What $1.8 Billion Aid Package to Ukraine Means for American Consumers

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On December 21, 2022, President Joe Biden and the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, announced that the United States will provide $1.85 billion in additional military assistance to Ukraine. The announcement was made during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s first overseas trip to the White House since the outbreak of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

President Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials have advocated for increased Western support, including providing advanced weapons, such as the Patriot system, to assist Ukraine in its ongoing conflict with Russia.

Will there be any financial consequences for American consumers as a result of this and future aid packages to Ukraine?

Details of the aid package

The aid package includes a $1 billion drawdown for “expanded air defense and precision-strike capabilities” and $850 million in security assistance. One of the crucial components of the aid package is the inclusion of the Patriot Air Defense System, considered one of the most advanced systems
of its kind in the U.S. arsenal.

The Patriot system offers protection against a wide range of airborne threats, including aircraft, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles. It typically includes launchers, radar, and other support vehicles.

Also included are an undisclosed number of Joint Direct Attack Munitions kits or JDAMs. These are designed to modify large bombs by adding tail fins and precision navigation systems.

These modifications transform the bombs from simple “dumb” munitions, which are dropped from fighter jets onto their targets, into guided weapons.

This will enable the bombs to be released and then guided to their targets with high accuracy. It is a significant upgrade in military capabilities for
Ukraine.

This marks the 28th time the Pentagon has quickly delivered weapons to Ukraine. The U.S. has provided a total of $21.3 billion in military aid to Ukraine since February 2022, which shows a long-term commitment to support Ukraine in this war.

How much aid has the U.S. sent to Ukraine, and what does Zelensky plan to do with it?

The Biden administration, and the U.S. Congress, have provided Ukraine with nearly $50 billion in assistance in 2022, according to The Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a research institute in Germany.

This includes a variety of forms of support, such as humanitarian aid, financial assistance, and military aid. The aid is helping a wide range of Ukrainian individuals and organizations, including refugees, law enforcement agencies, and independent radio broadcasters.

While the aid package includes a diverse range of support, a significant portion of the aid is military-related.

Additionally, many other countries, including most members of NATO and the European Union, have provided large aid packages to Ukraine.

During Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s address to a joint session of Congress on December 21, 2022, the President emphasized that the financial assistance provided by the United States is not charity but rather an investment in global security and democracy.

He assured that Ukraine would handle this aid in a responsible manner. He also expressed gratitude to the American people for their support while making a case for further assistance. Zelensky, who had just returned from the front lines of the ongoing conflict with Russia, was making his first visit outside Ukraine since the Russian invasion began.

Financial implications for American consumers

The conflict in Ukraine is primarily a humanitarian catastrophe. Still, like past disasters on a grand scale, it has had an impact on the global financial markets and made investors rethink their approach.

The developing conflict in Russia and Ukraine, inflation that has reached four-decade highs, and looming interest rate increases from central banks are the three hazards that have already roiled financial markets in 2022. The Russian invasion is just the most recent of these risks.

Because the Covid-19 pandemic, which also had a negative impact on the global economy, was just ending, the Russian invasion will have significant but difficult-to-predict economic implications.

How much do taxpayers pay for defense?

It is well known that the US military receives a significant percentage of our tax dollars. This shouldn’t come as a surprise because the military is responsible for safeguarding the country and its citizens. Defense and security account for more than 10% of the government budget, which is equivalent to the percentage of taxes paid that goes to the armed forces.

If we take 2020’s data into consideration, the defense budget was $690 billion. 

“Operation and maintenance” received $279 billion in tax money, making it the highest spending area out of the $690 billion total. The price of military activities, such as planning, equipment upkeep, and training, was covered by this category. The military healthcare system was also supported by it.

With $161 billion, “military personnel” was the second-largest spending category. In this case, it’s about the pay and retirement benefits that are given to service members.

The price of buying weapons and systems, which came in third with $139 billion, came in third. After that, $100 billion was allocated for developing new tools and weaponry.

Different viewpoints

Many individuals support the massive amounts of tax money going to the military, while many others do not. The budget set aside for defense is still the subject of intense discussion. The idea is that more money should go into other things like a universal healthcare system, and less should be spent on “useless” military activity. 

Although, there’s no denying that the military receives a significant portion of the federal budget, given the importance of national defense to the safety and well-being of the country and its citizens.

Will giving aid to Ukraine affect American taxpayers?

