"Violent crime, drug abuse, teen pregnancy,
illiteracy, joblessness—these are some of the
hallmarks of what has come to be called ‘the
underclass,’" Isabel Sawhill wrote in a
1989 Public Interest essay. "Everyone has a
theory, but no one really knows why the social
fabric of certain communities has deteriorated
so badly."
Sawhill’s words came at a turning point in the history of social policy. Between the 1960s and the 1990s, all of the enumerated rates hit disturbing highs, driven by communities of concentrated disadvantage—home of the "underclass." The richest nation in the history of the world discovered that alongside wealth came new pathologies, ones which once-ascendant liberal meliorism seemed unable to address, and indeed was likely exacerbating. The conservative policy renaissance of the 1980s and ’90s, in turn, was largely about providing alternative approaches, particularly by reforming the government programs which, conservatives argued, were producing the underclass phenomenon in the first place.
This past is prelude to a different suite of pathologies that affect what might be called today’s underclass. Six years ago, demographer Nicholas Eberstadt threw light on the "invisible crisis" of the men who make it up. In Men Without Work, Eberstadt documented how millions of American men had quietly vanished from the workforce, instead living lives of idleness and dependency on family and the dole. Now, Eberstadt has released an update to the book, addressing the surge of labor-force dropout following the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a timely warning to both sides of the aisle as to the challenges social policy still faces.
Men Without Work is, essentially, a book about a mouthful of a statistic: the prime-age male labor force participation rate. In layman’s terms, that’s the share of working-age (i.e., 25 to 54) men who are either employed or looking for work. As Eberstadt explains, this rate has been steadily declining since the 1960s. That means millions of men who would have worked decades ago are now not only not working, but not even actively looking for work.
Drawing on government and nonprofit data, Eberstadt paints a picture of these men. They dedicate far more of their day to recreation and entertainment than employed men and women, and barely any time to childcare, particularly relative to non-employed women. They derive their income principally from other people in their households and the web of transfer programs—Social Security Disability Insurance, Supplemental Security Income, etc.—on which they are increasingly dependent. They are at high risk of drug use and, although Eberstadt argues that it is hard to estimate the exact incidence, seem more likely to have a criminal record.
In the updated introduction, Eberstadt revisits these themes for the post-pandemic world. He argues that the trend of male labor force drop-out has continued unabated, noting new research on the relationship between incarceration and subsequent unemployment. And he contends that pandemic policy, particularly the dramatic expansion of unemployment insurance, exacerbated the drop-out problem and explains why this labor force participation rate among men remains elevated above pre-pandemic levels.
The latter claim is, of course, the subject of live debate. But the most important takeaway from Eberstadt’s revisit seems incontestable: Even in the light of a global pandemic, male labor force drop-out continued on its steady upward rise.
Which returns us to the "underclass." In the late ’80s and early ’90s, much of the focus of social policy was on poor, unwed mothers—then pejoratively labeled "welfare queens"—and the children they bore, particularly the sons thought to be driving the crime wave. Many changes to policy, particularly the 1996 Clinton welfare reform, were targeted at shifting incentives for these households, with the goal of reducing "violent crime, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, illiteracy, joblessness," and all the rest.
Eberstadt’s argument, in essence, is that the group attended to by the last generation of social policy were really just the tip of the iceberg, made visible by the gruesomeness of their conditions. Beneath the surface, a mass of non-working, welfare-dependent men made pathology into a lifestyle. And while welfare reform probably put a dent in at least some of the then-concerning pathologies, it appears to have had no discernible effect on male labor force drop-out, likely because it left much of the disability system untouched.
Eberstadt has not updated his original, sparse recommendations: promote business development and growth, reform disability insurance, and do more to both count the formerly incarcerated and reincorporate them into the workforce. But in addition to these, one might infer a note for each side of the political divide. For the left: the utopianism which the COVID government spending elicited is misplaced. We have a model for what a more welfare-dependent society looks like, and it is not a pretty one.
