Posted on 11/26/2024 8:51:58 PM PST by tired&retired
In October of 2022, Smith filed a lawsuit against a publisher called All Seasons Press (ASP), to whom he had sold the rights to a book proposal based on a February 2021 essay he had written for Tablet.
“The Thirty Tyrants” argued that Americans at the top of the financial, entertainment, and political industries had sold their country out to communist China.
Unsurprisingly, according to an outline Smith submitted to an editor at ASP in July of 2022, one of the book’s targets would be George Soros, who in the 2010s lauded China’s “doctrine of harmonious development,” hailed the Chinese government as “better functioning” than its American counterpart, and advocated “partnership with China to avoid world war.”
“In his October 2022 complaint, filed in the federal court system’s Eastern District of Virginia, Smith claimed that contrary to its right-wing, pro-Trump presentation, ASP is secretly owned and controlled by a longtime Soros associate named Scott Bessent.
Bessent’s name did not appear in any of the media coverage of ASP’s launch or on ASP’s website and masthead, and Smith’s lawsuit alleged the company hid Bessent’s involvement from both Smith and from his literary agent, the Washington, D.C.-based Keith Urbahn. Bessent headed Soros’ London office for most of the 1990s and served as chief investment officer for Soros Fund Management from 2011 to 2015.
He invested $2 billion of Soros’s money in 2015 to launch his own shop, Key Square Capital Management. Soros is perhaps America’s largest political donor, orchestrating some $21 billion in contributions to a range of progressive causes since 2000.”
In summary????
“Our country is so far beyond bankrupt that I don’t know if anyone, including Trump can cut spending and raise taxes enough to save it...
Please look at the facts and tell me I’m wrong.”
You’re wrong. And “raising taxes” is the wrong way to do it anyway. Now, if by “raising taxes” you mean to increase the general revenue, fine. But usually “raising taxes” means the Government taking a bigger slice of the pie.
Instead, we need to make a bigger pie. But first, look at the context. America is still the richest, most prosperous, most innovative country on earth, and the U.S. Dollar is still the world’s reserve currency (at least by preference for now). U.S. businesses are worth about 61 trillion dollars out of 100 trillion worldwide market cap for all businesses everywhere. We are the second richest country in natural resources (after Russia), valued at around $45 trillion. We have more than $6 trillion in intellectual property and another $30 trillion or more in land value excluding the mineral rights and other natural resources, but there may be some overlap in these with our business market cap. We have the highest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the world at $27 trillion.
The bottom line is, with our current national debt at $36 trillion, we are highly leveraged but not in the hole, so to speak. We CAN dig our way out of this massive debt. And the best way is to grow our GDP.
Our biggest problem is not financial. It is moral and spiritual. Without a moral compass, people are lazy, selfish, and corrupt. These things are like parasites on the economy and general wellbeing of our nation. But if we set aside this issue and look purely at the numbers, there is a clear path forward to making America, and Americans in general, prosperous.
Growing the pie bigger means creating wealth. We actually need to lower taxes in order to increase general revenues. This may seem counterintuitive, but lower taxes results in more investment back into business growth. Capital that is allocated to business growth is much more productive than capital handed over to the government as taxes.
Wealth is created three ways: work, innovation (such as inventions, and more efficient ways of working), and converting natural resources into work. In other words, work, work, work.
Money is how wealth is stored. A natural resource like gold is converted to wealth by mining it or extracting it from places like the ocean. In the ocean, it has no monetary value. But as gold bars in a vault or as jewelry or electronic components, it has value. Oil has no value if it sits in the ground (although it has potential value when it is discovered, this is only because it is possible to exploit it by extracting and refining it).
There is about to be an explosion of wealth-creating productivity as a result of AI and robotics. Books can be and have been written to explain this, and I’m not going to expand this post further by going into detail. I’ll just say that the cost of goods and services is going to go down drastically (when adjusted for inflation). Individuals can benefit from this not only as consumers but as workers or self-employed business owners by becoming exponentially more productive.
I wish what you say were true.
But we are very far fr9m balancing the budget, let alone decrease any outstanding debt.
$36 trillion at 10% is $3.6 trillion in interest.
$36 trillion at 5% is $1.8 trillion in interest
Or to look at it another way
Our total revenue from all sources in the fiscal year ending in 2024 was $4.92 trillion
Of that, 37% was Social Security and Medicare, or $1.82 trillion
$4.92 total revenue less $1.82 trillion in Social Security and Medicare taxes leaves $3.1 trillion in General fund revenue.
$3.1 trillion total general fund revenue divided by $36 trillion in debt is 8.6%. If interest rates hit 8.6% it takes 100% of our General Fund Revenue just to pay interest, with nothing left to run the government.
As of October 2024, the United States government has a monthly net interest rate of 3.3 percent on its debt, continuing an upward trend in interest rates that began at the beginning of 2022.
This amount or rate in net of any interest on the money borrowed from the Social Security Trust Funds.
Let’s look at this another way.
$36 trillion debt at 3.3% interest is $1.2 trillion net interest. If we have interest of $1.2 and total general fund revenue of $3.1 trillion, that leaves $1.9 trillion to run the government NOW. OUR DEFICIT LAST YEAR WAS $1.86 trillion. So we spent $1.86 plus $1.9 or $3.76 trillion in the general fund.
Elon and Ramaswami need some magic.
By the way, our government is cash basis, not accrual. They recognize expenses when paid, not when incurred.
If you look at spending in October is is obvious that the financial position is far worse than they show. They pushed a lot of expenses forward to make the deficit look smaller.
There is a saying in business. The best laid plans in the long term will fail if there is short term bankruptcy.
“Elon and Ramaswami need some magic.”
I’d guess we could cut our current spending in half without the average person feeling a thing, but there will be a glut of government workers to add to the unemployment lines and their severances will cut a little into the immediate savings. But a trillion cut is possible.
“Our total revenue from all sources in the fiscal year ending in 2024 was $4.92 trillion... Of that, 37% was Social Security and Medicare, or $1.82 trillion... $4.92 total revenue less $1.82 trillion in Social Security and Medicare taxes leaves $3.1 trillion in General fund revenue... $3.1 trillion total general fund revenue divided by $36 trillion in debt is 8.6%. If interest rates hit 8.6% it takes 100% of our General Fund Revenue just to pay interest, with nothing left to run the government.”
We need these cuts and to have a more efficient government going forward, but we also need policies that support growth, which Trump has proven himself to be very good at. He and Congress need a good strategy to maximize America’s prosperity based on our innovations, especially in AI and robotics.
Imagine if our GDP tripled and the current cut the government takes (17%) were cut in half. Less taxation but much more revenue. Then, balance the budget AND start paying down the debt. Or, at least don’t accrue more debt.
You and I agree. I just realize that the pill to cure it is far more bitter than most realize, both liberal and conservative.
I pray that it works out.
🙏🙏🙏
The Democrat supporting friend of Soros bothers me the most.
The guy is a self centered opportunist based upon what he did to the British Pound.
I am against him.
The article floats the idea that he is more or less agnostic, as long as he is making a profit for whatever situation he is in; but the seeming amorality does seem unnecessarily risky to the overarching maga themes.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.