treaty so it can't supercede laws that spell out rights and legal limits for citizens. The only only collectivist attack on our freedom is from the big government protectionists who raise my taxes to control my wallet.
You tell me-- just what effects (deleterious or otherwise) are we talking about? I know full well the deleterious effect of your high import taxes. I don't like taxes especially when they're for the purpose of supporting someone who is too lazy to work as hard as I do.
This "promote sustainable developement" bugaboo is a crock. Please let me know when you're ready to pay my import taxes (paypal is good) so I can start "promoting" your sustainable developement.
You sure got me there-- I thought I was going to pull a fast one on you. You're absolutely right that in CAFTA's 1000 pages the words "sustainable development" come up twice, and that the agreement requires American underscoring, reaffirming, and recognizing it twice as much as I was letting on.
On the other hand, the bloated federal bureaucracy is currently making me pay about $50 every month in sugar taxes and big sugar corporate welfare. OK, I misled you about how many times "sustainable developement" was mentioned, so I'll cover July's payment out of my own pocket; and I personally guarantee that I'll underscore, reaffirm, and recognize "sustainable developement" three times a day starting right now.
BTW, your August $50 payment for my sugar tax is due in nine days. Don't be late.
B'zzt. Wrong. And at every level. Boy, you are batting goose-eggs today. First, you didn't even know this is not a treaty? CAFTA="Central American Free Trade Agreement." It is an "agreement", which since GATT is an constitutionally untested dodge to the requirement of obtaining a treaty. It is not getting the constitutionally-required scrutiny a treaty entails. It doesn't require the necesssary two-thirds vote in the Senate. And it will be treated as if it is one. And it is setting up the Panels to try cases. I.e., these are Courts. Are they inferior courts, to our US Supreme Court, as required by our Constitution?
And I note your removal clauses for "panel" members don't substitute or amerliorate the loss of real U.S. Sovereignty... a loss which you mistakenly claimed, "ain't in there." Nor will they necessarily help anyone out if the next guy is as bad as the first. Hence, as a political matter, such a clause would never be used by our limp-wristed government. Yes, our information age is a wonderful thing, and it points us to this clause, which evidently you missed:
Article 20.3: Choice of Forum
1. Where a dispute regarding any matter arises under this Agreement and under another free trade agreement to which the disputing Parties are party or the WTO Agreement, the complaining Party may select the forum in which to settle the dispute. 2. Once the complaining Party has requested a panel under an agreement referred to in paragraph 1, the forum selected shall be used to the exclusion of the others.
"To the exclusion of the others." Got that?
The complaining parties being importers or immigrants who wish to run roughshod over the U.S. Think they will pick U.S. courts? I don't.
Read that entire chapter over in the Agreement...it isn't saying what you interpret it to mean. In fact, it is saying the opposite, that there is no higher authority. We have a legalist regime diammetrically opposed and athwart our constitutional requirements. The so-called Safeguard Provisions...typical window-dressing... will hence prove ineffectual, if real, let's just "Safeguard" our country now, and not pass this turkey in the first place.
So it frankly still sounds serious. But your take on it doesn't.
A laughing Eeyore? Nope. Not an Eeyore, you mislabeled in the first place. LOL! You're the donkey, sparky! And I enjoy life just fine, pulling your tail off... LOL! You democrats are just too easy to spot!
And as for your feeble attempt along with Toadster to dispute that Inflation is Understated, I am afraid you have to engage it at a substantive level. And you haven't.
The political motivation of the government to manipulate these CPI numbers in self-serving ways...which they have in fact done, as documented... has shredded their credibility, and utility as reliable measures. All Alan Reynolds actually says here is that "Aside from energy, there has been no increase in inflation for at least three years." This does NOT make inflation any less of a problem or an illusion...it was bad under Xlinton, and he buggered the numbers, so , all hand-waving aside...there is a problem. Hence his article would have been better named "Inflationary Illusion". So keep bobbing and weaving yourself. Yup. Go Get yourself a steak tonight...and celebrate that there is no inflation probelm....LOL!...yup, just an illusion... I like this analysis in Capitalism Magazine in 2000 commenting about the CPI as buggered by Xlinton:
It seems that we may be getting a consumer price index that in some respects is as devious as some of the answers given to prosecutors’ questions not so long ago by the man who presently heads our government. The disturbing question that arises is whether we can have any more confidence in it than we do in him.
A laughing Eeyore? Nope. Not an Eeyore, you mislabeled in the first place. LOL! You're the donkey, sparky! And I enjoy life just fine, pulling your tail off... LOL! You democrats are just too easy to spot!
And as for your feeble attempt along with Toadster to dispute that Inflation is Understated, I am afraid you have to engage it at a substantive level. And you haven't.
The political motivation of the government to manipulate these CPI numbers in self-serving ways...which they have in fact done, as documented... has shredded their credibility, and utility as reliable measures. All Alan Reynolds actually says here is that "Aside from energy, there has been no increase in inflation for at least three years." This does NOT make inflation any less of a problem or an illusion...it was bad under Xlinton, and he buggered the numbers, so , all hand-waving aside...there is a problem. Hence his article would have been better named "Inflationary Illusion". So keep bobbing and weaving yourself. Yup. Go Get yourself a steak tonight...and celebrate that there is no inflation probelm....LOL!...yup, just an illusion... I like this analysis in Capitalism Magazine in 2000 commenting about the CPI as buggered by Xlinton:
It seems that we may be getting a consumer price index that in some respects is as devious as some of the answers given to prosecutors’ questions not so long ago by the man who presently heads our government. The disturbing question that arises is whether we can have any more confidence in it than we do in him.
You totally blow off the debt situation, which needs to be subtracted from that supposed wealth. Current U.S. Debt of $136,479 per every man, women and child.
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That debt situation page it a hoot! What he's doing is counting liabilities and not assets. This means is that if I borrow $100 at five percent interest and loan it out at 10 percent, the country's debt situation has just soared by $200.
No problem, lets say the American people really do owe $136,479 each. Percapita family wealth in the US is $153,061.80. We're in the black but why stop there? Let's start adding in assets of the federal gov't starting with land. At $10,000 per acre that gives every man woman and child another $64,868.64. We've got other assets-- anyone want to buy a battleship? This is getting silly so let's clean this up and get serious. Total family wealth is private assets after subtracting private debts. Like the graph shows, the national debt is a smaller bite of family wealth now than it was in the past..
Not only that, it's Friday-- what more could anyone want!!
Yes, the government can manipulate CPI. The market is smarter than the government. That's why the market will not accept 4.2% on a 10 year T-Bond if inflation was really 5.7% or whatever number your Eeyore economist pulled out of his ass.
Our federal government may have the motivation to manipulate CPI data, it may even have the opportunity. However, having worked for the federal government and known personally the kind of people we're talking about, I can tell y'all for a fact that it's a big mistake to think that they actually have the mental capacity. Our friends at the INS, the IRS, and other agencies do lots of things; some things that seem reasonable and some things that're truly hard to fathom. The feds will tell you that they did that weird stuff for some complicated reason, but ninety-nine times out of a hundred they lie to hide their screw-ups.
It's a real big mistake to assume our federal employees are always doing some kind of conspiracy-- that's giving my former colleges way too much credit that they simply don't deserve.
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