Living Within Ones Means

We are all required to live within our means, or get into serious trouble.  We cannot earn $30,000 a year, and spend $35,000, or at least we shouldn’t.  Millions do it, and make up the difference with credit card advances, home mortgage increases, or loans.  These people eventually get into trouble.  Businesses have the same problem if they advertise too much, have too many employees, or pay too much for the merchandise they sell.  Most restaurants fail within the first year.  For that matter, most new businesses fail within the first year.  I see it all the time, and can easily predict it.  How?  Because I’m old, and have always been in business.  Being a businessman requires a certain mentality which I can’t explain.  Maybe I inherited it from my Dad, who was self employed all his life in a corner drug store.

You know what comes next.  Who doesn’t live within their means?  Of course, it’s the federal government, which can print all it wants to pay its bills.  “Elementary, my dear Watson,” or are you so young, that you don’t remember Sherlock Holmes?  They don’t print it, at least so far, without selling the debt they incur by printing.  They ’sell’ the debt to China or sucker Americans who buy it in the form of Treasury Bills of varying lengths, at the huge interest rate of usually from one to three percent, or a fraction of the inflation rate.  Monday, Bloomberg wrote that China has reduced its holdings of US debt by close to 8%, and she favors the euro over dollars.  The fools in D.C. don’t worry too much about that, because they ’buy their own debt.’  Sort of like a young lemonade stand entrepreneur drinking all his lemonade himself, and since its all gone, thinking he made a profit.

Winnie Churchill once said that you can’t spend yourself into prosperity.  The D.C. Gang is trying awfully hard to do it.  The federal bureaucracy has its slimy fingers into everything.  Think about that statement, and try to find anything in which they aren’t involved by taxing or regulating it.  Anything at all.  Food?  Regulated and taxed..  Utilities?  Regulated and taxed.  Clothing?  From overseas, it’s taxed, and generally examined and regulated also.  Fuels?  Heavily taxed and regulated.  Traveling?  Heavily regulated and taxed.   Health care?  Same.  Buy a new toilet, sofa, tire, or tool, and government has its tentacles in everything.  A hundred years ago, it didn’t, we were taxed very little, had no national debt, and were so prosperous and wealthy that we were the envy of the world.  Now?  Laughing stock, and even McDonalds is beginning to import beef from Mexico.  This means I will never go into a McDonalds again.

The Founders came here at great peril, because they wanted to be free from compulsory religious membership in the Church of England.  The Puritans really had severe religious beliefs.  So strict were they, that in today’s world, they would be a candidate for the comedy channel probably, but that’s what they believed.  Remember the ’witch trials’?  I am reading a book now titled “Mayflower,” and so far, it seems to be pretty good.  The voyage was hideous, and life threatening.  Several died and were thrown overboard.  The cramped, filthy, quarters the Pilgrims endured to get away from The Church of England (now a days Episcopalian), was indeed marvelous. They had no government or bureaucracy.  They were under a king, and didn’t like it, but he didn’t bother them at first.  Now we have a king like Washington D.C. with bureaucrats by the million; regulating, taxing, and controlling everything we do and buy.  A hundred and fifty five years after the pilgrims,  America had enough of the King and his taxes without representation, and we rebelled.

As today, there were those who thought a king and his bureaucrats and taxes were OK.  They were the ’loyalists,’ many of whom moved to England after the revolution.  Today, we have the Obama crowd, Democrats, liberals, and as they are called today, the ’progressives.’  They love big government, because government ’helps’ people.  Sure, and by ’helping’ them, it destroys them and taxpayers who pay for that ’help.’  That ’help’ has destroyed the dollar, major cities, and given us the underclass, who are basically worthless, and should all be done away with, in a humane manner of course.  Gas?  Progressives never consider who pays for all this ’help,’ about which they get so excited.  When ’government pays,’ there are no consequences to the liberals.  They are lousy economists.  America is being destroyed because of all this ’help,’ D.C. has and is giving away.

I don’t know why I continue to write these columns.  All I am doing is preaching to the crowd. The one thing about writing all these ditsy columns is this:  I used to think that my opinions were mine alone, and now I know that many thousands agree with me!  That’s really nice.  (I’m rambling, because my mind is on the MS Amsterdam, which we will board for a 14 day cruise to Alaska next week).  Nothing like a cruise on either Holland America, or as a second choice Princess.  Hang your clothes in the closet, and the food and entertainment is superb.  Go to bed, and next morning you’re in another port.  Cruising is the best of all possible worlds, and the best way to travel.  Flying?  There’s two classes:  First class and third world.