Nothing happens until somebody sells Something!

I don’t know where or when I first came up with the title to this post but its sentiment has served me well for many decades.

Or we can expand it to read, “Nothing happens until somebody builds something”.

Whichever you choose, it is in direct conflict with the views of many who should know better in Washington DC and, worse yet, at least one of those is in line for the presidency.

Now I don’t know about Obama. And Biden only knows what Obama tells him he knows but then for a few more weeks there is Pelosi. She said, and presumably thinks, that unemployment benefits must and should continue because “it’s good for the economy”.

Her view of the world is that when some poor sap gets an unemployment check he or she will spend it immediately at Walmart or Safeway or wherever which would mean that those companies will hire more people who will pay more taxes which will fund more unemployment checks and on and on.

If this were the case, the answer to any country’s financial woes is that everybody quits work and applies for benefits. Really?

Back in the Middle Ages many alchemists took time off for a while from trying to turn lead into gold in order to come up with a machine capable of perpetual motion. This wondrous device once started went on forever.

Unfortunately it didn’t work and what is more it can never work as we understand the laws of physics. And neither can Pelosi’s theory of perpetual financing.

As I understand them, the facts are these.

Employed people pay taxes which go to Government both Local and Federal. Some of those taxes go to provide benefits to those who are unemployed. And those people indeed spend the money they receive. But the “gotcha” is there are leaks in this seemingly perfect circle.

For a start, Pelosi seems to be unaware that the administration of all this incoming and outgoing money needs people and systems which are not free. And, in point of fact, government bureaucracies are just about the most inefficient there are. 

And people who receive the benefit do not send it all back to the government directly or indirectly. It doesn’t take a genius to work any of this out.

But Pelosi is only a genius in her own mind!  

And it shows!