Bling And Yang Equals Bull Plop

Enter onto the democratic stage Mr. Andrew Yang, running for President of the United States, and marking himself as the next best thing to the current President Donald Trump. He is not a politician, but a serial entrepreneur. But fear not. We can see what happens when a non-politician becomes master of the White House. Of course I am a Donald Trump supporter, and it is no secret that I actually think when all is said and done, not only will Donald Trump easily slide into another four years as president, but he may go down in history as one of the best presidents we have ever had the privilege of knowing. I think he could easily stand along guys like Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan. And hey, because I am a fair guy, let's not forget John F. Kennedy. Historically he was also not a bad president at all. Just because he happened to have had a "D" next to his name does not automatically, to my mind, disqualify him from having been an excellent occupier of the People's House.

I am simply saying that it does not matter anymore, as Trump has proven, that you have to have political credentials in order to be an effective president.

But let's be clear as well. Just because you are NOT a politician does not automatically mean you are qualified to BE a president.

As of right now I think it is important to note that I don't think Andrew Yang has a fleeting chance in Hell to ever see the interior walls of the White House. But let's set that aside for a moment because there is something about what he is wanting to do—what his primary offering is to the People—that I find interesting.

Ludicrous. But interesting.

This election cycle on the democratic side as a whole will essentially turn out be a referendum on socialism, or a variation of forms of it. This is literally a campaign that will be about capitalism vs. socialism.

Now, while there are a few guys (and gals) on the stage denouncing socialism and rightly stating that if this is all the democrats are going to run on, the election is already over—I agree with that sentiment, by the way—those voices are few and far between. Interestingly enough, right now for whatever it is worth, I don't think the current front runner, Joe Biden, is one of those voices calling for socialism. But that's for another day.

The fact is that among the current 20 or so contenders in the game, the platform of most of them is simply to give something away. Name your prize: free healthcare, free education, amnesty for illegal immigrants, free and open borders...you name it.

And lo and behold, who will all of this free stuff come from? Ah, there you have it again as always. The evil rich people and the greedy corporations they run.

Forget for a moment that it is simply a fact that not a single democrat will acknowledge that even if you confiscated every single dime of the rich you'd still not be able to cover the damages on any of these things, let alone pay for current spending or pay off any of the debt we have.

So ultimately, even if THEY don't want to admit it (the democrats) the regular folks are still going to have to cough up for the lion's share of anything that might be "free."

But back to Yang. He wants to give every single American $1,000 per month. Sort of an idea along the lines of this whole "universal income" a lot of (let's be frank) whacko's having been talking about for a couple of years now.

Isn't that simply a subsidy? I mean, essentially that's what it is, right? A subsidy. Why has the cost of healthcare risen the way it has? Why has college tuition risen the way it has? Why did the cost of houses rise so rapidly during the real estate bubble?

It's simple folks. Anytime someone knows there is extra money out there to be had, they are going to take it. 

If I own a house and my tenant tells me he just got a huge pay raise, wouldn't I probably consider at the next rental raise that perhaps that tenant might be able to afford to pay $10-$20-$30 a month more?

Probably. I know he's got the money and so I know he can afford to pay a little more. 

This is the way the entire world works. Why do you think we track things like median income in this country? And who do you think is paying attention to that? Everybody knows what people have to spend. The oil companies, the cable companies, the phone companies, the grocery stores and food manufacturers...everyone. And they also know about what percentage of income any of these things should be, and so they also now what they are "entitled" to. Or maybe not entitled to. But they certainly know what is reasonably attainable from your pocket to theirs.

Why do you think so many people tend to live paycheck to paycheck? I mean, yes, there is a large part of the population that is simply inept when it comes to how to manage money properly. I have spoken about this for years. But, it also happens to be in part because these companies largely know what's out there and available for the taking, and so they adjust their prices accordingly, and unless you are wise to that fact, you will be hard pressed to ever get ahead of that little game that is being played on you.

So, what happens when you suddenly come into an extra $1,000 per month? What happens when those companies know all too well that there is an extra $12,000 a year for each and every American over the age of 18 floating around? Or potentially an extra $24,000 per household now in those wallets?

They simply take it.

If there is extra money in each and every single American's pocket, all that is going to happen is that the cost of every single good or service we buy will go higher. It's just the way it works. It's part of what drives inflation in the natural order of the economy. When there is more money floating around and when people are making more money, the cost of good and services rise.

