By

John Wright

I have studied our publicly expressed political values from pole to pole, Ultra Liberal to Ultra Conservative, and just about everything in between, and beyond that the offshoots that head into philosophical and/or political and/or religious Never-Never Land. Indeed, I have done this for many years, and finally I have decided that our defined political stances have nothing whatsoever to do with progress. There are only three factors of relevance. The first is honesty. The second is creating affordable valuable products and providing high quality essential services to meet societal needs. The third is deciding to take from society no more than what one contributes. All three of these factors demand a value system that honors reality over opinion and wishful thinking, and one that honors delayed gratification to realize growth from dedicated effort to create the evolution of Humanity, not our degradation, and finally, a sense of fairness.

What are valuable products? Simply think of food, vehicles for transportation, medicines, clothing and shelter. What are essential services? Simply think of road creation and maintenance, utilities, military protection, police protection, medical procedure services, legal services/courts, and banking to convert/direct invested capital into developing and making valuable products and sometimes services via loans, e.g. loans to attend medical school on behalf of achieving an M.D.

We use money as the only practical common exchange medium to translate the worth of one’s efforts, a.k.a. product produced or service provided into portable compensation that can be traded for the other products and services available in the society. This means that all processes that determine the complex flows of money, both in destination and in amount, are the ultimate gates that could and should determine how the society evolves, based on contribution, the result of the second factor identified above.

I will add that the acquisition of money for developing improved products and services via sales implies the right to spend the money earned from those endeavors in any legal way. In short, it is not the right of anyone or any government to command anyone else to spend their earned money by any proscribed plan that does not originate within the mind and according to the will of the owner of the money.

I suspect you already know where I am going with this article. Let me briefly mention a few fairly obvious points. Those who are not among the creators of better products and services are exactly the people who should have the least influence on the progression of Humanity. This includes the financial gatekeepers, the indigent, the political bodies and the populations representing the arts, humanities and religions. These latter groups consume but they do not create the fundamental new products and services that improve the quality of human life for billions of us. They take and redistribute the wealth created by the productive. Some of them provide value in entertainment or counseling to deal with tragedies. But they in no way create a better future, though they do in some instances provide support to those who are the creators. But typically the worst of them presume a role of managing and/or demanding the fruits of the productive, which turns out to be an ever smaller segment of human society.

The reality of the convoluted relationship between the truly productive and the other segments of society is the only relevant reality today, and it is destroying our progression as a species. We have an inverted relationship between true producers and utter consumers, with almost all of the political and financial power belonging to the latter groups. This has caused many producers, especially mega-corporations, to behave in ways that are also harmful to society so that they may retain their earned wealth. Thus, for example, we have offshoring, which has the net effect of creating a global least common denominator economy. That is disgusting as it, along with socialist governments via overspending and taxes, destroys the lives of formerly productive employees and their families.

It is all too obvious that the problem is global. The United States is but one participant. And it is also totally obvious that political efforts and central bank efforts (like the Federal Reserve) to stimulate economies wasted from socialism and excessive government spending are leading us to destruction, not saving us. The old paradigms are flat out inapplicable to solving our current economic problems, globally. Indeed, following the paradigms of the past fifty to one hundred years (personal income taxes, creation of the Federal Reserve, then socialism, followed by major inflation) has brought us to our knees economically.

The implications are simple. We have to bring socialism to a screeching halt. We also have to reverse globalization, rapidly. Government expenditures must be cut at least in half in the USA, through stepwise reduction of all entitlement programs and global military expenses. Businesses that use the markets provided by a country like the USA cannot be allowed to offshore profits to avoid taxation. Thus, tariffs must be re-instituted to give the USA economy a chance to advance by stimulating local manufacturing and thus providing meaningful and higher paying jobs within our borders. Immigration must be reversed, including both illegal and legal immigration, complete with deportations.

The indicated steps are not negotiable. There is no political aspect of any importance. This is simply a choice to survive and rebuild a country of rewards based on performance, or to die economically by implosion, due to absurd and increasing non-productive populations and governmental debt.

The measure of worth of any country is the ratio of honest to dishonest people (economic hard fact based realism in words and behaviors), productive to unproductive people, and the balancing of the value of local production with the cost of local consumption. That we have veered far away from that state of being is not arguable. That we must return to that state of being is also not arguable. No form of continued self-deception or societal deception will result in any worth returning to the USA and to other countries. Change or perish.

Now, perhaps you can tell me the validity and the value of the coming presidential election. Do you see anything of value relative to developing Humanity? Or is it more to the point that we are becoming increasingly desperate to hold an unstable environment together, in the USA and in the rest of the developed countries?