Posted on 02/01/2014 5:45:08 AM PST by Kaslin
It’s been a truism for as long as I’ve been alive that Washington, DC is out of touch with the lives of the rest of us who don’t live in New York or Los Angeles.
Unfortunately, it’s never been as more true either.
And it has had great consequences for the rest of the country.
When you spend more than half of your private sector output on government, then unfortunately, as the government goes, so goes the rest of the country.
The government believes that the policy of taking income from you to give to the government is addition by subtraction.
I say it’s the cutting edge of the disconnect between the “us” that just wants to live our lives and the “them” who uses our lives as punctuation in their fictionalized tome that can generically be called My Struggle Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice.
You see, there is a Great Disconnect in this country.
There’s a disconnect between earnings and GDP, the stock market and wages, housing and homeownership, doctors and patients, blacks and whites, students and parents, men and women, common sense and ideology.
And yes, some of that tension has always existed, but this is the first time in my lifetime that the government has set about deliberately to exacerbate those tensions.
Generally governments try to do things to make life more orderly, not, you know, the obverse.
As Wall Street reported record earnings in January-- again—the stock market recorded it’s worst monthly performance since August.
Expect the disconnect to continue.
Since the official numbers for GDP have indicated an economy performing better than it has in recent memory, the market has reversed course and moved down, as seen in the three month chart below.
Financing is still hard to come by for Main Street, and in another case of disconnection, financial services companies lead the S&P 500 in earnings growth.
“Total earnings for the Finance sector are expected to be up +25.3%,” Zacks analyst, Sheraz Mian writes. “Excluding Finance, total earnings growth for the S&P 500 drops to +6.4%.”
This goes along with the strange, disconnected numbers we are seeing in the job market.
According to a recent estimate from the union run Economic Policy Institute (EPI) the numbers of missing worker has grown to 5.9 million people. It’s worth noting that only 1,374,000 jobs have been created since Dec 2012, while an additional 1,500,000 workers have left the workforce according to the EPI estimate.
5.9 million workers would imply a population of around 9.4 million people or a state the size of New Jersey, North Carolina or Michigan. These states have GDPs of between $350 billion and $500 billion. If the trend just stops now, we’ll only loose between $1.7 trillion and $2.5 trillion in GDP over the next five years.
Only.
Yet the Great Dividers cry about a $24 billion hit to GDP because of a government shutdown. That’s only one percent of the GDP that we’ll be missing in the next five years due to plunging labor force numbers.
It’s so bad that many people believe the government is deliberately ruining the economy.
“They can’t be this stupid,” it’s said. “This must be a deliberate plan.”
Unfortunately, I wish that were true.
Certainly the plan to divide us is deliberate.
It’s about the only thing they seem to know how to do well.
But as the Obamacare debacle clearly shows, these guys couldn’t manage their way out of a wet paper bag even if equipped with razor blades.
Which gives me a really good idea.
Does anyone know where I can get a humongous paper bag?
This is because, for the first time in U.S. history, the politicians who make up the government see a real opportunity for seizing ALL of the power for themselves and not having to share it with the general population.
This is extremely dangerous. But it's nothing new.
It's the same scenario that the Roman Republic faced in its declining years, the scenario that lead to the establishment of the Empire.
Julius Caesar, among others, saw the opportunity to seize ALL of the power of the Republic. He did but, of course, was assassinated before he could enjoy his coup d'état.
Upon his death, other powerful politicians struggled to be THE ONE to seize all this power. Octavius won.
Thereafter there were roughly 400 years of brutal dictatorship--the Empire--one of mankind's most dubious achievements.
After Octavius (renamed Caesar Augustus), in rapid succession came (1) the monster Tiberius, (2) the monster Caligula (adored by the people at his accession to power--loathed and feared soon afterward), and (4) Nero.
Americans have asked for it. They're going to get it.
People get the kind of government they deserve.
And vice versa.
BTW, the stakes are high. Julius Caesar is revered in history as a GREAT MAN:
In the 20th century, his name was preserved as Kaisar and Tsar.
Even today, he is presented favorably to school children, and the Republicans who tried to prevent his seizure of power are presented as a bunch of silly old men.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." George Santayana
Some people NEVER learn.
Savage Beast, your post is a good one. Great article!
The people of the world whose reaction to the decline of the United States varies from indifference to glee are going to find out what it's like having, in the world, a Roman Empire armed with nuclear weapons.
The disconnect will end when the shooting war begins.
The cleansing of America will lead to a new beginning.
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