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Think the deficit, debt, and interest on that debt don't affect you? 44% of your income taxes this fiscal year have been consumed by just interest on the debt.
No roads. No schools. No hospitals. No military.
Just. Interest.
And it's going up... pic.twitter.com/BbhIvzAipt

— E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) February 12, 2024

via FRED

Do you feel as if your tax dollar are being allocated efficiently? I think it is impossible for anyone with a modicum of common sense, no matter what side of the aisle they fall on, to look at the data and say that their tax dollars are being properly and efficiently spent. When 44% of your hard earned money is being shoveled toward servicing a runaway national debt problem and the other 56% is being wasted on haphazard spending across the military-industrial complex, the education-industrial complex, the pharmaceutical-industrial complex and the agricultural-industrial complex, among a slew of other wasteful and downright harmful endeavors like renewable energy credits, it is time to call a spade a spade. The government is wasting hundreds of billions of dollars that would have been allocated more efficiently and resulted in a significant increase in productivity and quality of life if they weren't forcibly taken from the bank accounts of the American people.

To make matters worse, the national debt continues to rise at an alarming rate, which means that this percentage is set to rise. Especially when you consider the fact that the United States economy is currently weathering a tsunami of layoffs despite the attempts by the Biden administration to paint the economy as stronger than ever.

US companies are discussing cost cutting, mass layoffs and "operational efficiency" on earnings calls at a record rate: Morgan Stanley

That explains the record low unemployment rate

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 13, 2024

[

Consumer Credit Hits The Wall

Earlier today the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released a report on the state of consumer credit. Dissecting data across student, auto, mortgage credit card, and other similar types of loans that US consumers have taken out and painting a bleak picture of the state of the average American.

TFTC – Truth for the CommonerMarty Bent

](https://tftc.io/consumer-credit-delinquency-rates/)

At what point do tax paying American citizens begin to push back against this overt theft and money laundering into unproductive endeavors by the government? You spend your life developing knowledge, skills, a network, maybe a business, and work your hardest to make a good life for yourself only to see one third of your income siphoned off into a black hole of corruption and incompetence that is actively making you, and society at large, worse off. The Founding Fathers took on the British Empire because of a 2% tax on their tea.

It seems that the American taxpayer has more in common with a masochist who likes getting abused by a dominatrix than he does with the people who founded this country. "Thank you sir, may I have another!" He screams as a third of his earnings are taken and thrown at an endless pit of debt that will never be paid back and a gender studies curriculum in Pakistan. Despicable.

The government is robbing Peter to pay Paul, who himself works for the government and has already taken the money that was previously stolen from Peter and given Solyndra a $535 million loan guarantee only to watch the company quickly fall into bankruptcy.

Do you honestly believe the government is getting a return on the large amounts of capital you fork over to them every time you get paid? Do you think that if taxpayers were instead allowed to keep that money and spend it and invest it as they see fit the country would be in a better place? It's time more people start asking these very simple questions with very straightforward answers.

Final thought...

South Florida is nice this time of year.

Use the code "TFTC" for 15% off

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U.S. Steel, the world’s first billion-dollar company, is being sold for scrap. And Washington made it happen.

Originally an amalgamation of Carnegie Steel and countless smaller firms, and the favorite stepchild of J.P. Morgan, U.S. Steel had been losing market share for decades. It’s now being taken over by a foreign rival—the result of slow strangulation by government.

It was once the crown jewel of American manufacturing whose outputs formed the backbone of the “arsenal of democracy.” Quite literally: U.S. Steel produced the keels of key battleships and carriers in World War Two.

Ironically, those ships went off to fight Japan, whose Nippon Steel is now buying the government-ravaged carcass of U.S. Steel 80 years later.

But the problem is much deeper than a single American manufacturer. For decades, blue-collar jobs have been disappearing across America as cheaper goods flooded in from around the world.

>>> This Election Year, Your Energy and Appliance Prices Are on the Ballot

At first glance, the inability of American manufacturing to compete internationally makes no sense: The American worker has three times as much capital at his fingertips as his Chinese counterpart.

American labor is so much more productive than their unskilled overseas competition that even the rock-bottom wages paid in places like rural China don’t make up the difference.

Imagine a foreign worker in a manufacturing plant who has to drill a hole in a steel sheet. Lacking power tools, he takes a hand drill and creates the hole in a minute or so. But he can’t do that all day; after an hour, his arms are exhausted, and his pace slows down. He becomes even less productive as the hours go by.

Conversely, the American worker stacks a dozen steel sheets on his electric drill press, flips a switch, and creates 12 perfect holes. At the end of the day, his output exceeds his unskilled counterpart by an order of magnitude, and the quality is superior.

What canceled out the incredible advantage of capital and put American manufacturers at such a disadvantage to where they cannot compete? In a word, regulation.