For conservatives, Eberstadt’s book is more of a challenge. A generation ago, the right engineered a profound change in the operation of the American welfare state, one which—in Eberstadt’s estimation, at least—worked its intended effect of reducing concentrated pathology. But that change barely touched the "invisible crisis." If the liberal answer is to spend, spend, spend, then conservatives need a different one—one which is, alarmingly, not of yet forthcoming.
Men Without Work: Post-Pandemic Edition
by Nicholas Eberstadt
Templeton Press, 252 pp., $12.95
What If We Have a Booming Economy and Nobody Shows Up?
By John Horvat II
The labor market is tight as employers scramble to find workers. Too many jobs are chasing too few workers. The official narrative is that the crisis is caused by the “Great Resignation,” a move in which workers are resigning in record numbers to seek more lucrative employment elsewhere. With the economy roaring back from the pandemic, companies are trying to lure them back with higher wages and benefits. Thus, the whole affair can be reduced to an economic problem of labor supply and demand.
The left proposes a major stimulus package to provide better jobs and benefits. New infrastructure projects will bring back more people and resolve the labor crisis.
Jobs are not a problem now. The present labor market consists of some ten million job openings, two jobs for every job seeker. All people have to do is show up. The most urgent issue is those who are not showing up. Vast numbers of Americans are not even interested in participating. This problem is beyond economics. It’s a moral problem of those who have disconnected themselves from society and the economy.
Plunging Labor-Force Participation Rates
Already before the COVID crisis, the labor market suffered from a huge sector of workers who refused to show up. The unemployment statistics only reflect those who are actively looking for work. Those who have given up the search or made other arrangements do not count.
That is why the present unemployment rate is so low, and the number who don’t work is so high. Since August 2020, the labor-force participation rate has been stuck at a stubborn 62% of the population. It is 1.5 points below pre-pandemic levels and also below Great Depression rates. People are not showing up to work!
Economists are apprehensive about the vast number of able-bodied men in their prime working age dropping out and weighing down the economy and society. The exodus is straining social services and harming family life.
Why Men Are Absent
It’s not the quality of the work but the will to labor that is at stake. It involves the character-strengthening effect of work upon individuals. All the stimulus money in the world would not be enough to fix the problem. In fact, it can make the situation worse.
Nicholas Eberstadt is a political economist at the American Enterprise Institute who has long studied the waning of the labor market. His 2016 book, Men Without Work, looks at the causes behind the drastic decline in labor force participation, which peaked at 67 percent in 2000.
His findings do not reflect well upon this nonworking public, especially men.
Men are dropping out of the workforce in great numbers. In his book, Dr. Eberstadt estimated a veritable army of ten million able-bodied men is absent from duty. These men are casualties of a cultural shift that has hit them hard and steered them away from their traditional role of providers.
Some reasons for the diminishing ranks include the opioid crisis, a video game slacker culture, and the stigmatization of traditionally male jobs like construction. Others rely on parents, wives and friends to keep them afloat. Eberstadt also notes the suspicious rise in the number of working-age Americans receiving federal disability payments, which doubled from 2.2% in 1977 to 4.3% in 2020.
What Do They Do With Their Time?
Instead of working, many men simply stay home and do nothing. One government report claims that the idlers spend a lot of time “watching.” They watch lots and lots of hours on screens of every size and shape. Some spend as many as 2,000 hours a year, almost like a full-time job. Streaming movies, video games, and social media fill their days.
COVID has made matters worse by facilitating sitting around and watching. Before COVID, some of these men at least had menial part-time jobs. The flood of benefits and transfer payments from COVID aid packages gave many an excuse to do nothing.
“We did a limited dress rehearsal for a universal basic income,” Eberstadt reports on the 18 months of COVID benefits that discouraged working. People got the idea that government has infinite resources to sustain them in their idleness.
Dropping out of Civil Society
Even worse, workless men are not engaged in civil society, thus not contributing to the common good. This workless sector is narcissistically self-absorbed. Rarely are these working-age men involved in volunteer work, religious worship, family activities, or public forums.
