The US vs. China: A Study in Opposites | International Man - by Jeff Thomas

In the first photo, taken in 1972, US President Richard Nixon made what was then considered a bold move, visiting Mao Zedong in Communist China. Literally, as well as figuratively, Chairman Mao is on the left and Mr. Nixon is on the right.

In the second photo, taken over forty years later, we have US President Barack Obama making a similar visit to China. This time, again literally as well as figuratively, Mr. Obama is on the left and Chinese President Xi Jinping is on the right.

Over the ensuing four decades, both countries have been changing dramatically. The US has become increasingly socialistic, more focused on Big Government and more of a totalitarian state. In 1972, it was the world’s foremost creditor nation; it is now the world’s foremost debtor nation. By contrast, China, since the death of Chairman Mao, has opened up considerably, with billions of people becoming upwardly mobile, in response to China becoming increasingly capitalistic.

To be sure, both countries retain some of their historical features, but increasingly, the US is acting like a country in decline, whilst China is acting like a country on the rise.

As a result of successful capitalism, the US became the world’s foremost power after World War II. Then, in the 1960s, the US began apologising for the spoils that came with that capitalism. It became increasingly popular for Americans (largely at the urging of the media and the political structure) to be ashamed of capitalistic achievements and to head in a more socialistic direction.

Republican politicians have needed to soften their views on capitalism in order to appear to be “good people.” (“Good people” has essentially come to mean “those who are prepared to take from the rich and give to the poor.”) They are now Republicans in name only. The US still has two major parties, but one is a moderately liberal party and the other is a vehemently liberal party.

China has gone in the opposite direction, becoming increasingly capitalistic. The results have been dramatic. Many Chinese now have all the trappings that Americans do. In addition, their government is expanding more each year into capitalism.

Again, these developments have followed along the lines of “Declining Empire” vs. “Burgeoning Empire.” Increasingly, the US approach to the world has become one of demanding that other countries subjugate themselves to the US, as though they are subsidiaries of the empire. The US has demanded that trade in many essentials (particularly energy) be settled in the US dollar.

As this relationship has been crumbling in recent years, the US has responded by threatening other countries, creating sanctions against them, and even invading them. In doing so, the US has earned the reputation as the schoolyard bully of the world—the country that the world loves to hate. They still have to play ball with the US, but the resentment is growing globally.

(It should be noted here that, if and when a schoolyard bully does fall from his position, he is stomped on, not only by his challenger, but also by those who resented and hated him but had previously deferred to him and pretended to befriend him. Similarly, when empires fall from grace, “staunch allies” frequently switch sides rather quickly.)

In contrast to the US, the Chinese have, in recent decades, displayed the sort of capitalism that is indicative of a burgeoning global player. They are, in effect, saying, “We’re open for business and we’re here to deal. We have some creative ideas to offer that we think you’ll welcome.” They’re not twisting arms behind backs. They’re offering creative opportunities for other countries.

In addition, they’re not aiming for immediate gratification. Their aim is for long-term benefits, just as US goals once were. Today, the Chinese are buying up properties on every continent, setting up businesses, and making sure that the locals benefit from their investments.

In addition, they’re creating deals with governments that those governments could not create on their own. They seek out a country like Venezuela that is on the ropes economically and offer to buy heavily into Venezuela’s primary asset—oil—to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. The deal is not intended to provide a major return for China in the short term, but it does place China in the economic catbird seat in Venezuela over the long haul.

Around the globe, state-backed Chinese developers are offering creative deals to other countries’ political leaders. For example, if a small nation needs, say, a new port and the port costs $50 million (an amount that the country does not have), the Chinese offer to build the port for, say, $30 million, a bid that no other developer can meet. The Chinese developer takes a loss on the construction, but a part of the deal is that he gets a significant portion of the income of the port for, say, 50 or 75 years.