So what, Mr. Yang, would be the value in that $1,000? It would eventually simply wash itself out. Not to mention what it may also do to productivity. But that too is for another day. No one is actually going to come out ahead. That money will simply be drained from your wallet just like virtually every dollar is drained right now. You would eventually have nothing to show for it, and there would be no gain.

Now, you also have to consider that someone has to pay for all that free money. Because it's really not free of course. Taxpayers would have to pay something to pay for it ultimately. So not only would the cost of goods and services rise, but so would your taxes washing out even more of that money. And if productivity is reduced, that potentially means less income tax revenue coming into the government coffers as well. So it's really a double whammy. No one gets ahead.

Long and short here, it's just a dumb idea no matter how you look at it. Sure, the thought of an extra $12,000 a year sounds appealing. Heck, for a guy like me who does not live paycheck to paycheck and who also makes a pretty decent living, there is a lot of appeal since I know I can likely take that $1,000 per month, save it, invest it, and gain handily on it—I can essentially game it and would indeed come out ahead even considering my examples as to how it would likely be a wash anyway.

But that's part of the point too. You see, people not having money is not really about society dealing a bad hand to the masses. It's not about unfairness or corporate greed or even low wages. It's about people not taking the time to improve their wealth, or having the knowledge to improve it. It's about people not understanding the value of money or understanding what it's intrinsic value happens to be over its in-front-of-you value.

So what happens if everyone gets that $1,000 per month? The haves and the have nots will be exactly where they started before they got the money. Nothing will change. The poor will simply be $12,000 a year poorer because they will simply spend the money and the rich will simply be richer because rich people know what to do with it—or frankly don't need it.

Part of the thing to think about here is that nobody has ever gotten better off by getting free money. Food stamp and welfare recipients don't see their lives improved. All of those folks who get more than they paid back in taxes every year do not get ahead. People who live on social security checks alone are almost all poor.

I don't think Andrew Yang has a chance to win anything, and I doubt anyone with even half a brain would think this idea makes an ounce of sense. But we shall see. At the end of the day all we need to do in this country to open doors of opportunity is to create an economic environment where that is conducive. And the good news is that is exactly what we are doing. That is exactly what Trump is doing. Less regulation, better trade deals, lower taxes for citizens and corporations are all things that are fostering economic growth, higher stock market values, more consumer activity, and wage increases across the nation.

If you look at all of the numbers it is quite clear that everyone is benefiting from this new booming economy. Don't feel like you are one of the ones participating? Let's be clear about one other thing here. Your prosperity and your economic improvement is of course going to be proportionate. What if the growth in your personal wealth is 5%? That's great. But if I have more money than you do, of course my 5% is going to be worth more. Is the top 1% getting more bang for their buck? You bet they are. But they also have more skin in the game, and so it makes sense. Fair is everyone getting their fair share of their contribution.

At the end of the day, if we can keep this ship sailing ahead, none of us is going to need that extra $1,000 per month. If we keep this ship sailing, I bet we'll all see way more than that when all is said and done.

In other words, don't settle for a simple handout when the value of everything else happening right now, this very minute, has far more value. You take this money, you cast this vote for any of this free stuff, all you are doing is selling yourself short, and in the end all of us will lose.

Well, of us except for the government. When they get done with us, if they have their way, they will have the power to control every aspect of our lives because we will need them more than ever. Land of the free was not a motto for handouts. It was a motto for self-motivation and individual opportunity for happiness and prosperity. Never lose sight of that.

Why I Think The Economy Is Broken

There is not a single factor, but myriad factors which holds down wages and stunts the progress of the entire economy. And in order for us to fix it, we need to fully grasp this. Because until we do all we will continue to get is nowhere.

Let me just say that mostly on both sides there are misunderstandings of what needs to be done. For the liberals and democrats, of course, their solution is to simply mandate wage increases—such as to the minimum wage—and to raise taxes on the corporations and the rich. For the conservatives and republicans they're still believing that global trade is the answer. If we can sell stuff to the rest of the world that will create jobs and increase wages.

We know, however, that neither of these solutions really work.

