Just as Americans are being socked with some rather hefty
increases in their health insurance, thereby further reducing what in many
cases is an already inadequate consumption income, the latest “crusade” is the
panic over the fact that Americans are not saving enough for retirement; that
retirement needs are short by “trillions” of dollars.
Under the prevailing Keynesian paradigm, of course, “saving”
is always defined as the excess of
income over consumption. If you want to
save, then, the iron assumption of Keynesian economics is that you must consume
less. So the American consumer is being
put into an impossible situation: they are legally required to purchase
healthcare or face fines and penalties, thereby increasing consumption
dramatically and reducing saving, and at the same time are being told they must
reduce consumption dramatically in order to accumulate sufficient savings for
retirement.
Of course, the whole problem would go away with Capital
Homesteading and financing both retirement and capital needs out of future savings (that Keynes insisted do
not exist, vide “What is a Bill of Exchange?” from earlier this week), thereby increasing the capacity to consume and afford healthcare and everything
else without government fines or subsidies.
But wait! That’s not
the only nuttiness this week:
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| Saint Peter's |
• The United Nations has taken it upon itself to lecture the
Catholic Church on its inadequacies.
This appears to be the latest move in an ongoing effort to get the
Vatican out of the UN, even as an observer.
Many of the comments are directed at insisting that the Catholic Church
must change its religious teachings to conform to popular opinion and the
demands of civil governments, who (not surprisingly) don’t want to recognize
any authority higher than themselves.
People of all religious beliefs and (more importantly) no beliefs should
be extremely suspicious of this and similar tactics. Once people and institutions outside a
religion start dictating what people of that faith may believe or how they
practice their faith, it is a short road to mandating a State religion, with
compulsory support and attendance under penalty of law. If government control of religion bothers you
at least as much as religious control of government, consider signing the petition to defend the Catholic Church (and,
by extension, all religions, organized and unorganized) against State control.
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| Archbishop John Ireland |
• A couple of weeks ago we posted a quote from Archbishop
John Ireland. It was about religious v.
government schools, but it applies to all religious beliefs and practices:
“Secularists and unbelievers will demand their rights. I concede their rights. I will not impose upon them my religion,
which is Christianity. But let them not
impose upon me and my fellow-Christians their religion, which is
secularism. Secularism is a religion of
its kind, and usually a very loud-spoken and intolerant religion. Non-sectarianism is not secularism, and, when
non-sectarianism is intended, the secularist sect must not claim for itself the
field which it refuses to others. I am
taking my stand upon our common American citizenship. The liberty that I claim, I grant.” —
Archbishop John Ireland, “State Schools and Parish Schools,” Address before the
National Education Association of the United States, 1890.
• If you needed more evidence of the growing intolerance of
religious belief of any kind, a British court has subpoenaed Prophet Thomas
Monson, recognized by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints as head of their church and God’s representative on earth,
to answer charges of “fraud” in the church’s religious teachings. No one seems to be questioning the right of
civil authorities to rule on purely religious matters, either in the U.K., or
the U.S. Separation of Church and State
appears to be a one-way street, and construed as government control of religion.
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| Rev. Edward Sorin, C.S.C. |
• For all you friends of the University of Notre Dame du
Lac, today is the 200th birthday of Father Edward Sorin, C.S.C., who
founded the university in 1846. Thanks to Dr. Sam N. of Cleveland for the heads
up.
• For years the experts have been reassuring us that Social
Security and employer-funded pensions are fully adequate to meeting Americans’
retirement needs. There is no Social
Security crisis, and the defined benefit pension plan is solid. It’s perfectly safe, even advisable, to get
rid of defined contribution plans, such as the 401(k) and, especially, the
ESOP, particularly since the ESOP is not generally funded directly by the
participants, but by a share of company profits that is due to them as part
owners of the company. It does not
reduce take-home pay. Now,
coincidentally, at a time when the public needs to be diverted from the (un)
Affordable Care Act that looks to have a hefty price tag in the trillions, we
are being told there is a retirement savings crisis . . . in the trillions of
dollars. So, just when a high-ticket
healthcare package is starting to suck trillions of dollars of consumption
income out of the system and reduce the potential for savings, the panic-effort
is now to try to get Americans to start saving the trillions they will need for
retirement. Of course, a Capital Homestead Act would solve both
problems without reducing take-home pay, but it has the downside of having the
potential to drastically reduce the power of government over everyone’s life.
• Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa has his own proposal to fix the “retirement crisis.”
His “Universal, Secure and Adaptable (USA) Retirement Funds Act of 2014” has
all the downsides of the “MyRA” and nothing to recommend it. It claims it offers lifetime income security
funded out of current savings, meaning further reductions in consumption out of
already inadequate incomes. It also
aggregates everything into a “private sector” institution that is custom
designed to be “too big too fail.” Both
the MyRA and the USA would be completely unnecessary if we had Capital Homesteading, but nobody in power
seems to be thinking that way. Maybe if
Guy S. in Iowa would put a flea in Senator Harkin’s ear, the government would
stop trying to run our lives, and reform the necessary tax and monetary institutions
so that we can run our own lives.
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| Job Creation |
• The “jobs market” is officially improving, which should
give a boost to Wall Street. The good
news is that 113,000 “jobs” were “created” in January. Of course, this sidesteps the fact that
150,000 new jobs are needed each month to maintain even a static economy. . . .
• Capital Homesteadingfor Every Citizen: A Just Free Market Solution for Saving Social Security
(2004).
• As of this morning, we have had
visitors from 52 different countries and 50 states and provinces in the United
States and Canada to this blog over the past two months. Most visitors are from
the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and Canada. The most
popular postings this past week were “Raw Judicial Power, I: ‘The Beginning of
the Quarrel’,” “Why Did Nixon Take the Dollar Off the Gold Standard?” “What is
a ‘Bill of Exchange’?,” “Aristotle on Private Property,” and Social Justice,
IV: The Characteristics of Social Justice.
Those are the happenings for this week, at least that we
know about. If you have an
accomplishment that you think should be listed, send us a note about it at
mgreaney [at] cesj [dot] org, and we’ll see that it gets into the next
“issue.” If you have a short (250-400
word) comment on a specific posting, please enter your comments in the blog —
do not send them to us to post for you.
All comments are moderated anyway, so we’ll see it before it goes up.
#30#
