How to bankrupt a NATION

HOW MANY MORE FREEBEE CAN TAXPAYERS AFFORD ?

Taxpayers Could Be on the Hook for More Than $700 Billion if the Remaining States Expanded Medicaid.

Medicaid has rapidly become the largest line item in state budgets, reaching more than $800 billion per year.More than 99 million people are now dependent on the program, nearly 3 times as many as in 2000.

Ilegals are reciveing medicaid through a wink and nod .
NY spent $580 million on 30,000 illegals . Texas spent $332 million , Florida spent $215 million , NC spent $49 million ,Arrizon spent 120 million , Illinois spend 38 million . We are the capital of baby dumping .

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“Neither a borrower nor a lender be.”- Polonius to his son Laertes in “Hamlet”

It may be too late given the number of Americans who have willingly allowed themselves to become dependent on government more than themselves, but it’s worth trying.

Our $34 trillion debt is unsustainable, according to most economists. If we don’t act soon, we will be worse off than we are now. Our economy could collapse. The economic future is not bright if we continue down our current path. According to Statista Research," By 2034, the gross federal debt of the United States is projected to be about $54.39 trillion."

Only 14 of 45 American presidents have overseen a decrease in debt. Calvin Coolidge was the last one. That was 15 presidents ago. Coolidge said: “… a good many proposals are made by people that have very excellent things that they would like to have the Government do, but they come from people that have no responsibility for providing ways and means by which their proposals can be carried out. I don’t think in all my experience, which has been very large with people that come before me in and out of Government with proposals for spending money, I have ever had any proposal from anyone as to what could be done to save any money.”

Why not form a group of consultants I would call a “what works coalition.” Invite historians, scientists, economists, people of good character and others who love America and ask them to examine government spending, separating the “wheat from the chaff,” the necessary from the unnecessary. They could issue a report to the public and Congress ridiculing wasteful and needless spending and pressure our elected representatives to end those underperforming or nonperforming programs, earmarks and agencies as a patriotic gesture. And yes, Social Security and Medicare must be reformed to save it for the future. The media could help if they would. Weaning people from addiction to government will take time, though some have been able to go “cold turkey” when it comes to other addictions.

Most importantly, what is needed is a change in attitude back to the view some previous presidents, the Founders and the public had toward government. Just as we don’t see a doctor when we are having car trouble, neither should we look to government to solve problems best dealt with individually. Government can encourage good choices and penalize bad ones (lower taxes on the successful is one reward and allowing people to suffer the consequences of bad choices - within reason – is another). Government should not subsidize bad choices, as if good and bad are equal. That will ensure more bad choices and fewer good ones.

If we don’t start making good choices now and seriously reduce our debt there may be no way back. History teaches us that lesson. Look it up.

President Biden wants to raise taxes again on “the rich” and corporations without cutting spending. Revenue is not in short supply. Fiscal discipline is. A change in spending will require a change in attitude about what government should and should not do.

Most importantly, what is needed is a change in attitude back to the view some previous presidents, the Founders and the public had toward government. Just as we don’t see a doctor when we are having car trouble, neither should we look to government to solve problems best dealt with individually. Government can encourage good choices and penalize bad ones (lower taxes on the successful is one reward and allowing people to suffer the consequences of bad choices - within reason – is another). Government should not subsidize bad choices, as if good and bad are equal. That will ensure more bad choices and fewer good ones.

If we don’t start making good choices now and seriously reduce our debt there may be no way back. History teaches us that lesson. Look it up.

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According to police data, Chicago Police officers arrested 686 Venezuelans, representing an 11,333 percent increase over 2021. Since then, that number has more than doubled.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform found that President Joe Biden’s reckless immigration policies have cost the city’s hard-working taxpayers nearly $4 billion a year. Their study also found that taxpayers have been forced to pay $601.4 million in police, legal and correction costs, and, illegal immigration costs.

Since the summer of 2022, Chicago has seen approximately over 35,000 illegal immigrants flood the city after crossing the southern border.

"Sure enough in less than two years, we’re up to [a] $12 billion price tag [in] the city of New York- [it’s] about $150,000 per migrant, per year,” he told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo. “That’s twice the median household income of the United States. Meanwhile, we still have folks in Washington that say there’s no problem at the border. Well, we are paying the price. We’re paying the price heavily. It continues to be unsustainable. Until there are policy differences that are made at the border, unfortunately law-abiding, tax-paying citizens will have to absorb this and it’s just not fair or right to them.”

