Posted originally on the conservative tree house on August 30, 2022 | Sundance
Let’s say you are an average household with an income around $100,000/yr who has an increase in electricity rates from $300 to $500 due to Joe Biden’s new national energy policy known as the Green New Deal. That’s $200 more per month for this initial economic/energy “transition” moment.
That extra $200/month equates to $2,400 per year.
That $2,400 per year is static economic activity. Meaning nothing additional was created, and nothing additional was generated. The captured $2,400 is simply an increase in the price of a preexisting expense.
Take that expense and expand it to your community of 100 friends and family households. The $2,400 now becomes $240,000 in cost that doesn’t generate anything. $240,000 is removed from the community economy. $240,000 is no longer available for purchasing other goods or services within this community of 100 households.
The economic purchasing power of the 100-household community is reduced by $240,000 per year.
Take that expense and expand it to your county of 10,000 households. Now you are reducing the county economic activity by $24 million. In this county of 10,000 households, $24 million in economic transactions have been wiped out. Meals at restaurants, purchases of goods and services, or any other spending of the $24 million within the county of 10,000 households (approximately 25,000 residents) has been lost.
Now expand that expense to a larger county, quantified as a mid-size county, of 50,000 households. The mid-sized county has lost $120 million in household economic activity, simply to sustain the status quo on electricity rates. Nothing extra has been generated. $120 million is lost. The activity within the county of 50,000 households shrinks by $120 million.
Expand that expense to a large county of 100,000 households, and the lost economic activity is $240 million.
Expand that expense to a small state of 1 million households (2.5 million residents), and the lost economic activity is $2.4 billion.
Expand that expense to a state with 5 million households (approximately 12 million residents) and the economic cost is $12 billion in lost economic activity unrelated to the expense of maintaining the status-quo on electricity use. This state loses $12 billion in purchases of goods and services, just to retain current energy use.
These examples only touch on household expenses. The community, county and state business expenses for offices, supermarkets, stores, etc. are in addition to the households quoted.
Meanwhile the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the community, county and state, remains static because the GDP is calculated on the total value of goods and services generated in dollar terms. The appearance of a static GDP is artificial. In real Main Street terms, $12 billion in economic activity is lost, but the price or increased value of electricity hides the drop created by the absence of goods and services purchased.
Fewer goods and services are purchased and consumed. However, statistically the inflated price of electricity gives the illusion of a status quo economy.
Now expand that perspective to a national level and you can see our current economic condition.
“The Texas miracle died in Uvalde,” the billboards states. It is in bad taste to use a school shooting to promote an agenda. The gunman was apprehended by a Texas resident with a gun. The police failed those children. None of this has anything to do with California’s policies; crime is not as prominent in Texas.
Between 2020 and 2021, over 25,000 fled California to Texas, according to the US Census data. Overall, over 360,000 people left California in 2021. Most cite that California has become completely unaffordable, with the median home price at about $797,470. Companies have fled California since the beginning of the pandemic to tax-friendly states. They lost huge job creators and revenue makers such as Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, SpaceX, and Tesla, to name a few. Another less discussed reason is the intense woke rhetoric spewed by Newsom and others. Theft has basically become legal. Despite the beautiful scenery and weather, people simply do not want to live in the Golden State for a plethora of reasons.
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on August 24, 2022 | Sundance
Long-term CTH readers might remember in 2014 when President Obama claimed U.S. families had been paying too little for electricity for too long. As soon as Joe Biden took office, he began implementing the Green New Deal energy policy that, (a) directly forces higher costs for energy; and (b) is now creating massive problems.
In July I noted my own electricity bill had jumped 28% in a single month. That bill was followed by another almost identical increase this month. A review of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for July [Data Here] shows that nationally the same thing is happening. The year-over-year electricity price has increased 15.2%. However, worse still, the July increase alone was 1.9%, which figures to an annualized rate of 22.8%.
