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| Joined: | Mon Nov 21st, 2005 |
| Location: | California USA |
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Anyone (or no one),
As I look for discussion, and find none, I can usually count on one way discussions to fill the void, to supply the demand (with something less than the demand, by at least half less).
The above is a link to the latest news from Gary North, as often is the case, Gary and I are seeing similar things from different angles of view, as if we are looking from the outside of a circle, Gary North on one side of the circumference, I'm on the other side, as we both look in toward the center.
As we orbit this thing we both see, it seems to me, that we both see "them" from our perspective on the outside. "They" are operating without specific clues, they are clueless.
They trusted the economic system. They have never heard of the Federal Reserve System.
That is not derogatory, it just isn't, they are operating without specific clues, clues that are easy to see, if one looks.
All you have to do is look for a specific clue, and you see it. How hard is that?
Now it is story time. This Joe, who is actually named Joe, by his parents no less, is working after having been pushed out of a job, and pushed out of a job that I worked at for over 20 years, almost 25 years. I began showing signs of depreciation, bad ankles, a disease or two, and before long the bosses let me know that I was no longer in demand.
Let's follow through on this. Joe gets fired. He is unemployed. He looks for a new job. He is still in the labor force. So, the unemployment rate rises: the ratio between those out of work in comparison with the total labor force.
Joe looks for a job. His unemployment insurance runs out. He stops looking for work. Or he starts looking for jobs that pay in cash. In either case, he is removed from the labor force. He is therefore also removed from the unemployment rolls.
It turned out to be a good thing that my little family unit had already turned in the 401K "retirement" fund to start a Real Estate business, since that source of income paid for the insurance that covered the costs that brought me back to working capacity, since my former employers (the 25 year "career") dumped me when they might have had to pay on all that insurance I had paid into, all those years.
That was the capitalist insurance program routine. Pay, pay, pay, and when it is time to cash in, or time to "benefit" the insured, the focus of effort, the cost, the expense, is aimed at severing the bond. I was severed from that bond. I was sick, I was without work; I was dumped from that insurance "plan". What about the socialist angle of view?
They are not competitors for market share, as one might think, they are two sides of one coin. The "social security" people denied any benefits too, and we went all the way to a judge, me and my wife, as we struggle to make ends meet. That is one Joe story, a real one.
We manage to make ends meet, we borrow from usurers, we pay those prices, and we still manage to produce more than we consume, even while we suffer debilitating conditions of health, or life. Perhaps our personal insurance policy will dump us too; but so far that policy has cost us little compared to how much was paid to various health care providers - on our account.
Insurance is interesting in ways that defy simple explanation, but for now it seems appropriate to return to the latest from Gary North.
This Joe didn't even ask for unemployment insurance. Effort spent on healing, effort spent on producing something of value so as to ensure a steady income, an income above the consumption rate, is effort that cannot afford too many costs that are spent on boondoggles, wastes of time, wastes of effort, pyramid schemes where placement at the bottom requires devouring those further up so as to built steps from which a person can ascend while stepping upon the tortured bodies, the mass murdered masses.
As an unemployed person, he had a greater weight in the numerator (fewer people, total) than he did in the denominator. So, when he gets removed from both, the unemployment rate goes down. Victory for the stimulus! But the victory is purely statistical.
Second, let's consider initial claims for unemployment insurance. The most recent claims have been in the 566,000 per week range (4-week average). It was 616,000 a month ago. It was 623,000 a month before that. So, there has been some slight improvement. People go on the rolls. Then they go off, as they get work or run out of payments.
Total unemployment as of July 23 was 6.2 million.
The need for a rat race is purely man-made; rats are not fond of such drama, it isn't in their genetic code. They eat each other, sure, but not as a result of having created the conditions leading to that option on purpose. It isn't a profit motive for the rats. That is our legacy to the history of life: self created social cannibalism. We are special.
Someone may take my viewpoint as being one of depressed melancholy, or even manic foreboding. I'm just commenting on specific things, a pieced of the pie, the overall evaluation, from my end, is utopian - just ask my critics. We don't have to be so self-destructive, and all we have to do is learn not to feed the legal criminals.
That is, again, cause for me to quote from a source that aught not be relegated to the irrelevant history bin:
Self government, on my end, is spent on producing more than consumption, and when that isn't possible, to assume a position of dependence until such time as self-government can resume. Included in that task is a demand for accurate accounting, to answer the vital question: am I furnishing the means by which we suffer?
Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.
Only the accurate answer will do, counterfeit answers tend to cause the opposite result.
Back the Gary North:
Tesla is hiring. Those are the guys who have not received any bail-out money unless the bail-out money was given to the Germans and now the Germans are loaning money to Tesla. Tesla is a career change type thing; they are making cars that can run on home made electricity. Home made electricity is another career change thing.
A mass layoff is likely to take place in one town. They are not individual layoffs spread across several plants or regions. They are likely to hit one plant. The company shuts down a division. It finds that the entire output of a plant or a division is no longer profitable.
I sent an application for employment to Tesla, not that I need more work, I have more work than I can manage; it is just a good thing to increase the supply of options - generally speaking.
One of my ideas is a Taxi service where the base of operations, the garage, the dispatch office, etc. is a Solar Power farm. How much does it cost to full up a gasoline powered taxi? Tesla says that their "not so economical" sports car costs 4 dollars to fuel up and a full tank of electricity will force the car over 244 miles of road.
Doing the math helps. I've done the math on Solar Panels. My Taxi service idea can create an income with the Solar Panel investment; where the surplus electric power is consumed by the Taxi Cabs; which isn't exactly the same thing as free fuel. It is a competitive perspective, it isn't the norm. From the customers view; which (a question) would he or she prefer: pay for gasoline costs as part of the fare, or have no fuel cost to pay as part of the fare? Again, not the normal calculation, not yet. People operate generally under this 'scarcity' dogma that is passing as economic theory, but that too will pass.
Doom, doom, doom, or "green shoots"? Looking into the center of things, Gary North from one side, me from the other, I'm inclined to see electric cars and solar panels, career changes, and there are more, like vertical farming from modular green house units, where algae can be used to produce motor fuel if necessary, inexpensively, as time goes by, or tomatoes.
The economic recovery is not here yet. The media report as good economic news statistics of less serious decline. The public has become less pessimistic about the economy. What is the basis of this optimism? Media spin. Congressional promises. Bernanke's assurance that he saw some green shoots.
What is the purpose of a steady diet of doom?
Businesses need current purchasing power in the absence of "savings", the competition won't wait. Tesla is a very good example. VALCENT PRODUCTS INC. is another good example. My own family business is another very good example.
We are in the midst of a disaster. The economy is still on its back. Economic growth requires capital, but the government is absorbing savings. The banking system is not providing the funds that businesses require.
When the legal criminals in the counterfeit government starve them-selves, as we stop feeding them, and when they devour themselves, is that cause for depression?
I don't think so. But that may just be me.
We demand an accurate currency, even as we ignore our own demands.