“By and large, nonworking men don’t ‘do’ civil society,” Eberstadt says in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “Their time spent helping in the home, their time spent in worship -- a whole range of activities, they just aren’t doing.”
Had America maintained labor participation rates of the early part of the century, Eberstadt believes thirteen million more jobs would be filled today. There would be no labor shortage, and the economy would be much healthier.
The sad fact is that once people are paid to do nothing, it is difficult to get them working again.
Despite Job Boom, More Men Are Giving Up On Work
JIM ZARROLI
The long economic recovery has brought unemployment to historic lows. But the number of men in the labor force during their prime working age has dropped significantly over the past 50 years.
Jetta Productions Inc./Getty Images
David Pierce was never someone who sat around watching life go by. He worked as a chef and had a catering business on the side. He sang in his church choir and did community theater, where he met his wife.
Then, in his mid-50s, doctors removed part of Pierce's foot, a complication of diabetes.
"My health just went, kind of really downhill. It really took a turn for the worse," says Pierce, sitting at his dining room table in his tidy home in Apalachin, N.Y. "I couldn't maintain even a part-time schedule."
A year ago, he went on disability, joining the large army of men who have left the workforce for good.
While the job market has rebounded nicely since the Great Recession, one segment of the population hasn't shared in the recovery. Men between the ages of 25 and 54 are still less likely to be working than they once were, says Melissa Kearney, an economics professor at the University of Maryland.
In 1968, about 95% of men in their prime working years held jobs. The number has fallen to just 86%, even though today's job market is ultra-tight.
David Pierce of Apalachin, N.Y., went on disability a year ago, joining the large army of men who have left the workforce for good.
Jim Zarroli/NPR
Kearney says the recovery and employment growth in the past five years are very encouraging. But, she says, "I still see a lot of data that suggests we have structural challenges, and we need to be doing more to try and draw more prime-age workers back into the workforce."
The decline in male workers is concentrated almost entirely among men with high school diplomas or less, or even a bit of college, she says. At one time, men of all educational levels were equally likely to be working; today, a huge gap has opened up, with many more college graduates holding jobs.
Simply put, there's much less demand for the labor of less-educated men, Kearney says.
"They're competing now with low-wage workers around the globe, and that's depressed domestic demand for their skills in the workforce," she says.
Jonathan DeMarco lost his job at a metal fabricating plant in upstate New York in 2006. He does odd jobs when he finds them, but he hasn't had full-time work ever since.
Don't see the graphic above? Click here.
DeMarco still looks for work, but with his dyslexia, he doesn't read or write well and has trouble persuading employers to hire him, he says.
"It's just hard out there for people like myself to get a job," he says.
He refuses to accept any government assistance, and, like many men in his situation, survives largely because his wife works, at a local factory. But her health isn't good, he says.
"She was out of work ... for four or five months. That put us way behind in the bills," he says.
In rural Schoharie County, where DeMarco lives, the unemployment rate is a very low 3.8%. But a lot of men don't show up in the government's numbers because they aren't looking for work anymore, says Gail Breen, executive director of the local workforce development board.
"There are a lot of hidden people in those numbers that don't have jobs," she says. They are "people who have pretty much just given up."
Some suffer from health problems or drug abuse, or just lack the skills needed for today's workforce, she says.
In rural areas, where public transportation is rare, simply finding a way to get to work can be a challenge.
Frank Altieri, who lives in the upstate New York town of Owego, served time in prison on an assault charge and hasn't worked full time since getting out four years ago. At 40, he has come close to finding work sometimes, but without a car his options are limited, he says.
Altieri points out that if he works full time, he and his wife risk losing their disability check and food stamps, so if he takes a job that doesn't pay well, he won't come out ahead.
"I am looking for work, but with my SSI they can actually cut me off, under a certain amount," he says.
At one time, men like Altieri could find work by moving to cities, where they'd make more money. But these days, a high school graduate in New York City or Boston doesn't make much more than someone in a rural area, and costs in the city are a lot higher, says Kearney, the economics professor.
"The wage premium for cities that everyone used to get, even that's disappeared for the non-college-educated," she says.