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the total U.S. federal budget will exceed $5,872 trillion in F.Y. 2023. Based on this information, it seems that sending $1.8 billion in military aid to Ukraine is not likely to have much of an impact on American consumers’ finances. 

In what ways will the economy be affected?

Different facets of the Russian invasion of Ukraine are covered every day. The United States’ involvement in the conflict affecting NATO security, military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, and the application of sanctions on Russia are frequently discussed. A distinct viewpoint on how the conflict has affected the U.S. itself is less noticeable. At the source, in transit, and at the final destination, supply chains have been broken.  Therefore, it is crucial to assess how these disruptions affect the American economy and identify which goods are most likely to experience shortages as a result.

Numerous items used by American enterprises are imported from Russia and Ukraine. The Observatory of Economic Complexity’s research indicates that four essential ones—neon gas, palladium, platinum, and pig iron—will be in limited supply. The shortages are probably going to directly affect 12% of the American economy.

The conclusions are based on a subjective examination of the sectors that depend on the identified vital commodities and their contribution to the GDP of the United States. The manufacturing, electronics, and automobile industries will all experience a direct impact.

How concerned should American investors be?

According to a report by the CSIS, the impact of aid to Ukraine on the U.S. economy has been negligible, at least to date. And the U.S. economy was growing steadily as of October 2022, and personal income was estimated to have reached $25.66 trillion in current dollars. The conflict and sanctions
haven’t had much of an impact on the US economy, but Europe’s economy is struggling, which could have an impact on US investment. Professional management may be able to assist US investors in controlling the dangers of long-term international stock investing.

Even while markets have become turbulent since the Russian military entered Ukraine, the rise in US stocks during the early stages of the conflict was more due to anxiety about US monetary policy than it was about Russian military strategy. 

As of now, the markets’ response to the conflict is consistent with history, which demonstrates that geopolitical crises often don’t have long-term effects on investors. New indications, however, show that the economic effects of the conflict and the ensuing sanctions may be getting worse.

How protected is the US?

The US is better protected from the repercussions of the Ukraine war than Europe due to its massive domestic economy and capacity to cover its energy demands without importing. Even if the US avoids recession, but Europe does not, the international structure of financial markets may cause US investors to experience greater volatility in the months to come. 

The economy of the European Union is bigger than that of the US, and many US-listed companies get a considerable portion of their revenue from customers in Europe. Consumer spending may decrease if they are concerned about losing their employment during a recession, which might also affect stock prices and company profits for US investors.

What investors should keep in mind?

Despite geopolitical uncertainties, US investors shouldn’t lose sight of the potential long-term gains that come from investing in foreign stocks. In fact, it is quite possible that over the next 20 years, foreign companies will beat US stocks. These expectations are in part due to the fact that US market values are currently high by historical standards and that US equities have increased more than those of other nations over the past two years. While targeting long-term gains, diversification and expert management can assist in managing short-term dangers.

There are several places, nations, industries, and sectors where stocks and bonds are held. An advantage of a diversified strategy is that investors often have very little direct exposure to investments in Russia and much less exposure to investments in Ukraine. Investors that have that level of
diversity may feel more at ease when faced with global issues. Here, considering the broader perspective is crucial. Don’t be frightened; just stay focused.

What’s next?

The United States government continues to provide a significant amount of aid to Ukraine, with Congress now poised to approve an additional $44.9 billion in assistance as part of a larger spending bill.

This move will secure continued support for Ukraine from the United States in the coming year and beyond, despite the change in political control of the House of Representatives, where Republicans will take over the majority in January.

Author Bio: Attorney Loretta Kilday has more than 36 years of litigation and transactional experience, specializing in business, collection, and family law. She frequently writes on various financial and legal matters. She is a graduate of DePaul University with a Juris Doctor degree and a spokesperson for Debt Consolidation Care (DebtCC) online debt relief forum. Please connect with her on LinkedIn for further information.

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Does the United States Still Have an Economy?

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 The US financial sector has long looted other countries. A number of participants have described the process. First a country is enticed with bribes to the leaders to take out loans that cannot be serviced or repaid. Then in comes the IMF. Austerity is imposed on the population. Public services and employment are cut to free resources for debt service, and public assets are sold to repay the loan. Living standards fall, and US corporations take over the country’s economy.

As foreign governments, having experienced or witnessed the economic carnage and fearing accountability, are less willing to be bribed into indebting their countries, American finance is now applying this technique to Americans. Contrary to the narrative in the financial press, the Federal Reserve is not raising interest rates in order to fight inflation. It is ludicrous to think that a three-quarters of one percent rise in a very low interest rate is going to have any impact on a 9.1% rate of consumer inflation or that speculation that the Federal Reserve has in mind another three-quarters of one percent possibly followed by one half of one percent comprise an anti-inflation policy. If all these increases occur, it still leaves the interest rate below the inflation rate. 