Chinese developers are now executing such deals in nearly every country in the world. What they lose in profits upon completion is made up for in long-term income. As a bonus, China not only owns property worldwide, it is a shareholder in the economies of countries worldwide.

This rapidly expanding global Chinese capitalism is receiving little notice in the US media, but that, most certainly, will change. As the US reaches its own economic tipping point—market crashes, currency collapse, etc.—and finds that it can no longer pay even the interest on its debt, it will also discover that it cannot pay out the benefits promised to the 50% of its population who pay no income tax but are recipients of governmental largesse. The US government will then find itself desperately trying to keep this portion of the population at bay, as payouts to recipients decrease. As a result, governmental capital projects will fail to receive funding. Someone will need to step in and offer “creative bidding.” Enter the Chinese.

Once the US is on more of a Third-World economic footing, it will have little choice but to accept the kinds of deals that the Chinese have recently offered in Jamaica, Egypt, Nicaragua, etc.

The result will be Chinese ownership not only of considerable US real estate and corporations within the US, but ownership of US infrastructure.

Today, the vestiges of Communism undoubtedly remain in China, but the move is decidedly away from Communism, toward capitalism. Conversely, the US seems to be hell-bent on replacing US capitalism with a socialist totalitarian state. Since more than 50% of Americans are now on the dole in some form, it seems highly unlikely that the US will suddenly reverse that direction, since the majority of Americans will vote for continued (and increased) government hand-outs.

Both Chairman Mao and President Nixon are now pushing up daisies, and their present-day replacements are reverse images of them. The future belongs to those who are productive.

As investment guru Jim Rogers has stated, the future belonged to the British in the 19th century and the Americans in the 20th century. The Chinese will own the 21st century. Accordingly, Mr. Rogers made Singapore his home.

We are passing through the early stages of a period of dramatic change. The economic and political world is in the process of turning upside down. Those who come out the other side of this change with their skin on will be those who have diversified both their wealth (however large or small) and, indeed, themselves, so that they are positioned to thrive in the future, rather than to remain where they are and be a part of the decline.

http://www.internationalman.com/articles/the-us-vs-china-a-study-in-opposites

Mentoring Moment-Feb. 25, 2018-Christian Action Project (CAP) – Notes and Asides –# 1

Whenever or whatever we learn, the process goes through a filter - of our own making, I might add - based on our previous experiences and understanding of knowledge gained. Rarely do we question or challenge those conclusions that we have made to see if they are actually true and correct. We often assume that what we have learned is factual - and often as not - we're wrong.

Discovering truth for us mortals is a process - not an end state! And so it has been for me as well and continues to be.

This segment of our CAP Lessons addresses a key misunderstanding within the Christian community.

If you just came upon this series of Lessons, you can backtrack here and catch up. - CL

Sooner or later, I knew that CAP would run into a major defining moment. Before I send out Study 3, we need to address the issue that makes it the defining moment. So, following the ancient wisdom of ‘fools rush in where angels fear to tread’, I have decided to wade into the matter.

There is a major theological dichotomy which exists in the Christian community, especially in the evangelical family, of which I am a member. There are literally millions of Christians, mostly evangelicals, who believe that the Kingdom of God will begin when Christ returns (the 2^ndcoming) and will rule for a thousand years. This is further complicated by a belief by some that Jesus will ‘whisk’ Christians away from the coming ‘tribulation’, and then return them to rule over the earth with Him after a few years.  I personally believed that for almost 30 years, having been taught that in my church.

Countless millions of books have been sold by various authors predicting when and how this will take place. I recall trying to prove this to myself during that time, but I could never do that from the Bible logically. It just seemed so convoluted biblically that I couldn’t follow it, but I accepted it as true.

About ten years ago, I was motivated to study the terms that I was vaguely familiar with – pre-millennialism,  a-millennialism and post-millennialism. Frankly, at that time, I couldn’t coherently explain any of them.