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I’ve been following Stephanie for some years, and memorialized this as a computer background that cycles with a bunch of others. It’s the kind of wisdom that I think should always be stuck in your brain because the world’s economies are joined at the hip and has been crapped on from time-to-time by all kinds of people that should know better, probably do, but won’t admit it when they do and point fingers elsewhere. For instance, the last big international crash in 2007/08 trading CDOs that weren’t worth the paper they weren’t written on. That was bad enough on its own, but the green turned to brown when the biggest traders began buying & selling Credit Default Swaps on the CDOs they were selling anyone and everyone. Selling bad paper on bad paper. A new record for fraud. Fraud that went entirely unpunished. The CEOs & CFOs et al that ran the scams all earned really unbelievable salaries and bonuses based on those sales but couldn’t take possession of the riches until the govt made them whole with bailouts. If you bought the bonds you weren’t made whole, but then you didn’t bribe the Congress. How foolish of you.

A lot of that Ponzi Scheme was based upon under qualified real estate debt. China has a large hole in its national wealth based upon a lot of giant real estate black hole. It’s unlike the US real estate black hole of 2007 which were usable houses that could eventually be sold when the economy recovered, and there are no CDOs or Swaps sold against the Chinese version of a real estate blowout. The giant apartment buildings are unfinished and likely now beyond recovery. But the Chinese don’t have state or corporate-sponsored retirement systems and the people provide their own by savings and investing in things like the giant apartment buildings that are now just giant, empty, unrecoverable mistakes. The single thing that both real estate busts have in common is the little people ate the loss.

That fiasco puts the Chinese economy in jeopardy. And the world-wide slowdown in consumer goods via the Wuhan Virus and China should be on a track that uses up surplus young men in the army where can be controlled a little easier and you have a country that needs a good war to keep everyone focused upon instead of commiserating economic failure and overthrowing the Bums in charge.

All that’s need to push China one more step into a deeper hole may be a black swan to crash the world economy. There are two candidates that I see. They are brothers but not joined at the hip. Yet.

China is on their back foot currency-wise; trying to right the ship by putting its own RMB in place of the Dollar in its own subjugated sphere of influence. That would be its debtors and Road & Belt influenced countries. If they could hook the world they could print their way to prosperity, or so they think.

The two problems that could contribute to destabilization and possible dollar demise might be the implosion of the value of the Japanese Yen added to what that might to Bitcoin. They are big traders in it, and when financial problems occur and people need money they sell whatever they have that someone else will give them money for.

Bitcoin is intended to supplant fiat currencies, and to an extent have done so. Fiat currencies are pieces of paper that govts issue and people believe have face value because other people believe it, too. Bitcoin is just like US Dollars except not printed on paper, not sanctioned or semi-approximately-recognized as having face value because banks honor transfers and others accept it as payment, That seems little difference to me. The common element is wide-spread acceptance in payment, but Bitcoin doesn’t have the flexibility as a paper substitute for smaller scale use as cash, making the final step clumsy, even if possible. What percentage of the world needs cash on a daily basis? I don’t know. But if every transaction needs to be computerized, that’s not a substitute in my mind.

China can’t exist as an economy without trade for the US and Europe. If the JPY and Bitcoin crash, a worldwide currency crisis will descend into an economic crisis that will stop the world. China can’t feed itself. It will need to capture food, wherever.
That will push China over the edge and require a war to keep it’s population united instead of revolting. That will make things worse which will make things worse.

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I’m not sure but traders are buying the US dollars merely for the higher interest rates, courtesy of Biden / Yelle and other usual suspects.

Probably the same for the South Korean currency.

Welcome to the forum ! Today’s rates are far too high home owners and young buyers will suffer .

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Hmmmmm… The rates are not too high; not practically or historically. Interest rates need to be high enough to reward savers at the same time low enough to allow borrowing. The USA economy is a result of that concept, - 230 years old. The prices of homes are too high because the govt has forced builders to include features that, while nice to have, are touchy-feely climate friendly, and Earth friendly, blah, blah, blah. That makes costs too high. All that adds costs which need to be paid for by the ultimate buyer. Add all the regulations for site prep and the built-in extra costs require a builder to sell something large enough to ~hide~ all the extra costs, and allow his 20% margin. Ipso facto, every new house you see is big and concurrently expensive. This has been going on since the 80s; the last generation of homes built that could qualify as a starter home was built in the 70s when I bought mine. I’m 80. This is an example of where all “things” are going. Yes, they are superior for Earth, climate, blah, blah, but there is no entry point for young people. This applies to everything from BBQs to home heating, stoves, refrigerators, etc. The young people who are proponents of this are, in the vernacular of my youth, f**king themselves away from the table. Congratulations, the new world you demanded and created and mandated will result in an empty life with no pleasures. 1984 writ large.