When the growth rate of monthly increase is exceeding the year-over-year result, that means future higher prices are coming. This is a serious problem that cannot be overstated. Already struggling with a doubling of gas prices, massive food price increases at the grocery store and the pain of all costs for goods far outpacing any rate of wage increase, this type of uncontrollable increase in price of electricity is going to hit the middle class hard.
Steve Cortes calls this the backside of the Biden created inflation hurricane. The backside of a hurricane is the worst because it hits from the opposite direction upon already weakened infrastructure.
The hurricane metaphor is apt because any increase in energy costs will be accompanied by the simultaneous arrival of another wave of food inflation, as the massive increases in field and crop prices start to feed into the food supply chain headed to our forks next month.
Making matters that much worse, Bloomberg is now reporting that 20 million households are now behind in their utility bills, specifically electricity bills, and the moratorium on shut offs has ended. [Paywall Article] Steve Cortes has written about the issue on his substack [Here].
One in six U.S. households, that is tens-of-millions of Americans, are now facing having their electricity turned off due to lack of payment. It is certainly understandable how this horrific outcome would happen. Joe Biden’s energy policies are destroying working class families with unsustainably higher prices.
20 million households is a catastrophic level of utility default. This is a serious issue with major social implications created by the desperation of those families. Middle- and lower-income families cannot survive this level of financial pressure.
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Rents are behind. Mortgages are behind. Car payments are behind. And now this report on utility bills.
Steve Cortes appeared with Steve Bannon to discuss {Direct Rumble Link} – WATCH:
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on August 24, 2022 | sundance
**Bumped, 8/23/22 8:30pm ET**
My jaw came near the floor when I opened July’s electricity bill to find a notification of a 28% increase in electricity rates, effective immediately. An increase of 28%…. just like that. This month, August, even higher with less use.
After the initial shock wore off, I started thinking about what this means to the working-class people in my community.
Already struggling with a doubling of gas prices, massive food price increases at the grocery store and the pain of all costs for goods far outpacing any rate of wage increase, this type of uncontrollable increase in price of electricity is going to hit hard.
In the past we have used CTH threads to spotlight the smart thinking and resourcefulness of Treepers from all walks of life. A discussion thread where people can share tips, things that can actually be done, to help offset the financial pressures during severe economic times. I think we may all benefit from starting a series of post like that again.
Let us share our wisdom and experience again. There are many thousand who will benefit, as I have always done, from reading your smart tips and suggestions.
What ideas, tips and suggestions do you have to help people save money on ordinary life and living expenses?
These are painful economic times and the stress that is caused by financial worry is some of the most horrific family stress that people can face. Let us come together with tips as a community to help each other. No suggestion is too small. What advice do you have that can help people save money on monthly expenses?
During one of our previous discussions someone gave a tip about putting a clean dry towel in the clothes dryer as a way of cutting down drying time and energy used. I tried it and jumping ju-ju-bones it worked fantastically. Simply putting a dry towel into the dryer when you add the wet clothes from the washer reduces laundry drying time by around 25%. Not only does that save time, but it also saves money – and it was so simple.
So, what suggestions do you have? Tips about anything and everything that might lower the monthly cost of ordinary life. No tip is too small. No suggestion is too odd. Your advice can/will make a difference.
Please use the comments section to drop your advice.
Similar to Pete Buttigieg’s braindead suggestion to simply buy an electric vehicle to combat energy inflation, the White House is now offering another solution for Americans crippled by inflation – stop being poor. While they did not say these words verbatim, their ideas behind taming inflation among low and middle-earning Americans are completely out of the realm of reality. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm patted the Democrats on the back for passing the Inflation Reduction Act.
“If you are low income, you can get your home entirely weatherized through the expansion from the bipartisan infrastructure laws, a significant expansion — you don’t have to pay for anything,” Granholm said, toting government rebates. Solar panels can run anywhere from $15,000 to $25,000 for an initial setup. Is this something people with little disposable income can afford? How about the growing number of renters who do not have this option even if it were “free.”
