7 to 1

[Flanders]

Talking heads are all aglow over the slight drop in unemployment. They were positively rhapsodic over the chance to promote Hussein’s agenda. Finding something good to say about their lord and master has been tough sledding of late. Not only did unemployment supposedly drop two ticks, talking heads let us know that a bunch of private sector jobs were created. Frankly, I require a reliable breakdown before I believe the latter.

First, after discounting burger-flippers I’d like to know how many of Hussein’s jobs are dubious private sector jobs. Jobs like working for a firm whose only customer is the government. In other words the government pays a contractor tax dollars. The company pays its employees with a company check. Ergo, a parasite job is magically transformed into a private sector job should a recalcitrant busybody come snooping around.

The second thing our talkative friends in Boob Tube Land fail to mention is the number of parasite jobs the Affordable Care Act will create in the next few years. Pelosi put the number at 4 million; realistically the number will be closer to 10 million by the end of this decade.

The fact is this: The government cannot create private sector jobs; only individuals exercising their Right to work for themselves can do that. Socialists/Communists and the income tax say otherwise.

Nevertheless, let’s give Hussein & Company the benefit of the doubt and say he created fifty thousand private sector jobs. How do those jobs compare with the long term effects of 10 million more parasites being seated at the public trough? Indeed, Hussein would have to create 70 million private sector jobs in 7 years to offset 10 million Hillarycare II parasites. Where did I get the ration of 7 to 1? Answer: From Hussein’s friend the late, unlamented in polite society, Hugo Chavez:

Chavez had swollen the ranks of Venezuela’s public employees to 2.5 million in a country where the 15-64 population numbered only 18 million. With 1 public employee to every 7 working adults, the entire mess was subsidized by oil exports and debt. When the price of oil fell, only debt was left.

Those public employees became Chavez’s campaign staff with no choice but to vote for him or see their positions wiped out to keep the economy from crashing. And they won him one last election.

The dead tyrant leaves behind the lowest GDP growth rate and highest inflation rate in Latin America. He leaves behind an economy where more than half the population depends on government benefits or government jobs. He leaves behind a giant pile of debt for the people and 2 billion dollars in misappropriated oil money for his heirs.

The Affordable Care Act is not the only vehicle parasites will use to get to the public purse. There are a number of other parasite-creating programs in the hopper. I cannot determine the combined total of those government-funded jobs. Considering green energy frauds, research grants for this, that, and the other, my guesstimate is 6 million by the year 2020. If my numbers are correct 16 million more parasites will have government jobs by the year 2020. Using Chavez’s 7 to 1 template for governing does anyone seriously think that socialism can create 112 million private sector job in a thousand years let alone 7?

Incidentally, Social Security was instituted when 35 or so workers paid for one retiree. Today, it’s down to approximately 3 to 1. That’s the justification for eliminating SS which has always been funded by labor performed irrespective of the ratio. Question: If the 3 to 1 ratio is justification for doing away with SS why is the 7 to 1 ratio argument not used to eliminate public trough parasites who are also paid with the labor performed in the private sector?

Moving on

Daniel Greenfield’s great piece shows how Socialists work at the beginning of the process rather than challenging different aspects after socialism is implemented incrementally:

Jimmy Carter described him as a leader who fought for the “neglected and trampled”. Michael Moore praised him for declaring that the oil belongs to the people.

Whether or not the oil belongs to the people is a matter of some debate considering how much of it seemed to end up in Chavez’s pocket.

Chavez died with an estimated net worth of 2 billion dollars making him the 4th richest man in Venezuela and the 49th richest man in Latin America. For a while, Chavez weathered attacks from the media empire of Gustavo A. Cisneros, the richest man in Venezuela. Then, before the 2004 election, their mutual friend Jimmy Carter brokered an agreement between them. Cisneros’ media stopped criticizing Chavez and both men bent to the task of getting even richer.

While the Bolivarian Spartacus lined his pockets with oil money, Venezuela’s middle-class was struggling to get by in a country where the private sector had imploded. Income increased on paper, but decreased in reality as inflation increases ate the difference. Around the same time that Comrade Hugo was launching the third phase of his Bolivarian Revolution, inflation had decreased household income 8.8 percent while consumer goods prices increased 27 percent.

On his deathbed, Hugo Chavez devalued his country’s currency for the fifth time by 32 percent, after tripling the deficit during his previous term when the national debt had increased by 90 percent. From 2008 to 2011, Chavez’s oil-rich government increased the debt by nearly 50 billion in a country of less than 30 million. That same year, The Economist speculated that Venezuela might go bankrupt.

Getting Rich by Fighting for the Poor
Daniel Greenfield
Friday, March 8, 2013

Getting Rich by Fighting for the Poor

I’m assuming Mr. Greenfield is not blaming Chavez for the things Hussein is guilty of. No matter. Americans can take Venezuela’s socialism forward step by step in order to arrive at totalitarian communism, or take America’s socialism back to it’s beginning in order to see the step by step march to today’s near totalitarian government. In both cases the footprints are identical.

Finally, tyrants never change. Chavez “Getting Rich by Fighting for the Poor” proves it. Unfortunately, the poor never change either:

The people always have some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness. . . . This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector. Plato

The frightening thing in Plato’s observation is that the poor, along with a whole lot of educated, well-off parasites, nursed Hussein into greatness.