Don't see the graphic above? Click here.
Since quitting his job, money has been tight for Pierce. His wife, Lonna, a retired school librarian, went back to work temporarily this year.
The Pierces are selling a rental property because they need the money and because Pierce no longer has the energy for upkeep. He and his wife don't travel or go out as much as they once did.
"He's changed a lot," Lonna Pierce says. "We can't do what we did together. That's the thing that makes it harder. And of course it's wearing on a marriage when you're not doing things together. And that's sad. Obviously, that's why you get married. You want to have a partner."
Being without work has taken another toll on Pierce: He has trouble sleeping.
"My career was my identity, who I am," he says. "And to lose that really affected me and created an added layer of depression. I no longer could identify as the guy that was a wonder with food.
"I could whip up all sorts of meals and stuff, and today, if I do one I'm lucky. Just making lunch or breakfast can zap me for the day. That was a real hardship for me."
At worst, if these eleven protesters were blocking the abortion facility as alleged, this should have been an easy local action. Instead, we got guns-drawn FBI raids, complete with handcuffs. When it comes to terrorizing political enemies, this administration is all about "go big or go home." It's what unchecked power looks like, the kind that Lord Acton warned about when he observed that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE DEMOCRAT PARTY? DIDN'T IT START WITH BILLARY CLINTON, WHO WORKED HAND IN HAND WITH 'CREDIT CARD' JOE BIDEN FOR BANKSTERS AND TO PERPETRATE NAFTA???
I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue and stoke anti-white racism, actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms, are hostile to people of faith and spirituality, demonize the police and protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans, believe in open borders, weaponize the national security state to go after political opponents, and above all, dragging us ever closer to nuclear war. TULSI GABBARD
Joe Biden: Wartime Leader of the Black Soul Brigade
As the midterms approach, the great unifier decided that it is a good time to start emphasizing his "unifyingness."
He put out a bizarre and delusional text that both bragged about his vision and achievements and claimed he is a president for every American and will not leave anyone behind.
This followed the White House's United We Stand summit in September, in which, in full Don Quixote style, Biden tilted against the phantom forces of white supremacy and hate, which from Bidentongue translates into anyone who didn't vote for him.
The problem for Biden is that after you have declared war on half of the country while power-charging the misery index, it is not possible to pivot to unity, even if your internal polls scream that you should.
From day one, he has acted as if he is a wartime president overseeing actions against the 74 million Americans who did not vote for him, even going so far as to say that "brave, right-wing Americans" would need modern fighter jets to stand up against him.
No administration in history has tried to pull off what his has done, which is to declare anyone who doesn't vote for a Democrat to be the enemy. When Biden uses the phrase "MAGA Republican," that roughly translates to any Republican not named Kinzinger or Cheney, a number that is growing as Biden voters experience increasingly acute buyer's remorse, perhaps because they can no longer afford to buy anything.
Even impeachment-voting Senator Ben Sasse saw how little currency that bought him this week, since those charming denizens of the left put all Republicans into their hate-filled cauldron.
While the Democrat media pretend Biden is talking about a small group, he isn't, and neither are they. On an MSNBC panel this week, a Brookings fellow, Shadi Hamid, commented to a nodding Jen Psaki, former mouthpiece of the regime, "So then we have to find a way to live with them (74 million Trump-supporters) even if we think they're bad people, even if we think they're a threat to everything we hold dear."
It is a small hop from language and thinking like that to some of the worst atrocities in history. Democrats are already doing all in their power to marginalize, demonize, and silence.
Who are these "bad" people whom they hate so much? They are Americans who believe in quaint things like the Constitution, limited government, faith in God, equality, family, borders, national interests, and public safety.
Most of these objects of Democrat hate don't even care that much about politics or even hate them back.
Who they are not? Marxists, fascists, racists, supremacists, and just about every other "ist" word they they've been smeared with by the projectionist-in-chief and his merry band of hate-filled extremists.
