Price Controls

It has been said many times that old people have a problem with remembering things. I guess that may be true for some of the people all the time and all the people some of the time. However, the other side of the issue is when younger people experience something for the first time, they believe it has never happened before. Those who have been here longer know a rerun when they see it. They have seen this movie before or multiple times before.

The advantage of history is that you can look back and see that this is not the first time and if your IQ is above 70, you can see the solutions tried before and how they worked. That is a process that used to be critical to learning. Learning is not in vogue anymore; it has been replaced by indoctrination. Indoctrination requires the elimination of learning to be successful. For it to work effectively, you must accept what you are being told “today” forget everything you know, and destroy history.

For several years, families have been watching the effects of inflation on their finances and feeling it every time, they go to the grocery store, fill their car, pay their utility bills, and especially with their housing costs. Inflation is not new in America; however, the inflation over the past three and half years has set a high point not seen in more than forty years.

I need to explain a couple of things before I provide more information about past inflation periods and what was tried, what did not work, and what was effective. What are they telling you when they say, “inflation is at 2.2%”? If someone asks your age and you answer, “Well I am seven days older than last week.”, did they get an answer that helps? If you said, “Well I was 81 last week and now I am one week older today.” They would say you have not changed much at all; however, if you meet up with someone you graduated with 63 years ago, you both see how much has changed.

The two political parties in America today have views that are complete opposites and have different goals and solutions. That has not always been the case, but it has never been this obvious during my lifetime before. The Democratic Party takes more control over your life at every opportunity and tells you that they are helping you, government is your god. The Republican Party believes that this country was born through the efforts of individuals willing to take risks, fight for what is right, and work hard to make this a better place to raise a family with the help of God.

Very few families need anyone to tell them that prices are higher now than they were in January 2021. Most Americans know that what the government did under the guise of COVID-19 negatively affected their family. They knew that what they were told was not effective and that there was no science to back up their claims. The number of freedoms the government simply took away, including closing schools down and later forcing the kids to wear masks had zero benefit, but caused stress on our children.

The word inflation, when used in discussions about the economy is usually about how rapidly the costs are increasing over a period. When the economy is healthy and growing, more companies get started or expand, hiring more employees and producing more products. Supply and demand are in balance. The greater demand for products by the increased number of workers will prompt businesses to expand their output. When businesses can make products in America and sell some of those products in other countries, American employees get paid more and buy more. When the government passes laws that make it more profitable for American businesses to make or buy products manufactured in other countries, then few Americans are employed and more of the available products are not made in America.

Every major inflation increase during the past 75 years has been caused by the government and at times when the Democrats have had control in Congress and the White House. Laws passed by Congress that place greater controls on businesses have the end effect of killing American jobs and increasing the cost of goods and services. The trillions spent during the past 3 ½ years have driven the national debt to over $35 Trillion and the US Government is currently spending almost $2 Trillion more each year than the total income received. There are almost twenty-four million government employees today. There are 133 million full-time employees, so more than 18% of the full-time employees are being paid by the taxpayers and there are only 129.5 million taxpayers. There are over 100.5 million adults who are not in the workforce today. There is $25.7 Trillion in personal debt here in America. The interest on the national debt is currently $4.7 Trillion or $18,039 per adult in America.

When the government via Congress and the Federal Reserve creates obligations through programs where there is no source of funds to pay for those programs, the FED just prints more money to pay for those projects created to get votes so they can keep a job that will put millions in their bank accounts. President Johnson started this fraud with his Great Society programs that had one purpose, to get thousands of people (now millions) dependent on the government for their every need. Millions of families have never reached their potential in life because they were tricked into believing a lie.

“The Economic Stabilization Act of 1970, enacted August 15, 1970, was a United States law that authorized the President to stabilize prices, rents, wages, salaries, interest rates, dividends, and similar transfers as part of a general program of price controls within the American domestic goods and labor markets. It established standards to serve as a guide for determining levels of wages, prices, etc., which would allow for adjustments, exceptions and variations to prevent inequities, taking into account changes in productivity, cost of living and other pertinent factors.”

The massive government spending programs started under Johnson and the Vietnam War that Johnson sent hundreds of thousands of young men to fight in along with dealing with riots caused a major hit to our economy. Major actions were implemented to control the rapid inflation and to bring balance to the economy. Under President Carter, Congress passed laws intended to go after the oil industry when gasoline prices increased more than 100% after the Iran Oil Embargo after the regime change in Iran and the US hostages were taken.

“The Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax Act of 1980 was enacted as part of a compromise between the Carter Administration and Congress over the decontrol of crude oil prices. The Act was intended to recoup the revenue earned by oil producers as a result of the sharp increase in oil prices brought about by the OPEC oil embargo. According to the Congressional Research Service, the Act’s title was a misnomer. “Despite its name, the crude oil windfall profit tax… was not a tax on profits. It was an excise tax… imposed on the difference between the market price of oil, which was technically referred to as the removal price, and a statutory 1979 base price that was adjusted quarterly for inflation and state severance taxes.”

During those years, I did IT consulting for two oil companies in Houston. I developed some programs to provide a system that helped the company avoid paying windfall profit taxes. During that same time, I was there, I watched them do major remodeling to the same floors multiple times and other expenses allowed under the rules contained in the laws. Congress and Carter created so many problems with their government “fixes” that Jimmy Carter became the national joke.

President Ronald Reagan won with a landslide victory because the voters knew we needed a real change. One of Reagan’s most famous quotes is:

“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help. – 1986”

If you had surgery done on your arm and the surgeon amputated your right arm when he was supposed to operate on your left arm, would you let him remove your left arm to fix the problem he created? Everyone eighteen or older has seen the massive problems over the past 3 ½ years and they remember how much better it was under President Trump. There is an obvious choice in this election just like in 2020. Did your vote help put Biden in office then?

Another of Reagan’s quotes is:

“If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. – 1964”