Have you been in a situation where you see someone posing and offered to take their picture? We have, lots of times. A photo being an phoney image of a person. Just as what we see going on around us is a phoney economy. My play on words above if you didn’t get it was fony as a phoney of phony. The last two are correct by the way.
In any case I’d very much care to illustrate the idea I present here. I have been in “business for myself” as I’ve said so many times as most of us have. I have and have had quite a number of businesses. All the time I have been ‘killing it’ if only in my own mind, I have noticed some things that are troubling. Not just the matrix I spoke about last week but things that make me really wonder how we actually function.
Now you might be for this or against this but it matters not, place your emotional self aside and read into what I am trying to illustrate and walk with me a piece. Take for example Ukraine, a $188,000,000,000.00 dollar write off to our business. With approximately 30 million small businesses that’s approximately $6,000.00 for each of us. Now that’s just Ukraine. Then we have the rest of the government spending.
Let’s walk a little further. The way I see it the small business person is the core of our existence. I see it thus wise, if not for the small business large corporations would not exist. It is through the network of small independent operators that these companies are able to exist. Extraction takes thousands of contractors to accomplish what they do. At it’s base every person employed in this country in it’s core sector works for a small business. Including those in large corporations vicariously of course. If one looks around a bit it will not be hard to see that a lot of people are doing nothing except shuffling time and money. Enter…. government, banking and wall street.
Sure this is a simplified explanation, which is what I want to work with. There are certainly many nuances and hard core battles to argue differently. But sticking to my point of a phoney economy let’s get on to illustrating that. Some time ago I was talking with my accountant who at the time was commanding some $300.00 an hour for his services. He told me that some 80 percent of his business was tax preparation. Now this was an office of many not one, they occupied a building that was three stories and about 50 feet wide and 75 feet long. So maybe 100 people? That’s quite an operation! Now how much of that is federal vs state I can’t say but the point is that this business qualifies as GDP. This business is producing a bottom line that is getting added to the value side of our economy when 80 percent of it is basically a tax. Services paid for to accommodate the complicated government system of taxation.
When I was doing construction throughout the early part of this century each year we were constantly overrun with code changes. Updates for ‘safety’ (as if there is such a thing) or seismic calculations. I saw this as a hidden tax on our labor. As an example we have had GFI outlets in wet locations for about 30 years. In the beginning this made sense, somewhat. At that time we had lots of people using very old appliances and a shocking life was easy to come by. About the same time double insulated and plastic appliances became for the norm, metal appliances were becoming a thing of the past. I might add that grounding of the appliance was the necessary mechanism to ensure safety but that could not be regulated. Now one who knows could argue that the are plenty of reasons why GFIs were necessary and I would not squabble with those arguments. Here is what I would like to point out. Although there was a rationale for the implementation the science nor the data warranted such a move. In the early days of the internet when I did my research there were like 50 fatalities from electrocution. All but a few were from work related instances and also included a guy with an aluminum ladder that stood it up into a power line. This hardly justifies every single new home adding approximately four GFIs which at the time were 1600% increase over a traditional grounded outlet for the unit plus the extra time and wire needed to install them. Carry that forward and today we have GFIs, Arc fault breakers and all sorts of other requirements for ‘safety’ and yet the statistics don’t bear out the cost. When I quite doing construction as my living, I estimated that approximately 30 percent of a house built in California was unnecessarily mandated by the government for safety reasons.
People say, “well if it makes if safer then that is a good thing”. I ask them, ” if no one is dying or seriously being injured, what’s the point or where are you seeing safety”? Keep in mind my assertions of phoney, our objective here. If 80 percent of my accountants business is phoney and 30 of my construction company building houses is phoney, how much of your business is phoney??? I suspect it is quite a bit. Even if it was only say 7%, about an average sales tax rate, we’re talking about a sales tax we pay in broad daylight PLUS these taxes we pay in the dark.
I saw an economist the other day stating that when the country has invested corporately as a government into infrastructure in excess of 3 percent of the economy there was a 10 year economic bust. He illustrated how it has happened several time in history with things like the railroads, the power grid and the interstate system. If that 3 percent is so powerful in our total economy how is it that the systematic taxation of our labor inside of our businesses is any less powerful? Especially at these greater numbers.
I propose to you that it is all a shell game run by federal employees and government officials. Not trying to be conspiracy theorist, just pointing out that the average federal employee makes over $100 grand a year and the average person working for us is quite a bit less. The cost of doing business here has risen to ridiculous levels and many of us small businesses going under due to government involvement or burdened by regulation. One sees it in the news about everyday, “Chevron leaves California due to hostile environment”. What does this mean? A company worth billions decides to close a plant not because of economic concerns, not because of financial woes within the company but because the government is hostile! What they are saying is that while profitable for the company we choose to spend millions starting over somewhere else where it is easier and more profitable. Hundreds of people are out of a job because of their elected officials and in this case lose the ability to produce a product that they use handily every single day. Their government is forcing them to buy it from someone else instead of themselves. The ultimate tax to death scenario.
Look around people it is visible everywhere. I implore you to notice it and fight it. Not with swords and guns but with your choices. Choose wisely when voting, choose to be that person who runs for office to be for your people, say no to more government employees who spend all day trying to figure out how to get more from you. Do what you can if only, ‘be local, buy local’.
Peace and love my friends
Greg