Granholm offered more belittling advice for the middle class. “If you are moderate income, today you can get 30% off the price of solar panels. Those solar panels can be financed, so you don’t have to have the big outlay at the front … it’s a significant incentive.” Oh wow, a 30% discount and only a six to 12-month wait for the tax credit! Forget about basic shelter costs and food, go ahead and finance expensive solar panels as your family starves on the streets.
This administration is completely out of touch with the needs of the American people. They have done absolutely nothing to lower energy inflation and are now gas lighting the people to believe WE can do more to combat prices not seen in 40 years.
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on August 18, 2022 | Sundance
As a result of western governments’ taking collective action under the auspices of a ‘climate change’ agenda, we are on the cusp of something happening with ramifications that no one has ever seen before.
Western governments’, specifically western Europe, North America (U.S-Canada) and Australia/New Zealand, are intentionally trying to lower economic activity to meet the intentional drop in energy production.
This is the core consequence of the Build Back Better agenda as promoted by the World Economic Forum.
Anyone who says there is a reference point to determine both the short-term and long-term consequences is lying. There is no precedent for nations’ collectively and intentionally trying to reduce economic activity.
Hiding behind the false justification that current inflation is driven by too much demand, central banks in Europe, the Bank of England, Bank of Canada and U.S. federal reserve are raising interest rates. The outcome we are currently feeling is an intentional economic contraction and global recession.
The Build Back Better monetary policy is successfully shrinking western economic activity; however, the impacted nations that produce goods for markets in North America and Europe, specifically southeast Asia, Japan and China, are not raising interest rates in an effort to try and offset the drop in demand. China has announced they are dropping their central bank rates in a desperate effort to lower costs and keep their export dependent economy working.
Underneath all of this, is a drop in energy production in the same nations trying to lower economic activity. The political policymakers are attempting to manage this process without informing the citizens of the unspoken goal. Shortages of oil, coal and natural gas are self-inflicted problems, all part of the BBB agenda.
Beyond the massive increases in energy costs, which is the true source of inflation and a direct/intentional outcome of the BBB effort, Europe is now facing a looming winter without the energy resources to heat homes and sustain people. Things are going to be very uncomfortable in Europe this winter as roaming brownouts are now predicted.
As the collective west attempts to, using their words, “manage the transition,” they do not have mechanisms to control an outcome of this magnitude. It is simply too big a situation to manage. Where the rubber meets the road, the think-tanks and high-minded climate change ideologues do not have the ability to manage a transition and still meet the needs of people. Beyond the esoteric thinking, there are real consequences from these actions.
Many people have discussed the potential for longer-term food shortages and recently, shorter-term winter heating. However, beyond that, the downstream geopolitical consequences are seemingly being ignored. Instead, what we see is an effort to keep pretending the climate change ends will justify the means (disruption of energy production).
In this connected world, when the western nations stop buying things, we find ourselves domestically with economic trouble. Businesses fail, unemployment rises, financial stress ripples throughout the economy, dependency on government subsidy increases and real pain is felt. However, beyond the domestic issues the supplier nations run into even bigger problems.
Unemployment in Malaysia, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and even China, creates an entirely different set of regional stability issues on a geopolitical level.
There is no precedent for this. Never before in the history of industrialized nations has any government intentionally tried to lower its economic activity. It has never been done with intent before because within the contraction nations get more poor, people suffer.
Not only has no single nation ever tried to intentionally shrink its wealth, but there is no precedent whatsoever for an alliance of nations to join together with the same purpose. While this might seem like an academic economic modeling exercise, unfortunately it is very real. What I am describing is happening right now, and we had better start talking about it before the unforeseen consequences start to become a crisis.
In North America (U.S-Canada), Europe and Australia, there will continue to be massive increases in food prices as a result of the collapse in energy production. Beyond the western nations there will be food shortages as a result of lowered harvest yields and less industrial food production. This is not controversial.
It is also not controversial that regions with harsh winter climates are going to be paying much more for scarce heating resources.
That being accepted, what happens geopolitically, even militarily, when the entire global economy starts to feel the impacts from western nation economic contraction on a scale -created by collective action- that has never been seen before.
