Pages

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Global Debt Meltdown coming soon to a theater near you

Global Debt Meltdown
The situation hasn't just happened because of one president or another.  It took many years for this situation to take place.  Every time one governing body wanted to keep their hold onto power by giving their constituents whatever they wanted to be in favor.  Mix this with waste and fraud and you get the economy and the nation into a bad situation.  And it isn't one country that's doing it, there are many.  This is a global debt crisis and the root cause is the selfishness of the political constituents.
It is said that in the near term there is over $70 trillion in liabilities and over the longer term the outlook is closer to $700 trillion in government debt liabilities.  Yet those who represent us in government continue to spend our money at an increasing rate.  I heard a senator in Washington say that currently we have no problem of a default because the US can easily pay the $20 billion in interest that was due at the time.  It seems the senator cannot grasp the fact that $20 billion is a lot of money to most of our population.  Just the interest is $20 billion, those who control our nation's budget have no grasp of the huge amounts of money that each taxpayer will be responsible for over the long term.  I guess its not coming out of their pockets, they can just give themselves a Cost of Living increase or raise if their increased taxes and fees are too much too bear.  Most of us can't do that, it comes out of our living expenses.  I know that you and I have to live on a real budget, with real limits, we can't just print money like they can.
The sad thing is, is that they are pulling the wool over the eyes of our senior citizens.  They tell them that they are going to get more social security, more medicare, more healthcare, more medicaid, more "safety nets" so that they won't have to live in poverty.  Yet, more and more senior citizens are going into poverty are requiring help from non-profit groups outside of their government aid and subsistence.  And they are also putting a burden on the future generations, their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.  The truth is you can't get something for nothing.
Lets follow the money that goes to the "security net" for senior citizens.  Let's take a business perspective for argument's sake.  The business gets a customer to buy a product from them at $1, it cost them 50 cents for the product so they clear 50 cents, but wait they have a cost, they had to pay rent, electricity, employees, shipping, legal, insurance, etc. and, they may have cleared 5 cents.  Within all of that the government took out payroll taxes, such as social security, unemployment insurance, medicare, as well as taxes for fuel and shipping, and now they still want their cut of the five cents.  So they get another say 30% of the five cents so the owner of the business keeps about three cents.   That seems like a lot of work for 3 cents and we haven't even mention the risks that the owner takes every time he sells a
product.
If you are a senior citizen you could say so what, I don't have to pay anything, I've already paid my dues and now I get to reap the rewards of what I paid in.  How does the governments spending and increased taxes on the "rich" affect you.  Who cares if the "rich" gets taxed more?  If we assume that the "rich" that they are taxing are the corporate entities, then in most cases they must answer to their stockholders.  People like you and me, who have placed our retirement into businesses so that we can eventually retire, take care of our grandchildren, perhaps take a trip or two and not worry about running out of money before we pass away.  But if the business fails to make a good profit to pay dividends to their stockholders or loses money because of government regulations and tax burdens, then we end up with a smaller retirement because the price of your stock will fall since it is usually pegged to the growth potential and profit potential of the company.  That translates into less retirement income or savings, which means ramen noodles instead of steak, cans of tuna instead of caviar.  Now, in order for the business to stay in business and keep their investors, like you and I and all the other people saving for retirement, happy they need to raise prices so that they can increase prices and subsequently their stock value will increase also.  So when the President or any of the political parties say that they will increase taxes on the reach it still reaches down and affects the rest of us.

The government doesn't really create wealth, they print money.  The difference is that real wealth is created from a true increase in production or productivity.  Printing money or money created by increasing the money supply is not real wealth.   Now let's consider this, if you are baker, your wealth is in pies.  If you bake ten pies on one day and sell them at $10 each and make a $3 profit or 30% for your efforts, you have increased your wealth by $30.  The next day you bake another seven pies and you have netted another $30 dollars.  Now you have doubled your wealth, you have $60.
Now the Government doesn't produce anything it merely takes your money and puts it into its pocketbook.  We'll use 30% as the governments tax rate for the baker so without doing anything they tell the baker that he owes them 30% of the $60 or $18.  And they do this to every single corporate entity and individual and lets say that adds up to $1014 billion.  They took in over a trillion dollars without lifting a finger.   These are the funds they use to protect you militarily, protect you socially, protect you environmentally, protect you financially, protect you physically, protect you from being swindled, take care of your health, educate your children, help you save for retirement, and they will benevolently take care of those who can't help themselves, like the poor and uneducated just for starts.
Have you ever heard of the saying if it sounds too good to be true its is.  When you turn over your money to the government, they will spend the money on administration,  collecting the money costs a lot of your money, then they have to make sure they go after anyone who doesn't have the money to pay them , so they must foreclose on homes, automobiles, land, bank accounts if necessary.  For those who just don't want to pay, they have to take them to court and imprison them.  What actually gets back to you, for your benefit is probably a very small percentage of what went in.
Sounds like something from a movie.  The story line goes like this, the Empire is in control, forcing people into slave labor gives them only enough to eat and lives regally off of their backs.  A lone brave hero walks into town to save them from their miserable lives as they work harder and harder in the hot scorching sun so that they will be able to have a few crumbs left for the day they can retire.  Sounds funny, but it may just happen only because we created, we can't blame any party or president.
We, the people, are responsible for what is happening.  Each one of us needs to be the lone brave hero and take responsibility for the situation our nation is in.  We can't just sit back and wait for someone else to do the work.  We need to get involved and talk to our representatives and ask them some tough questions and help with solutions.  If you are an entrepreneur at heart, now is the time to go out and do something.  You can either be a part of the problem or part of the solution.  Choose to be the solution.


Bizincubators: educating and inspiring entrepreneurs
js