Forget the Numbers – Trust Me
According to Pew Research, as of April 2024, 22% of Americans say they trust the government in Washington to do what is right “just about always.”
In 1964, that number was 77%. It’s been on a steady decline ever since.
And the public has good reason for losing that trust.
Recent reports of leaders telling us “The border is secure.” “Fossil fuel is killing the planet.” “The economy (Bidenomics) is booming” and “The Inflation Reduction Act will lower inflation” are just a few.
Ten million plus people from 140 countries have entered the US illegally in the last 4 years. Nobody believes they were/are all seeking or needing “asylum.”
But – Trust me.
We’re told everyone needs to believe in ‘climate change’ and that fossil fuel is ‘fueling” it.
Trust me.
Joseph Biden and Kamala Harris are whiz kids at economics, and they can’t help it the proletariat doesn’t know they’ve never had so good.
Trust me.
What one names a congressional bill says everything that it’s about. So, inflation reduction means if the government spends more inflation will deflate.
Trust me.
Then most recently the Bureau of Labor Statistics corrected its stats by lowering its ‘officially’ reported number of jobs added in the last year by nearly 1M.
Trust me.
If we know someone lied to us, they lose all credibility in the next thing that person says to us. It is only natural.
The classic story of ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’ comes to mind.
“Get a shot or lose your job,” “Close your business or go to jail,” and other ‘freedom’ destroying COVID edicts are now better understood in the arena of repression of free speech.
Trust me.
The META (Facebook) CEO admitted to a Congressional committee his mega-social platform had yielded to government pressure regarding COVID and Hunter’s laptop.
Trust takes flight in America when that kind of manipulation is exposed.
What is so untrustworthy about the examples cited is most represent blatant lies to the public who often can see and hear with their own eyes and ears that what they are being told is not true.
The percent of the American public trusting their federal government has steadily declined since the Johnson administration. The Nixon Watergate scandal began the sharp decline. Carter’s price and wage controls exacerbated the decline further. Reagon’s tenure showed a slight increase, but Clinton’s sexual dalliances triggered a further decline with retorts like “it depends on what your definition of is, is.”
After 9/11, G.W.’s administration was marred with significantly expanded Dept of Education appropriations/spending which failed in its objectives.
Albeit the Obama administration was faced with a recession when coming into office, its expanded spending resulted in the Federal Reserve Bank doing something it hadn’t done before called quantitative easing (QE). What QE meant, unbeknownst to the average citizen, was that the federal government was actually buying its own debt just to keep it off the open market where the interest rate required on the debt would have increased and would have affected the ‘trustworthiness’ of the federal government.
You will recall President Obama started in office with an openly stated intent to redistribute the wealth. We all thought having some of that ‘wealth’ would be nice – but most of us felt/thought we get what we work for and therefore deserve, and we were not interested.
Then there was the whole Keynesian economic argument used by the Obama administration that the federal government could control recession by spending more. While most people may not know or care about Keynes, they knew they were not getting ahead financially and placed a lot of the blame on their government as it ran up unprecedented debt – without positive economic results for the average Joe and Jane.
The current administration re-adopted the Paris Accord promising zero emissions by 2050. In doing so, it spent trillions of dollars on solar and wind research, commensurate equipment manufacture, and subsidies to various companies – foreign and domestic – involved with ‘green’ energy.
Spending money from the empty revenue coffers meant ‘printing’ money – which in turn spiked inflation, an insidious ‘tax.’
Trust me.
But, in order to offset the increased risk and therefore interest on the now $36T debt, and to offset interest rate hikes by the Fed to quell inflation, the Treasury Dept. has recently abandoned its normal process of issuing 80% of treasuries offered for the long term – carrying higher interest rates/payments, to 20% of new issues. Short-term treasuries carrying lower interest rates now represent 80% of the treasuries issued. So, we have the ‘independent’ Fed being offset by the Executive Branch Treasury Dept working at cross purposes for political reasons, not the country.
Trust me.
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Have a great and prosperous week.
Hug somebody.
References:
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/24/public-trust-in-government-1958-2024/
SPIDER Bytes
This week’s trivia question is: What produces the majority of the breathable air on earth? The answer to last week’s question re: the Benedictine monk who invented champagne: Dom Perignon. His namesake champagne, now a vintage brand, is considered a prize today and is the most expensive – a 1959 was sold at auction for $87,700 in 2008. The monk (Dom) is credited with creating methods that changed and improved its taste – and added ‘bubbles’ to the product. He worked a vineyard at a monastery in Champagne, France in the late 1600’s.
Correction. I reported last week Lake Mary’s Little League World Series win was on a run scored by a bunter. The bunt, followed by a fielding error, allowed a second base runner to score the winner. Sorry.
Another tragic school shooting last week in a small town in Georgia. A 14-year-old student was arrested on site. Life seems to be less precious to our younger generations. Our culture has changed in that regard. Many violent video games kill for success. The shooter’s father was arrested for murder as well.
Russia, Russia, Russia is back. Gimme a break.
Friday the Packers played the Eagles in the first NFL game ever played in Brazil – or in South America. It’s one of 5 NFL games to played outside the U.S. this season.
Radian Aerospace is building a new spaceplane. It hopes to test it soon. The idea is one NASA had some years ago but scrapped. Radian thinks new metals, more heat tolerant materials and not using a rocket but a 2-mile rail accelerating system to launch ‘Radian One’ will make its proposal work. The objective is to make space travel/orbit less expensive for lighter payloads. Fascinating project.
Oil prices dropped below $70/barrel last week. Most economists cite the drop in prices on oil and copper normally reflects an expected, significant decline in economic activity. Less demand for future energy reflects less demand and reduced prices.
Leading Light Wind is asking the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities to give it a pause through late December on its plan to build an offshore wind farm off the coast of Long Beach Island. Citing difficulty getting blades, the project is actually up against strong opposition from the well-to-do affected residents on the barrier island. Sounds like a broken record – strong support for ‘climate change’ until it happens in your backyard.
The CA legislature passed a bill requiring all 2030 and beyond vehicles to have a visual and audio signal alerting it is traveling 10+mph over the speed limit. I don’t know if the genius’ there thought about how the car will know what the speed limit is in various settings. It’s only money after all.
The Harris-Trump debate Tuesday night hopefully will be useful to voters. Expect more media propaganda before and after.
The dismal August jobs report of only 142 thousand jobs added foretells a waning economic situation. While part-time jobs are increasing, one of the other stats reported was particularly eye-opening. The BLS says native-born Americans lost more than 1.3 million jobs over the last 12 months, while foreign-born workers gained more than 1.2 million jobs. That’s immigrant compassion, folks. The stock market tanked – partly because it was overpriced.
