We Could Have Owned The World:
We could have owned the world. Seriously! And by "we" I am not talking about the United States of America, our nation. And I'm not talking about "our government" either. It should be known that those two should be one in the same but that's really been nothing but a myth for the last century or so. No, the "we" I'm speaking of is us, you and I, as individuals.
So why am I writing about this now? Two simple words, "new deal". Last year Democrats felt an obligation to use this term in no less than every other sentence. Then the craze (or craziness) died out during the presidential campaign for the most part. Now it is beginning it would seem to make a resurgence. Democrats have been using the term more and more of late.
After all "New Deal" is a term that harkens back to their glory days of FDR every time we hear from the loony left about the joy, wonderfulness and equality of socialism. But lets face facts, and real history. Would FDR ever had been elected if Teddy Roosevelt were never elected? The answer will never be known with complete certainty but my opinion is that Teddy opened that door for the Roosevelt name and was a much more beloved character, a character who had character. Voters, it seems, expected another Teddy.
And of course there was World War II. Voters are always inclined not to make a change during a war that magnitude, one with all the marbles on the line. After all, it was "kill or be killed" for our nation and what was then a free world of many different nations (not the nonsense that is today's "European Union".) It was a time when Americans wanted stability of leadership and less uncertainty, a very different mindset than the uninformed populous now electing "leaders".
The real truth is WWII was won by patriotic Americans who gave their all, be it on the battle line or here back home on the assembly lines. The real leaders, just to name a few for example purposes, had names like Patton, Bradley, Nimitz, Halsey, etc and note too I neglected to name Eisenhower and MacArthur, both good battle strategists but truly wannabee politicians-in-waiting. But as far as FDR he was a walk-in (or to be accurate, a wheel-in for a third term). It's always the guy sitting behind the Resolute Desk that gets ("takes" to be honest) the credit.
The entire scenario was a socialist's dream come true. Hero-worship status while he took control of our purse strings under guise of making our lives "better".
And it was doomed to failure. A planned doom to exert even more control over our very existence.
First off, it took in social security taxes for four or five years to fill the piggy bank with seed money without paying out a dime. Boatloads of cash poured into government coffers. Of course the entire scheme did nothing to assure that the money would ever go back to the men and women who worked for it and paid into it.
An even greater flaw was the fact there really was no place to invest it either. So it sat there earning nothing. When you think about the future you think about making investments that will grow over time such that when you do retire the investment process will have multiplied its value to meet the naturally rising prices of goods, services, housing etc.
Had the government "invested" the money in no time at all they would have owned every security in every company. Every share of stock, every corporate bond ever issued. Simply put the government would have owned everything including you and me. Even a socialist like FDR could see that would be too much, too soon, especially after just winning a war that cost countless Americans their lives fighting to save "freedom" from tyrannical "leaders".
At the same time, no limits, no rules, no legislation was ever enacted, limiting the power of what the government could do with the money you earned but never held in your hand. Somehow people fell for it, it was still a time when people actually believed the government was working for them, for their good. The line "What a bunch of saps!" comes to mind.
I think it's safe to say that everyone is familiar with the line that "Wealth begets wealth." It is an eternal enduring truth. It's something every family desires for their offspring, some achieve it, some don't. But nonetheless it's true. It's desirable. It fits the American Dream. In the end it benefits the entire nation by reducing the need for welfare, for gaining a better education, for creating incentive to learn more and earn more. Simply put, it's the head start every parent wants for their off spring. It provides them with upward mobility, better educations, less stress, better health and more money to spend thus creating even more jobs and more wealth while reducing the ranks of the unemployed, (and reducing the crimes that people with no job tend to commit to survive).
That should have been the goal of government and could have easily been enacted into law that all Americans invest a set minimum percent of their income into investments. We would have run into the same issue as the government did with Social Security taxes; What to do with the excess money. Well for one thing it would have made more capital available to start even more companies which in turn would have created more growth and more jobs, but even more importantly the governments take, taxes, would have skyrocketed. And what politician doesn’t like to line their own pockets?
And eventually all Americans would own their stake in the "Land of the Free", been invested in our success. And if we ran out of investment vehicles here we could have been investing in businesses outside of our own country.
Yes, we "the people" could have owned the world.
