Those of you who don’t understand where wealth comes from or even what it is should pay attention.
Wealth is not money. Just because you have money doesn’t make you wealthy. In Zimbabwe, people had money but no food or clothing or TVs.
Wealth is having what you want. That’s all it is.
Where does wealth come from? It comes from you making decisions where you give up one thing and get another, more valuable thing. The epitomy of wealth creation is the free trade that occurs second by second in a free economy. People give away stuff they want less than what they get. After every transaction, both people walk away wealthier than before.
In the grocery store, you happily part with that dollar for the can of food becaue the can of food is worth more than that dollar. And the store happily parts with the can of food for the dollar because the can of food is worth less than a dollar. Both the store and you are wealthier after the transaction is made.
What creates wealth? People acting in their self-interest in a free economy. That’s it.
Government enters in the picture as the only entity who is permitted to use force and the threat of violence to get things done. You don’t deal with government because you want to. You do so because you have to—or else!
The kinds of transactions you enter in with government may be a win-win. But those are rare. Normally, it’s a lose-lose. You leave with less than you had before government demanded you deal with them.
A great example is taxes. Obviously, no one wants to pay taxes, but we all do because we like our freedom (from government). What do we get in return? Well, nothing really. Whether we pay our taxes our not, on the individual level, we will still enjoy the same government benefit. All we get in return, really, is a promise that government won’t throw us in jail and take our house away. Even then, sometimes government screws up and we are left in jail and without a house after we paid our taxes. Yes, it really happens. And government gets away with it because no one else is allowed to take their house away and throw them in jail.
But all those tiny rules and regulations that government makes you follow also has a rule. Most of them forbid free action on your part by intentionally limiting your options. “No, you can’t sell or buy that.” Unless you’ve gotten permission from government, you can’t even use a toilet. Yes, your toilets are under regulation as well and you could go to jail if you install them improperly or sell the wrong kind.
Government, in rare cases, can actually make things better than the lack of government. These cases are few and far between. It’s debatable whether even providing free and public roads is one of them. It’s obvious that running the national banks is definitely not one of them, neither is providing housing for poor people who think they need to beg mama government for everything they need to survive.
Today’s government, both the federal and state, have long ago left the area of doing things that actually help. Today, they create problems that were solutions to other problems they created. Then they create more problems to solve those problems. And we end up with TARP and the Obama spendulus/porkulus/crap sandwich being shoved down our throats because we’re too stupid and we don’t care (according to Sen. Schumer.)
Already, the government has completely drained the financial sector from any money that could ever be used for loans. Simultaneously, they have scared the financial sector so scared that they will never offer anyone a loan again. And to top it all off, they have made it known that they better offer loans to poor people who can’t pay them, or else! To top it off, they now say that if you work in the financial sector and happen to make a decent salary, they are going to try and throw you in jail for it. And to top it all off, they are now signalling that if you are a failing bank, you’ll become a government bank, and if you are successful, then you’ll finance the whole deal.
They have misspent the people’s money entrusted them through taxes in the order of trillions. They have misspent their power of printing money by handing it over to the Fed and allowing the Fed to do who knows what with it to the tune of several more trillion dollars.
I’m trying to think about the appropriate response here, and I’m really at a loss for it. At the very best, we have to wait at least 4 more years to get a complete change in the makeup of our federal government. Perhaps they can sort out this mess. Or, perhaps we can have some kind of peaceful revolution. Perhaps we all refuse to pay taxes or refuse to honor Fed-issued currency. Or perhaps we the taxpayers of the United States can go on strike and refuse to produce wealth altogether, except what we need to survive. At the worst case, maybe it’s time to march on Washington D.C. with shotguns, torches, and pitchforks, and scare the living daylights out of the creatures that live in the shadows in that corrupt city.
Regardless, those of you who think government in this state can create a single penny in wealth are confused.