This corrupt shell of a man who claims to be the president of all Americans, or more likely the person or cabal calling the shots, put his entire Cabinet on war footing to attack Americans and damage America from day one. All the Cabinet departments have taken part, even if the Department of Justice, using the FBI as its politicized weapon, has been the most obvious offender.
Perhaps the worst chapter in FBI history happened recently, and it isn't even the obviously political, banana republic–style raid of a former president that crossed a line most Americans never expected to see crossed in their lifetimes. It was the arrest of eleven Christian pro-life protesters in Tennessee for a protest act from 18 months ago, which closely followed another FBI raid on a Catholic pro-life American in Pennsylvania for defending his son.
At worst, if these eleven protesters were blocking the abortion facility as alleged, this should have been an easy local action. Instead, we got guns-drawn FBI raids, complete with handcuffs. When it comes to terrorizing political enemies, this administration is all about "go big or go home." It's what unchecked power looks like, the kind that Lord Acton warned about when he observed that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
It is hard to fathom the sheer evil of what the government has done in these cases. They are taking Christian political prisoners with the hope that it sends the message that "we're with you" to their voters, perhaps less surprising when you consider that Democrats have largely campaigned around the single issue of having a completely unrestricted right to murder unborn babies. What that says about how they view their voters is mind-boggling.
They arrested an 87-year-old woman who likely doesn't have a single violent bone in her body and threatened her and the other protesters with prison and a massive fine.
While Democrats are turning violent prisoners free to terrorize Americans while ensuring a nonexistent border to allow even more violent criminals and drugs in, they are threatening peaceful protesters with eleven years in jail in some of the most overt anti-Christian government actions in recent memory.
Biden's promise that he is "not leaving anyone behind" rings a bit hollow when his idea of not leaving them behind is to lock them, and a host of other politically chosen prisoners, away.
As for the actual violent pro-abortion crowd targeting pregnancy centers, Biden's black soul brigade has no interest in them other than to egg them on with their silence and words of support. At least eighteen actual arson and vandalism attacks on pro-life organizations have netted a whopping zero arrests, which is of no great surprise since this administration isn't concerned about actual criminals targeting Americans.
The Democrat party has never been about unity. They've always preached resentment, hostility, and anger. But the class warfare language of yesterday was nowhere near as toxic as the Marxist, globalist, and racist stew they've replaced it with today.
This leads to a core question. Is something resembling unity in America even possible anymore?
Once you've declared half the country to be the enemy, there is no easy road back from that hellish place. But there are a couple actions Republicans should take in the short term.
When Republicans take the House, they should immediately begin impeachment proceedings against Merrick Garland, Alejandro Mayorkas, and Jennifer Granholm for attacks against Americans and gross dereliction of duty on border and energy policy. That would be a good start to highlight the extreme radicalism of the modern Democrat party.
Harass the functionaries relentlessly, but don't impeach the vessel of corruption that sits in the Oval Office. Let him remain the albatross around the neck of the radical Democrats.
Looking ahead, let's posit that in 2025, America inaugurates President Trump for his second term, Governor DeSantis for his first, or some other Republican candidate who emerges before then.
As happened to President Trump, the government bureaucracy will immediately spring into full antibody mode and work to thwart the president at every turn. It will be a subversive force, loaded down with overpaid government employees who will transform overnight into an active resistance.
That brings us to the second action needed. The government needs to be cut dramatically. Every single agency should be sliced with a butcher's cleaver, and some of them should be eliminated entirely.
As a practical matter, a government America can't even come close to affording needs to be cut anyway. But it needs to be remade into a much smaller and less partisan force so that the Republican president can actually be successful. If it can be dispersed around the country instead of centered in Washington, even better.
This will at least allow the president to function and will perhaps open enough eyes to an extent that something resembling unity, or at least tolerance for opposing views, can be restored. In the meantime, the great unifier and his black soul brigade will continue their war on an ever-increasing number of red-pilled Americans.
Image: 10 Tampa Bay via YouTube, CC BY 3.0 (cropped).
