Economic illiteracy and its implications May 18, 2007
Posted by reformedville in : culture, Government, Media , trackbackI recently ran a post on Biblical illiteracy and its implication, a subject a group I belong to has been studying for this months meeting. Basically biblical illiteracy sets the stage for both spiritual abuse and disorder and chaos to come into the church due to total reliance for information to come from the leaders of the group. People have just become lazy and dependant, therefore, are mutually culpable.
After posting the article, I was listening to the news, a rare event, because it normally just upsets me how far from the truth it is, and how it is spun to veer peoples attention to one point while we are being fleeced during the distraction. It reminds me of when this group started a ruckus at the mall and the police converged on it and there were robberies on the other end of town while they were distracted. Diversion works well to a ignorant and unsuspecting populace.
The short clip was focusing on the raise in gas price from last year on the same date being 2.89 a gallon and this year being 3.09 a gallon and the impact it was going to have as they project it will possibly go higher. I get my calculator out and it is roughly a 6.9% increase in cost over last year, yet they were mum about the fact for most of the winter the price was 2.59 a gallon, (sometimes lower), which was over 10% less than last mays pricing. They also leave out the fact the number of different fuel mixtures that come into play each spring for different states. Last time I researched this it was 16 different mixtures required by different states, making fuel more expensive to make in the summer months than the winter ones due to government interference in the market.
We are all affected by this increase and we see it singularly because we normally pull up to the pump to make a single purchase fuel. And it is one direct area we do see inflation, and no one likes to pay more money. But yet the news clip says congress is going to investigate what is causing the problem. Talk about smoke and mirrors! Investigate what? How government regulations affects the price of a commodity? How supply and demand affect the market?
If you remember over the past thirty years we have done much to prop up the economies of third world and major population centers under the premise of creating new markets for our businesses so we could prosper. Two such countries were the largest population centers in the world, China and India. Now these are both nuclear states (with missile technology made available from us so they can now deliver warheads here) who are competing with us and in fact creating new markets, albeit protected markets, proven by our ever expanding trade imbalances. But the by product of this creating new markets is that we created new demands on natural resources which did not previously exist, namely in the context of this article, oil. And of course, they are not requiring the same standards on pollutant restrictions that we have imposed on our country, so to deliver final product is also cheaper in the final production stage. In effect, the government is going to investigate why, after they propped up a market and created a demand to compete for middle eastern, russian and venezuela oil , why did the supply/demand factor change reflected in a higher price for the commodity? If this is why they are investigating the price increase, they need to get out of Washington and back into economics 101.
But yet the sheeple, prodded by the media, jump on the bandwagon and want to demonize standard economic forces of what creates a pricing/valuation, rather than question the information being fed to them. Bumbling idiots are put on the airwaves nightly to claim the impact this is having on them. I am so glad I have gone to a very basic basic cable so I can’t be tempted to watch Faux News, CNN, MSNBC and the other disinformation sources!
Has anyone questioned this methanol solution that the government has been subsidizing? Where is this solution coming into play in reducing fuel prices? Has it increased or decreased fuel economy, (which affects the overall inflationary impact in has on fuel) ? What ripple effects has it caused? Well this is an area where we all have been affected, the ripple effect of the change of usage of corn! The price of vegetables is higher than ever. Ranchers are now faced with the question of whether to use the corn for feed or to sell it for methanol use. Beef has increased in price and most likely after the summer we will see it increase even more. Milk has begun to rise in price. (And it is not as if the agrarian family farmer is the major benefactor in this, the corporate farm is the major benefactor. It would pay you to investigate just who these corporate farmers are so they can’t pull the “farmer is benefiting” routnine over you. One bad year is enough to put most family farmers in dire straights, two to three enough to bankrupt them.)
Now as a percentage of our household budget, what affect does this raise in price of fuel, if permanent, have on the average household. They spouted a fact (which I will just repeat for arguments sake) that Americans 300 million, consume a daily average of 377 million gallons of fuel each day, or roughly 1.25 gallons per day per person. If the average tank size is 16 gallons this rise in price is 3.20 per tank of fuel. If the average household is 4 persons, that is a consumption of 5 gallons of fuel a day per household with the economic impact of 1.00 a day on average. I am looking at my grocery bills during the same time, without increasing the amount we buy, and I have seen about an 80.00 increase per month since the same time last year and being more conscious about what I buy. That is roughly a 2.67 increase per day. During the same time frame our fuel expenditure has remained almost constant, being more conscious of getting what we need when we are out and not making wasted trips to the store.
Even if the rise in food prices doesn’t ruffle your feathers, the real smoke and mirrors to distract you has come in on another level, and instead of speaking about it with caution it is being praised! Last year this time in Pennsylvania our minimum wage was 5.15 an hour. In January it was increase to 6.15 an hour and in July it will be increased to 7.15 an hour. Not only is this government interference in the market place that will be both inflationary and hurt the ones it is claimed to be helping, it is being lauded as some great accomplishment by government. In effect, we have changed the wage scale 38.8% over a one year period for the least skilled workers in our society. But to the skilled what does this do,? It decreases their buying power and the value of their salary.
Now you would think people would be up in arms about this , especially those who are skilled. Why the silence? Well most people do not realize the caveat in most union contracts is a clause that predicates that their wage is tied to minimum wage. Now obviously, they will not receive a 38.8% increase in their wages, I don’t want to even hint at that. But, if the minimum wage is raised , their contract is adjusted to reflect the actual difference in rates, so it is not only the minimum wage that is increased, many union workers also received an increase.
Why don’t we know about this? Well, many of these union employees happen to be teachers themselves. Again, please don’t misunderstand the premise of this to be all union employees or all union teachers got a increase, they did not. But the premise is that government is not only concerned about a feigned interest in the conditions for the poor, they are concerned with votes and the best way to get the support of people is to positively affect their pocketbooks.
So while we are focused on the increased gas price, that may or may not stay at 3.09 a gallon, while all are on the ruckus at the pumps, the gang is on the other side of towns fleecing us, and many of us do not even realize it.
In the same manner which people through ignorance open themselves up to abuse and being misled by leaders in a church, people in the secular society also expose themselves to abuse and smoke and mirrors in the secular world. The difference comes that in a church, you do have the option of leaving and going to another church. However, in a secular society, this option is not as viable. In both cases though, we find that abuse is made possible due to ignornance, and in both cases, the information is readily available to those being abused/taken advantage of. While this in no way exonerates the leaders from their culpability, it also does not excuse the person who is the subject of the abuse, as they have no excuse. Laziness, lethargy and apathy are inexcusable.
One must wonder, do we as a nation have the intestinal fortitude to take corrective measures to counter the state to which we have devolved? Will we ever hold the government to account for their actions by voting Congress out when they betray us? I don’t see it, do you? How long to the Point of No Return?
Comments»
no comments yet - be the first?