I love fruit. Most of us do. We are being served up a basket of rotten fruit by the spin doctors in the US government and the media, regarding the "fragile recovery of the US economy". In reality, the depression is worsening and gloom is on the horizon. The oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico is good foreshadowing of the difficult times ahead. The coming hurricane season is being predicted as a particularly bad one because of a series of factors that are coming together. Again, foreshadowing. While everyone frets about the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain) economies, the US economy is worse by far in real terms.
Some of you think that I am all doom and gloom, a pessimist at best. What I write in regards to the economy does not come out of my negative imagination, but from what I read, and I read about these things voraciously. I should not, perhaps, but when a train is coming, I like to know about it ahead of time so I can get off the tracks.
Today (Thursday) there is a story in the USA Today.
"Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in US history during the first quarter of this year, a USA Today analysis of government data finds. "At the same time, government-provided benefits - from Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other programs - rose to a record high during the first three months of 2010."Those records reflect a long-term trend accelerated by the recession and the federal stimulus program to counteract the downturn. The result is a major shift in the source of personal income from private wages to government programs."The trend is not sustainable, says University of Michigan economist Donald Grimes. Reason: The federal government depends on private wages to generate income taxes to pay for its ever-more-expensive programs. Government-generated income is taxed at lower rates or not at all, he says. 'This is really important,' Grimes says. "
This should not surprise anyone. Any government does not have money and produces nothing. It all comes from the tax payer or from borrowing. This situation is not sustainable. Period.
PS Somebody, anybody, please put a positive spin on this latest revelation.
3 comments:
Terry, I feel your pain. I suffer from the same terminal condition of paying attention as you do. It is so hard having almost no one to discuss these interesting times with. People don't pay pay attention much. Once in a while people hear a single news story that surprises, but they seem to just go back to not paying any attention. Hardly anyone is paying attention to the news of each day and linking and connecting the stories themselves.
The future looks bleak and a lot of people that are beginning to see that refuse to and do not want think about it any further.
We live in the age of deception, where governments blatantly deceive the people and the people still will not reject their governments. I suppose to some degree the governments still are a representation of the people. So sad.
We need honesty, intelligence, and integrity in our leadership. That will not be forthcoming because in order to maintain power, all that really is required is to surround one's self with successful spin doctors.
Yes, connecting the stories is the key and coming from a Christian and a Biblical world view, I do not despair, but find comfort in the fact that things seem to be coming together the way they should.
Thanks for reading and commenting on my blog.
I agree completely with you Terry. I'll expand on how I mean things look bleak, and that is in that what clearly needs to be done in order to sustain these countries and even see them flourish is so obviously not being embraced by politicians. That's all.
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