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Wake up before it’s too late to save SLO County’s economy

April 27, 2020

OPINION by CHRIS IVEY

From the third grade on, and then on to the Wharton School of Business, I was taught to understand that money has to be backed by something of value such as gold, silver or seashells, before you can spend it, or at some point you go broke, bankrupt, to jail or commit suicide.

Did any of our politicians or voters even go to kindergarten and play with pennies, nickels, and dimes in their past? Or do they just want to play with our children’s disastrous, bankrupted future by printing large amounts of Monopoly money, so they can pretend that they are paying our bills? We’re heading over the cliff, folks! Not if – but when.

It can’t not happen = double negative.

I understand why folks are staying at home.

I understand why folks don’t want to get too close to other people.

I understand why we shut down the world.

I understand why our government is wanting to give people free money.

But, I also understand all our government bodies are setting the good old USA, and the world, up for a gigantic financial collapse. And unless we find a few solid, intelligent, thoughtful, and bold local politicians to save San Luis Obispo County, we will be a part of this collapse.

We have to open up local businesses here at home as soon as is reasonably possible. Of course, with the advice and counsel of medical experts, as well as financial experts. How many of you even know what a trillion dollars is, and how many decades we, us, you and me and our great, great, great grandchildren, will have to pay taxes — way beyond what we now pay, to cover even a small portion of what the federal government is already printing to try to cover what both parties keep voting for, as nice as it all sounds to most ears.

There is only one answer:

Let’s start to open up our communities now. Get business going and tax revenues coming in. You have to start someplace to end up someplace. Open the doors, so we can start to step out – now!

At 84-years-old, Chris Ivey lives in San Miguel. He owned a small business and managed 12 chain grocery stores from Lompoc to Paso Robles.


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Hello.

A comment is always good

But scaring people with you personal opinion and looking like a expert is not good.

So trust you local officials to do the right thing: mr peshong and ms arnold (just kidding)


0

The US has a very effective international tax collection system, and can use it’s productive citizens as “tax donkeys”, and their assets, to pay back the national debt. The system and dollar are sound … at our expense.


2

Well, you were taught wrong (or learned it wrong). Money is backed by NOTHING except the “full faith and credit” of the government that issues it. You are, however, correct that it is going to take a LONG TIME to pay off this debt.


I am just wondering where the complaints were when the Trump government decided to increase the national debt (through lowering taxation on rich people). Where was the bitching and moaning?


8

Exactly, we ran up the deficit to give a tax cut to corporations without offsetting tax increases elsewhere, such as increasing the capital gains tax and stock transaction tax. And now with a recession, the national debt is through the roof. There are no Barry Goldwater Republicans left just Trumpsters and Democrats. No spending control, no revenue adjustments, no spending discipline.


3

Yes and no. Our money, that is the fiat currency issued by an privately-held, international bank (ironically named the Federal Reserve) is what you say: full faith and credit. To a degree.


Money does have intrinsic value (e.g. gold AS money, coins as the metal they’re stamped from, etc.); however, the US (and every other country) does not use MONEY in the classic sense, instead they use a form of fiat currency (money with no intrinsic value, if you will).


The value of the any fiat currency ultimately comes from the barrel of a gun. Ours is no exception. First, it is the only currency accepted as tax payment by the government, thus giving it a “value” – why? Because if you do not give the government this fiat currency, you will be put into a cage at gunpoint (extreme, non-hyperbolic example). Don’t believe me? Stop paying taxes and ignore any requests to pay and see what happens: Men (with guns) ultimately show up and take you away to a prison cell (cage).


The other side of the Fiat Currency coin (pun intended) is: it’s all made up. 100% of it. It comes from NOTHING. We’ve had TARP and all those bail out programs. What actually happened? Well, the privately-held, international bank that we LEASE our money from, just went to a computer, typed in a few extra numbers on top-tier bank accounts, and voila there’s a billion for you… a billion for you… etc.


Your full faith and credit comment REALLY relies on the “faith” part. As long as we all agree there’s some mystical “value” to a false, made-up currency, then we can all keep pretending we have wealth, etc. (this is why China has furiously been liquidating all US notes, etc. by buying up African hard assets. They understand US t-bills, notes, etc. are worthless, as is all modern currency).


3

When did so many people get the mistaken notion that economics (a totally false and unnatural system) was the most important thing? I suspect they got that opinion when they came to realize that only the false system was elevating them above others.


-1

Probably because they acquired wisdom over the course of their lives and realized that “economy” does not just mean some fat-cat gettin’ rich off them stocks!


Economy is the inter-connected construct that runs every aspect of everyone’s daily lives. Unless you’re 100% off the grid (you aren’t, you have internet and an electronic device in which to spout ignorance), you are connected to the economy.


Where do you think food comes from? Why are dairies pouring millions of gallons of milk down the drain? What happened when food processing and distribution plants shut down? Where does your water come from? How is your electronic device that you use to access Cal Coast News powered?