And FDR killed off the prospects all by frosting a donut with icing and sprinkles. And in one huge slight of hand took away control of your destiny. Accomplishing the socialist's goal of making people dependent on the whims of politicians, the haves, and leaving the rest of Americans the prospect of being the have nots. And that's how this country of our came to being the mess it is today.
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John Richards
1618152936Optional backstory:
If you feel like finding out how all these thoughts gelled together from all you've just read this is optional reading of some of the most enjoyable and rewarding times of my life. I'd give most anything to hop in the old Wayback Machine and revisit those time for a year, maybe even two years.
What follows is an independent study that comprised all 20 credit hours of my final semester for my bachelors degree. It was done as a joint project with my favorite professor and best friend, the late Andrew Stedry. Andy was a genius, tests proved it, earning a Masters degree by age 15 was proof enough, and creating an entirely new concept to business organizational planning proved it. He invented the field of "Behavioral Accounting" and wrote a number of textbooks on the subject. Essentially behavioral accounting means just what it says; You control the direction and course of an organization by controlling the purse strings. Over time it morphed into the "new" field of "Management By Objectives". I'm not even sure what they call it these days.
So you had these two finance wizards working on the notion that Social Security was bound for bankruptcy, the only question was when. At the same time the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants was just beginning to look at corporate "unfunded pension liabilities". So there was Andy and I at Neeley's Pub On The Hill for our first organizational meeting to map our course. We set our course for when social security going bankrupt after becoming unsustainable and unpayable.
Midway through our first scotch on the rocks we came to the realization it already was bankrupt, that it would become unsustainable over the long term, and that this "long term" was decreasing at an exponential rate, as this nation of ours was already borrowing money (and remember, this is already after taking your hard earned money away in social security taxes before you could touch it) to pay promised benefits.
Clearly, we were on the right track but riding the wrong train. And that's when we hit upon the comedy, and big lie, of corporate pensions. They were woefully underfunded, and rather than face the issue head on corporate leaders put it on the back burner and didn't even bother to turn the burner on.
And with each successive contract negotiation they gave away more to the union's demands which was quickly awarded to non-union salaried staffers. The "leadership" that agreed with this so-called strategy knew two things. First, they would be long retired when the excrement hit the fan and secondly, they were far more concerned with making their money here and now from increasing market value of their equity interest in the business.
So like any good researcher would do, we used numbers. And we left no stoned unturned in our research as we developed various economic trends. So seriously was Andy that he dropped $30,000 on IBM's first "portable" computer. (Also know as a table-top computer which I figured came to that name because if you put four legs under it yo had a decent size table.) He even shelled out the money for two 8" floppy drives… Bet you didn't know they even made an 8" floppy drive. But it was worth it compared to the built in tape drive. The built in 5" inch monochrome monitor was a real trip too. Portable yes? Weighing in at close to 60 pounds we called it a "stationary" computer. But, as usual, I digress.
So we sat there day and night working tirelessly on things like population growth, inflationary influences, histories of wage growth along with and taking into account the notion that at some point these new fangled, computer things would do far more of the work in the future at the cost of bean counters sitting in front of adding machines. We even had this crazy notion that many assembly tasks could, and more than likely would, be replaced at some point in time by computer controlled machinery. (Obviously we both had watched too many episodes of the "Jetsons".)
We ran model after model. And finally came upon a time we were confident bankruptcy would be knocking on the door. (As it turned time proved us wrong with bankruptcy coming a little more than four years sooner. We hadn't given enough credence to the Japanese vehicle invasion since about the only viable small contender was the original Honda Civic. Who knew they would eventually see the money they could make building high quality luxury cars and trucks.)
The dean loved it. Even used the term "A clarion call to act soon".
And we were called to a meeting by the university president, along with some board members and were bluntly told this work could never see the light of day, never be published, it was too radical and disturbing. The only thing they didn't say was that much of the university was endowed by a family of automotive manufacturing pioneers. But we all knew that beforehand, and we knew this might happen.
Andy left the university (university politics) the same time I received my degree.
Yes, I've spent far too much of your time getting here but I felt a need to reminisce.
If you feel like finding out how all these thoughts gelled together from all you've just read this is optional reading of some of the most enjoyable and rewarding times of my life. I'd give most anything to hop in the old Wayback Machine and revisit those time for a year, maybe even two years.