 The Federal Reserve’s rise in interest rates is just a continuation of its policy of concentrating income and wealth in the hands of the One Percent. Quantitative Easing was the cloak for the Federal Reserve to print $8.2 trillion in new money which was directed or found its way into the prices of stocks and bonds, thus enriching the small number who own most of these financial instruments. 

 Having maxed out this avenue of wealth concentration, the Federal Reserve is now raising interest rates in order to drive up mortgage costs to aspiring home owners. The Federal Reserve is driving individuals out of the housing market in order to free up properties for “private equity” firms to purchase homes for their rental values. That private equity firms see rental income from the existing stock of houses as the best investment opportunity tells us that the US economy has played out. When investment goes into existing assets, not into producing new assets, the economy ceases to grow. 

A no-growth economy is the end result of a financialized economy. With such a large share of household income spent on debt service, little is left for driving the economy forward.

Bottom Line: The world’s largest economy” (the United States)” is today total fiction. It does not have an economy.

You will never hear it from the mainstream media in the financial press, but the United States is on the precipice of economic and social collapse. And what are the fools in Washington doing? The idiots are ginning up wars with Russia, China, and Iran. 

Go figure….

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The Blueprint for Community Banks in a Digital World

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Historically, community banks have been the pillar for any community, as they take care of the needs of the local businesses and families. They have been instrumental in helping the American economy recover from the 2008 financial crisis, as they are highly capitalized and better prepared to withstand an economic crisis than their larger counterparts. Nonetheless, community banks are disappearing at an alarming rate. The total number of banks insured by the FDIC decreased from 7,087 in 2008, to 4,938 in 2017 – a 30% decrease in less than 10 years; this was mostly due to abundant M&A activity, as well as more than 500 bank failures.

Heavy regulations account for a large part in the growing consolidation. A new survey from the Federal Reserve and Conference of State Bank Supervisors found that community bank compliance costs have increased to 24% of community bank net income, in the past two years alone. For almost all bankers (96.7%), regulatory costs were the deciding factors when considering an acquisition.

Bank regulations are a two-edge sword, with both edges cutting deep into community banks’ ability to survive. First, overregulation heavily handicaps community banks from competing for their vital place in the financial ecosystem through increased regulatory costs, increased requirements for capital with fewer sources, burdensome new risk management requirements, new rules dictating every consumer financial product, etc. Eighty-two percent of U.S. bankers claim that government regulations are not on par technology advancement, severely impeding growth.

Second, and equally important, regulations create friction between banks and their consumers. They make it difficult for banks to offer their customers what they want and how they want it. The nail in the coffin: these friction points serve as inspiration for fintech entrepreneurs and other nonregulated competitors to come up with innovative solutions.

The only way to escape from between a rock and a hard place, is to be BOLDER.

The biggest adjustments banks will have to make, is to become the masters of their own fate. Banks cannot expect to survive by simply navigating the regulatory environment and waiting for interest rates to rise.

As financial technology brings a myriad of new capabilities with exponential uses, the banking industry is heading into a new, untapped market, which has not yet been regulated. It is imperative that bankers do not wait for regulators to leisurely catch up and introduce static rules, which often inhibit growth. Bankers understand their industry’s challenges much more deeply than regulators; they have the most skin in the game. They either get ahead of the technological curve, by embracing new technologies and taking action, or fall behind. Behind their competitors, behind the banking industry, behind the needs of their customers. Banks must aim to shape the new competitive landscape, or risk being an outsider in other players’ environment.

Although community banks find themselves in an impossible situation, being the cornerstone of communities for decades, comes with certain advantages over their financial technology and banking competitors.

ADVANTAGES AND RECOMMENDATIONS:

Advantage #1: Trust. In 2017, eighty-six percent of U.S. consumers still place community banks as the number one institution to securely manage all their personal data. Community banks still have the people’s trust, and they must capitalize on it. Trust is power. Trust is something many fintech companies can only dream of earning. The fact that customers trust community banks to protect their information, execute transactions and hold on to their money, puts community banks in a position of power, when competing with the banking and financial technology industry.

