News

The elite want average people to suffer

Alex Jones breaks down how the establishment media is running cover for Biden’s failing economic policies.

---

The official debt figures do not even include the large unfunded liabilities inherent in the largest federal entitlement programs, Social Security and Medicare, Medicaid, and several others that comprise about two-thirds of federal spending.

US fiscal realities are well known. Total federal debt outstanding has now reached $34 trillion, up from $98 billion in 1981, $5.67 trillion in 2000, $13.56 trillion in 2010, and $26.95 trillion in 2020. And at 120 percent of the US economy’s productive capacity (gross domestic product), the federal debt matches that at the end of World War II.

That $34 trillion, when spelled out, is the number thirty-four followed by twelve (count ’em) zeros separated by four commas. So it looks like this, a lot of digits and commas for the human brain to comprehend: $34,000,000,000,000.

These official debt figures do not even include the large unfunded liabilities inherent in the largest federal entitlement programs, Social Security and Medicare, Medicaid, and several others that comprise about two-thirds of federal spending. We can, however, accurately forecast those liabilities over the next seventy-five years—the time horizon used by the trustees of the two funds that finance the programs—because the future beneficiaries have already been born and will expect their benefits when they become eligible. Unfunded liabilities are currently estimated at $212 trillion.

The two programs, Social Security and Medicare, are structured so that future workers will be paying sufficient payroll taxes to pay future benefits as the population ages. But the trustees of the two programs project that the trust funds do not currently contain sufficient resources to fully cover these future benefits past the middle of the next decade without congressional changes.

Outstanding Debt versus Federal Budget Deficits

Where did all this debt come from? In the simplest sense, it came from too much spending. There tends to be confusion between annual federal budget deficits and the total outstanding federal debt. We’re referring here to the debt, not simply to the annual budget deficits that continue to increase the debt every time the federal government spends more than it receives in tax revenue.

This deficit spending results every year that the legislative and executive branches of our federal government can’t seem to control their spending habits, which has been the case every year since the late 1990s when the federal government last ran a small surplus. Annual federal budget deficits currently run at the $1.7 trillion level, compared to the $34 trillion debt.

Motivation to Pay Off the Federal Debt

Is there any motivation to attempt a debt payoff? Many Americans appear to have been lulled into accepting some variant of modern monetary theory, which has infected the populace like a virus, and which a small fringe group of economists believe allows a sovereign nation with its own sovereign currency to spend without limit, being able simply to issue more of its own currency to pay off any debt with impunity. Though these believers do not outright state that there is no limit to the amount of debt that sovereign countries can take on with no concern about ever repaying, reading between the lines and watching their behavior certainly indicates this conclusion.

What Debt Payoff Might Look Like

If there is any motivation to pay off the federal debt, what would this payoff actually entail? In the simplest terms, dividing the current outstanding $34 trillion debt by the current US population of 334,233,854 (as of January 1, 2023) yields a one-time per capita payoff figure of $101,725.18 for every man, woman, and child in the US.

While this undoubtedly exceeds the average savings account owned by most Americans, it doesn’t look like an outrageously high figure. But, of course, we’re assuming no more annual federal budget deficits that increase the debt, which would be a difficult promise for Congress and any president to keep. But if such a payoff were possible, it would obviate the need to continue paying interest on the debt, an outlay that now runs about $1 trillion annually.

Another approach to pay off the federal debt over time might be to structure the debt payoff similarly to an amortized mortgage. As a hypothetical thought exercise, picture that you’ve taken on a $34 trillion mortgage to buy your ultimate dream house.

The interest rate on this hypothetical mortgage is the current average rate being paid to lenders who own the Treasury bonds that comprise the debt. After all, these lenders, which include both Americans and those in foreign countries such as China, Japan, the United Kingdom, and others, would expect to receive their interest payments during the next thirty years that you will be paying your hypothetical mortgage.

The average annual interest rate on the US debt, as of December 2023, is 3.11 percent, which is expected to increase over time. But if you can lock in this interest rate on your hypothetical thirty-year $34 trillion mortgage, 3.11 percent sounds like a pretty good deal, below current conventional mortgage rates.

