Tough Times Now? Just Wait….

We live in America, fostered by the ideals of fairplay, honesty, and all things good, wholesome, apple-pied with a dollop of fresh white cream on the top. At least that’s the spin put on our country by politicians looking for your votes so they can stuff their pockets full of fancy little deals that enrich their families at the expense of yours. Let’s start with one subject, American Business-the Small Businessman.

When one thinks of a family business one usually envisions a mother and father slaving away trying to make ends meet with their children at their side learning the business as they grow, hopefully to take it over and prosper. The reality is that most “small businesses” are not really that small (exempting the restaurant business) and are capitalized by very wealthy people. Most do not provide benefits to their employees, many violate state and federal labor laws every day. How do I know this? Let’s just say I have “friends” as the commercial for tax preparation drones about, as if your “friends” have an illegal inside track to save you money underreporting your income-just like the big boys do-nudge nudge, know what I mean?

Take a look at a local harbor to see who owns those lovely yachts. There written off as an entertainment expense by “small” businesses. The automobile write-off was capped a few years back so anything over $50,000 can’t be taken as an expense for a car, but a million dollar Prevost luxury motorhome can still be amortized over 5 years in the companies’ name for entertaining. These are but a few of the ways the tax structure has brought this country down to its knees for the little guy. There are many more but let me move on to tackle the other side of this drama and get to my point without listing 50 ways to screw your country.

It is these same “small” businesses that force employees to work overtime without compensation, by use of fear or pressure tactics and enact pay periods that allow them to be paid only 48 weeks out of 52 by illegally setting the first and fifteenth of each month as paydays instead of floating the pay period to coincide with the real calendar where 4.2 weeks are equivalent to a month not 28 days. Larger corporations know that can’t get away with that, so they stay on the side of the law. The small-minded business owner and larger corporations do however browbeat and squeeze every nickel of labor they can and stand behind a corporate structure so that their front line employees have to deal with an underserviced, unsatisfied customer or client that is not being treated fairly because the money being raked in by the corporate owner is never enough, so he buys the cheapest parts, doesn’t pay contractors, lets his bills pile up until he is threatened with litigation, doesn’t trust anyone because he or she themselves are not trustworthy, and then hides behind any legal interpretation they can screw their employees and their customers. (I’m sure there are good people and great companies to work for here in America, but they are far and few between) Now that sounds harsh doesn’t it? Now multiply the intensity of that with a large corporation.

Guess what? It’s normal, and if it is normal here, imagine what it is like in China and India. We buy billions of dollars of all this crap-clothing so shoddy that colors streak completely after being washed once, mechanical things that fall apart after one use, and all of the stuff is probably is loaded with lead if not anything more dangerous (wait until they start making medicines)-and all while they are polluting the shit out of their land and air-just like we did from 1870-1976. Not that we don’t still do it, but it has been addressed to a large extent by those dreadful liberal environmentalists who do at times go way too far, but at this point without them we would be the world’s biggest polluter….ahh….wait, I think we still are!

My point is that we talk the talk but can’t walk the walk and if we, American people had done the right thing in the 70’s and demanded to become self-sufficient, taken solar and alternative energy production seriously before Reagan came in and made everybody feel good about “our national right to excess in all things,” then these international bankers and our Federal Reserve couldn’t have hijacked the economy and promoted productivity, which is essentially more work done by less people- and encouraged national corporations to expand overseas with our manufacturing jobs for huge profits. They were there to help them by funding the banks that have loaned them the money for that expansion. Then the investment banks started gaming the system with arbitrage and fast computers while the SEC watched and let it happen. Then the era of securitized mortgages, the fact that the uptick rule was banished for people who sold stock short, and then commodities became an asset allocation for as little as 5% margin; no delivery requirements, and wound into Exchange Traded Funds (ETF’s) like a stock-and not just a hedge for businesses, and bingo….the bubble breaks. Who is to blame? We let it happen; we’re going to pay for it. It has yet to really surface just how much of a loss we will sustain in determining our own future and that of our children. We are just beginning to see the effects of our capital being spread too thin around the world while our sworn enemies laugh at us, counting the billions we have to send them like a junkie in a dark alley. Global is good? For who? The international banks that’s who and don’t let anyone fool you, the big money is in a fixed game and the question is not who will profit and who will suffer, it is when.

The expansion of globalization and reallocation of capital reminds me of grading on a curve or “no child left behind” that are attempts at socialistic concepts by the current administration to promote those countries that rank near the bottom to rise up further at the expense of those who are economically sound by using the tried and true method of cheap labor to make millionaires from racketeers with the power and money in these former "third world" areas. This Non-Darwinian methodology cannot succeed without someone getting the short end of the stick.

Fairplay, honesty, and all things good….Where have you gone “Common Principles” the nation turns it’s lonely eyes to you?