An actuary, is a person who figures insurance risks. If an insurance company issues an auto liability policy to a 16 year old male, with a yearly premium of $10, it is actuarially unsound. The insurance company will soon be bankrupt. Actuaries, are of the greatest importance to an insurance company. What has this to do with the economy? Simple!
The Largest Insurance Company in History
What is it? It is the U.S. Government. Think about what “governing” the federal government does, and after much thought, you will have to admit that it does far more insuring than governing. Ever since FDR’s time, insuring everything in sight, has been the main occupation of the federal government. When FDR got passed the Social Security fraud, it was insuring old age. When LBJ got passed Medicare and Medicaid, it was insuring health. The hundreds of insurance policies the government has issued since 1933, besides those two, are almost impossible to count. Think about it, and tell me one single cabinet position, which doesn’t concern itself with insurance.
Doesn’t the Department of Education attempt to insure education against failure? HEW, HUD, EPA, SEC, FAA, DOT, et al, all are actual insurance frauds, perpetrated by the DC drones, and all of them are so actuarially unsound, as to be absurd. When an insurance company fails, it is usually because it issued policies which were actuarially unsound, and the inevitable claims broke them.
Before FDR, the federal government insured no one, or nothing, for all practical purposes. Citizens were allowed to fail or succeed at will, luck, or fate. The budgets were balanced, and if one wanted to sink or swim, it was all up to the individual. Rich kids blew away their inheritance, and lazy men fished on river banks, rather than working, and suffered the consequences. Charity helped the deserving poor, but mostly demanded work for handouts.
When FDR began the insurance scam, which has continued unabated through the years, the cost was enormous. In 1929, thanks to the Fed’s doing exactly what it did during the dot com boom, there was a stock market crash, and lots of unemployment. FDR began insuring the unemployed, by giving them work to do, which didn’t need doing, but it was done anyway. How did this insurance policy pay its claims? Just as it does now, but with a different method. The dollar supply was increased, and in order to get around the law that required gold backing, the percentage of backing was reduced. The dollar was still backed by gold but less so. Lots of post offices were built, other magnificent art deco buildings were built, especially in Washington D.C., to house all the insurance employees. As a matter of fact, those of you who are familiar with D.C., might know the area of which I speak. From 14th St NW, to 6th St, NW, between Constitution Ave. and Pennsylvania Ave., there are lots of “departments” of this and that, which were formed to issue the dollars to those who it was determined to ’need’ them. This area is known as the “Federal Triangle,” in Washington D.C. Hundreds of billions were given away, as they still are. Prices went up, because of the increase in the dollar supply.
World War Two
This is not the place to indulge in why we ever got into it, costing 360,000 dead Americans, but I firmly believe FDR got us into it to stop the depression, after all other measures had failed. The depression still lingered, and the war got us out of it.
Prices actually doubled in less than a five year period, when we were in that war. Cars, which sold for $650 before the war, went for $1300 after, and they were almost exact copies of the pre-war cars. Everything had doubled in dollar prices. The reason is, that in spite of the war bond drives, kids buying stamps to help the war, WWII, as all our wars are, was fought with printing press money. The dollar supply doubled during the war. The debt was sold to Americans in the form of war bonds and stamps, and to everyone who would buy them, plus lots of plain old printing press money. The gold backing of the dollar had been decreased again. After the war, America began sending dollars by the boatload to foreign lands, to rebuild them. Japan and Germany, had an insurance policy, it seemed. They killed our guys, shot down our planes, and imprisoned our troops, but the actuaries in D.C. thought they had a claim. Billions were spent, and the dollar’s backing was reduced a bit more, and more dollars went into circulation. Prices went up.
Korea
President Harry, “The Buck Stops Here,” Truman, thought that when North Korea invaded South Korea, it was America’s job to intervene, and subsequently lose another 50,000 soldier’s lives. The dollar supply increased, and prices went up. The gold backing was reduced.
Viet Nam
While JFK might have begun it, LBJ really got into Viet Nam, running it almost personally from the White House. This one was to save us from the “domino effect.” Another 59,000 American lives lost, and more dollars in circulation. Prices went up, and gold backing reduced.
All the while, more and more insurance policies were issued to pay for veterans’ college tuitions, home mortgage assistance, aid to dependent children, the Interstate Highway System, unemployment insurance, additions to the Social Security system, covering the disabled, and debilitated, and more. A policy would be issued to just about anyone for anything, it seemed.
Eventually, all the occupations were insured by OSHA, and miners also through MSHA. The air and ground was insured through EPA, race equality was insured through the Equal Opportunities insurance agency. Housing, flooding, hurricanes, crop failure, the uninsured, poor, fat, stupid, sick, old, deformed, and what have you, are now insured by the federal government, in a huge insurance scheme, which is actuarially so unsound, as to be absolutely absurd.
In 1965, all silver content was removed from the dimes and quarters, with 40% silver briefly remaining in the halves, which today are called “Clads.” In 1971, “Tricky Dicky” removed all backing from the dollar. It was 32 years ago, that the dollar had any backing of any kind. We have since then, had at least 400% inflation, and perhaps a bit more. I have figured that we have had 400% since 1980, so I am sure it was more than 400% in the preceding 9 years. Homes where I live, have gone from $14,000 when new in 1971, to $114,000 now. Autos the same. The Grand Imperial Hotel in Silverton, Colorado, which I bought for $81,000 in 1971, now is for sale for almost $4 million. It is the same everywhere.
Insurance, or Government?
Some may quarrel with my calling the bloated, inefficient government, an insurance agency, which is actuarially unsound. The liberals will say that it is government’s job to “help” those who are in need. I can find no such order, or permission in the Constitution. What the gigantic insurance company, known as the US government has done is, not only rob Peter to pay Paul, but it has robbed everyone to pay Paul, including Paul himself. Even Paul suffers, when the currency is devalued.
Frederiak Bastiat once said, “Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.” While we are into quotes, try this one by George Bernard Shaw: “A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.” Politicians depend on the votes of the “Pauls” to get elected and stay in those posh offices in DC. As Mark Twain said, “Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But then I repeat myself.”
As each percentage of gold was removed from the dollar since 1932, with the last vestige being removed in 1971, and since all the coins are now made of base metal, the actuarially unsound insurance scam has come full tilt. The wages have to be so high, to cover the “insurance,” that jobs are gone. Three million lost of late, but many millions over the years. Japanese cars were not in America, other than as a curiosity, till the early 1970’s. Volkswagens never caught on till the early 1960’s. Mexico and China had no manufacturing capabilities, till just a couple of decades ago. Daily, we read of another firm closing its doors, and moving its manufacturing to the Orient. 4,000 white collar jobs a week, now go to India, it is said, because wages are low there. Ours can’t be low, because of the insurance scam, which has been going on since FDR began it, in 1932. The insurance premiums we are forced to pay, known as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, income taxes, and regulations beyond all tally, cost so much, that it is impossible for anyone to work for wages paid to the Chinese or Indians. The premiums on the insurance, plus the cost of policy regulating and inspecting, are so horrendous, that continuing to make things, and even grow a lot of things, is a physical impossibility in America. Don’t blame management of the companies for moving overseas. Blame the insurance carrier, who has, and continues to forcibly issue to every American, without their consent, thousands of policies, which are actuarially unsound. Our capital goes overseas in increasing amounts. When it is all gone, and we are tired of doing each other’s laundry, where are we, America? Protect yourself.