Using an Excel spreadsheet for the calculations, the formula for the monthly mortgage payment is PMT (1,2,3), where three arguments are as follows:

1. Monthly interest rate expressed as a decimal (0.0311), divided by 12.
2. The number of mortgage payments, 360 in this example (thirty years times 12).
3. The mortgage loan amount ($34,000,000,000,000 here).

For readers who may want to try this at home, inserting these three arguments into the Excel PMT calculation, the monthly payment for 360 payments over thirty years at a monthly mortgage interest rate of 0.00259 (i.e., 0.259 percent, about one-quarter of 1 percent) would be $145,370,309,731.07 total, or $434.94 per capita.

That’s $145 billion and change every month for thirty years, or $434.94 per every American man, woman, and child. This is most likely more than every American could ever afford to contribute every month for thirty years to repay the federal debt. And again, this assumes no more continuing federal budget deficits that would increase the existing debt. Remember, we’re only trying to pay off the current outstanding debt of $34 trillion.

Yet these figures are worth contemplating for their astounding magnitude, just as the total outstanding federal debt is worth contemplating for its astounding magnitude. These figures are very difficult for the human brain to grasp.

Anyone reading this far must conclude that this is a fatuous exercise, that there is no achievable way to pay off the current federal debt within the lifetimes of Americans currently alive, and that the only possible remedy is to begin curtailing federal spending to avoid taking on additional debt. That’s why we occasionally hear a few politicians speaking of (or paying lip service to) “deficit reduction,” which in the current political environment is the only humanly possible pursuit. And accomplishing that is easier said than done, for political as much as for financial reasons.

And on a final note, when contemplating the US fiscal predicament, keep in mind that there are only four means by which government can capture resources for its own use:

1. Outright confiscation of property for public use, which is prevented by the US Constitution’s “taking clause” without just compensation of the property owner.
2. Taxation.
3. Debt issuance.
4. Inflation that erodes the nominal amount of the debt over time, harming lenders.

Some observers would argue that this fourth strategy is perhaps what we are beginning to observe in the US and some other countries around the world, but that is a topic for another day.

---

Watch: Democratic Leaders Tell America That Illegal Aliens Come First

---

High school students in Seattle have been told that if they love reading and writing then they are engaging in “white supremacy” because the very subject of literature is racist. As part of the Black […]

The post Seattle High School Students Told ‘Reading and Writing’ is ‘White Supremacist’ appeared first on The People’s Voice.

Incorrect and outdated impressions of Mexico affect our policymakers, particularly when it comes to the border and immigration

Mexico is our next-door neighbor but it seems many Americans are not well-informed about it.

Wrong and outdated impressions of Mexico affect our policymakers as well. This is particularly true regarding border and immigration policy.

After all, we share a border of 1,954 miles with Mexico. That’s the border over which millions of Mexicans and non-Mexicans have invaded the U.S. over the past few years, facilitated by the Biden administration.

Consider a few relevant Mexico topics:

Wealth and Poverty

Americans think of Mexico as a poor country. And it is, compared to the United States.

But Mexico is wealthier and has a higher standard of living than most countries in Latin America and Africa.

There are, of course, many poor Mexicans. But doesn’t Mexico itself, with all its wealth, have a responsibility to help its own poor people?

It’s easy to fall into the “just let all the poor people in” trap when it comes to Mexico or any other Third World country. If we do that, though, we are enabling the ruling classes of these countries to dump their poor people on to the United States without solving the problems in their own countries.

Mexican Meddling

We have heard about Russian meddling in recent years. I don’t doubt there is some of that.

But any meddling perpetrated by the Russians is dwarfed by the widespread interference carried on by the Mexican government and its agents in the United States.

Mexico operates 52 consulates on U.S. soil. It’s the biggest consular network in the world. Yet you hardly hear of it.

It’s as if Americans don’t see Mexico as a country with its own interests, which can be opposed to those of the United States.

Immigration Motives

Americans have a very romanticized view of immigration. When I resided in Mexico, I came to understand that Mexicans see immigration differently than Americans do.

Americans see immigration to our country as a great honor. Look at what a great country we are, everybody in the world wants to come here and become an American.

But not everybody in the world sees it that way.

Mexicans sometimes told me they wanted to emigrate to the United States. Not one of them, however, told me he wanted to go the U.S. for freedom or to become an American.

They come here for the money, for the benefits.