Advantage #2: Deep relationship with their communities. Technology alone will not be able to replace community banks, at least not in the foreseeable future. This is because community banks have specialized in the exact things technology severely lacks: emotional intelligence, personal relationships, and as previously mentioned, having the trust of their community.

Community banks focus on providing traditional banking services in their local communities. They are “relationship” bankers as opposed to “transactional” bankers. Long-term relationships with their communities allows to better understand their borrowers and gives them nonstandard data, which they can use to make credit decisions. In many cases, local businesses/startups can only depend on community banks for loans, as they might not always be able to satisfy the more rigid requirements of big banks.

No other institution/technology can support their local communities better than these banks. Big banks are too rigid, and technology alone could never fulfil the role of a bank. Technology can only enhance and automate processes, which make banks more efficient. Innovative technologies are there to serve the banks and their communities, not the other way around. The community bank, as an institution, is here to stay. However, individual community banks’ fates depend on how well they adapt to the new market.

Recommendation #1: Focus intensely on helping customers achieve their goals. That is it. To do so, they must focus on “changing the bank” rather than “running the bank.” The old way of running a bank is making them irrelevant, unable to meet the demands of their customers. The way banks take charge of their own destiny, is by taking an aggressive stance to “change the bank.” It all starts with the team.

Recommendation #2: Assemble a team with a high market intelligence: hiring banking executives with 35 years of experience in the old banking model is not recommended, especially if they do not have an elevated level of current market intelligence. They will not be able to change the bank. As with most other industries, banking needs to adopt and embrace the modern workforce, based on freelancing, flexibility and scalability. As of today, 16 percent of bank’s workforce already engages with freelance workers, and thirty percent of bankers believe this number will increase by fifty percent in 2018. The bank needs to become an agile, efficient, on-demand institution. The workforce needs to reflect these values.

The benefits of the modern workforce represent a new, albeit indispensable access to a wide-ranging pool of in-demand skills and knowledge, that transforms the bank from a static and rigid institution, into an agile entrepreneurial and innovative organization.

Recommendation #3: Employ artificial intelligence and other digital ecosystems, on a large scale. Technology can outperform all employees when it comes to matters of the back-end office and operations. However, the motivation here is not to eliminate the need for employees, but rather to free the employees from tedious and menial tasks, and allow them to focus on engaging with and serving their customers. As the bank evolves to a digital-first business model, bankers must step up their efforts to create relationships with their communities, and actively help them accomplish their goals.

In the end, banks need to once again become the leaders of their communities, helping and enabling their customers to achieve financial success in any way possible. When banks help people achieve more, people will become increasingly confident in this partnership, and will renew their commitment. The old way of “running the bank” will only achieve running the bank into oblivion. As new technologies and systems emerge, banks cannot wait for regulators to tell them how to engage. Banks must learn and adopt these new advances, in a way that makes them leaders of their communities once again, and in the process, teach regulators how to create a more functional regulatory environment.

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Why Keep the Mortgage Interest Deduction Intact for Now

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Arguments over the mortgage interest deduction are not new and arise from both sides of the political spectrum. It’s important to remember that when Congress first imposed a federal income tax, they made all interest payments deductible. At the same time, the Tax Foundation contended that Congress wasn’t thinking about middle-class homeowners in the early part of the 19th Century. They excluded the first $3,000 for individuals and $4,000 for married couples, so only about one percent of the population of the country paid federal income taxes back then.

In those days, Congress may have considered business or farm interest but probably not typical home mortgages. As time passed, notions about interest deductions and exactly who would be impacted have obviously evolved. Today, the home interest deduction and the related property tax deduction remain as the two sacred cows in the tax code. It’s fair to say that they remained intact after other interest-related deductions had been gutted because lawmakers believe that they provided incentives for homeownership, and because homeownership was something that Congress hoped to encourage.

Why Keep the Home Mortgage Deduction Intact?

First, the latest tax code proposal doesn’t ask to completely do away with these two deductions, so it’s important to look at the latest bill to learn exactly what it does do.

This is a brief summary of the changes for home mortgage deductions:

  • You cannot deduct interest on a second home but only a primary residence.
  • You can still deduct home interest on any loan or part of a loan up to $500,000.
  • It’s worth noting that the related deduction for home property taxes would be capped at $10,000.

Arguments in favor of these changes usually underscore the additional revenues that the government can collect by eliminating these home deductions. Since the proposed changes aren’t eliminating all home deductions, it’s also easy to argue that they won’t impact the majority of Americans who only have one home, don’t have a mortgage over half a million dollars, or who pay more than $10,000 for property taxes each year.

