Notes on Communism - Dan Mitchell

From Dan Mitchell: To “commemorate” the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution in Russian, I've been sharing a series of columns on the evil of communism.

An Anniversary of Evil: 

100 Years of Communism, 100 Million Deaths; October 30, 2017 by Dan Mitchell

100 Years of Communism, 100 Million Deaths, and Far Too Many Dupes and Apologists; November 5, 2017 by Dan Mitchell

100 Years of Communism, 100 Million Deaths, but a Silver Lining of Clever Jokes and Satire; November 7, 2017 by Dan Mitchell

100 Years of Communism, 100 Million Deaths, and the Moral Blindness of (some) Economists; November 10, 2017 by Dan Mitchell

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Daniel J. Mitchell is a top expert on fiscal policy issues such as tax reform, the economic impact of government spending, and supply-side tax policy. Mitchell a former senior fellow with The Cato Institute and The Heritage Foundation, and served as an economist for Senator Bob Packwood and the Senate Finance Committee. His articles can be found in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Investor's Business Daily, and Washington Times. He is a frequent guest on radio and television and a popular speaker on the lecture circuit. Mitchell holds bachelor's and master's degrees in economics from the University of Georgia and a Ph.D. in economics from George Mason University. His blog is Liberty – Restraining Government in America and Around the World.

We Live in a Bankrupt Country

This is not my piece, but it's so important that I'm just posting it here in case someone stumbles upon it. Read on...

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The Math is Simple - The USA is Bankrupt

The United States is functionally bankrupt. Our collective capacity to deal with this astonishing fact is seemingly nonexistent. Our national politics have become show business, exhibiting a complete refusal to strategically respond to this reality.

Let's look at the simple numbers of our national debt. Our on-the-books national debt is $11.6 trillion. But off-the-books federal debt, including Medicare and Social Security, is $107 trillion. This is not a made-up number; this is the money we should have in the bank, according to the federal government's own accountants, to pay for our current promises to our retirees and future retirees, and this doesn't include unfunded obligations that we have to the pensions and benefits promised to federal workers and veterans. Nor does it include huge unfunded pension and benefit obligations for other public employees at levels below the federal government.

But let's just add the $11 trillion to the $107 trillion, and we get $118 trillion. These are big numbers but still just fifth-grade math. Now our total annual national output, or gross domestic product (GDP), is about $14.3 trillion. Total federal receipts, or income if stated in business terms, are about $2.5 trillion. This means that our debt to federal income ratio is about 47, and that ratio assumes that the federal revenues are free to retire the obligations, which they are not. We must pay for defense and a myriad of other programs. Again, in business terms, there is no free cash flow to pay these massive obligations.

Our total national private net worth, according to the Federal Reserve Board, is about $51.5 trillion. That means our federal unfunded liabilities represent 2.3 times our collective net worth. That's pretty darn broke.

Ask any accountant, banker, or anyone remotely familiar with simple accounting knowledge if we can service this debt, and the collective answer is a resounding "no." Any business with these ratios would be a complete basket case, hopelessly bankrupt. Unlike General Motors Corp., there is no one with the wherewithal to bail out the USA.

If anyone can write an intelligent response to how we can handle this massive problem, please respond. I would love to see the plan. I once asked one of my federal senators, Sen. Tom Harkin, Iowa Democrat, how we would handle this nightmare, and he simply replied, "We'll grow our way out of this."

Senator, I challenge you to lay out this cheery scenario. We are not politically set up to grow at 8 percent or 9 percent like China. We would have to adopt extremely aggressive pro-growth policies, and those are not politically acceptable at this time.

Even if we significantly slash the federal entitlements by half, we cannot fix this problem. Even if we increase federal receipts from the 50 year average of 18.5 percent of GDP to say 27 percent, killing private-sector growth, we cannot fix the problem.

We are collectively broke. It is a horrible legacy we are leaving to our children.

Can common sense be restored?

— Mike Whalen, The Washington Times, August 11, 2009, p. A19

Mike Whalen is founder, president and chief executive officer of Heart of America Restaurants and Inns and is policy chairman at the National Center for Policy Analysis. An honors graduate of the University of Illinois and Harvard Law School, Whalen and his wife Kim have two children, Christopher and Katie, and reside in Bettendorf, IA.

