DID YOU VOTE FOR THIS INFLATION?

Did you vote for this inflation? Do you have “buyer’s remorse?” If you voted for President Biden, you should have.

Fidelity retirees, with their retirement savings invested in Fidelity 401(K) retirement funds, lost 23% of the purchasing power of their savings during 2022.

If at the end of the 4th Quarter of 2021, your savings could purchase $130,700 worth of goods and services, one year later, those same dollars now purchase only $103,900 worth of goods and services.

And if that true of retirement savings, it is also true of your 2022 earnings.

At the end of 2020 (the end of the Trump Presidency), interest rates set by the Federal Reserve were a 0%. Then, the Fed’s goal became to make money available to restart the economy as we came out of the Covid shutdowns.

On March 17, 2022, The Federal Funds rate was 0.25%. What followed were eight Fed interest rate increases, which have raised the Federal Funds Rate thru Feb. 1, 2023 to 4.75%. The Fed doesn’t “tinker” with interest rates for the sake of “tinkering.” The Fed, as mandated by Congress, raises or lowers interest rates in response to what’s happening in the economy — to keep prices stable and maximize employment.

So why did the Fed have to act? In 2022, the total revenues of the U.S. government totaled around 4.89 trillion U.S. dollars. Revenues consist of individual and corporate income taxes, payroll taxes and other taxes. Individual income taxes amounted to 2.63 trillion U.S. dollars in 2022, whereas corporate income taxes totaled 425 billion U.S. dollars.


· The Federal Deficit as December 31, 2016 was $19.5 Trillion (Trump enters Presidency)

· The Federal Deficit on December 31, 2020 was $21.6T. (Trump exits; Biden enters)

· The Federal Deficit as of December 31, 2022 was $31.4T. (After 2 years of Biden).


The bottom line is this. In Biden’s 2 years as President our National Debt has increased by $9.8T. . That means the National Debt has increased by $4.9T in each of President Biden’s two years. Recall that our tax revenues for 2022 were $4.89T. Biden and his Democratic Congress have spent that entire $4.89T raised in taxes + an addition $4.9T of money created out of thin air — by printing it, or by the Fed key-stroking it into existence on computers.


The socialist true-believers in “Modern Monetary Theory,” like Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Sanders, subscribe to the notion that the government can print whatever money it needs to do what it needs or wants, with no ill effects. President Biden and the Democrats in Congress, have now tested that theory. The result has been inflation. $5 per dozen eggs! And if you bought a home 3 or 4 years ago, and chose a variable-rate mortgage, what was your monthly mortgage rate the last day Donald Trump was President? What is it today?


From the days of the “Mississippi Bubble,” to the days of the Weimer Republic, to modern day
Venezuela, there is one inflexible rule of money. Run the printing presses and you soon get
inflation? Run 'em a lot, and you get lots of inflation. 


Donald Trump is not without blame. But next to Joe Biden, Trump was a piker! Harry Truman said, “The buck stops here!” Biden bleats, the buck stops with President Trump, Putin, Big Oil, Big Insurance ….

If you voted for President Biden, don’t complain. You are getting exactly what you voted for: the destruction of the purchasing power of your savings and your earnings. Elections have
consequences.

"MEMORIES OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION: A Time Remembered — My new (third) book — Released December 13, 2022

 

"The Stuffed Animal" — My illustrated children's Christmas Book — My second book — Released November 12, 2021

 

MEMORIES OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION: A Time Forgotten — My First Book! Released — October 5, 2021

 

Merry Christmas to All

Something is missing in my neighborhood this year. There are few outdoor Christmas lights and decorations. In other neighborhoods, many houses are still brightly decorated, but not in mine.

It wasn’t terribly long ago that most homes in my neighborhood were decorated. But not anymore.

As I drove down a dark street near my home the other evening, my thoughts recurred to a Christmas in a suburb just North of Chicago. We moved there in December of 1948. I was in second-grade at the time.

I can still vividly recall my mother’s younger brother, Dan, coming to our home, at mom’s request about a week before Christmas. He came to put up multi-colored outdoor lights on the evergreens in front of our front bay window, and up the trellis that supported the roof over our front porch — in the zero-degree weather. Mom had noticed that our home was the only home on our block without lights. She loved the lights. It was her way of saying “Merry Christmas!” to our neighbors, including those down the block that we had yet to meet.

A couple nights later, the weather grew milder and mom decided we should all see the lights in the more affluent section of our village, on the other side of Cicero Avenue. I can still recall the avenues with bumper-to-bumper traffic. It looked as if everybody on the northside of Chicago had the same idea. Some homes seemed to have 1000 of the old 9-volt colored lights.

The streets of “the Towers” were vibrant and beautiful.