After a few years, I finally discovered that I had been a pre-millennialist. Those are the guys I mentioned earlier who believe in the literal 1000 year future Kingdom of God, instantly created by a discontinuous event, when Christ returns. The problem with that concept is that it totally contradicts Christ’s own examples of what the Kingdom is like. In fact, after extensive study on this subject, I discovered that the post-millennialists have all the biblical logic on their side. It’s a little bit embarrassing to admit at this time that I couldn’t see how the Kingdom of God was explained by Jesus’s own words.

If you would like a further, detailed summary of my ‘conversion’ please send an email and I will send out a complete outline of the research I followed.

Suffice it to say, some might be offended by what they read here and in the next few studies. I can imagine that after years (or decades?) of believing something to be true, it would be a shock, to discover that it wasn’t. I know how that is. It happened to me also. It was a bit of a shock, but I wasn’t offended. Relieved actually, because it all made sense.

The ‘future instant Kingdom appearance’ (pre-millennialism) theory and the ‘Kingdom now, in time and on earth’ phase (post-millennialism) are diametric opposites. They are mutually exclusive – they can’t both be right. The Bible doesn’t allow us to choose our own interpretation. The Bible explains the Bible.

Another item, related to this subject, came to my attention from Dr. Marshall Foster’s DVD set “From Terror to Triumph”, when he stated that our view of the sovereignty of God is based on our theology. God is the ultimate authority. Every being in the universe is accountable to Him, believer and unbeliever alike. If that is the case, how can two dedicated Christians believe and act differently when they say they believe the same Bible and worship the same God? It’s their theology – their knowledge of God. We act on what we assume to be true. The trouble is not only what we don’t know, it’s what we assume to be true - but isn’t so! There is no greater pitfall than assuming that what we have learned is the final truth of the matter. We always must be ready to challenge our own beliefs and be able to defend them based on knowledge, wisdom, reason and logic.  If we’re wrong, we must admit it. Christian life is not an ego trip. This is an ongoing lifelong assignment. Joel McDurmon, in his book “Biblical Logic”, defines it this way: “Logic is the systematic study and practice, of discerning and telling the truth.” It never ends, as in ‘prove all things and hold on to that which is good’. When information challenges our belief system, do we ask: Is that true? Or do we react emotionally to protect our pre-conceived opinion? The apostle Paul commended the Bereans for their willingness to always check the scriptures to see if what Paul spoke was true. So should we.

The only thing I can say is that you have to prove it yourself. The Bible is the standard.

If there is someone who thinks I have been deceived, please show me how – and in detail – from the Bible.

Keep in mind, any resources, like books, videos, etc. are a track for us to run on. Christian authors for centuries have written wonderful insights into God’s purposes, but they all must be tested against the Berean standard, to see if the scriptures back up what they say.

Study-3 will be out in a few days

I ask for your prayers always. May God bless all our efforts!

All comments are welcome!!!!! Email dacrush@crushlimbraw.com

http://crushlimbraw.blogspot.com/2016/02/christian-action-project-cap-notes-and.html

The Second Amendment does not give us the right to bear arms - By Patrick Jakeway

In speaking with many fellow gun-owners, I have come to realize that most people don't know that the Second Amendment does not give us the right to bear arms.  The Second Amendment states that the right to bear arms "shall not be infringed"; it does not confer that right.  The Second Amendment is an admonition to government that it may not take away your right to bear arms,which is inherent.

What, then, is the origin of the right to bear arms?  While our forefathers had inherited rights and liberties as Englishmen, those rights were curtailed and suppressed, which eventually led to the Revolution.  Without the many citizen-soldier militiamen such as the Minutemen, the new United States would not have won the War of Independence. 