Tell me you really do not believe that economics is a totally false and unnatural system? Really? If so, I think you’ve been had. Maybe expand your knowledge and gain a little wisdom while you’re at it: intellect without wisdom is utterly useless.


0

It would be simpler if all the government did was print money, but as you say, we have to “pay it back” in taxes for some reason because its creation is underwritten and created from government debt. But let’s not kid ourselves, even if SLO county opened up, the rest of the world would have to go along for SLO to really avoid the economic burdens that will come. Obviously this is because SLO is not an isolated and independent economic being. And don’t expect that to happen soon.


I’d also point out that other countries are not having nearly the same individual-level economic burdens as the US because they choose to allocate money differently, for better or worse.


11

You actually hit on a very good point: It is far cheaper to “print” (digitize) money than it is to “borrow” it from the Fed. Here’s why (you probably know this): When more money is added into the system, it devalues the money already out there (too much money causes inflation, prices go UP). If you borrow a bunch of money, you not only get inflation, but you now add the interest in which to pay it back (hint: under our debt-based economy, it is mathematically impossible to lower the debt. Unless the government starts giving government assets, such as land, to the Federal Reserve… boy, wouldn’t they love that).


So printing money AVOIDS debt. That is the difference (generally speaking, of course). This is not to say it is the proper solution, heck the One Trillion dollar coin theory has been out there for a while… What really needs to happen is a complete restructuring of the international economic system. So it’s not every going to happen.


0

Fantastic to see an older member of our society not simply worried about their own situation. It’s so easy for the retired or those who have already “opted out” of the American Dream to hit the easy button and tell those of us who support the whole damn thing to “stay home.” What happened to courage? There is NO assured safety. Never has been.


20

Retirees aren’t the only ones scolding the working masses to “just stay home.”


There are plenty of left-leaning government employees around here in cushy jobs with liberal lockdown provisions who have joined the anti-business chorus spoon fed to them by leftist media. (“Anyone who wants to go back to work in the private sector must be a Trump voter!”)


They must think the taxes needed support their underworked and overpaid existences just automagically arrive from the tax fairy.


Eventually they will get their comeuppance for killing the goose that laid the golden egg.


3

Chris, I get your thinking and it is also as important to know who creditor of our national debt is.


6

There’s a thought! A COVID-19 reparation reduction in our national debt obligation to the CCP gov’t, a la what the Versailles Conference imposed on Germany at the WWI armistice.

If you owe the bank $1,000 and can’t pay, you’re in trouble. If you own the bank $100,000,000 and can’t pay, the bank is in trouble.


4

If they pull that stunt–and our elites just might agitate for it–you will witness the death of the dollar overnight and quick supremacy of tangible assets like gold, silver, beans and bullets.


Imagine the upheaval and civil unrest from that. Greece and Venezuela, but on a scale a thousand times larger. Might even land us in a shooting war with nukes in play.


-1

What will always keep our dollar from “death” is the fact that is is the world’s trade currency. Russia, France, China, and others (Opec) are trying to change that… I encourage you to look up “Bretton Wood” (in New Hampshire); specifically after the end of WWII.


0

I would support that.


What the CCP did (not the Chinese people) was criminal negligence. But what can you expect from a totalitarian system.


1

What do you mean by CCP? There are a bunch of definitions on line.


1

CCP defined as the Chinese Communist Party

The argument is that the CCP gov’t’s cover up of the virus is negligent. A German tabloid “called out Beijing’s responsibility for the global pandemic and a leading newspaper issued a £130bn invoice for ‘coronavirus damages’.”


-2

“We have to open up local businesses here at home as soon as is reasonably possible. Of course, with the advice and counsel of medical experts, as well as financial experts.”


Gee, I thought that’s what we were doing. And, by the way Mr. Ivery, our monetary system is no longer backed by anything—gold or seashells. That ended in 1976 when we went off the gold standard. Our money is simply backed by the faith of the American people and, despite a worldwide pandemic, I don’t see that changing anytime soon. Sure, we will continue to be taxed and taxes will go up in this country after this debacle. Likely we will no longer have the luxury of being one of the lowest taxed nations in the world.


https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/6-nations-smallest-tax-burdens-outside-us-ultra-low-tax-2019-12-1028748866


9

The US refused to link dollars to gold on August 15, 1971. It was President Nixon’s decision, not President Ford”s. As for the current health of the dollar, all it needs is to be more healthy than any other national currency. Around the world foreigners are happy to be paid in greenbacks, while in the USA foreign currency is considered “play money”.


9

As for the current health of the dollar, all it needs is to be more healthy than any other national currency.


The cleanest shirt in a basket of dirty laundry. I think everyone will agree that our dirty shirt just got dunked in black coffee, red wine, blackberry preserves and pig manure for good measure over the last month.


Deficits don’t matter. Until they do.


4