Near the end of our tour, we came upon the Allgauer Home — the home of Gustav “Gus” Allgauer of restaurant fame. His home was ablaze with lights. The large two-car garage had been converted into a living Nativity set. Mary and Joseph and the shepherds were neighbors in costume. Sheep and a donkey, if I recall correctly, and a camel played themselves. Christmas carols played softly in background.

In the years that followed, my brother Tom and I replace Uncle Dan as mom’s outdoor Christmas light putter-uppers. I loved putting the lights up and seeing the house and our neighborhood homes decorated for Christmas. We did it every year as long as we lived there.

And so did the neighbors. I can still recall colored lights shining through the 18-inches of snow, dumped by the “Great Christmas Eve blizzard” of 1950.

The Allgauers also continued to decorate, but a bit more modestly. The animals made no return appearance. It seems there were complaints from the various neighbors — or perhaps the Grinch — about the animals partying and celebrating into the wee hours of the night, and even until the dawn.

Since buying my first home in the Quad Cities, I have maintained mom’s custom of outdoor Christmas decoration. It’s been our way of saying, “Merry Christmas” to the neighbors I know, as well as those whom I have never met.

May our lights, and the others, remind you of the real reason we celebrate Christmas.

First Published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus on December 18, 2022. 

Copyright 2022, John Donald O'Shea

The Mainstream American Press — a Press Unworthy of its Name

I always trusted that American newspapers, radio and TV would be our foremost and staunchest defenders of our First Amendment’s guarantees of Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press. It appears that I was terribly naïve.


I always thought that American press hated the thought of government censorship and prior restraints. Here again, I was dead wrong!


I always thought that the American press would scream “bloody murder” at any government attempt to suppress coverage of news unfavorable to the government or a particular political party. It appears, I was a fool.


Instead, a huge segment of the American press — including this newspaper — seems to be operating on the premise that “If it’s not reported, it didn’t happen!”


By way of background, in 2020, Twitter admittedly, and Facebook and Google, in all probability, at the urgings of agents of the U.S. Government conspired and colluded to deny the American people information about the “Hunter Biden laptop story” — information that could possibly have changed the results of the 2020 Presidential election. Had that now admittedly truthful information been made public, and further and fully investigated by an honest and vigilant press worthy of its name, a few thousand voters in three key states might have voted for Trump instead of Biden. Sadly, we will never know.

Would it have made a difference to the voters had they known that in Hunter Biden’s dealings with Communist China, that Hunter was demanding 10% for the “Big Guy?” Who else other than candidate Joe Biden could the “Big Guy” have been. What else could “10 held by H for the big guy” have meant?


The New York Post reported on the story. Whether the New York Post’s story was truthful was for the American people to decide; not for political operatives in the U.S. government to decide.


This information was suppressed on numerous dishonest, make-weight premises: it was hacked, it was “Russian election meddling,” “it was disinformation,” “it was misinformation,” “it was false,” etc.


The problem with all these justifications,” is that the First Amendment provides that Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech or freedom of the press. The determination of whether a story is “hacked, Russian meddling, disinformation, misinformation or false” is left exclusively to the American people — not to the U.S. government!


The government of the United States has no power to censor political speech. Censorship is not one of the “express powers” granted to any of the three branches of the U.S. Government.


Indeed, the U.S. Supreme Court has long ago held that all three branches of the government are expressly prohibited by the 1st Amendment from abridging freedom of speech or the press.


In the 1857 Dred Scott case, the U. S. Supreme Court held that if Congress lacked constitutional power to do something, it could not delegate that non-existent power to any creature of government., such as a territorial government or agency.


I know of no federal court case that states that where the U.S. government is expressly forbidden to do something under the 1st Amendment — such as abridging free speech or free press — that it can evade that 1st Amendment’s prohibition by acting through private individuals or private corporations. If that’s the law, the 1st Amendment is a dead letter.


And that brings me to the crux of this op ed — the refusal of the mainstream media — including this newspaper — to report on the release of Twitter’s internal emails by Elon Musk — emails that Musk has given an independent journalist, Matt Taibbi, relative to the Hunter Biden laptop.


Remember, that at this point in time, even the NY Times has conceded that the Hunter Biden laptop story it true.

On December 2, 2022, Taibbi released the first thread of Twitter emails. You can read them yourselves — but sadly not in this newspaper.


The First Amendment grants the government no power whatsoever to impose a ”prior restraint” to prevent the American people from seeing a story, and from forming their own judgment as it’s truth or falsity. It is for the American people, and not the government, to decide whether the account is Russian meddling, disinformation, misinformation, or utter falsehood. In America, given our First Amendment, whether the information is meddling, disinformation, etc., is a question to be determine in the “public forum” — the “marketplace of ideas.” The premise of the First Amendment is that if the people hear all sides of the issue, they will come to the correct judgment. There is no other rule consistent with the operation of a democratic republic.