Our friends Dwight & Joanne Tomkins are missionaries in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. I have copied part of their most recent mission report below, as it gives a first-person view of the political situation there, most specifically with respect to the so-called coup d'état (actually a perfectly legal congressional action) that occurred near the end of June.

Politics in Honduras

2009 August 17

In spite of what you hear and read on the news, we are not in any danger here. On July 29 Joanne even arrived at the Tegucigalpa airport, got a cab to the bus station with all of her luggage and bused out to Catacamas by herself with no fear or concerns.

And the current government is not a "brutal dictatorship", as one US newspaper reported last week. For the most part, things are going as usual. That's not to say there aren't a lot of angry people, but there are more accepting people than there are angry folks. The protesters are in the minority, and are pretty much concentrating their protests to Tegucigalpa (the capitol) and San Pedro Sula (which is considered to be the economic center of Honduras).

The previous leader was removed from office through a legal vote of the Congress because of his own illegal actions. The vote was ordered by the Judicial system, approved by the Congress, and carried out by the military. The current president was chosen by Congress in accord with the Honduran Constitution. The Vice-President had resigned previously and the president of the Congress was next in the line of succession. All of those government entities are still carrying out the same roles they did previously.

The hardest thing about the current situation, for us anyway, is the restricted travel caused by road blocks and check points. Military check points throughout the country are making travel much more time consuming. Also there still are intermittent road blocks on some of the roads by supporters of the previous president. We planned to take our truck down to the dealership in Tegucigalpa last Tuesday for it's annual check-up but were advised against it by the Embassy's report of anticipated demonstrations that day.

Dwight & Joanne Tomkins

It's not "Health" insurance

It's not health insurance. No one can buy a policy that ensures that you will be healthy. That's up to your own decisions about your lifestyle. The choices you make in what you eat, drink, exercise (or don't), how you drive, the risks you take in your leisure time, the riskiness of the job you do.

The insurance you pay for is mostly to spread the cost out over many years for one or two catastrophic incidents that might cost you more than you could possibly afford at the time. But the economics of it are very simple: the many pay for the catastrophies of the few. And we especially pay for the boneheads who take the greatest risks. But in the end, YOU are paying for it. It doesn't matter if the money comes from the insurance company or the government or the local charity, you are the one footing the bill (unless of course you refuse to ever support any charity, but you're still paying for 99% of it).

I was recently asked how this was different from having the government issue tickets and fines for driving infractions. Huh? The argument is that the government makes rules about driving and then enforces those rules, so why can't they make rules about "health insurance" and enforce those? The answer is enlightening:

When you get a ticket for speeding, you pay the price of your poor decision. If you kill someone because you are speeding, your price may be very high indeed, and cost you much of your worth and much of your time if you are incarcerated. So the government has, in this case, punished you for your poor decision. And in the case of a lawsuit for a wrongful death, the family of those killed may even benefit financially from your wrongdoing.

If you get sick, you have a lot of choices, including taking care of yourself, and if that is not sufficient, seeing a doctor or even receiving hospital care, etc. You pay for this privilege, whether directly or through the regular insurance premiums you pay (perhaps for most of your life!). But if you've made poor decisions throughout your life, your health may be comprimised because you chose to smoke, or chose to eat poorly, or chose to forgo exercise in order to spend more time watching your nightly TV or get your daily internet fix. You may frequent establishments in less-than-desirable parts of town, or you may talk on your phone or send text messages while driving. It may be more subtle that these; perhaps you simply chose to associate with people who guided (or misguided) you into less-than-healthy choices. But the point is that all of these are choices.

(Please note that yes, there are many health problems that are not entirely due to poor choices, especially inherited or congenital problems. But these are the minority, and fall under a different category.)

Now, when you are called to pay the piper for your lifetime of poor choices, the medical bills may be very high. So if you've been blessed to have medical insurance, you may have already paid for much of the care that you will receive. If not, you will be faced with a decision of how to pay, or to instead forgo the expensive part of the available care.

If "health care" becomes an entitlement (you may say that it already has), then who pays for the poor choices made by those without their own insurance? Yep, you know the answer. We all do. And it's been tried over and over in many places all over the world, and it doesn't work. Well, it does on the surface, but in reality it's an overall failure.

Summary: For government-enforced driving infractions, the person who makes the poor choices pays the penalty. For government-enforced "health care", the person who makes the GOOD choices pays the penalty, and those who make the poor choices get the supposed benefit. That's how it's different.