First of all, you cannot artificially raise wages without there being rippling consequences within the economy. As I have said many times before, corporations and small businesses are not ATM machines. And certainly they are not the Fed that simply prints more money when it needs to. So, in comes the union machine. Folks, take a look at Detroit as one of the best examples of artificially increasing wages—and even benefits for that matter. But of course this was not the government who did this, although factions of the government certainly did and do encourage it. Not only did unions demand higher wages for employees, and not only did they fight for more health benefits, pensions, and other monetary things which cost a ton, but they also contributed to bylaws which turned otherwise efficient operations into unmanageable, and ultimately unprofitable ones.

In any business there is a rule of thought that you charge a customer what he or she is willing to bear.

But it is not just a matter of what the customer is willing to pay. It is a matter of what a customer can pay in realistic and reasonable terms. In other words, a business knows that there is a fine line

between trying to get more than what they are entitled to for their product or service and outright pricing themselves right out of business.

You can apply this simple idea to the unions. The difference between the business machine and the union machine is that a business knows what a customer is willing to bear, and it also knows how much a customer can afford to pay. In the case of unions, many of the monetary demands were made without anyone on the union side, and especially the employees, knowing what was even on the balance sheet.

The unions, in my opinion, should have had two jobs. One of those jobs was to make a stand for the interests of employees of course. Their job was to create an environment whereby employees could be reasonably compensated for the work they did, and that they would enjoy some of the benefits of a thriving corporation through wages and benefits. Something I think is important, by the way, despite my misgivings about unions in general. But their other job was to also be the spokesperson for reason and rational thought. Their job was, essentially, to educate the workforce they were representing on the reality of the situation.

There is a danger, I think, when we become so convinced that the rich and the corporations they own are simply greedy. Somehow we have come to a place where when we think of the rich and the corporations we think of the giant in the Jack and the Beanstalk story sitting in his castle above the clouds hoarding and counting his golden coins with no regard for anything but the fact that he has the golden coins.

The rich do not sit on their money. It is part of the reason not only do they become rich. But it is a part of the reason they become richer.

In other words, the rich invest their money. And even when it comes to common shareholders they have one simple demand of the corporations for which they hold a stake in.

Make more profits.

But in order to do that that really doesn't mean lower worker's wages, fire workers, send jobs overseas, reduce benefits, and gouge the customers who buy their products or services. Granted, there may be some who believe that way, but I would call them the minority. What any common shareholder—or major shareholder—wants is a growing and thriving business to continue to deliver dividends and profits. For a lot of us that means growing the business and expanding the markets we operate in.

If you talk to many employees the one common theme always seems to be that they are just a number, that the fat cats really don't need them, that they are a burden and that for that reason corporations will go to any length to shut them down and send them packing.

For me that's a false reality, and a silly way to think. Because anyone who understands business also understands that yes, employees do fall onto the liability side of the ledger. But, they are as necessary as any other cost of doing business. The reality is that a business indeed wants to focus on growth and expanding their markets—but when employees walk out the door and when employees have to be replaced, there are two things that come out of this.

Distraction and cost.

For one, when you have to spend time in the day strategizing over how to bring in replacement

workers, and when you have to spend time in the day seeking out new workers and being engaged in the hiring process, you are going to have less time in the day to focus on strategizing keeping the machines running and expanding the business. It's a distraction. And then there's the cost. Even in unskilled labor, you have to train the workers. And during that process there is going to be some level of transition and downtime whereby the operation will not be at its optimum efficiency.

For those who say unskilled labor is a job even a monkey can do let me just say this.

I have worked in many "unskilled labor" jobs during my tenure in the workforce. I have seen workers come in who worked in similar settings prior to their working alongside me who were still not able to simply walk onto the production line and run the operation flawlessly. You still had to have other employees showdow them, and you still had wrong buttons pushed, and problems within the process which ultimately slowed things down—and cost the company money.

It is better to have a strong and reliable and fully trained workforce committed to the process and committed to the company than to have a revolving door. Smart businessmen know this, and so therefore it is misnomer that employers simply do not care about the people who work for them.

It's a very small example, but say you own several rental properties. What's more efficient and cost effective for your business? Keeping tenants over the long haul, or constantly having to find new ones to rent to?

Of course there is a need to always evaluate the workers you already have and determine whether or not they are serving the best interests of the business. For those that are not, of course you have to make decisions about whether they stay or go. The same would apply to my tenant example. If the renter is consistent in paying but breaks windows, knocks holes in the walls, or otherwise jeopardizes the business—they are no longer an asset. It is common sense really.

