- My reply to Walter Williams submitted 1-24-4 to:
- https://cf.townhall.com/contact/columnists.cfm?ID=66&Post=11075
-
- To: Walter E. Williams
- From: Walter J. Burien, Jr.
-
- Mr. Williams:
-
- As quoted from your recent article; https://www.townhall.com/columnists/walterwilliams/ww20040114.shtml
-
- "According to the 1995 Annual Report of the Federal
Reserve Bank of Dallas, only 5 percent of those in the bottom 20 percent
category of income earners in 1975 were still there in 1991. What happened
to them? A majority made it to the top 60 percent of the income distribution
-- middle class or better -- over that 16-year span. Almost 29 percent
of them rose to the top 20 percent."
-
-
- Mr. Williams, your equation is missing the factor why
the private citizen is now poor and getting poorer in-spite of gross income
improvement. The private individual's "Net" value income has
decreased substantially over their increased gross income shown by you.
-
- I will give one example, which fills the gap in your
thinking. I will use Washington State for this purpose. As confirmed by
the statistical section of the state of Washington 1999 CAFR (Comprehensive
Annual Financial Report) One out of every four people in the work force
from Washington is a local or federal Government employee getting an average
of $30,100 per year. This also means that on their pensions each will have
$650,000 to $800,000 put aside for them to cover their paycheck and sub
benefits at retirement. Multiply that figure by the massive government
work force in the state of Washington and you now see where the wealth
is growing and stands. Communism, isn't that where all citizens are government
employees?
-
- Keep in mind that the three from the private sector are
"directly" or "indirectly" paying $10,000 each year
to pay those salaries, and per the pensions met by 1/2 taxation that figure
doubles. This is charges levied or value generated "before" any
hard services or goods are provided to those 3 from the private sector.
-
- Now if all the local governments within Washington State
were public corporations, and each person from the private sector was an
equal shareholder, then each person based on the liquid valuations of those
government corporations would be able to cash out their shares for well
over $1,000,000! Does the public have direct ownership or direct equity
benefit of this wealth at this time? Under government's current self serving
corporate structure at this time, No, nadda, zilch, zero! Can government
become self-sufficient at this time from the existing wealth held? Yes,
with administrative restructuring and a little downsizing it can happen
in a heart beat! Will they do it willingly? No, they will not!
-
- Yes, there is wealth held by the people of this country,
to bad the ones from the private sector are only used as masterfully entertained
productivity units and the primary actual and real wealth held is transferred
to government each and every year.
-
- I have spent 12 years looking at composite totals held
by state and federal governments from all investment funds held. The totals
are a very conservative 60 trillion dollars.
-
- You of course will say; but what about the debt of trillions.
Well, it is a real cute game they are playing. If you check, you will find,
in most cases governments are funding their own debt using their own investment
funds. Locking the private sector into debt using their own money.
-
- If, Bugsy Siegle and Lucky Luciano could see the asset
rollover into debt routine taking place from within government today, they
would be rolling over in their graves with laughter. They would think in
comparison to what government is doing today that they were a bunch of
kids from the past selling lemonade on the street corner.
-
- Government now holds the wealth, the investments, the
return from insurance company equity participation, and generates "gross"
income greater than the entire population of this country.
-
- As viewed in the 1999 federal consolidated financial
statement, in the note section, the personal income of the entire nation
was 8.2 trillion dollars, minus 1.8 trillion federal taxation minus 1.6
trillion local government taxation leaving the population with gross income
"Net" after taxation of 4.8 trillion dollars.
-
- Well, here is where it gets interesting; Federal taxation
1.8 trillion, (+) plus local government taxation 1.6 trillion, (+) plus
local and federal governments "NONTAX" income 5.1 trillion, (=)
equals a "gross" income for federal and local governments of
8.5 trillion dollars.
-
- Yes, there is wealth, but atrociously so, it was taken
from the people by those jockeying into positions to administer the people
strictly as a resource to be drained as they built and transferred that
wealth into their own pockets.
-
- Can this reality change?
-
- Yes, it can.
-
- View the third segment of the TNT (The National Tea-Party)
video available on my web site: https://CAFR1.com
-
- Yours Truly,
-
- Walter Burien
- https://CAFR1.com
-
-
- From Big Al
-
- Walter Williams is usually pretty good, but this time
I have to take exception so I wrote this letter to him after reading his
column.
-
- Read Walter Williams article first before reading my
response below. https://www.townhall.com/columnists/walterwilliams/ww20040114.shtml
-
-
- Walter Williams, you forget one thing. The Standard of
living has gone way down. In 1940 it only needed one man to work to provide
for the family. At that time I was 4 years old and new what it was to be
poor although we did not think we were poor. Looking back we were dirt
poor. In those days there was this air fed to people that the standard
of living was going to get better. We had a small 3 acre farm and I remember
at 7 years old, with my brother pulling a wagon full of garden stuff we
grew selling a baker's dozen of corn for 50 cents.
-
- As I grew to join the work force I picked blueberries
for 5 cents a qt. I did logging where we cut trees with an axe and got
paid at a penny a foot. My best day was a 7am in the woods to 5 pm and
made 13.00. I then moved to back breaking house moving work. From there
I got married at 19 to my wife who was 16 and we had three kids before
she was 20. We lived on my pay of 57.40 a week raising three kids. We had
no bank accounts, credit cards and paid for everything with cash, good
old silver coin in them days. In 1961 I bought my first new car and paid
cash after saving for it.
-
- Now fast forward to this day. Two people have to work
to make ends meet, where in my day my wife never worked and we made it.
Everyone is maxed out on credit cards. Bankruptcy is outta sight. So where
is this promised better standard of living that I was told to expect back
in the 50's and 60 s? It ain't there. It's a fraud and play on words. So
today I am living with the same wife at today's inflated cost on SS that
is the same amount of income I was making in 1982. That's right I am forced
to live on the pay I received in 1982 but paying 2004 prices. Here in North
Carolina the county next to us is the poorest county out of the 100 counties
in N.C. Unemployment is at 8 percent and the county I live in is next to
it and it's rates are close approaching the other county.
-
- No Walter, I think you have to rethink and include the
debt owed that everyone rolled up using credit cards and both pay checks
to stay afloat.
-
- My grand son cannot find work; his wife makes 6 dollars
an hour with a child.
-
- Now tell me at a wage of 12,480 a year before any taxes,
which I calculated they are paying 62 percent of that income in taxes of
all sorts, where are they not poor? I could go on with more proofs.
-
- Now I ask you, are we really living in a better era than
the 50's where one man provided for family, no maxed out credit, an embarrassment
to file bankruptcy and so forth and so on? Yet the median income for Raleigh
NC is stated to be near 60,000 dollars. Take away all taxes and yes they
would not be poor. Walter the standard of living is there only by credit.
Make all the people pay the credit they have tomorrow and you will see
how poor they become. Credit gives the illusion of people being rich. Credit
is the bane of mankind fostered by the banking cartel offering nothing
but debt for that is what credit is , all debt.
-
- Big Al
|