The suppression of speech — especially political speech — is the hallmark of totalitarian government — of Hitler, Stalin, the Castro brothers, the Chinese Communists ….


The mainstream media has a duty to let the American people see what their government and its agents have done to emasculate the 1st Amendment. So does this newspaper.


And what is more chilling, is that this may be but the “tip of the iceberg.”

First Published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus on December 11, 2022. 

Copyright 2022, John Donald O'Shea

The appearance of impropriety causes polarization of the parties

Tuesday, November 8, 2022, was “mid-term election day.” On November 17, the Republicans finally won seat number 218 to give them control of the U.S. House of Representatives, when Mike Garcia was finally declared the winner of a seat in Northern Los Angeles County.

As I write this piece, 10 days after the election, five House seats are still undecided. 25% of the ballots unbelievably still remain uncounted in California District 22!

The Rules of Ethics, governing the conduct of judges, mandate that it is not enough that a judge acts with “propriety.” The judge’s action must also be free from the “appearance of impropriety.” Judges have been sanctioned, even though they committed no wrong, in cases where their actions have given rise to an “appearance of impropriety.”

If our elections are to have the confidence of the American people, that same rule must be equally applicable to our national elections — they must be free of the appearance of impropriety.

When an election takes place on November 8, and when the “counting” of ballots continues on into November 18, it gives the appearance that whoever is counting ballots is committed to continue counting until he “finds” enough ballots for his candidate to win.

When an Arizona Secretary of State, charged with the duty of conducting the election and counting the ballots, continues to count ballots a week after the election, there is an “appearance,” even if not a “reality,” that she is continuing to count until she finds enough ballots to guarantee her own election as governor.

When an operative of either political party goes to a nursing home, provides the residents with blank ballots, assists the residents in filling them out, “harvests” them, and then delivers them to a “drop off box,” that also creates an appearance of impropriety.


In 2004, the Commission on Federal Election Reform was created by former President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, and former Secretary of State James Baker III, a Republican, in the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election. The Commission’s Report began, 

"Elections are the heart of democracy. They are the instruments for the people to choose leaders and hold them accountable. At the same time, elections are a core public function upon which all other government responsibilities depend. If elections are defective, the entire democratic system is at risk.

"Americans are losing confidence in the fairness of elections, and while we do not face a crisis today, we need to address the problems of our electoral system."

Sadly, since that date, we have had three major crises.

1. After the 2016 election, when the Democrats and Mueller investigated President Trump, culminating in Trump’s first impeachment for “Russian Collusion.”

2. Stacey Abrams claimed she was the winner of the 2018 Georgia Gubernatorial election, and that the election was stolen from her.

3. President Trump still claims that he won the 2020 election, and that Democrats stole the it from him.

The result of the “major crises” is that a great many people do not trust the results of our elections. Even worse, the country daily grows increasingly divided.

All three of these “major crises” are premised on the belief that our elections are/were not secure.

You’ve heard the claims: “There was Russian tampering!” “The ballots were filled in by the ballot harvesters!” “The voting machines are programmed to undercount Republican/Democrat (take your pick) ballots!”


The CFER proposed the following reforms, which still make sense:

• A universal system of voter registration in which the states, and not local governmental units, would be responsible for accurate voter lists. Voters would register only once during their lifetimes. The lists would be inter-connected to allow for easy removal of duplicate registrations and for easy updating.

• To ensure that a person arriving at a polling site is the same one who is named on the list, states would provide free photo IDs. To make acquisition of the free ID easy, States would increase the number of registration sites.

• Provisional ballots would be provided for voters without a photo ID during a transitional period, which would be counted upon signature verification.

• Voting machines and the software would be pre-tested by independent testing-providers.

• An auditable paper backup system would be used to give confidence to voters using electronic voting machines that their votes will be counted accurately.

• State election management bodies would be reconstituted on a nonpartisan basis to seek to insure independence and effectiveness.

Florida and Georgia required photo IDs in the 2022 election. Have you heard a single claim the requirement disenfranchised voters? Minorities? Caused long lines? What important thing can you do in your life without a photo ID?

The CFER made no recommendation concerning “ballot harvesting.” It didn’t exist in those days. But the solution is simple. Permit ballot harvesting only where a representative of each major party is present to ensure that there is no undue influence by the other party, and that the vote harvested is really the voter’s, not the harvester’s, and video the “harvesting party.”

The appearance that elections are entirely fair eliminates one major justification for the polarization of the two political parties.

First Published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus on November 27, 2022. 

Copyright 2022, John Donald O'Shea