Unions essentially created bad tenants. So many, in fact, that at some point in time it makes more sense to simply shutter the doors than to coninue to seek out new tenants—or be burdened by the cost of keeping the bad tenants you already have.

And then you have the matter of taxes.

It has always amazed me how many people think that by simply raising taxes, you, and I do mean you will somehow benefit better by it. The reality is that taxes, just like employees, are a cost. And when you are spending money in one place, you obviously cannot spend it in another place. And again, the rich and the corporations are not the giant in the Jack and the Beanstalk story. Their money will be worthless if all they do is hoard it. In order to get richer the rich and the corporations must find ways to make their money grow. And that means investing those dollars into more factories, more retail outlets, more products or services in their lines, and it means it will take more people—workers—to get it done.

And by the way, those additional workers will pay more taxes. The more product or service moving through the economy the more sales tax revenue. The more workers with money to spend will also contribute more to the tax rolls as a whole. Lowering taxes does one primary thing. It encourages the flow of real dollars into the real marketplace and when you do that, even if taxes are lower, more tax revenues will be reaped simply because there are more dollars moving around in the real economy to tax.

Why does the Fed lower interest rates when the economy is in a slow down? To encourage more money to enter into the real economy. Lower taxes does the same thing. It speeds up the process of free money flow in the economy.

When interest rates are lower more people will buy cars, more people will use credit cards, more people will buy houses, and thus the markets move upward in a fluid fashion. Raising the interest rates slows the economy down in much the same way that the example I provided about a business pricing itself out of the marketplace ultimately shuts it all down.

Raise taxes and you slow it all down. Lower taxes and it all speeds up. It's not rocket science. It is very basic economics, folks.

The more money you have to spend to fuel your car, and to keep the lights on in your house, the less money you will spend on newer cars, adding square footage to your house, or simply going out for a dinner night with the family.

Everything slows down when certain dollars are siphoned into one pool for which all other pools suffer as a result.

And then there are regulations.

Regulations can be put into two categories. Those that are created through government policy, and

those that are created out of those bylaws I was talking about as it applies to unions. You can make rules that allow businesses to freely and openly compete, and expand, or you can create rules that make it harder, or impossible, to do that.

If you look at the macro here what you begin to see are those myriad issues I was referring to at the start of this. Higher taxes, unruly unions with bylaws that scrape away at efficiency, higher costs of wages and benefits for less work, and rules and regulations put forth by the government and the unions—and laws created in the interest of global trade have all worked to hurt the American worker, and to dissolve what were otherwise good paying jobs, only to be left with an economic disaster. Workers make less, and therefore can not spend as much, and because corporations can no longer reasonably compete, since the door was open to go elsewhere for their labor, they have done so.

I have long held that the idea of global trade was a good one when it became the "law of the land." But somewhere along the line it got away from us. Before it was a convenience and a novelty to be able to expand our personal dollars by having the opportunity to buy that cheaper item made in Japan or some other place. And it was a "feel-good" moment to think that by putting out dollars into those other countries would also lift their economies, thereby making it more possible for them to buy what we made. What we saw in all of this was a win-win.

Going back to my tenant example, what better opportunity to raise your rent than when your tenant gets a pay raise. If one person is making more money, then everyone ultimately makes more money. If global trade would have worked, we'd all have been making more money. Us and the Japanese and the Chinese, and whoever else you want to throw into the equation.

Why did Detroit fall? Why is our entire economy falling? Again, there are myriad factors to consider in all of this. High taxes, over regulation, and stifling of efficiency—it has essentially shut the whole thing down. And what we're left with is a horrible situation where half of the workforce is on government assistance, and the other half is working for pennies on the dollar. Those who are making it, by the way, are having to support the half that aren't.

And also by the way, we used to do it that way before this all happened. We did. The difference was that we did it by our earned wages being used to support the earned wages of another. Paul worked on the production line making beds and mattresses and used that money to buy cars from John who worked on the production line making cars. And John went out and bought a new TV with the money he earned making cars that supported Joe who made TVs. And all three of them supported Tom who drove the trucks to get the products moved, and Sally to stock the shelves, and Roderick who made the sale.

These days who is their to support? Paul doesn't make beds and mattresses anymore. John doesn't make cars anymore. Joe doesn't make TVs anymore. The jobs left don't pay as much, and when any one of these guys buys a bed or mattress, or a car, or a new TV, it takes a much greater chunk out what they can spend on other things—like even a hamburger at Burger King.

