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Basic Math Says We're Toast
Not Even The Most Severe Austerity Can Pay The Debt

By Carl F. Worden
1-4-11
 
So, the Tea Party is here to reverse the spending mistakes of the past fifty years, eh? I don't see how they expect to accomplish any such thing, given the basic math involved.
 
We have a $13 TRILLION dollar debt that is generating an additional $4 billion dollars in interest every single day of the year, so $4b X 365 days a year equals $1.460 TRILLION dollars more in debt each year, and the last time I checked that was more than all annual government income sources combined.
 
Our best & brightest minds in government tell us that reducing the annual federal budget by $200 billion dollars is going to accomplish something, but that would only reduce the annual national interest to $1.260 TRILLION dollars without making a dent in the existing debt.
 
We're toast. Economically, the United States is already dead, but the nerves are still twitching.
 
I had a semi-heated conversation with a relative over the holidays that left my mind spinning in slack-jawed neutral. According to him, Obama Care will cost health insurance consumers less, and he insisted that all arguments for and against the cost theory are merely speculative until the program is fully implemented. I told him that it is not speculation to predict that two plus two will equal four next week, nor is it speculation to predict that five plus five will still equal ten next year: It is basic math; it is the universal language, and it NEVER lies.
 
Oh by the way, following that semi-heated conversation, my wife was notified that her health insurance premiums for Anthem Blue Cross are going up 18%, from $343.00 per month to $410.00 per month, and that is for a catastrophic plan with a $5,000.00 deductible! The reason? Obama Care! Among other mandates, Obama Care requires insurance on dependent children up to age 26 now, and all preventative care must be provided by the plan @100% with no deductible. Here is today's Carl Worden Intelligence Test: If existing insurance contracts were not required to provide certain benefits before, but they are now, will the insurance industry pass the increased costs on to the insurance consumer? Here's another tough one: Does a bear poop in the woods?
 
There were no cost controls included with Obama Care. There were no ceilings placed on how much an insurance company can charge, and there were no cost controls placed on medical fees or the purchase, lease or rent of medical equipment, so in lieu of such cost controls there is no mathematical conclusion that can be made other than the fact that health insurance premiums will be driven higher to the point everyone will eventually demand a single federal government health care solution -- and that was Obama's goal all along. My question has always been this: When all private insurance companies are finally driven out of business by Obama Care, where will all those hundreds of thousands of displaced workers go? We're talking about a lot more American jobs being lost if the government takes over health care, which is why my mind gets stuck spinning in neutral trying to understand what the heck these people are thinking of.
 
But even if Congress passes a bill to revoke Obama Care tomorrow and even if Obama signed it into law the next day, it won't do anything to stop the economic hemorrhaging caused by Clinton's Free Trade agreements that cost America millions of family-wage-paying manufacturing jobs, and it appears we haven't done anything right since. We blew the handling of the Wall Street/Housing Bubble by mindlessly throwing money at the problem instead of giving the matter a more cerebral approach, and now we are compounding the problem by extending unemployment benefits to millions of people who would have taken jobs they didn't want, but don't have to for another few months. In the end, Americans will be forced to accept relatively low-paying jobs because that will be all there is to pick from, and when employment benefits really do come to a screeching halt, people will turn quite mercenary all at once in competetition for those jobs.
 
Example: My wife and I were visiting with a friend and learned that her mother runs a Bridal Store and needed an additional sales person to handle the increased business which always occurs in the bridal business around the holidays for all those June weddings. We just happen to know someone who worked in a bridal store previously, but who lost her job when the store closed. She is very people-oriented, enthusiastic and expert in providing the sales and fitting services required, so we recommended her. Mrs. "D" went to an interview for the job around 11/1/2010 and was hired on the spot -- but she told the management that she could not take the job until after January 1, 2011.
 
Now this woman had been "unemployed" for at least 18 months that I know of, maybe longer, and the job being offered her included commission earnings on the merchandise she sold in addition to her salary. In other words, she was being offered a job potentially paying a very respectable income from all sources, and yet she wouldn't take the job until after the holidays were over? Why not?? I'll tell you why not: She was getting paid her full unemployment benefits at the same time as she and her unemployed hubby were making and selling jewelry for Christmas, and it would be mathematically (financially) stupid for her to cast away a steady monthly unemployment income plus all the cash they made, "under-the-table", to take a real job that might or might not work out.
 
If she had no unemployment benefits, the woman would have taken that potentially good-paying job the very next day, and that is WHY you don't extend unemployment benefits beyond a certain deadline. Now, the same people who just had their unemployment benefits extended are becoming conditioned to the belief that the government will just keep extending unemployment benefits until the economy recovers, which cannot begin to happen until unemployment benefits are cut off and people start accepting jobs they would not consider accepting before.
 
Very few people on unemployment income sit at home catching up on the Soaps. With about $400.00 per week coming in from the government, it doesn't take much effort to generate additional income, "under-the-table", and there are so many ways to make money on the side that taking a real job paying minimum wage is simply out of the question. Think about it: If you made just $200.00 per week tax-free on the side and couple that with your $400.00 per week unemployment benefit, that is an annual income of over $31,000.00, with 1/3 of it tax free. Oregon's minimum wage is now $8.50 per hour, which comes to $17,680.00 annually and is all taxable. Worden's Intelligence Quiz further asks, "What would you do"?
 
But none of this really matters now because it is mathematically too late to do anything to stop the economic hemorrhaging and prevent our ultimate economic death as a nation. The feds will keep extending unemployment benefits as long as they have money to print because they know there will be rioting, fighting and destruction just like what is happening in Greece if they don't. That is a really bad reason to keep unemployment benefits going, but if you are a politician with an eye on the gallows that are awaiting you, you'd keep those benefits going as long as it takes to make sure your own interests are met (like having someplace offshore to hide) before those benefits are cut off and all Hell breaks loose here like it has in Europe. But unlike our European brethren, we Americans are armed to the teeth and we are fully capable of violently overthrowing the government, so the problem facing our leaders is quite a bit more complex, to say the least.
 
  
 
 
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