Middle Class

I just read a very interesting article:

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/10.30/19-bankruptcy.html

As you know, I believe that the invisible force causing the disruptions in our society is the banking system, specifically fractional reserve banking. Simply put, banks take more than they give. Not hard since they give hardly anything.

For those just joining the program, fractional reserve banking is where a bank maintains reserves (assets like deposits by you) and is able to loan out 10x or more than amount. Effectively they are like legal counterfeiters. They create almost the exact downsides of counterfeiters except they are worse because A) they work with the sanction of the government so they cannot be put out of business or jailed as they should be, and B) they inflate the currency many times more than counterfeiters who work underground.

I watched a documentary called "Capitalism: a Love Story" by Michael Moore. As you know, I like to read/watch things that I don't like, so don't think just because I say I watched/read something that I agree with it. The basic conclusion, like the Shock Doctrine, is that only strong central government with iron-clad unions can save the poor lower and middle class. Or in other words, if only a "good" person will don the One Ring then all will be well. I don't agree with that. I believe the One Ring should be destroyed. What does this look like? It looks like a Federal Government with a budget of about one-fifth the current size and doing ONLY its constitutionally enumerated functions. For that you have to go back about a hundred years.

However, he rightly classes the Banks as criminals in cahoots with the Federal Government.

It's a variation on a theme: if only our guys were in power then things would be better. My politics are simple-- no one should be in power. The absolute maximum control should be with the individual. Local government to keep criminals off the streets, and the feds to keep enemy tanks out of the country.

Mental exercises:
1) at what percent of GDP would federal spending need to be for you to actively protest it? At 100% no citizen would have any personal resources and everything would be controlled by the politburo.
2) at what percent would federal spending need to be reduced to the point where it could no longer perform its correct functions? Or in other words, is there a point where it would be so low that you would protest it?

Do you notice in this following chart that we are approaching federal spending near the height of World War 2? Doesn't that seem a bit much?



My answers:
1) 10%
2) 10%

If you have a difference between your two answers it means that you would permit the federal government to do some things that are not in it's "correct function".

Is there anything, can you name one thing, that if the federal government got involved in it you would be affronted as a free man? What if you got a letter from the Department of Agriculture giving a list of approved foods that you were allowed to eat? What about a minimum number of children (say three, it is now law to have a minimum of three offspring)? I am purposely putting a few strong examples out there just to get a baseline.

Where would you draw the line?

And what would you base that on? There are many who argue that the US Constitution very much limits the federal government with "enumerated powers"; things that is can do and everything else is forbidden.

More to come.