The federal government has imposed tens of thousands of regulations on our once great manufacturing sector, grinding production nearly to a halt and racking up billions annually in compliance costs.

With “green” energy mandates, diversity-driven quotas, and anti-competitive rules lobbied by large unions and corporations alike to keep out both non-union labor and small businesses, American manufacturing has been crippled.

A recent study by the National Association of Manufacturers estimated that federal regulations alone cost large manufacturers with at least 100 employees an average of $24,800 per worker annually. That’s roughly half the salary of the typical blue-collar employee. In other words, these onerous regulations increase the cost of hiring American workers by 50 percent.

It’s even worse for small businesses with less than 50 employees, where regulation costs a staggering $50,100 per worker annually. In that case, the employer’s labor cost is now roughly doubled.

In sum, Washington priced out the American worker.

Regulations have more than offset the American worker’s incredible head start in capital and productivity. These costly rules make running a factory in America a losing proposition. Often, the only way to be successful in the face of such regulation is to get in on the lobbyist heist and grab some taxpayer money.

Indeed, one of the very first manufacturing regulations, the Meat Inspection Act of 1906, was specifically lobbied by large meat packers to cartelize the industry and shut out mom-and-pop butchers. Such moves by American manufacturers provide short-term gains to market share, but long-term collapses.

>>> Administration’s Overtime Regulations Could Cost Millions of Workers Lost Flexibility, Benefits, Wages and Jobs

After all, if a regulation increases costs at small firms by 25 percent but only 5 percent at a large firm, the small firms go out of business and the large firm captures the whole market.

The problem is then a foreign rival appears. Lacking the same regulatory burdens, the foreign company just undercuts the domestic manufacturer by the 5 percent cost of the regulation, and the stroll toward oblivion becomes a sprint.

Before today’s bloated regulatory state, American manufacturers were frequently cutting costs to compete with both each other and foreign rivals, but they still made a profit because there was a level playing field.

Kerosene got cheaper every decade Standard Oil existed. Henry Ford repeatedly cut prices for his Model T. Baldwin Locomotive Works continuously evolved better engine designs but still managed to lower costs. And J.P. Morgan was relentless in improving efficiency inside U.S. Steel to drive down the prices of final products.

The loss of American manufacturing is ultimately a self-inflicted wound and it won’t heal until the regulatory knife is taken out of its back. The problem is not overseas, but in Washington.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. U.S. Steel had been losing market share for decades. It’s now being taken over by a foreign rival—the result of slow strangulation by government.
2. The federal government has imposed tens of thousands of regulations on our once great manufacturing sector, grinding production nearly to a halt.
3. The loss of American manufacturing is ultimately a self-inflicted wound and it won’t heal until the regulatory knife is taken out of its back.

This article was originally published on Heritage.org

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In an unexpected twist to the seemingly positive employment narrative, the latest job report from the Labor Department reveals a starkly different reality beneath its surface. Despite the addition of 216,000 jobs in December, surpassing forecasts and maintaining an unchanged unemployment rate at 3.7%, deeper analysis suggests economic frailties and statistical discrepancies.

EJ Antoni's meticulous examination of the data uncovers a troubling swap in the job market: a startling loss of 1.5 million full-time positions, replaced largely by part-time and gig-economy roles, exemplified by the nearly 9 million gigs such as DoorDash that are counted as jobs. This shift signals a potential erosion of job quality and stability.

Dec jobs report 🧵: there's SO much bad news under the hood of this report, including the economy shedding 1.5 million full-time jobs in a single month, big downward revisions, and a true unemployment rate between 6.4% and 7.5% - here's the truth you should know... pic.twitter.com/z1BU4irJea

— E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) January 5, 2024

read the whole thread

Further, the Department of Labor's quiet revisions paint a grimmer picture, with a cumulative reduction of 430,000 jobs from the 2023 reports, equating to an overestimate of 40,000 jobs per month. This correction raises questions about the accuracy of government statistics and the methods employed, such as the controversial birth-death model, which some critics argue is used to manipulate numbers to fit a desired narrative.

Moreover, this report indicates an increase in government employment, now accounting for 23 million positions, which are a financial burden on the productive sector. The imbalance highlighted suggests that every government job is sustained by the taxes of three private-sector jobs, a ratio that may raise concerns about government spending efficiency.

An underlying issue fueling the low official unemployment rate is the exodus of approximately 700,000 Americans from the labor force in December, with millions more having withdrawn since the onset of COVID-19. Many of these individuals are no longer seeking work or have become reliant on government assistance, and thus, are not reflected in unemployment statistics. If these missing workers were accounted for, unemployment figures could realistically double, potentially reaching a rate closer to 7%.

As the public grapples with these revelations, the credibility of the job market's health comes into question. It remains to be seen how this knowledge will influence public opinion and voter behavior in the face of economic uncertainty.