When Christmas is all about getting.

Christmas. To a child, it's all about getting. But, for the most part, it's not at all that way for adults. Why is that?

I was sitting in church this morning, listening as the speaker brought the children to the front and asked them about Christmas. Guess what they were excited about? All the STUFF they were going to GET. So I'm thinking about my desires for Christmas day, and none of it has anything to do with my getting anything. Is it because I'm not going to like the presents I'll get? Certainly not! In fact, if all goes well, I'll get that new iPod I've been wanting, and even better... there'll be CHOCOLATE in my stocking. My kids have pretty much figured out that there's really nothing more important for me to find in that gift bag than a big, lucious selection of chocolate. So, no, it's not that I don't want anything, but I really don't get all worked up about the prospect of getting stuff on Christmas.

So what's up with the kids' excitement about getting stuff, and why don't I still have that feeling? Here's my opinion.

As a child/student/young person, one has essentially no resources, so at Christmastime it's possible to receive things that one has no other way to obtain. Once we become responsible adults, we no longer have this limitation — so the getting is not so important. (OK, there are still a few things I have no chance of getting for myself: if I were to be given a brand new Dodge Viper, or maybe a Lamborghini, I'd be really excited.) So when does this transition occur? It may come slowly. For me, it changed as I became a "productive citizen". But hey — would you believe that I was in my late 20's before this happened? Even in college and graduate school I was excited about getting stuff at Christmas. In fact, my favorite gift of all time came when I was about 20 years old: My parents gave me a big Craftsman toolbox full of wrenches, sockets, drivers, and accessories that I still use to this day. Here 30 years later, just holding one of the wrenches in my hand continues to connect me to my father.

I recall with sadness being told as a child (mostly by school and bible class teachers) that I should want to give and not receive — and I felt guilty because I didn't feel that way! Now I realize that my desire to receive was OK! The "getting" is great, and it was very exciting — I mean, really, how cool is that? Every child learns through that experience how joyful and invigorating it is to receive something you could not possibly get for yourself. Does this sound familiar? There is still something that I desire greatly that I cannot possibly ever get for myself, no matter how hard I work or how much money I have or how many good deeds I do or how many people I schmooze with. And that brings us right back to Christmas, and the real reason that Christmas is all about getting.

funny quotes

• Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck. -George Carlin
• My mom said the only reason men are alive is for lawn care and vehicle maintenance. -Tim Allen
• There are days when it takes all you've got just to keep up with the losers. -Robert Orben
• Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded. -Yogi Berra
• Money can't buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull up right alongside it. - David Lee Roth
• We'll love you just the way you are if you're perfect. -Alanis Morissette

quotes i like

• The most effective way to do it, is to do it. -Amelia Earhart
• Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race. -H.G. Wells
• I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. -C. S. Lewis
• Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future. -Niels Bohr
• Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -Arthur C. Clarke
• How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean. -Arthur C. Clarke
• A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. -Albert Einstein
• All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. -Albert Einstein
• A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be. -Albert Einstein
• Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. -Albert Einstein
• Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. -Albert Einstein
• A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have. -Gerald R. Ford
• If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work. -Thomas J. Watson
• All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt. -Charles M. Schulz
• It's not denial. I'm just selective about the reality I accept. -Bill Watterson
• Spring is God's way of saying, 'One more time!' -Robert Orben
• It seems like once people grow up, they have no idea what's cool. -Bill Watterson
• When birds burp, it must taste like bugs. -Bill Watterson
• Every noble work is at first impossible. -Thomas Carlyle
• The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions. -Oliver Wendell Holmes
• If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over? -John Wooden
• There are many things that are essential to arriving at true peace of mind, and one of the most important is faith, which cannot be acquired without prayer. -John Wooden
• Consider the rights of others before your own feelings, and the feelings of others before your own rights. -John Wooden
• As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand. -Josh Billings
• When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece. -John Ruskin

Good Morning

A crystal structure is a beautiful thing. This initial message is here mainly to demonstrate the ease of creating a blog. I created an account, uploaded an image (the one you see is the structure of a caffeine molecule) and added an introductory audio clip (sorry!). This took all of 10 minutes, and I even edited the photo and the clip before uploading.

Looks like anyone can do this. It's essentially unrestricted. And if you're reading this, that means that anyone can also access whatever I write here. But who'd want to?

Thanks for listening.