I have no idea what that big picture consequence looks like, but whatever “that” is, will be happening at the same time as people everywhere will be more desperate as an outcome of their economic position. I don’t have the answers, but I sure as hell can see the problem coming.
Political leadership in the aforementioned western nations are seemingly, perhaps intentionally, keeping people distracted with domestic shiny things to occupy time. However, someone needs to start talking about, and seriously challenging, the big picture consequence of this Build Back Better future, before it’s too late.
Shakespeare’s famous line was: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” To put that in its proper context, only the king had an attorney, so they were prosecutors. When we look at the real difference between Republicans and Democrats who enter politics, it becomes an indictment against the legal profession. Lawyers are adversarial by nature and are thus trained to try to win at all costs. Likewise, law enforcement officers are trained to look for illegal activity. They are trained to observe. One friend I knew who was a policeman said that everyone was guilty of something.
One legal professor even wrote a book on that subject – “Three Felonies a Day.” That is the entire problem. There are so many laws that everyone commits something that would justify their arrest every day. For example, adultery is technically illegal in 21 states. Cheating on your spouse in Idaho, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin, among others, have felony charges against it. Adultery, or having an intimate relationship with someone other than your spouse, is a Class 3 offense in Arizona, and a sentence of up to 30 days in prison is possible. To be charged with a felony then deprives you of owning a gun or ammunition. So, adultery and just possessing a gun or ammunition will land you in prison for five years. I saw a Vietnam Vet get five years because he had an empty shell from Vietnam on a chain around his neck, and he was sentenced to five years in prison as the prosecutor claimed he could fill the drilled holes, pour in gunpowder, and that was good enough for five years in prison.
That training given to lawyers when it comes to politics may be a huge conflict of interest that actually is anti-American. That adversarial training may work in litigation but does not work when representing the people in politics. Being trained to win at any cost creates has been what is at the root of the polarization and hatred that is now boiling up in our country. It tends to move against common sense and actually eliminates any legitimate debate, for it has devolved into — our way or no way!
In 2012, at the Republican National convention, Clint Eastwood made public his opinion of lawyers as he spoke to an empty chair that represented Barack Obama. “See, I never thought it was a good idea for attorneys to be president, anyway.” Lawyers actually are much more common in politics. Clinton was the 45th president and the 26th lawyer to hold the position of president. Indeed, 60% of the U.S. Senate is lawyers, while 37.2% of the House of Representatives are lawyers. Together, that means that lawyers control 43% of the total votes in the country.
DEMOCRATS
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was an attorney, as was the fiery William Jennings Bryan (Thou Shalt Not Crucify Mankind on a Cross of Gold), who advocated inflation. Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school. Barack Obama was a lawyer. Michelle Obama was a lawyer. Hillary Clinton was a lawyer. Bill Clinton was a lawyer. John Edwards is a lawyer. Elizabeth Edwards was a lawyer. Look at leaders of the Democrat Party in Congress: Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer is a lawyer. Former Senator Harry Reid was a lawyer. Indeed, even every Democrat presidential nominee since 1984 was a lawyer. Granted, Joe Biden, before he was senile, graduated at the bottom of his class. Al Gore graduated from Harvard, but he did not graduate Vanderbilt Law School.
REPUBLICANS
The Republican Party is different. President Trump is a businessman. President Bush 1 and 2 were businessmen. Vice President Cheney was a businessman. President Eisenhower was a 5-star General. The leaders of the Republican Revolution: Newt Gingrich was a history professor. Tom Delay was an exterminator. Dick Armey was an economist. Ex-House Minority Leader John Boehner was a plastics manufacturer. The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon. Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office 31 years ago and barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, ran against actor Ronald Reagan in 1976. The Republican Party puts forth more non-lawyers than Democrats.
Apparently, Mitt Romney, who was very anti-Trump, had a joint degree from Harvard’s Law and Business Schools. It was the lawyers in the Republican Party who were against Trump, like Rubio. It was Rubio who was drafting legislation to impose sanctions on China if they aided Russia. I sent a letter warning that was a braindead response, but I did not get a response. Perhaps the idea fell apart. But Rubio is a lawyer, and the typical response is to write a law. That is our entire problem.