The Declaration of Independence is thus central to our liberties and our law.  The Constitution was implemented to "secure those rights," not to confer them.  Considering the critical involvement of the citizen-soldier in the Revolutionary War, it is clearly evident why the Founding Fathers wrote in the Second Amendment:

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

The Englishmen in the American colonies had inherited a right to bear arms from the English, subject to the whims of Parliament, but Jefferson and the Founding Fathers transformed the right to use force to protect yourself and your family into a corollary of the unalienable rights to life and liberty set forth in the Declaration of Independence.  These unalienable rights were secured as foundational laws in a new American nation, born of liberty through the midwife of the Revolution.

The problem I see is that if the right to bear arms is considered given to you by the Second Amendment, then that right is a product of the Constitution.  If it is a product of the Constitution, then it is subject to interpretation by the "ultimate authority" over the Constitution, the Supreme Court, through the concept of judicial supremacy established by McCullough v. Maryland.  It does not help, in your author's view, if we continue to propagate the myth that the Constitution confers upon us the right to bear arms.  It is our inherent, inborn right to protect ourselves and our families, bequeathed to us from our forefathers' blood and sacrifice in the many battles for liberty.  It may not be legislated or interpreted away.  It is not in the purview of the Supreme Court (or Congress, for that matter) to abolish the right to bear arms. 

Since 1990, we have had the unconstitutional "Gun Free Schools Act."  If we help the false notion live on that the right to bear arms is a creature of the Second Amendment, we invite and empower the black-robed keepers of the Constitution to put the creature in a cage.  The fact is that the Second Amendment is a cage for the creatures who want to take away the guns given to you by your fathers, their fathers, and their fathers' fathers.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/02/the_second_amendment_does_not_give_us_the_right_to_bear_arms.html

bionic mosquito: An Impossible Task

Tell him to buy me an acre of land,

Between the salt water and the sea sand,

Tell him to plough it with a ram's horn,

And sow it all over with one peppercorn,

Tell him to sheer't with a sickle of leather,

And bind it up with a peacock's feather,

Tell him to thrash it on yonder wall,

And never let one corn of it fall,

Then he shall be a true lover of mine.

-        Female Part, Scarborough Fair

John Mauldin has written a piece on the task of the Federal Reserve.  The title is sufficient to disabuse anyone of the idea of central planning money and credit – although the title only tells part of the story: Data-Dependent ... on Imaginary Data.

He begins with the oft-stated mantra by the Fed: “our decisions are data dependent!”

…how could their policy choices not be data-dependent? The only alternatives would be that they made decisions randomly or that there was an a priori path already determined by previous Fed policymakers that they were forced to comply with.

Or that they make decisions politically….

He asks: are they looking at the right data?  Is the data accurate?  We know the answer to the first: it isn’t the right data because it can’t be the right data – the right data can’t be measured; the right data is tens of millions of individual decisions every day, not yet even know to the actors, let alone to the Fed.

Well, if it isn’t the right data, it doesn’t really matter if it is accurate, does it.  But it isn’t accurate, either.

Mauldin cites an op-ed by Jared Bernstein (bolded by Mauldin):

Recent events have exposed a hole in the middle of economists’ knowledge of key economic parameters: We know neither the unemployment rate at full employment nor the potential level of gross domestic product (GDP).

Recent events?  What about 2008?  What about every bust since 1913?

In any case, that’s a problem if you want to centrally plan money and credit.  But no respectable writer will label the Fed’s work as communist-style central planning.  As is pointed out often enough to me, I am no respectable writer.

Mauldin continues by offering several ways by which such economic statistics are little more than guessing.  He doesn’t offer that they are guesses about wrong things, but in many cases this is also true.  For instance, why is GDP considered to measure the health of the economy?  Do you measure your economic well-being by how much you spend?  Is it irrelevant what you spend your money on and why?

The various hurricanes and fires of the last year have been a boon to GDP – a boon to spending.  What does this say about the health of the economy?  The best case is a return to where we were before these tragedies.  Does the broken window fallacy come to mind?

GDP is good for one thing: it measures state-accessible-product.  Much of taxation is dependent on economic activity, and GDP measures economic activity.  That’s it.