A Commie Coalition of Racists, Butchers, Liars, and Ghouls
By J.B. Shurk
Kamala cackles at Korea's DMZ. Braindead Biden speaks to ghosts. Wicked Witch Hillary curses America with lies. Halloween season must be here. Except the evil that Democrats do lasts all year long. Filled with racists, butchers, killers, liars, misanthropes, thieves, and snobs, the commie coalition of leftists in America pursues nothing but harm. Feasting on children, spreading fear and hate, they are the carnival horror show no sane person would dare permit through the gates. Wherever their power grows, Dems bring darkness (thanks, Green New Deal!), scary times, and frightening monsters. (Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself, after all.)
It is clear that the commie coven has cast a spell upon the country, transfixing too many otherwise rational-thinking Americans into supporting wicked things. Who could be in favor of explicitly judging people by the color of their skin? Who could support secretly grooming innocent children to partake in sexual fantasies? Who could promote mutilating a child's body as if "transgenderism" were a sacred rite? Who could demand that babies be sacrificed on the altar of convenience? Who could preach that freedom is sinful and that obedience to government is divine? Who could maliciously scare billions with the unscientific doomsaying of imminent climate apocalypse? Who could steal food and fuel from the poor, while global elites choose who will be lucky enough to eat? Who could teach Westerners self-loathing on such a grand scale? Surely only very wicked people could do such things. Or people who have become lost in the delusions of malevolent magicians who seed discord, spread lies, feed on pain, despoil innocence, and thrive on hate.
Leftism really is a curse because it twists minds into believing hideous things. Saying, "All lives matter," is somehow racist. Wanting to "Make America Great" somehow spreads hate. Treating people equally regardless of skin color promotes "white supremacy." Rewarding merit and hard work does, too. The less someone thinks of race, the more that person is condemned as "racist," while the more someone obsesses over race, the more "virtuous" that person is said to be. Only "racists" today treat people of all shades the same.
What a sick world the commies have built. White adolescent males have been intentionally left behind. Their rates for academic achievement have plummeted, while their rates for alcohol and drug dependence continue to rise. They are lonely, without purpose, and suicidal as never before, yet the merciless Marxists beat them over the head with allegations of their miraculous "supremacy." There are no scholarships for "white boys." There are no clubs where they are encouraged to belong. They are not invited to succeed. Books, television shows, and movies relentlessly paint them as the villains. The federal bureaucracy treats them as potential "domestic threats." The stories of their ancestors are rewritten as shameful tales best to forget. They have become the eternal whipping post for the hideously racist political left.
Where has compassion gone? To where has the dream of a colorblind world vanished? Why must young innocents be punished for perceived "sins" committed in the distant past? Who could possibly justify looking through a person's character and seeing instead nothing but oppressive hues? Only a race-obsessed commie coalition seeking to divide. Only hateful demagogues who maintain power by teaching others to despise.
In America, former president but lifelong Marxist Barack Obama can slander proponents of secure borders as racists, and nobody bats an eye. Babbling Vice President Harris can promise to disburse federal funds for victims of Hurricane Ian based on Americans' skin color, and corporate news talking heads applaud. Nancy Pelosi can justify millions of illegal aliens as necessary for picking crops, and America's most race-obsessed pretend not to hear. White victims can be violently targeted on the street by criminal gangs, and Democrat mayors cover up their race-based crimes. Beloved statues and monuments honoring the world historical achievements of America's Founding Fathers can be defiled and toppled, and no arrests are ever made. A white male waving the American flag or singing the National Anthem too proudly, however, is condemned for not proactively apologizing for the color of his skin. Hidden "racist" intent is seen lurking in every corner of society. Americans insufficiently dedicated to racial grievance are "canceled" for imaginary sins. Those unwilling to rewrite history are punished. Those who refuse to believe in "woke" delusions are derided. That's how the left helps evil win.
It has been said often that a culture can be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable, and by any measure the West will soon be harshly judged. It was not enough to legalize abortion while promising to keep it rare. The killing of children had to be embraced, then universalized, then celebrated, and finally used as an absurd "human right" cudgel against its opponents. It was not enough to redefine the ancient institution of marriage when destroying the traditional family was the Marxists' ultimate goal. It was never about preaching "tolerance" for others when the political left steadfastly refuses to leave God-fearing Americans alone.