Once a law is put on the books, it remains there forever. Sarasota, Florida was the home of the Ringling Brothers Circus. The town passed a law that you cannot leave an elephant at a parking meter without paying the parking meter fee. In Pennsylvania, when driving on a country road at night, you must stop every mile and set off flares or other warning signals and then allow 10 minutes for livestock to clear the road. There are still places where if you are driving down the road and your car frightens a horse, you must pull off the road. If the horse is still frightened, you must dissemble it. In Alabama, it is illegal to drive your car while blindfolded. I suppose that must have been a huge problem. When you are in West Virginia, if you ran over a squirrel, it’s legal to eat your road kill or anyone else’s. Lawyers in government can’t resist writing laws.
The Democratic Party is made up of mostly lawyers who attack those who create wealth, big and small. Perhaps this is the entire problem. The nation has been polarized because that is the very training of a lawyer to be adversarial. Are the Democratic lawyers looking at those who create wealth to be exploited by the slip-and-fall claims? Those who create wealth by starting a small business that provides 70% of employment are looked upon as evil, greedy sorts of people as the enemies of America. And, in the eyes of the Democratic Party, have we evolved into seeing the procession of official enemies grow with wealth that must be attacked? The Democrats do not rail against illegal aliens, and those who want a free ride burden the middle class.
Unfortunately, this is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers because of the very adversarial training and the view that everyone is really guilty. Lawyers do solve problems by successfully representing their clients, which, in this case, should be the American people as a whole, but they seem to see it as only those who vote for them. Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always parse language to favor their side. Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine. But it is an awful way to govern a great nation.
The problem with lawyers in government is that they inherently begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties. This is why we are plagued by their use of the legal system in our lives which has become all-consuming. Some Americans become adverse parties to our very government, and they must then be punished. Somehow we have to change this perspective, for it is polarizing society and converting our equal justice for all into an adversarial legal batter with everything from abortion to taxes.
Unfortunately, lawyers have a place in the private world, but in politics, it is turning our nation into an adversarial mud-wresting match to the death. They fight to the death over appointing people to the Supreme Court which in itself demonstrates that there is no RULE OF LAW; it is always just an opinion. When I was in the gold business, State Senator Walter Foran asked me to write the law for the State of New Jersey to make gold not taxable under the sales tax. I wrote the law stating gold was not taxable unless “converted to use” and the sales tax Nazis stormed my business, seized my records, and then demanded sales tax on over 3,000 transactions. I went to court and lost. They would not allow me to testify because it was “irrelevant.” I may have misinterpreted what the Senate asked me to write. Their interpretation was that “converted to use” was “investment use,” and the judge ruled in the State’s favor. Senator Foran demanded to testify on my behalf, but they would not allow him to testify as a senator. My request to subpoena the Senate was denied as unreasonable. The prosecutor, after the case said, “Sorry, nothing personal. This is how we make law.” I retired and did not want to be then harassed every year.
Our society is drowning in laws that judicial decisions have distorted our freedom and the legal system has been carried on the back of those it oppresses. It has invaded every part of our once private lives with lockdowns and mandatory vaccines that have benefited those who bribe our so-called representatives. The place for laws and lawyers remains in the private sector – not the government. Once in power, they see every solution warrants a new power and law.
This Democratic Administration, the same one that just raided Trump’s estate to prevent any documents from coming out about RussiaGate and their behind-the-curtain machinations, has now filed a lawsuit against Arizona, claiming that a new state law that requires voters to show proof of U.S. citizenship in order to cast a ballot in presidential elections is unconstitutional. We cannot simply cross the border and go vote in Canada. Yet, according to this Biden Administration, anyone can come and vote in the United States, and you do not have to prove who you are. This is what I mean where law disregards all common sense. We live now in total chaos.