What follows is an independent study that comprised all 20 credit hours of my final semester for my bachelors degree. It was done as a joint project with my favorite professor and best friend, the late Andrew Stedry. Andy was a genius, tests proved it, earning a Masters degree by age 15 was proof enough, and creating an entirely new concept to business organizational planning proved it. He invented the field of "Behavioral Accounting" and wrote a number of textbooks on the subject. Essentially behavioral accounting means just what it says; You control the direction and course of an organization by controlling the purse strings. Over time it morphed into the "new" field of "Management By Objectives". I'm not even sure what they call it these days.
So you had these two finance wizards working on the notion that Social Security was bound for bankruptcy, the only question was when. At the same time the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants was just beginning to look at corporate "unfunded pension liabilities". So there was Andy and I at Neeley's Pub On The Hill for our first organizational meeting to map our course. We set our course for when social security going bankrupt after becoming unsustainable and unpayable.
Midway through our first scotch on the rocks we came to the realization it already was bankrupt, that it would become unsustainable over the long term, and that this "long term" was decreasing at an exponential rate, as this nation of ours was already borrowing money (and remember, this is already after taking your hard earned money away in social security taxes before you could touch it) to pay promised benefits.
Clearly, we were on the right track but riding the wrong train. And that's when we hit upon the comedy, and big lie, of corporate pensions. They were woefully underfunded, and rather than face the issue head on corporate leaders put it on the back burner and didn't even bother to turn the burner on.
And with each successive contract negotiation they gave away more to the union's demands which was quickly awarded to non-union salaried staffers. The "leadership" that agreed with this so-called strategy knew two things. First, they would be long retired when the excrement hit the fan and secondly, they were far more concerned with making their money here and now from increasing market value of their equity interest in the business.
So like any good researcher would do, we used numbers. And we left no stoned unturned in our research as we developed various economic trends. So seriously was Andy that he dropped $30,000 on IBM's first "portable" computer. (Also know as a table-top computer which I figured came to that name because if you put four legs under it yo had a decent size table.) He even shelled out the money for two 8" floppy drives… Bet you didn't know they even made an 8" floppy drive. But it was worth it compared to the built in tape drive. The built in 5" inch monochrome monitor was a real trip too. Portable yes? Weighing in at close to 60 pounds we called it a "stationary" computer. But, as usual, I digress.
So we sat there day and night working tirelessly on things like population growth, inflationary influences, histories of wage growth along with and taking into account the notion that at some point these new fangled, computer things would do far more of the work in the future at the cost of bean counters sitting in front of adding machines. We even had this crazy notion that many assembly tasks could, and more than likely would, be replaced at some point in time by computer controlled machinery. (Obviously we both had watched too many episodes of the "Jetsons".)
We ran model after model. And finally came upon a time we were confident bankruptcy would be knocking on the door. (As it turned time proved us wrong with bankruptcy coming a little more than four years sooner. We hadn't given enough credence to the Japanese vehicle invasion since about the only viable small contender was the original Honda Civic. Who knew they would eventually see the money they could make building high quality luxury cars and trucks.)
The dean loved it. Even used the term "A clarion call to act soon".
And we were called to a meeting by the university president, along with some board members and were bluntly told this work could never see the light of day, never be published, it was too radical and disturbing. The only thing they didn't say was that much of the university was endowed by a family of automotive manufacturing pioneers. But we all knew that beforehand, and we knew this might happen.
Andy left the university (university politics) the same time I received my degree.
Yes, I've spent far too much of your time getting here but I felt a need to reminisce.
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All praises be to God the Father for only He can do the impossible. Only He is truly in control. Only He made us. Only He is responsible for creating the sun, the moon, the stars and the vast universe. All life comes from Him through Him. All hopes and dreams of ours are ultimately granted by Him in His grand plan as only he knows what outcomes best fits His plan.
Easter is the day we thank his Son for what we call the "ultimate sacrifice" but just as importantly we should be praising God for the world in which we live. For life itself. For making the impossible possible.
As for the non-believers, and especially to all those "scientists" who contend that in the beginning there was nothing and then two bits of nothing smacked into each other and made everything I ask this… Who made your two bits of nothing out of nothing when nothing existed?
So today I'm just going to look at the world and praise God for His creation, thank His Son for being the teacher, and marvel at the miraculous power of God Almighty. I'm not going to ask where God came from, what His power was derived from for He is eternal with no beginning and with no end. The rising of His Son Jesus from the tomb is all the proof I'll ever need, all any of us should ever need.
Happy Easter to all!!
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