Wrisley.Com

November 15th, 2018

DEBT CAN BE HELPFUL - UNTIL IT ISN'T.

Wall St. Journal: Just last year, paying the interest on our $20 trillion in the federal debt took just $263 billion, equal to 6.6% of all federal spending or about 1.4% of GDP. That's low, largely because half of our debt was issued while the Fed held interest rates at zero percent. That's no longer the case, however.

With the Fed now in a tightening cycle, every 1% gain in interest rates adds $200 billion to our annual interest on the debt. With a budget deficit of $779 billion this year, and more like it expected, not only will the debt be growing but the interest payments on it will grow, too.

$263 billion doesn't stir average folks very much because huge numbers like this are bandied about in the financial press almost daily. But it's a lot of money! It's $1 million x 263.000. Most of us would have trouble scraping together one million dollars, let alone a million two-hundred and sixty-three thousand times! DEBT DILEMMA

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   < Economist Milton Friedman coined the catchy phrase "There is no such thing as a free lunch" many years ago. He didn't mean to imply you could not get something for nothing. He meant there was a cost involved in creating the good or service you got and it was paid by SOMEONE...if not you.

         The 19th German economist Franz Oppenheimer explained in his book, Der Staat, that to live one must produce goods and services OR live out of the pockets of people who do.

          There is nothing evil about living from the effort of others. Babies and children do it all the time. So do the aged and infirm and others who have failed to accumulate something for "rainy days."

Soul Searching

   Pat Buchanan remarked in a recent column, "Freedom of the press does not mean guaranteed immunity of the press from the same kind of abuse the press directs at the president." (The Soul of America)

   We watched with interest a video clip in which a TV network tried to "prove" that the White House has doctored the altercation between CNN's Jim Acosta and a girl from the White House staff who was trying to retrieve a microphone he would not give up. She claimed Acosta had brushed against her bare arm in an uncomfortable way and the news purveyors tried to prove that he did not.

   The verbal altercation between Acosta and President Trump is classic, rude, New York style street fighting. It's the style that sometimes leads to fisticuffs. High decibel tough talk seldom leads to any useful conclusion. It does little more than add fuel to the divisivness that has split America into two angry political camps.

Now that the Midterm Elections are over look for the animosity between left and right to increase to even higher levels of foolishness and rudeness.

Republic vs. Democracy

A trip through U.S. history will reveal that divisiveness within the general population is nothing new. Reduced to its basics it's usually the 'have-nots' versus the 'rich.' Politics is mostly a perpetual contest trying to control the distrubution of wealth. The party that proposes ways for the a large segment of the population to live out of the pockets of other people is the one that's victorious on election day.

L. Reichard White has come up with a lengthy discussion of the popular approach to democracy as opposed to the political framework the Founders built in the late 18th century....a republic. To this day we still pledge allegiance the the flag of the REPUBLIC for which it stands. We are also reminded of Ben Franklin's quip when asked what sort of government the 1787 convention created. "A REPUBLIC...if you can keep it," said he.

Does it matter the United States has morphed from a republic to a democracy? REPUBLIC vs.DEMOCRACY