We are witnessing the total destruction of not just common sense, but of the society we once called America. We cannot repair our society, for that change cannot be brought by lawyers who now control our very future. Einstein warned, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. ”
Our modern world is falling into the same trap that destroyed the Byzantine Empire. They created so many laws that they often said that they employed more tax collectors than there were people left to pay taxes. Even in computer science, in a distributed network, you solve a problem by reaching a consensus despite the presence of nodes that disagree. Today, the danger of democracy has always been the fear that the majority will oppress the minority. That has become the objective today in politics, and I fear it has become the norm because we have too many lawyers who see the world in an adversarial confrontation.
The United States has only 5% of the world’s population but 66% of the world’s lawyers! Tort (Legal) reform legislation has been introduced in congress several times in the last several years. It has been an unreachable quest to limit punitive damages. People spill hot coffee on themselves and then sue the establishment. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies pay bribes to ensure their immunity. This legislation has continually been blocked from even being voted on by the Democratic Party because they are the party with an overwhelming number of lawyers who will never vote against their own self-interest. No different from Goldman Sachs installing people in every department they can deal with finance. It is a warning g sign that 99% of the political contributions from the American Trial Lawyers Association go to the Democrat Party. The ABA Journal also confirms that trial lawyers donate to the Democrats – not Republicans.
Without term limits, we are simply doomed. We cannot bar attorneys from running for office. We just have to understand that the legal system is trained to be adversarial, and this is why the nation is on the brink of civil war. Courts were there to keep society “civil” where disputes were to be resolved civilly. The courts are no longer impartial, and judges have way too much power just to seal records and refuse to allow the people to see the truth.
Lawyers are a necessary part of society. My father was a lawyer. But we cannot allow this training in adversarial confrontation to consume the entire society. Even the conflict with Russia reflects this win at all cost doctrine and refusal to negotiate or compromise. The bottom line with lawyers in government is that they also know how to craft laws and then circumvent them. As I have said before, I was invited by Edmon Safra to the IMF dinner in DC where he rented the entire National Gallery. It was illegal to buy a politician dinner, so you could have lobster, filets, whatever. As long as we stood, it was not considered a dinner but Hor D’erves.
This is the problem. When the Democrats seek to plunder the rich, it becomes their way of life. They no longer know how to run for office withing promising to tax the evil rich. They create for themselves a legal system that authorizes their progressiveness denying equal justice for all and a moral code that glorifies discrimination based on wealth which is somehow justified.
Trudeau is pushing forth the Great Reset at any cost. Canada will impose a federal “Digital Identity Program” to help the World Economic Forum develop a global ID system. Since the COVID passports failed, they are outright demanding that everyone carry proof of their digital identity.
“Now more than ever, we have work to do to make it easier for Canadians to interact with the Government of Canada, and we are committed to better serving Canadians in a digital age. This will require modern, integrated systems and an unwavering focus on the needs and experience of citizens. We have made progress, but we must continue to improve.
During the pandemic, the government quickly deployed new and innovative programs to support Canadians, but we have also seen examples where we can do more to deliver secure, reliable, and easy to use digital services.
Building on the vision outlined in Canada’s Digital Government Strategy, I am pleased to introduce the Government of Canada’s Digital Ambition (GC's Digital Ambition) which has been developed with this service imperative in mind… The GC's Digital Ambition will provide a solid foundation for the ever-evolving digital transformation of government. It will serve as an important tool to support the focus shared across ministers and departments to identify and implement better ways to ensure Canadians receive high quality, accessible, and efficient government services.”
We saw the power that digital IDs provided to governments. China was able to freeze bank accounts and prevent the freedom of movement by simply changing a QR code. As we saw in numerous countries with the COVID passport, people were unable to access public buildings and facilities. They were unable to leave their countries or provinces. Governments can effectively banish people from participating in society with digital IDs. This is simply one step away from actually microchipping the people as if we were owned by the government.
The Canadian government will be able to track every citizen’s movement. They will surely implement digital IDs into every facet of government, so the people will be required to carry their digital ID as if it were Nazi Germany. Freedom and privacy have been lost to tyranny.
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This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
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