Mauldin accepts that the Fed must act on such whimsical data; this despite comparing the Fed to your doctor or an airplane pilot: would you trust either of these professionals with your life if all they had was data as useless as GDP and unemployment?  Of course not:

All this is very obvious to people who lack graduate degrees, yet for some reason the economics profession persists in thinking it knows things it simply does not. Economists have physics envy. They want their profession to be a hard science, when it is probably one of the softer of the soft sciences.

If the market is competent to set long-term rates or LIBOR, then maybe we should trust the market to set short-term rates.

This is the closest I have heard Mauldin come to suggesting an end to the Fed.  But he doesn’t.  The Fed governors should be more humble, but central planning should not be discarded:

That doesn’t mean there would be no role for the Fed. There are points in the economic cycle when the Fed can be quite useful, typically during a liquidity crisis that follows hard on the heels of too much irrational exuberance.

Irrational exuberance.  Let a few major money-center banks go belly up (along with the wealth of its stockholders, bondholders and executive management) next time and you will go a long way toward purging the system of irrational exuberance.  In other words, if there is some reason for the Fed to exist, it shouldn’t be to bail out stupid banks.

Conclusion

Think about this: 12 people sit around a table, chew the fat over masses of data and metadata, and then set the price for the most important commodity in the world: the US dollar, the world’s reserve currency.

Yes, think about this.  It doesn’t take much thought to conclude that this is a power no small group of people should have; it is a responsibility that is impossible to carry out.  It is central planning “for the most important commodity in the world.”

I have a better idea: End the Fed.

http://bionicmosquito.blogspot.com/2018/02/an-impossible-task.html

bionic mosquito: The Trees

There is unrest in the Forest

There is trouble with the trees

For the Maples want more sunlight

And the Oaks ignore their pleas.

-        The Trees, Rush

Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays, by Murray Rothbard

This book is a compilation of sixteen essays by Murray Rothbard.  The title of the book is also the opening essay: Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature.  It is this opening essay that I will examine in this post.

For well over a century, the Left has generally been conceded to have morality, justice, and “idealism” on its side; the Conservative opposition to the Left has largely been confined to the “impracticality” of its ideals.

With this, Rothbard sets the stage.  The Conservatives have ceded the moral ground; by doing so, they have created an environment where the Left can achieve gradual change – over the long run “practicality” cannot succeed against “moral” and “ethical.”

Rothbard describes the “impracticality” argument as one that holds up economic considerations against the Left’s ideals.  I find this a tremendously important point.  In how many arguments in favor of libertarian (or supposedly libertarian) ideals are the economic justifications raised, while moral and ethical considerations are deemed secondary – if even considered?

The trouble with the Maples

(And they’re quite convinced they’re right)

They say the Oaks are just too lofty

And they grab up all the light

Regarding the value judgment on behalf of “equality,” Rothbard asks:

Is there no requirement that these value judgments be in some sense valid, meaningful, cogent, true?

How is one to judge what is “valid, meaningful, cogent, true?”  From the Introduction to the First Edition, Rothbard writes:

Libertarianism is a new and emerging discipline which touches closely on many other areas of the study of human action: economics, philosophy, political theory, history, even – and not least – biology.

“True” is found in the reality of humanity.  Essentially, the student of libertarianism cannot ignore the reality of the world around him, the reality of humans as they are, the reality of the successes and failures in history and the causes of these.  The better grounded the student of libertarianism is in this reality, the better grounded his advocacy in this reality, the more seriously will his ideas be considered.

But the Oaks can’t help their feelings

If they like the way they’re made

And they wonder why the Maples

Can’t be happy in their shade?

Rothbard asks: “should equality be granted its current status as an unquestioned ethical ideal?  In response, he offers:

…we must challenge the very idea of a radical separation between something that is “true in theory” but “not valid in practice.”  If a theory is correct, then it does work in practice; if it does not work in practice, then it is a bad theory.

