America as it was a 150 years ago, would be unrecognizable, if were someone resurrected today. America of 1867, as an example, had federal spending of about $45 per citizen per year, not derived from taxes. Today, the federal government spends about $5,000 per citizen. The federal government of 150 years ago was tiny, and its costs were paid from tariffs. The State Department under Tom Jefferson, had seven employees and the world has gotten no larger. No income tax, no welfare, no handouts, food stamps, Social (un)Security, or supplements of any kind 150 years ago, or 100 years ago for that matter.
Today, there are, as far as I can count on various web sites, 1173 federal agencies. How many state, city, county agencies there are, I can’t find out, but governments at all levels employ 21,955,000 people. This is opposed to the manufacturing sector employing 12,328,000 people. This means that the ratio between manufacturing and government employment is 1.8. 1.8 people working for government, as opposed to one person making something. Government employment, at any level, has a deleterious effect on our economy. No government employee generates a profit, but takes the profit from manufacturing and business. When someone makes, grows, or sells something, it is indicative of a healthy economy. When government grows and grows, it is indicative of an unhealthy economy. When something is unhealthy, if the bad health is not corrected, that entity will eventually die.
When an economy is unhealthy, there are ways to diagnose the disease, just like a sick person will take their temperature and blood pressure to find out what the problem is, and correct it. An unhealthy economy is indicated by huge growth of government, high taxes, and inflation. Inflation, because the high taxes won’t pay for the increasing costs of growing governments, so the printing press us used to pay the bills. Printing currencies or printing bonds to sell to the uneducated, which in reality, is feeding a cancer or disease.
Today, the federal government spends about $4 trillion a year, and takes in a bit over $3 trillion through various taxes on just about everything. The deficit is increasing every year, which is certainly not healthy. Food stamps alone cost $74 billion, and when a government feeds and cares for the health of its citizens, that alone is a dark cloud over a nation’s health.
Volumes can be written about our national health, and regardless of who writes the volumes, a rosy picture cannot be painted or truthful prose composed. Donald Trump was elected on a promise to try to straighten it all out. His own party has mostly tried to help him, but a few stubborn asses in the Republican side of the senate have de-railed his efforts. Why? Because of nit picking every bill, and simply defeating the whole program, to the ultimate death of America. Is that too strong a statement or an exaggeration? The federal government employee numbers and 98% loss in the value of the dollar is a temperature taking, and horrendous bureaucracies and endless unconstitutional rule making, is a severe high blood pressure; to me anyway.
What can we do to correct the sorry health of America? Vote correctly, try to buy ‘made in America’ foods and merchandise, and protect yourself with historic money in all nations, and that is gold and silver. For goodness sakes, pay no attention to the TV advertisers of metals which promise you ‘free silver,’ and all sorts of freebies. Those ads and freebies are paid by people who buy from them. Colorado Gold works out of our homes, have no employees, no fancy offices, and we do no advertising. When we say 1% over our cost and that includes shipping, it’s true, when other say similar, it’s a pack of fancy TV lies.