With the current prevalence of dual citizenship, promoted by our own State Department, it’s easy to be a citizen of both the U.S. and Mexico, which makes it easier to milk those benefits!

Mexican Racial Stratification

Many Americans are unaware of the racial stratification of Mexican society. There are exceptions, but the richer Mexicans are, the more likely they are to be white, and the poorer they are, the more likely they are to be Indian.

Most Mexicans are mestizos, with both European and Indian ancestors. Even the mestizo majority forms a spectrum, including mestizos who are mostly white with a little Indian at one end, and also those who are Indian with a little white at the other end.

You see Mexico’s racial stratification reflected among Mexican immigrants. Yet we’re not supposed to talk about it.

Happiness

According to the polls I’ve seen, Mexicans are happier on average than Americans. That’s what they tell pollsters. So why bring them all here?

Conclusion

It is not America’s job to reform or run Mexico. That approach is counter-productive.

Mexicans run their own country, that’s how it should be. We can’t expect Mexico to meet our expectations.

At the same time, we shouldn’t let the Mexican government try to run our immigration policy.

Good fences make good neighbors.

In order to truly understand Mexico, we have to approach it on its own terms, with its own culture and politics.

I invite readers of Border Hawk to visit my new website, the Mexico News Report, in which I intend to cover aspects of Mexican society that aren’t being covered by the U.S. mainstream media.

I think the more we truly understand Mexico the more we can make better policy decisions.

---

Is the NFL more important than America?

Camo gear found throughout camp, signaling cartel activity

RAV News host Ben Bergquam trekked to an illegal alien assistance camp in Arizona near the Mexico border and was able to obtain insane footage of the bizarre setup.

The journalist walked up to the camp and shouted but was met by nobody, and since there weren’t any ‘no trespassing’ signs or fences blocking the perimeter of the facility, Bergquam was able to just walk through and document the scene.

The camp is filled with camouflage gear and carpet shoes for cartel coyotes to avoid being seen and tracked by Border Patrol.

According to Bergquam, Pima County, Arizona, partially funds the operation.

James O’Keefe of O’Keefe Media Group (OMG) recently exposed the same camp with an undercover investigation into the facility, which is supposed to be a “nonprofit group.”

OMG suspected of the group of facilitating human trafficking at the border and learned illegals coming into the country were being charged money to travel into Phoenix by people appearing to be working with Mexican cartels.

The worst part is the group is run by the 501C3 tax-exempt Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson to the tune of around $400,000 a year, according to the church’s administrator.

See O’Keefe’s investigative report below:

---

---

Unknown if wall is designed to prevent influx of refugees from the Gaza Strip amid upcoming Israeli offensive in Rafah

A wall commissioned by the Egyptian army is being constructed on the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip near the latter’s city of Rafah, which is the target of a planned Israeli ground offensive, the New York Times reported on Friday, having analyzed satellite images and videos and citing construction workers.

The images and videos show that a large area in the buffer zone between Egypt and Rafah, just south of the Rafah border crossing, is being cleared by bulldozers, the newspaper reported, adding that the work on the site had been launched on February 5.

An unnamed contractor and a construction worker confirmed to the media outlet that the Egyptian army had commissioned them to build a 16-foot concrete wall to close off a patch of land of 1.93 square miles. Although the work in the area kicked off at the beginning of the month, construction of the wall was launched just a few days ago, the contractor and the worker told the newspaper.

It is still not known whether the wall is designed to prevent an influx of refugees from the Gaza Strip in Egypt amid the upcoming Israeli offensive in Rafah. The Egyptian government declined to comment on the issue, the report said.

Over the past week, many international leaders have raised concerns over the planned Israeli incursion into Rafah. On Monday, US President Joe Biden said that he opposes any military operation if it does not take into consideration the security of civilians.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a large-scale attack on Israel, killing 1,200 and abducting more than 200 others. The attack prompted a retaliatory military operation by Israel, leading to the deaths of more than 28,500 people in the Gaza Strip, according to local authorities.

In November 2023, Qatar mediated a deal between Israel and Hamas on a temporary truce and the exchange of some of the prisoners and hostages, as well as the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza. The ceasefire expired on December 1, 2023, after several extensions. More than 100 hostages are still believed to be held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

---

Is the NFL more important than America?