From the Introduction to the Second Edition, by David Gordon:

But Rothbard was no spinner of idle utopian fantasies: he always had in mind what can be done immediately to achieve his libertarian goals…. Indeed, Rothbard continually alternated between elaborations of principle and applications to particular issues.

I have struggled with this distinction – theory vs. application.  I sometimes try to clarify as to the bucket in which I am swimming when I write; more often, even I am not sure which bucket I am in.  I guess if making this distinction was not very important to Rothbard (in fact, he advises specifically not to make this distinction) I should probably get over it myself.

The common separation between theory and practice is an artificial and fallacious one.  But this is true in ethics as well as anything else.  If an ethical ideal is inherently “impractical,” that is, if it cannot work in practice, then it is a poor ideal and should be discarded forthwith.

If the goal itself violates the nature of man, then it is a poor idea to work in the direction of that goal.

There is trouble in the Forest

And the creatures all have fled

As the Maples scream ‘Oppression!’

And the Oaks, just shake their heads

Rothbard offers:

…mankind is uniquely characterized by a high degree of variety, diversity, differentiation; in short, inequality…. The age-old record of inequality seems to indicate that this variability and diversity is rooted in the biological nature of man.

When egalitarian fantasy butts up against this reality, no one gets to stand on the sideline; no one will survive unscathed.

So the Maples formed a Union

And demanded equal rights

‘The Oaks are just too greedy

We will make them give us light’

Rothbard continues by offering evidence, rooted in science, of the differences in men and women and the genetic nature of intelligence.  But it is not enough that this idea of equality is a revolt against biological reality; it is much worse:

[It is a deeper revolt} against the ontological structure of reality itself, against the “very organization of nature”; against the universe as such.  At the heart of the egalitarian left is the pathological belief that there is no structure of reality; that all the world is tabula rasa that can be changed at any moment in any desired direction by the mere exercise of human will – in short, that reality can be instantly transformed by the mere wish of whim of human beings.

Conclusion

Now there’s no more Oak oppression

For they passed a noble law

And the trees are all kept equal

By hatchet,

Axe,

And saw…

Such egalitarian ideas can only be made manifest only via the most totalitarian of methods and can only result in the destruction of humanity.

Egalitarians do not have ethics on their side unless one can maintain that the destruction of civilization, and even of the human race itself, may be crowned with the laurel wreath of a high and laudable morality.

http://bionicmosquito.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-trees.html

Vox Popoli: The skinsuit comes off (Conservative empty suit?)

CPAC is now the Holocaust, if longtime "conservative" columnist Mona Charen is to be believed:

A conservative columnist was escorted out of the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday after slamming President Trump and conservatives for behaving like "hypocrites" when it comes to women's issues.... Declining to mention Trump by name, Charen said conservatives are guilty of "look[ing] the other way" when it comes to the president and other Republican men who have faced allegations of sexual misconduct.

"This was a party that was ready to ... endorse Roy Moore for Senate in the state of Alabama even though he was a credibly accused child molester," Charen said. "You cannot claim that you stand for women, and put up with that," she told the crowd, as several members of the audience shouted, "Not true!"

Charen's comments were met with heavy boos inside the conference hall, and she was later spotted leaving the conference with a three-person security detail. Earlier on in the panel, she issued a strong rebuke of Marion Le Pen, the niece of former French right-wing presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, whose own appearance at CPAC drew scrutiny from some conservatives who have accused her of enabling far-right groups with racist views.

"There was quite an interesting person who was on this stage the other day. Her name is Marion Le Pen," Charen told the crowd, suggesting Le Pen was only invited because of her surname.

"And the Le Pen name is a disgrace," she added. "Her grandfather is racist and a Nazi. She claims that she stands for him. And the fact that CPAC invited her is a disgrace," Charen said.