And now for something completely different:

You Might Be Raising A Democrat If...

Perhaps it is a product of my own upbringing, coming up into the world from the School of Hard Knocks, that I form my opinion about life in general. I have no kids of my own. Not that my wife and I did not try, nor want them. It just wasn't in the cards for us. But I do have a brain, and I don't think for a second that not having kids means I don't understand what can fuel a generation of people into, if not believing in it, understanding the principles behind a society of living off of somebody else's dime and being completely content with that. And as is an undeniable tenet of liberal ideology having the compelling belief that one is entitled to something for nothing.

Let me start by citing at least one component I believe was true of what ultimately lead to the financial crisis of 2008, which also was a component in the whole Internet boom we saw in the 90's which lead to a crisis of its own. What was it? It was a belief that all along generations before the new generation were doing it wrong.

Hard work? You're doing it wrong. Starter home? You're doing it wrong. First car that spends more time in the shop than on the road? You're doing it wrong. Traditional 9 to 5 job? You're doing it wrong.

Of course, the blame cannot be laid completely on the kids. Parents who came up in the world, realizing the struggle and overcoming it through hard work vowed that if they ever had the means they would make their children's lives better. They will have what I could not have. It is as noble an idea conceptually as feeding the poor, or providing shelter to the homeless. All the while I think we all still fundamentally believe in the old adage that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Except now we make exceptions, and there are many free lunches. And despite all of our efforts as parents to give a leg up to our children as they make their own way into the world, we in fact instead cripple them. And I think it is beginning to become quite clear that as a country and a society as a whole, we are also crippling the entire nation.

These children potentially become the liberal voting block that is growing and threatens the basic founding principles of the nation as a whole.

In life you are supposed to start off poor and struggling. You are supposed to have to drive beat up cars, live in small apartments, make your way up through the corporate ranks, have lousy first jobs, and these are the things that are supposed to make and shape you as a person. These are the things that are supposed to make you appreciate what you achieve once you arrive. And the struggle is what is supposed to get you off your duff to come up in the world and make something out of yourself.

The struggle is real. And the struggle is an integral part of it all. Without it, like a delicate ecosystem, if you take away the struggle, the entire process and system goes out of balance. And that is sort of a place we have arrived at in our current time.

What do we take away from our children when we do not allow them the struggle? Necessity. And here is another thing I think we all fundamentally still believe in, and that is that necessity is the mother of all invention. When you do not have food, and no other means to get it, you will learn to hunt—or you will learn ways to get money to buy it. All of the tools of the hunt, by the way, were invented out of the need to improve our odds at a kill. If the animals all simply fell dead at our feet would we have needed to bother to make arrows? Bows? Guns? Hell, cattle farms for that matter. None of these things would exist if we did not have the need for them.

The bottom line here is that the more we give of things rather than advice, life's experiences, and instilling the importance of why the struggle is necessary, the more we actually take away from the whole rewarding and life experience of our children. We can see examples of this in trophies handed to participants. Not winners. We can see this in examples of kids entering the workforce believing that working at Burger King is beneath them. We can see this in examples of kids being dissatisfied and slighted if they have to drive a 15-year old car for the first time in their driving career. We can see this in examples of kids who believe that their first real jobs in life should be professional careers rather than having to work their way into fields that pay better, and even to work on their own to pay for their own advancement in life in the workforce.

You need to get your hands dirty. You need to sweat a little bit. You need to arrive at home after work with sore arms, sore legs, and dog-tired. It makes you appreciate what you have. It makes you appreciate the achievements. And it makes you struggle and work harder to improve your own life and your own situation. It builds a strong society. It builds a strong character. It builds a strong work ethic. It creates a sense of drive and ambition. And all the while it makes life much more purposeful, and as we draw closer to the ultimate finish line, it makes us more proud to have lived. To have worked hard. To have struggled. And to have arrived. Even if not rich, not for lack of trying, it is better to reach the end having done everything we could have, on our own, than to have had it all handed to us.

I play the lottery. I want the money and the riches like anyone does. But I always say while I will gladly take the money for free, I'd much rather have my come-uppance by my own hand. It is much more rewarding. It is much more worthy. And one like myself would have to wonder; if I simply won the lottery and did not have to do anything else in my life, what else might I have otherwise accomplished that will never be known simply because I did not have to bother to do it?