What’s the difference between living in the old Soviet Union and living in America today?
Well, in the old Soviet Union the economy sucked, but every single Russian knew that the communist government was lying. Statistics about the success of the latest 5-year plan were ignored as nonsensical, since everyone could see that the economy was in sad shape every time they went to the government-owned supermarket and inspected the bare shelves.
In America the economy sucks, but half the country believe the gummint statistics.
Inflation
In America today the economy is starting to tank. We can all see it. But the gummint tells us that inflation is under control and that new jobs are being created. All is well! say the gummint spokespeople. Except that they leave out energy and food from the inflation estimates. And those newly created jobs are mostly minimum wage jobs.
Energy and food are the most important part of any person or family budget. Why is this left out of the inflation figures? Because anyone who pays for heating and food knows that prices are going up. Why are prices going up? Primarily because of massive federal overspending. The fiscal year 2023 budget Biden submitted called for almost $7 TRILLION dollars in spending. Estimates for receipts (from taxes and fees) were around $5T. That’s a built-in $2T deficit.
How about it folks? When you run up your credit cards to the point where they are all maxxed out and you can’t get another one, do you borrow more money? That’s what the gummint does. Washington DC loves it, for the capital is awash in dollars.
Apparently the politicians think that printing money can be done indefinitely, despite a $33T public deficit. The Federal Reserve (which creates money) is about $10T in debt and that is growing, because there aren’t enough buyers of Treasury securities to cover the federal spending deficits. This has been going on for decades. Excess federal spending is killing the economy and the housing market. Check this out:
Jobs
Now let’s talk about jobs. Did you know that there were 245K new jobs created last month (September 2023)? Well aint that grand. There’s only one problem. Someone who can’t make ends meet because of inflation and the crummy economy may have to take a second job. And even a third job. The gummint counts all of those jobs as NEW jobs. I’ll bet that makes the poor guy or gal working those extra jobs feel better about the economy.
But these 245K “new” jobs came about as a result of 1 million high paying jobs being lost and 1.25 million minimum wage jobs being created.
1 million high paying jobs at $100K = $100 billion. 1.25K minimum wage jobs at $20K = $25 billion. $25 billion - $100 billion = -$75 billion.
So we got more new jobs, wow! But the workers of America received $75 billion less in income. And that means less money for the gummint in taxes.
What do the politicians do? Nothing. It’s just business as usual: no budget process, increase spending from last year, cram every spending bill into an omnibus spending bill and give the Congress 24 hours to digest a bill that runs to thousands of pages. And don’t forget the media hacks who support them on the major news networks.
That’s what the corporations who run the politicians want: lower wages, higher profits. Is it a coincidence that our borders are wide open and unskilled, minimum wage migrants are pouring in? Well, it’s not so concerning for the migrants, who get a free gummint-issued cell phone and money every month to make ends meet. That’s partially what all that excess government spending is going to.
Do you recall voting for this shit? Hell, even Democrats and Republicans can agree that this is insanity.
I wonder how U.S. citizens who lived in the old Soviet Union are feeling about current developments in the US. It may remind them starkly of what they went through under the corrupt regime of the Soviets.