No, the fact that the likes of Charen were ever taken at face value as conservatives, as Republicans, or as Americans is ludicrous. One of the things that will be hardest for many longtime conservatives to accept as identity politics increasingly rise to the fore is the realization that about one-third of their long-time "opinion leaders" are not, and were never, on their side. Just as those "opinion leaders" have done, conservatives are going to have to make a choice between being pro-American and pro-Christian, and being globalist and philosemitic. The "creedal nation of immigrants with Judeo-Christian values upheld by the Zeroth Amendment" dodge is now finally understood to be the anti-American propaganda that it was from the start.

If you look at my columns dating back to 2001, one glaring omission that you may notice now is how, with the exception of Jonah Goldberg, there is no praise for, or quoting of, an entire subset of leading conservative columnists. Nor did I ever call myself a conservative or a Republican. It was always obvious to me, even at the time, that Ms Charen's interest group that somehow happened to be remarkably overrepresented in the "conservative media" reliably put self-interest above ideology and operated in a shamelessly nepotistic fashion.

Remember, I was there when the Littlest Chickenhawk was a supposed child prodigy playing violin and regurgitating mainstream Republican talking points. I saw how he was nationally syndicated by Creator's Syndicate despite not being one of the 20 most-read columnists on WND, and how those columns were picked up by big city newspaper editors around the country while mine, 4x more popular and syndicated by the much more respected Universal Press Syndicate, were not. I even commented, 13 years ago, that it was very strange how more than one-fifth of the nominally "conservative media" happened to be members of the group that was the second-most inclined to the Democratic Party and only represented 0.68 percent of the Republican voters in 2000. Once more, pattern recognition proves more reliable than experts and credentials.

As Bill Kristol, Ben Shapiro, Mona Charen, and various others have now made abundantly clear, they were intended to be a leash on conservative nationalism all along. And now that conservatives across the West are waking up to the Big Con and are wisely choosing their nations over anti-Western globalist interests, they are going to have to deal with the fact that they are going to be attacked as Hitlers and Nazis and Holocausts just like Brexit, AfD, La Lega, Viktor Orban, Donald Trump, Marion Le Pen, and every other individual who stands up to defend America, Christianity, and the West.

Because the "conservative Republican" Mona Charens of the world are against all three.

http://voxday.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-skinsuit-comes-off.html

"CalPERS Is Near Insolvency; It Needs A Bailout Soon" - Former Board Member Makes Stunning Admission | Zero Hedge

Two weeks ago, in the aftermath of the February 5 volocaust, we quoted David Hunt, CEO of $1.2 trillion asset manager PGIM, who said ignore the volatility spike, the real financial timebomb was and remains public pensions: "if you were going to look for what’s the possible real crack in the financial architecture for the next crisis, rather than looking in the rearview mirror, pension funds would be on our list." 

In a brief discussion wondering what municipalities and states will do when local tax revenues decline and unemployment worsens, Hunt said "we're worried about those pension obligations.”

He is hardly alone: having reported over and over and over (and over, and over) again that public pensions are in deep trouble, two days ago none other than Steve Westly, former California controller and Calpers board member - manager of the largest public pension fund in the US, made a stunning admission, confirming everything:

"The pension crisis is inching closer by the day. CalPERS just voted to increase the amount cities must pay to the agency. Cities point to possible insolvency if payments keep rising but CalPERS is near insolvency itself. It may be reform or bailout soon."

Westly was referring to an editorial  laying out "the essence" of California’s pension crisis, exposed last week when the $350 billion California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) made a "relatively small change" in its amortization policy.

Specifically, the CalPERS board voted to change the period for recouping future investment losses from 30 years to 20 years. While this may not sound like much, the bottom line is that it would require the California state government and thousands of local government agencies and school districts "to ramp up their mandatory contributions to the huge trust fund."

As author Dan Walters observes, with client agencies – cities, particularly – already complaining that double-digit annual increases in CalPERS payments are driving some of them towards insolvency, the new policy - which kicks in next year - will raise those payments even more.

