Hindsight is a wonderful thing and we all have it, but the ability to see ahead unfortunately is not a part of the human condition. I often think how rich I could now be if I had only foreseen the dotcom bubble, the Stock Market boom crash and boom again, and the housing bubble. I could have invested early and then bailed out just before each collapsed. As it was I never fell for the dotcom bubble or the Stock Market bubble and I did reasonably OK on housing – at least, so far. But the skepticism that kept me on the sidelines also prevented me from getting rich.
I was thinking of this as a result of listening to two economic experts on Talk Radio this week. The first expert was Steve Frank (his website is CaPoliticalNews.com) being interviewed by Brian Sussman on 24th February. He was discussing California’s current financial situation and was armed with information. I have no doubt that his figures are correct and they are stunning. The bare facts are that the State of California is wildly insolvent. Apparently US States cannot be deemed to be bankrupt so the correct term for California is ‘insolvent’. And How! The State is currently running a deficit of $36 billion. It also has debt of $660 billion. By comparison, rust belt Michigan, with a far smaller population has a deficit of $13 billion. California also has massive ongoing commitments to public employee pensions and other welfare entitlements. Mr. Frank didn’t mention this but almost every local government within California also has big debts and big commitments. California is a high-tax State and has been for decades so this indebtedness is not the result of inadequate income. It is also a State that still produces oil, is the HQ of the world’s hi-tech industry, has a big agriculture industry and has Hollywood, the home of the richest people in the world. True, much manufacturing has fled the State, and more recently significant numbers of resident taxpayers have also fled to neighboring Nevada and Arizona, but California is not a rust-belt State. Frank pointed out that Texas, a State similar in size to California, is quite solvent. Some other States that approach California’s predicament include New York and New Jersey.
Yesterday, Arthur Laffer, who once worked for the Reagan Administration and who is famous for having invented the Laffer Curve (a tool of economics) was also on the Sussman program and his description of the US National economy was like California writ large. The causes of the accumulations of both California’s debt and the Nation’s debt are public overspending. The villains are politicians of course since they manage public finances. The Nation’s overspending can be attributed mostly to Leftists, though Republicans including Presidents Bush One and Two have something to answer for. The staggering trillions of dollars of current debt have been racked up by Obama and his comrades and since those comrades also controlled Congress for the last three years, the blood is mostly on their hands. In California, the Democrats have ruled without hindrance for decades and I would not call Hollywood’s Governor Schwarzenegger a Republican, so we can safely say that California’s insolvency has much to do with Leftist politicians. It is no coincidence that New York State and New Jersey are also Leftist strongholds.
Where is this public indebtedness heading? Frank suggested that individuals seeking to survive the evolving decade of Depression should keep their money ‘liquid’ and he explained that that meant having cash deposits in Banks that are guaranteed by the FDIC. I cannot see how having dollars anywhere will be a protection against massive inflation, so what to do with savings other than buy tinned food and gold remains a mystery. There are similarities here with Greece, Spain, Italy, Ireland and Portugal, and on another continent, Argentina. All are countries that have large public sectors (mostly unionized), shackle their private sectors with regulations and encourage welfare dependency. Many of these countries also have high numbers of immigrants, as does the troubled UK. At the moment the economic catastrophe that seems to be bearing down on the US and the nations mentioned above, is being postponed by more borrowing and more printing of money. All are democracies of one kind or another, so the ordinary voters must shoulder some of the blame. Here in California there is no sense of imminent catastrophe amongst the people I talk to and I gather the same is true in the UK.
On this website we believe that these economic problems are connected with the rise of the Media Class all over the First World. California, in many ways the birthplace and heartland of the Media Class (thanks to Hollywood), provides much evidence of what has gone and is going wrong. We have a ruling Class that is both Leftist and removed from reality. This ruling Media Class has also been able to capture political power by manipulating news and information and shaping public attitudes through news and entertainment propaganda. The people have been brainwashed both at school and by the Media. And those that have not succumbed have been deprived of a voice and ridiculed. The same can be said of the UK. Mass Third World immigration, surely a disaster in so many ways, has been concealed, played down, misrepresented and lied about in the MSM (Mainstream Media). Those who protested have been demonized and silenced by Media persecution.
There is no single element responsible for the terrible decline in economic prosperity in the Western World but California, once prosperous and now living on borrowed time and borrowed money, offers some clues about the underlying cause. It has a huge population of Third World immigrants, indiscriminatingly admitted, and so its prisons are bursting and its social and health services are drained. Three of its major cities openly display a source of decline. Los Angeles has Hollywood, where those who worship and are addicted to self-indulgence and artificiality, are role models for so many Californians. And Hollywood, oozing wealth, can fund and buy those politicians it approves of, both for the State and the Nation. It has San Francisco, a once-great city that has been overwhelmed by the Nation’s perverts and the alternative life-style freaks who have brought down the whole nation’s morals and sent only extremists to Congress. And in Sacramento, where the State’s Government expands daily it has the leeches who live well and bleed the taxpayers.
We should never overlook the significant events which often reveal a greater truth. Whilst California was and is sinking into financial disaster, its Government and elites have been pre-occupied with legalizing same-sex marriage, saving trees and giving sanctuary to ‘undocumented’ criminals. (In Spain – another Nation on the brink of financial disaster – this last week its Parliament has been busy debating the legalization of abortion). The greater truth is that we are all ruled by a new Class whose preoccupations and priorities are far removed from reality. Ordinary Americans, if properly educated and not constantly exposed to the trivia, feckless and immoral garbage pumped out by the MSM, would have lived well within their means, raised good citizens within stable family life and elected politicians whose first priority was keeping America strong. Americans in the ‘Red’ States (the ‘Red’ standing for ‘Rednecks’ – those bitter people who Obama described as turning to guns and religion) have not succumbed to the Media propaganda and their States are not insolvent. Is this not significant?
What I am saying is that the amoral, materialist, anti-Christian, Leftist, Statist ideology that is being promoted by the Media Class and which has long ruled in Sacramento and now rules in Washington, leads to bankruptcy. Reality may be dispensed with when making films, TV news and entertainment programs, writing play and novels, parading naked on the streets of San Francisco in ‘Gay’ parades and posturing over world poverty and the environment, but reality can only be postponed for so long. Allowing the Media Class to impose its values on this Nation is resulting in disaster and the same is true for every Western Nation. Sadly, California is leading the way. Reality will be harsh when it returns.
Here in cold, blustery, wet California we have to feel lucky that we are not living on the blizzard-hit North East coast or in the freezing UK. I bet Al Gore has all the heating turned up in his large mansion. One piece of good news that the MSM will not allow you to know is that the Australian Senate has just rejected same-sex marriage. Make no mistake, if it had passed it, there would have been celebratory headlines everywhere in the MSM. Another piece of good news is that in yesterday’s ward by-election in Jarrow in the UK, the result was as follows; Labour 854; BNP 566; Ind 213; Ind 174; Cons 124; LibDem 100. The Conservative vote was down 13%, so not good for Cameron. Jarrow is historically a Labour Party stronghold so this was a good result for the BNP. Unfortunately, it will lead to even greater official persecution of the Party.