How Could Changes to Housing Deductions Impact the American Economy?

A lot of Americans may not think that this sort of change to the tax code will impact them that much. Such expensive homes are rare in most counties and probably don’t represent more than four percent of all American homes. It would be possible to apply a similar argument to the property tax deduction. Lots of homeowners don’t pay $10,000 in property taxes every year, and many of those don’t even pay enough to allow them to itemize deductions.

However, the CBS report pointed out a couple of impacts that the news of the tax code has already had on the U.S. economy:

  • Home builder stocks: For example, the SPDR fund dropped by over five percent on the news reports. Even home-improvement retail chains like Home Depot and Lowes lost value.
  • Vacation homes: An analyst for Cowen named Jaret Spielberg said that his firm found the news negative for the market of vacation and second homes. Obviously, the tax code will also impact more homeowners in pricier markets. For instance, home prices average around $276,000 in Austin, Texas but over $1 million in San Francisco. This change may impose an additional burden on people who already struggle to afford housing in more expensive cities. Even if the old deductions get grandfathered in, the change is still likely to impact future home sales, and thereby the availability of different financing options. This, in turn, may affect the ability of these expensive housing markets to attract new people.

Also, the tax proposal included an increased standard deduction. It’s not accurate to only view the way these changes will impact future home buying decisions at the top end. More people with modest homes in areas that don’t have such high property taxes may also find that homeownership doesn’t give them the tax benefit that it used to.

In any case, the National Association of Realtors felt strongly enough about the impact of these changes on the real estate market to speak out. Because it can eliminate the tax incentive of purchasing a home for many taxpayers, they believe it will weaken the real estate market and result in higher taxes for many Americans. According to NAR’s president, William E. Brown, the changes would result in a “one-two punch” that would end up reducing America’s homeownership rate, which has certainly never been a goal stated by the political platform of either party.

A key resolution to consider…. If the intent is to make America greater than ever.

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Turning around the US Economy:- My Top Recommendations for President elect Trump

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The people have finally spoken. Donald J. Trump has won and will be our next President for the next four years … and if things are done right, maybe the next eight too.

It is not going to be easy given the mess he inherited from President Obama which basically sums up as below.

  1. Total US debt, including private and business debt, is today $67 trillion, or just under 400% of GDP.
  2. We have 95 million people not in the labor force; 15 million of them not employed. That’s twice the number officially unemployed.
  3. We have almost 2 million prison inmates, 43 million people living in poverty, 43 million receiving food stamps, 57 million Medicare enrollees, 73 million Medicaid recipients and 31 million still without health insurance.
  4. The US federal government debt will be slightly north of $20 trillion before Obama leaves office in January. Local and state debt is another $3 trillion. That is a total of more than $23 trillion of government debt and a debt-to-GDP ratio of somewhat over 121%. That debt has risen roughly $10 trillion under Obama, in just eight years. This US debt total does not even take into account the over $100 trillion of unfunded liabilities at local, state, and federal levels that are going to have to be paid for at some point.

Bottom Line:  We are still witnessing a disaster in the making. The more we increase our debt, the more difficult it is going to be to grow our way out of our problem with the debt.

Something like $5.5 trillion is “intergovernmental debt.” And even if we did dismiss this internal debt, the government’s debt-to-GDP ratio would still be almost 100% when you include state and local debt….And after eight years of the slowest economic recovery in history, we are growing our debt dramatically faster than we are growing our country—even when we include inflation. Go figure.

My recommendations for President elect Trump

Cutting corporate and individual taxes, effecting significant regulatory rollback and fixing the Affordable Care Act may help stimulate growth but will not be a sufficient condition to stimulate growth. Significant regulatory rollback will help. It is also necessary but not sufficient.

Some more serious actions should include but not limited to:

  1. Reinstituting first and foremost the Glass-Steagall Act because Wall Street cannot be trusted to manage their risk properly. This would separate true banking activities from the high risk gambling that brought the economic system to its knees. Privatizing the profits and socializing the losses is unacceptable.
  2. Appointing the right next four people out of the seven governors to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. People coming from the business world; neither economists nor academics please. Also having a Federal Reserve that is more neutral in its policy making and that realizes that the role of the Fed should be to provide liquidity in times of major crisis not to fine tune the economy, will do much to balance out the future.
  3. Putting the value of the dollar relative to the currencies of other countries under the purview of the Treasury Department, not the Fed. Too much power to the Fed already.
  4. Having the currency of the US backed by hard assets. A basket of gold, silver, platinum, uranium, and some other limited hard commodities would back the USD. If politicians attempted to spend too much, the price of this basket would reflect their inflationary schemes immediately.
  5. Directing to have the FASB to make all banks and financial corporations value their assets at their true market value. An orderly bankruptcy of all insolvent financial firms involving the sell-off of their legitimate assets to well-run risk adverse banks that didn’t screw up should ensue. Bondholders and stockholders would realize their losses for awful investment decisions. The economic system would be purged of its bad debt.
  6. Having the Social Security System completely overhauled. Anyone 50 or older would get exactly what they were promised. The age for collecting Social Security would be gradually raised to 72 over the next 15 years. Those between 25 and 50 would be given the option to opt out of Social Security. They would be given their contributions to invest as they see fit if they opt out. Anyone entering the workforce today would not pay in or receive any benefits. The wage limit for Social Security would be eliminated and the tax rate would be reduced from 6.2% to 3%.
  7. Dismantling Obamacare in its entirety and converting it from a government program to a private market based program. The Federal mandates, rules and regulations would be eliminated. Senior citizens would be given healthcare vouchers which they would be free to use with any insurance company or doctor based on price and quality. Insurance companies would compete for business on a national basis. Doctors would compete for business. The GAO would have their budget doubled and they would audit Medicare fraud & Medicaid fraud and prosecute the criminals without impunity.
  8. Repealing the healthcare bill. Insurance companies would be allowed to compete with each other on a national basis. Tort reform would be implemented so that doctors could do their jobs without fear of being destroyed by slimy personal injury lawyers. Doctors would need to post their costs for various procedures. Here again, price and quality would drive the healthcare market.
  9. Dismantling completely the entitlement state.  The criteria for collecting welfare, SSDI, food stamps and unemployment benefits would be made much stricter. Unemployed people collecting government payments would be required to clean up parks, volunteer at community charity organizations, pick up trash along highways, fix and paint houses in their neighborhoods and generally keep busy in a productive manner for society.
  10. We must make a serious effort to have a balanced budget and to fund healthcare and Social Security. I would propose some form of a value-added tax (VAT) that would specifically pay for Social Security and healthcare. I would also propose that we eliminate Social Security funding from both the individual and business side of the equation and take those costs from the VAT.
  11. We also need to get rid of the shackles on growth and get the incentive structure right with the proper tax mix. Then American entrepreneurs can probably get us out of the hole we’re in without it getting too much deeper. With the amazing new technologies that are coming along, we can probably get to a point where we can in fact grow our way out of our debt problem over the next 10 to 15 years.
  12. It is one thing to talk about unfair trade agreements—and we have certainly signed a few. But we also need to recognize that some 11.5 million jobs in the US are dependent upon exports (about 40% of which are services). If we drop our corporate tax to 15% and work on reducing the regulatory burden, I think we will be pleasantly surprised by how many jobs are created just by those steps alone.

As a conclusion, let me be very clear. If we don’t get the debt and deficit under control—and by that I mean that at a minimum we bring the annual increase in the national debt to below the level of nominal GDP growth—we will simply postpone an inevitable crisis. We have $100 trillion of unfunded liabilities that are going to come due in the next few decades. We have to get the entitlement problem figured out and we must do it without blowing out the debt. If we don’t, I am afraid we will have a financial crisis that will rival the Great Depression and maybe worse.

We’re in a world where most major economies are also in trouble. If the US starts printing again money merely to service its debt because people don’t buy its debt, then I foresee total global debt in the $500 trillion range and global GDP topping $100 trillion. A total global economic disaster.

I have tremendous faith in President elect Trump and his team and just hope all those prescriptions will not go unheeded although they certainly go far, long-term, in fixing a system which is quite dysfunctional and broken.

“Draining the swamp” of our present economic morass will certainly require drastic action tantamount to a real revolution in both thought and practice.

The Old Order has gotten us into this mess, and cannot, or is unwilling, to get us out. It is past time for them to go.

Nothing much in a positive, productive sense can be accomplished under our government, as presently constituted, as it has devolved into a Fascistic, crony-corporatist construct.

Until those who govern are forced to experience outcomes consistent with those experienced by the governed, I am afraid the Republic will drift ever further away from the establishment principles envisioned by those rebellious Founding Fathers, who were intoxicated upon the fumes of liberty, fraternity, and equality of opportunity.

God bless our new President elect Trump and the United States of America…. Time to roll up our sleeves and start making America great again.

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