How China Purchased the United States. Part I

Mar. 23, 2007 – How China Purchased the United States. Part I Posted in Commentary On the evening of January 11, 1944, President Roosevelt was unable to give the annual presidential State of the Union speech before Congress so he instead gave it to the entire nation by way of his famous Fireside Chats. Cass Sunstein, a prominent liberal law professor at the University of Chicago called it “the most important speech of the century”. It’s importance is due to the fact that it is the first and most far reaching speech and endorsement of an American president for the legitimizing of the welfare state. The idea of the welfare state is that government MUST GUARANTEE the social and economic security for all citizens. The fore fathers and creators of the United States of America promised all citizens the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Nothing more! Originally the statement read: life, liberty and happiness. With the word happiness meaning financial well being and security for each individual. It wasn’t long before the delegates realized the mistaken assurance that promise made. No free man or free government could promise happiness (financial security) to it’s citizens. Not all individuals are endowed with the same abilities and talents. Nor are they all desirous of pursuing the same goals. So it follows that in the scheme of things some individuals will be more financially secure than others, and for a wide variety of reasons. One of the founding fathers was a prime example, Samuel Adams, the Father of the American Revolution was a brilliant orator and writer who could have chosen to turn his talent into a source of income and “happiness” (security) for himself and his family. Instead he chose to spend his talent and his time deriding the English Parliament and King George’s treatment of the colonies, and involving himself in other political matters. In that time politics was the realm of the wealthy because there was little pay for holding public office. Because of Adam’s choices his family lived on charity. When he was sent to Philadelphia as a delegate to the first Continental Congress the city fathers got together and purchased a suit of clothing for him to wear so his appearance would not embarrass them.

The Founding Father’s quickly added the words the “PURSUIT of happiness”. All men were guaranteed life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This belief was accepted by all from July 4, 1776 to the last century when our 32nd. President after being elected in 1932 set about initiating his New Deal with Americans and that New Deal he finally legitimized with his speech on January 11, 1944.

It is important for all citizens to recall the one thing the founding fathers knew and avoided when creating a new country and new government, a welfare state is in fact Socialism. And Socialism morphs easily into communism as the state takes from those who have to give to those who have not and in so doing reduces the haves to the level where they can not maintain the investments which produce jobs and job security forcing the state to therefore take over and operate these factories and businesses. The state owns all. All people are guaranteed a job for life and healthcare from birth to death. There are in theory no classes or divides, no people getting more than any others. Well anyone who has been paying the least bit of attention to Russia and China the two largest communist (socialist) countries in the world should be cognizant of the fact that there are very definite disparities between peoples and groups. They should also be aware of the standards of living of even what is in this country considered the middle class. Doctors and scientist are happy the state allows them a three room apartment and a salary of $100 per month. The factory worker gets a two room apartment and only $70 per month. People line up for hours at the grocery stores to be able to purchase a limited supply of groceries from the state own stores and the state own factories and the plants and the state own farms. There are shortages of every type consumer goods because production levels are very low. Why are they low? Why should any one work any harder than the laziest worker if all are going to be paid the same amount for their labors?

As for health care in Russia and China since the Iron Curtain fell we have been treated to the horror stories concerning the conditions in their hospitals. If we ever get to view the conditions of health care in China I am sure we will see the same. The polluting of the rivers in China have made headlines. these same rivers provide the drinking water for millions of people.

This is the welfare state that Franklin D. Roosevelt started and legitimized with his introduction of Social Security, a promised payment of funds to all elderly upon reaching age 65 based on how much they put into the system. (The dirty little secret of Social Security that most Americans don’t realize is that every cent a person has put into the system thru pay roll deductions is returned to that person after 2 to 2 1/2 years and after that it is nothing more than Welfare for the Elderly with the younger workers picking up the tab. I hear all the time” I deserve this because I paid into it”. The answer is , “Yes you paid into the fund but certainly you are getting much more back.”

The Social Security Act was quickly followed by several others that would come to be known as “entitlements” 1)a payment to widows and orphans from this same fund called a Survivors Benefit. Having had experience with the Survivors Benefits I can tell you they are generous enough that a widow and her children can live well enough if not extravagantly. In fact it was President Reagan in 1981 who stopped paying the benefits past age 18 to surviving children who went to college.

2) a Medicaid Bill providing health care to the needy and poor. A bill I fully support and feel should be expanded for the needy children who will be the future workers and supporters of all this largess.

3) guarantee of funds to those who are disabled and unable to work. The only problem with this program is the large disparity in what is considered a disability.