Young students forced to endure Marxist indoctrination may be surprised to learn that a short time ago there was no confusion over biological sex. Nowhere in the world did any culture, scientific body, or human rights group find it controversial to believe in the existence of biologically-defined women and men. Parents had no trouble distinguishing their daughters from their sons. Schools had no need to invent hundreds of "genders" to account for each human's uniqueness. Medicine had not been so politicized as to turn basic genetics upside-down. Only a few years of propaganda and brainwashing, though, were sufficient for thousands of years of human history to be tossed out. What unbelievable witchcraft it is to transform a basic fact of life into a divisive curse for argument and division. How sinister it is to teach toddlers outright lies. How barbaric it is to encourage boys and girls to take life-altering hormones and undergo irreversible surgeries before ever growing up. What ghoulish monsters the Marxists are for mangling bodies, manipulating psyches, and ruining lives.
As if teaching racism, butchering children, and killing babies were not enough, the left's horror tale is not complete without the frightful terrors of global warming. So committed they are to centralized government power and so obsessed they are with unchecked population growth that the Marxists would rather terrify the world with visions of destruction than let children grow up with hope. To tell kids that their parents are killing them with "fossil" fuels. To spread outrageous propaganda that the world does not have long to live. What sinister intent inspires such apocalyptic prevarications? What kind of evil people spread such fear and dread?
It takes a certain kind of monster to intentionally hurt and scare the weak. It takes a certain kind of villain to terrorize the poor. It takes awfully racist people to obsess over the color of children's skin. It takes misanthropic Marxists to spin lies of planetary horror. Yet the evil that men do succeeds only when good men choose to remain silent. So speak up loudly every day. Break the leftists' spells. Chase the wicked far away. And never be compliant.
Image via Max Pixel
The National Debt Elephant in the Room
America is facing formidable challenges, both domestically and abroad, as the midterm elections approach. This is when voters can exercise their choice to make a course correction in current leadership and the direction of the country. It’s also a good time to ask, “Are you better off today than you were a year ago?” and take note of who was in charge then versus now.
Rasmussen Reports offers a current snapshot of public opinion regarding this question. In a survey from several weeks ago, they found that only 29% of likely US voters think the country is heading in the right direction, barely a quarter of voters. In contrast, 64% say we are headed in the wrong direction.
President Bill Clinton’s consigliere James Carville quipped during one of Clinton’s presidential campaigns, “It’s the economy stupid”. 30 years later the economy is still an important issue as Rasmussen Reports found in a recent survey, that 57% of American adults believe it’s likely that, in the next few years, the US will enter a 1930s like depression.
One big reason for such pessimism is the looming time bomb of the national debt, not at some nebulous point in the distant future, but now. The US national debt is now over $31 trillion, and rapidly rising as the federal government spends more than it takes in, borrowing money to pay the growing shortfall, taking out more loans to pay the previous loans.
The unsustainable national debt in the elephant in the room that the ruling class and the media refuse to talk about. This is a Ponzi scheme being perpetrated on US taxpayers.
YouTube screen grab
A rising national debt is not unique to the current administration. Spending more than we take in seems to be one of few bipartisan issues that leaders of both political parties agree upon. And they seem to be just fine with it, as long as they can spend taxpayer money on their pet projects and reelection efforts. Let’s look back at the past twenty years.
Under President George W Bush, the national debt doubled, from $5 to $10 trillion. President Barack Obama said, “hold my beer” doubling it again under his 8-year term from $10 to $20 trillion. Under President Donald Trump, the debt still crept upwards, but COVID pushed it into the stratosphere, with relief funds and paying Americans to not work. President Joe Biden has kept his foot on the accelerator and now the debt stands at $31 trillion with no sign of slowing, much less stopping.
