Taking The Odds
November 17, 2015
By:
The Mogambo Guru
On a heretofore misplaced piece of paper that was quickly forgotten until
a “Hmmm! Look what I found!” moment, some recent noteworthy news is that
the federal government took in $3.2 trillion in taxes on 2015, but spent
$3.6 trillion, for a paper deficit-spending balance of $400 billion.
Wiping away the coffee stains and (sniff, sniff) what seems to be faint
remnants of a chili dog, it appears, as calculated by someone who is more
deft with a calculator than I, that this tax haul is more than $21,000 for
every one of the country’s 148 million workers who either works full time
or part time, which I think is a VERY generous estimate of how many
workers there are.
148 million workers? Almost half the population is employed? Surely you
jest, sir!
As Leslie Neilson would have replied, ala the movie Airplane!, “No, I am
not jesting, and stop calling me Shirley!”
Of course, being a cynical and paranoid old man who is sure everyone is
lying to him, out to get him and steal his money, and who is also willing
to stoop to stealing the classic comedy of Leslie Neilson, I don’t count
as “employed” anybody that does not have an employer who pays taxes on
profits derived from their labor.
It’s that simple.
This includes, obviously, the millions and millions of local, state or
federal government workers, employees of the public school systems,
employees of government-outsourced businesses, employees of
government-sponsored non-profit organizations, or any of the millions of
other people whose income depends on governments providing (gratuitously
waxing vaguely Shakespearean) the fat teat at which they so greedily
suckle.
If you will please stop thinking about suckling teats long enough to
subtract these not-profitable workers from the labor pool, then the number
of “employed” people drops bigtime. As proof, I present disturbing facts
and figures about the spending side of the federal ledger, which I have
freshly pulled out of the air when vague memory fails, but cleverly
presented in authentic government format, which is to use dazzling
three-decimal precision.
Thus, you can believe me and scoff at rude naysayers when I tell you that
the cost of $3.687 trillion of federal spending divided by precisely
90,582,992.882 workers is exactly $40,703.004 of government spending per
real, profit-making worker in America today!
The federal government spends as much, per profitable worker, as each
worker makes.
I deliberately left off the exclamation points after that last
sensational, stupefying sentence as an example of my hitherto unheralded
Cool Mogambo Demeanor (CMD), designed to let future historians know that
there are more sides to The Essential Mogambo (TEM) than are taught in
their schools.
As an aside, I agree with educators everywhere that all the distracting
pornography, senseless gluttony and vague death threats comprising the
bulk of the corpus of The Essential Mogambo (TEM) is stealing the
educational limelight from pure cosmic truth, which is that the Austrian
school of economics is the only true theory of economics, and that anybody
who disagrees is a big, fat idiot.
And, lest I waste an opportunity to heap cruel scorn upon Keynesian
economists, let me hasten to say that this particularly includes the
laughable Keynesians, busily diddling with their precious little computer
models to justify the mind-blowing insanity of replacing lagging consumer
spending (thanks to all income being consumed in servicing bankrupting
debt) with increased government spending of an increase in the fiat-money
supply, and devising new “hedonic adjustments” to disguise the resultant
inflation in prices (“You paid twice as much for the car as last year, but
with snazzy hubcaps included at no extra charge, there is no inflation in
the price of cars!”)
The fact is, there should be at least – AT LEAST!!! Like that!!! – three
exclamation points to provide the necessary head-exploding, screaming,
hysterical outrage emphasis that this kind of monstrously insane fiscal
stimulus, using money-out-of-thin-air created by the evil Federal Reserve,
so richly, richly deserves.
Again, please note my calm demeanor, as evidenced by my repeated complete
lack of extraordinary punctuation to denote “We’re Freaking Doomed (WFD)”
emphasis, as would be expected because the situation is so disastrous that
I’m actually gagging up blood here! Blood! Well, maybe not blood per se.
Could be pizza. But something!
Anyway, add in another $2 trillion or so in state and local
taxation/spending per year, and pretty soon you’ve got an economic system
that reflects the disastrous results of the horrid, treacherous Supreme
Court infamously ruling, over and over again, that money did not have to
be gold and silver (which would keep the money supply stable, and thus
keep prices from rising and keep government from supporting, at this
point, half the population), as so clearly and expressly stipulated in the
Constitution of the United States! Exclamation point and all!
But make no mistake: From here on out, the Federal Reserve and the federal
government are going to commit every economic sin imaginable in a suicidal
frenzy to make sure that this whole ugly, bloated, malignant economic
system of an expanding money supply and accompanying debt, an expanding
size and reach of government, and an expanding population of people
suckling at the aforementioned fat teat of government continues as long as
possible.
Now look what you’ve done! I
can’t stop thinking about fat teats, either!
And such a distraction is such a shame, since my next topic was about the
importance of owing precious metals, yet cautiously weighed against the
ability of a desperate government to spend borrowed money, and willing
banking co-conspirators to keep creating money, to keep the bond, equity
and housing markets afloat and, hopefully, rising, for a long, long time.
So, one certainly needs one’s wits about oneself to play such a game of
brinkmanship!
Alas, being a particularly gutless guy who knows with absolute certainty
that this idiotic Keynesian economic experiment will end in complete
disaster, and one who sees a Gigantic Screaming Bargain (GSB) in the
market prices of gold and silver thanks to the despicable market
manipulations, I’m reminded of the old adage “The race is not always won
by the swiftest, nor the battle always won by the strongest, but that’s
the way to bet.”
And, since the odds are in your favor, in a long series of bets, you will
win! You will always win over the long run! Just like the “house” in Las
Vegas!