I admit these are all worthy causes but they are like that second bathroom, nice to have if you can afford it.  The thing is we the tax payers can not afford them.  We couldn’t then because we were in a depression and we surely can not now given what has been done to the programs and the funding for the programs.  In the beginning the payment into the Social Security account from a workers pay check was only one half of  1%. Another fact of life then was that most people did not reach age 65 so it was deemed a “safe” age for retirement and promise of payment of benefits which of course would not need to be paid.  Things have changed considerably over the years. With advances in medical care and then the Medicare Bill which came along in 1965 people began to live much longer. It is not unusual for a person to receive Social Security Benefits for 10 or even 20 years after retirement. And though the payroll deductions into the Social Security Trust Fund is now up to 15% (7 1/2% from each the employee and the employer) the fact of any one person cashing out their contribution in 2+ years is still true.

World War II came along and the military requirements meant jobs were available for everyone. This prosperity continued into the 1950’s and 1960’s. Everyone was on top of the world and everyone remembered FDR. He was in fact all but a God to my parents and grandparents who had lived during the “Great Depression” and Roosevelt was credited with getting us out of the Great Depression. Well, really he did. He got us into a war and wars mean jobs and jobs mean money.

The prosperity of the 1950’s and 1960’s was also primarily due to the war. First, there were jobs during the war years and good money being made but no consumer goods being produced to spend it on so people had money in the ‘50’s for homes and appliances and cars and colleges for their kids. The government encountered a problem tho after the troops began returning home from the war that threatened another depression with more workers than jobs. The government solved this problem by offering the soldiers coming home a GI Bill for special schooling or college which ushered in a huge middle class in the United States which further added to the prosperity of the country for decades.  The GI Bill was probably the only outstandingly prosperous and good legislative act of the  government  since the Constitution of the United States of Amrica was written.  Itr made possible the United States as we known it today; a country whose citizens enjoy the highest standard of living in the world.  The only shame is that our elected officials failed to make more of this wave of prosperity we at one time were riding.

Anyhow, getting back on topic, the second thing the government did which created jobs was to rebuild Europe with what was called the Marshall Plan (the greatest idea ever conceived after a war. Do read about it if you never have. The Marshall Plan did more to insure peace than any thing else ever could.) It wasn’t freeas  we were taking back IOU”s from the Europeans for this help. So our factories kept producing and jobs were available into the 1960’s rebuilding Europe and then continuing into the 1980’s to supply the restored and gaining in prosperity of the European people with much wanted American products.

Enter President Lyndon Johnson who in 1965 made another welfare state deal with Americans with his Medicare Bill which guaranteed all elderly Americans health care for a very small monthly fee taken from the Social Security Franklin D. Roosevelt had given them. Johnson also expanded Medicaid which I grant was needed, I have always felt the poor and needy should be cared for. Then Johnson looked around and decided more “poor” kids needed to go to college and since the GI Bill wasn’t getting enough of the population in college now that there were fewer soldiers so he started the ball rolling towards the government stepping in and guaranteeing  student loans. The money for students loans weren’t from the government,  but were government backed and the government paid the interest on these loans until the student graduated and began paying back the loans themselves. The banking industry loved this bill! It was a sweetheart deal made in Heaven as far as they were concerned and they couldn’t lose because if the student defaulted then the government paid off the principle after paying the interest all those years. Billions of dollars are owed the government on defaulted student loans. (another story for another day).

The Medicare Bill did set up a separate tax for the so-called Medicare Trust Fund, but it basically operates the same as the Social Security Trust Fund and is stuffed with all but worthless T-Bills. Both extra tax systems are pay as you go schemes where those paying now are carrying the load for the present recipients. When more funds are taken in than are needed then they are to go into these trust funds. The funds are then taken out of the Trust Fund and used for current government expenses while being replaced with Treasury Notes, or promises of payment by the same government( read that: tax payers) from future taxes when the funds are needed. I suggest some of you take a good look at the predicted value of treasury notes in the future when they are “needed”. They ain’t got no value at all! And next year when the first of that huge group of so-called baby boomers (children born to the returning WWII veterans) start to retire and demand their Social Security the only place our government has to turn is to tax you the tax payer more, or to do what it has been doing for years now and that is sell more of our treasury notes and assets to China. We are selling our country to China thru buying far more from them than they are buying from us. Jobs that were once in the United States have now gone to China.  Our government is spending more and more than it is taking in in taxes meaning the government must “borrow” this money from somewhere to pay the defitcit.   Along comes China quite willing to take our governmentss IOU’s for its goods.  Thus my title for this rant: China now OWNS the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!   Sincerely, BB

**John Marini, Professor of political science at The University of Nevada spoke at Hillsdale College and his speech was later printed in Hillsdale’s Imprimis Newsletter. This particular newsletter is what got inspired this post. For you not familiar with Imprimis Newsletter it has a monthly readership of 1,250,000. Hillsdale College’s motto is Educating for Liberty since 1844. Their roll call of speakers are some of the foremost experts in their fields. They have a web site if you too would like to receive their newsletter.

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