“What we are trying to avoid is a situation where we have a city that is already on the brink, and applying a 20-year amortization schedule would put them over the edge,” a representative of the League of California Cities, Dane Hutchings, told the CalPERS board before its vote.

CalPERS, however, has no choice because as both Walters and Westly claim, America's largest public pension fund itself is on the brink, "and the policy change is one of several steps it has taken to avoid a complete meltdown."

As we have reported previously, the Calpers system, once more than 100 percent funded, now has scarcely two-thirds of what it would need to fully cover all of the pension promises to current and future retirees. And that assumes it will hit an investment earnings target of 7%per year, that many authorities criticize as being too optimistic. 

Last In December we also reported that the increasingly panicked fund, decided to boost its stock allocation to 50% in order to raise its future liability discount rate to 7%, as any reduction in stock allocations would also lead to a lower discount rate which in turn which would require more contributions from cities, towns, school districts, etc. and could bring the whole ponzi crashing down. Amusingly, one Calpers board member argued to raise the equity allocation even higher, to 60%, so that the discount rate was greater than the current 7% in order to make the books appears "better."

Ironically, it was just a decade ago that Calpers' lofty equity allocation resulted in a staggering losses, and the current dead end. The trust fund lost about $100 billion in the Great Recession and never has fully recovered. In December 2016, Calpers voted to lower its earnings projection to 7.0% – it had been 7.5% – hoping to avoid another disaster were the economy to turn sour; since then it has been taking quiet steps to lever up its equity exposure once again.

Meanwhile, officials fear that were it to experience another big investment loss, it would pass a point of no return and never be able to pay for pension promises.

On the other hand, "protecting" CalPERS means getting more money from its client agencies, which could drive some of them into insolvency, as Hutchings said. This is not a hollow threat: three California cities have already gone bankrupt in recent years, in part because of their ever-increasing pension burdens, and payments have escalated sharply since then.

So on one hand, CalPERS is doing what it has to do to remain financially solvent, but on the other hand its self-protective steps threaten local government solvency.

That’s the crisis in a nutshell.

As Walters suggests, one way out would be to modify benefits in some way.

City officials, for instance, have suggested reducing automatic cost-of-living escalators in pensions over a certain mark, such as $100,000 a year.

However, the CalPERS board, dominated by public employee organizations and sympathetic politicians, has spurned such pleas: it is almost as if, once promised generous retirement benefits, public workers would rather take the entire system down, than see their own pensions reduced, even modestly.

“Our members have expressed frustration that you keep coming to them asking for more while at the same time not providing a lot of other options and assistance for them,” Dillon Gibbons of the California Special Districts Association told the board.

Alas, the options boild down to either taxpayers get the shaft, or public employees see their pensions reduced.

In the end, it will likely be the worst of both worlds, as taxpayers are dragged in to bailout CalPERS and other retirement funds, while retirees see huge cuts to their benefits. 

And the next market crash will likely catalyze it.

Meanwhile, everyone involved is waiting for the California state Supreme Court to rule on pending pension rights cases, and were it to overturn the so-called “California rule” that bars changes in benefits, it would open the door to pension modification.

CalPERS officials are also concerned that should it become insolvent, or pension payments force some cities into bankruptcy court, it would revive long-dormant plans for a statewide pension reform ballot measure.

* * *

As Walters concludes, "This crisis will haunt California for many years to come and will be a big headache for the next governor."

Unfortunately, that is an optimistic outlook, because when the crisis really hits, it will be all American taxpayers who are on the hook to bail out the country's insolvent pension funds. It is also then that some of the deepest fissures in US society: between public and private workers, between taxpayers and benefits recipients, between the young and old, all bubble to the surface at the same time, with very violent consequences.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-02-24/former-calpers-board-members-shocking-admission-calpers-near-insolvency-it-needs