Saving rates are 5% and mortgage rates are 6.25% that is insane !!
Over 4-in-5 potential sellers feel “locked in” to their current homes, due to their lower mortgage rates, according to a recent survey from Realtor.com. While more than half plan to wait until rates decline before selling, a quarter say they’ll sell now anyway, for reasons ranging from changing family needs to the desire to earn a profit.

I can’t predict the future, and can just barely comprehend the past. F\But for sure, we all need to live in the era we are in at any given moment. Our economy needs a sharp blow upside the head to change bad habits, and directions, and recover. Recovery is never any prettier than the process of getting deeply in the hole. All the Biden/COVID free money shoveled out of helicopters needs to be offset by increases in production at zero increase in costs of production, or withdrawal from the economy via taxes, or paying down debt by Congress via lower spending than tax receipts. That which is not offset becomes inflation that keeps prices at a new level forever. Which of those mechanisms, singularly or in any combination do you suppose will occur in under 10 years? OK, give 20 years.

There is no easy way to reduce debt; you gotta pay it down, or at least the interest due monthly at the same time you’re reducing the principle, too. The inflation begun by the good intentions of the Vietnam War in the late 60s was brought under control in the 80s. That’s the 20 year option I mentioned above.

So, get used to the thought: interest rates will be higher for longer; a hard bottoming will be forthcoming shortly and necessary to get the attention of the people who are the butt of the joke who may then vote against the Dems & RINOs that have used it to buy the votes of people too inexperienced in reality to vote properly. Short-sightedness leads to its own reward.

Don’t like Trump? He’s not a popular choice based upon his likeability. He’s our only chance to horse this badboy economy back on to the road to recovery. He knows what bankruptcy and failure look like, up close and personal. That’s the vision we need. Roses & lollipops are not in our future unless and until…

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The whole point of foreigners using dollars as a way station is if they need it to be the same amount when time comes to pay for something not too far down the line when the transaction is denominated in dollars. Most likely when foreigners convert to dollars, that’s why, and that contributes to the stability of the USD, too. If buying something from a European, it could be better to keep it in Euros. The US currency is strong because the others are less strong. This varies from time to time, and may be greatly influenced by where it will be spent. The bigger the chunk, the more important it is that it maintains its value in the denomination of the upcoming transaction. I don’t think anyone puts it in dollars as an investment, if they have a large enough time-frame to invest, stocks or money market CDs, etc. work better than bank accounts. Generally speaking holding cash for extended periods is risky and counter-productive as a store of value, always being subject to inflation reducing it on a monthly basis. Some lesser used currencies may be more stable, but harder to denominate transactions in by third & forth parties. Say an Egyptian and a Liberian using Swedish Krona. There’s nothing wrong with the Krona, it’s just not as available as USD or Euro. Almost everyone accepts dollars, even those that hate us. They don’t hate stability.

Nixon’s petro-dollar, preceeded by FDR’s financial measures (FDR was a communist crypto-Joo), permitted the US to monopolize certain commodities (oil, etc) which was essential for the US to retain political, military and economic hegemony.

It was the golden age of PAX AMERICANA from the standpoint of the powers that be in America (the Rockefellers and other banking families) while a communist revolution or rather a slow evolution steadly and stealthfully progressed disguised as socialism, liberalism and more recently wokeism to decay and destroy the traditional American values, while LJB, a crypto-Joo according to pastor Texe Marrs, destroyed the American work ethics with his welfare policies, accompanied by the introduction of narcotics and rampant crimes in large cities.

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As you say, When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

When the goverment gives you fluoridated water, refuse to drink it.

Aparthed was very beneficial for South Africa. Now the country is in ruins.

Once the dummycrats took over the target has been straight WHITE males .

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There is something happening in the housing market at the lower end; I think neither new nor sudden, but more a confluence of forces accumulating over the years. I think I’m looking at results that I’m sure I can’t properly put a name on. Maybe that is because it’s just the way things always go and it has no definitive mathematical name/formula/characterization other than being Adam Smith’s “Magic of Compounding” as viewed from the other side; the cost to the payer as opposed to the benefit pay-out received by the investor. Maybe I’m making much ado about nothing, but what I see is scary (to me) from a financial side, of the future for my grandchildren. To wit:

The housing market seems normal enough, going up and down with economic conditions leading the way and dragging the housing market as thought it was a dragon’s giant tail; sometimes moving up or down or sideways; sometimes the end cracking like a whip. There is something missing and sooner or later it needs to change for the better or the housing market will become like the yacht market, -upper class, only.

