Perhaps predictably, I have chosen April Fool’s Day to unburden myself on What’s Really Wrong Here.
There’s really only one issue: profitable bullshit.
Here’s a low-level fly-by of two statements of that issue:
Problem: Gas Prices
The oil industry will set the price of regular gas around $5/gallon by summer. They don’t even lie any more about ‘why’. No one asks. Flush with a decade of obscene, barely comprehendible profits, they sit before Congressional comittees and say, “Because we charge that”. The Congressmen, refusing to indict their main sources of income, accept this.
Solution
This is called “price fixing”. There’s sufficient law on the books to put as many oil company executives in prison as are tried, and enough Congressmen for selling their offices..What’s the matter, the courts can’t touch Corruption by Direct Deposit?
<aside> There is enough technology to produce electric cars that go more than forty miles. Think about it. Diesel locomotives, the original “hybrids”, have been used exclusively by the railroads since 1950. What kind of alternators do they use to charge their batteries while on the road?</aside>
Problem: The National Debt
The US has faced this problem six times in its history, and solved it each time. Currently, the money source, the Government Printing Office, prints the amount of money Congress authorizes. It gives this money to the Federal Reserve Bank, a private organization, who passes it back to Congress to be spent according to the Federal budget. Currently, that budget calls for the spending of $4 for every $3 the Government takes in in taxes, more or less. So the Federal Reserve lends the Government that additional dollar, at agreee-upon interest. That loan is the National Debt.
It will never be made up through taxation, spending cuts, budget balanciing or any other economic measure.
Solution
The way this problem was solved the last six times it arose involved passing new laws removing the federally-chartered bank from the process. The Government Printing Office dealt directly with Congress: As now, it printed the amount of money Congress authorized. But instead of giving it to the Bank, it gave the whole amount to Congress. They paid it out according to the budget – including the interest accrued on previous loans. The debt was repaid in short order, and the economy thrived.
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Frankly, I don’t know much of anything. There are problems with both of these “solutions”.I can’t even imagine. I yearn for someone to bring them up.
I never lose track of the fact that any statement that begins with the phrase, “All you’ve got to do”, is a lie deliberately designed to distract you from the fact that it’s not all you’ve got to do. Reality needs attending to, here.
I’m really tired, though, of the only “Dose of Reality” being, “It stays this way because we’re going to beat you into accepting it.”
Come on. We know how that one turns out.
Tomorrow, I think I’ll talk about the the Third Issue: Health Care. All I can promise is, I’ll be just as swift.