Today we have double digit inflation, depending on how it is calculated, forcing the US Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to slow the inflation inferno. As Investopedia indicated, to curb inflation,
With inflation at its highest rate in decades, the U.S. Federal Reserve has repeatedly increased benchmark interest rates in recent months. As of October 2022, the federal funds rate ranged from 3% to 3.25%, compared with close to 0% early in the COVID-19 pandemic. While the rate is already the highest since 2008, analysts expect the Fed to keep pushing it up this year.
Time for some basic arithmetic. With the national debt exceeding $31 trillion, each percent increase of the federal funds rate translates into over $300 billion in annual interest payments on the national debt.
Suppose the Fed raises interest rates to 4% to slow or stop inflation. That is a low estimate since the, “Well-respected Taylor rule recommends that interest rates rise one-and-a-half times as much as inflation.” Accepting the government inflation rate as 8.2%, this rule suggests interest rates need to exceed 12% to stop inflation. What if the true inflation rate is higher? Then even these horrific figures underestimate the necessary solution.
12% interest on a $31 trillion debt is $3.7 trillion per year. The federal government is expected to spend $5.9 trillion in 2022, according to the Congressional Budget office, meaning the interest on the debt would be 63% of total government expenditures. That’s to stop inflation. What about just using the current Fed rate hikes?
If the Fed only increases rates to 4%, interest on the national debt would be over $1.2 trillion per year. This is compared to only $300 billion on debt service in 2021. But that is still 20% of the federal budget and climbing as there is no political appetite for cutting entitlements or other promised spending. Raising income tax rates won’t be enough to raise this kind of revenue, and hiking taxes during a recession will only make this entire fiasco far worse.
There is no easy way out of this self-inflicted disaster. The government could certainly print more money to cover the debt service, but that would worsen the inflation they are trying to fight. Creating more inflation to fight inflation may make sense to our brilliant president but not to anyone else.
This would be like consumers maxing out their credit cards, unable to make more than the minimum monthly payment, and asking for a credit increase so they can keep spending, going further into debt. That is exactly where America is headed.
As a real economist Herb Stein once observed, “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” This applies not only to the American economy, but also the entire American experiment and society, unless there is a serious course correction. What a choice – runaway inflation or a depression, or both.
There are no good solutions here other than the tough and painful high interest rates and recession that we went through in the early Reagan years to end the Carter era stagflation. Only now the debt is now far larger. It was less than a trillion when Reagan was elected in 1980. Now it is 30 times higher, meaning much greater debt service.
15% interest on a $1 trillion debt was $150 billion in the early 1980s, close to what we have spent today financing our proxy war against Russia. Debt service will soon be greater than the entire federal budget during Reagan’s years.
The Fed has been printing money through “quantitative easing” for over a decade and the chickens are coming home to roost for this massive and reckless printing of easy money. Was this incompetence on the part of the Fed, made up of “supposedly smart” economists? Or was this a deliberate scheme to eventually crash the economy and destroy the middle class?
This would be a good question for Cloward and Piven. Their “strategy” was to implement political crisis to achieve a guaranteed annual income. Watch the news today and see that their strategy, first published in 1966, is playing out in 2022. Crash the economy, wipe out the middle class’s savings and wealth, and “rescue” everyone with a “guaranteed annual income” barely sufficient to cover Nancy Pelosi’s gourmet ice cream consumption.
Ideas like cutting government spending and lowering tax rates to grow the economy are lost on the Biden administration, which is hell bent on doing the exact opposite, continuing to spend money it doesn’t have on Ukraine, renewable energy, student loan forgiveness, and other wasteful endeavors. The Fed’s only option now is to fight inflation by creating more inflation, inflating away our unsustainable national debt, destroying the middle class and the American dream. Only in Washington, DC does this pass for logic.
The current trajectory is to double down on fiscal insanity. As the saying goes, “when in a hole, stop digging”. The current administration is not only continuing to dig but is also bringing in the big earth movers to dig a much deeper hole. This will not end well for America or the world as the mother of all debt bombs is soon due to explode.
Brian C Joondeph, MD, is a physician and writer.
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