There are lots of homes for sale in the middle & upper reaches of the market, but few or none in the 1st time buyer market. If you can’t buy the first one, you can’t participate in the “Magic of Compounding” that is a function of owning property that is rising in value as the cost of everything in the marketplace is rising, concurrently, in price. Accumulating enough value for you to buy #2, a bigger/better/more expensive home 20 or 30 years down the road is an iron-clad necessity and just a savings account won’t do it. You have to live somewhere and you have to pay for that. Either the landlord or you as your own landlord will be accumulating the value of the monthly payments you make. The Magic of Compounding. I can’t speak to how this works in other countries. I don’t know how to compare living standards in USA with other countries, or national attitudes about how people live/should live. So I won’t, I’ll just stick with here in USA.

They have been building larger and larger homes here since the 70s; and fewer and fewer “starter” homes. That has helped the middle market. I bought my first house for $35k in April, ’73, with a 7 ½%, 30 year mortgage on ~$25k; by October the rates had zoomed to a breath-taking 10 ½% and so I was pleased with myself. My wife & I worked, put the standard 20% down and qualified easily for the $235/monthly payment with total yearly earnings of ~$25k. The whole mortgage totaled $105k in payments but the conventional wisdom was/is the house would over that same amount of time increase faster and higher, so it was a positive move and I would benefit in the end. That proved to be true, sort of. In 2005 the house was worth $135k. Unfortunately we got less in 2009 when we sold it in the heart of the The Great Recession housing bust. It was a great time to be a buyer, so we took the trade-off which was a good choice, now in retrospect. I bore you with these details so as to have a baseline with which to compare today’s starter-home market.

There were plenty of nice, new and otherwise homes available then, and they built lots of all sizes at that time. That was the earliest age of the govt interference in the marketplace with rules for more & more aspects of housing. Each rule brought with it a cost; costs rarely go down with time for govt mandates because, if for no other reason, the govt updates/upgrades their demands so the total amount of these non-customer-demanded add-ons eventually becomes burdensome. The result was/is predictable: the cost of land preparation, et al, adds to the basic price of any size home, and that price becomes a fixed starting point. A builder has to put out all the costs of land acquisition, improvements to govt spec installing roads, (now separate) drainage & septic sewers, water, electric, etc. utilities, build model homes as showrooms and all that needs to be financed until he can sell some. That can easily be five years of putting out money and getting nothing in. That alone limits who can build what. Most all of those costs are the same no matter what size house he builds, so there is some mathematical formula that tells him and the lending institution what the dollar-size of the homes need to start at. If you put up $10,000,000 out of pocket expenses and loans, you need a return worth your while. Can’t argue with the math; starter homes now are $300k many places and they don’t even use the term in many places.

My 7 ½% mortgage sounds high today, and people are balking at 6%. I guess the difference is in how much my wife and I made versus what people make today. It was the cost of doing business back then, but now with the lack of lesser priced homes the net cost is a different kind of math. We didn’t earn much, but lived in a 30 ft trailer for 5 years and saved lots that way. It was incredibly cheap then and by comparison today. Scraping together 20% of $300k ($60k) doesn’t seem to work for people who also have today’s tuition mortgages, which are outrageous by any standards. We didn’t have that; we paid tuition & books in cash at the beginning of the semester. If you couldn’t afford it, you went to a cheaper school.

Today, people get saddled with huge tuition mortgages under advice of school advisors who are not disinterested parties; they don’t guide or demand students understand the cost-benefit relationship of Basketweaving BS degrees versus the employment market for same; and are ultimately salesmen for snake oil. If a banker did that he would go to jail, after being fired and sued by the bank.

The confluence of govt mandated very high prices steering builders into building houses that cost too much for first time-buyers, and the pool of first time-buyers being contaminated with govt issued tuition mortgages without consideration of earning potentials mean (to me) the end of first time buyers or at least the great diminishment of same such that it can never exist again unless and until the govt relents on both issues and allows builders to build ordinary & cheap, AND lets banks, et al, make cost-benefit analysis demands on tuition borrowers. Then, and only then can the market re-build; in umpteen years.

There is another factor that has contaminated the marketplace: the Fed keep interest rates too low much too long. It was doing the various administrations bidding; stated or not. Govt borrows at whatever the rates are and they like to pay lower interest. But that’s not good for the economy writ large. The “normal” market interest rate needs to provide savers with as much benefit as it provides borrowers. Rates that are too low encourage excessive borrowing and punish savers. So, you get less saving, too. The Fed appointments need to be single term with no possibility to be fired for some number of years so they would be serving only one master, and not the guy who might grant them another term or appointment. One shot & out; leave a record of good, bad or indifferent management. Serve only the whole country’s best interest.