The Great Reset: The return of “big” government

“It matters enormously whether your country has a good health service, competent bureaucrats and sound finances. Good government is the difference between living and dying.” Page 89.

If this statement is true then we have to admit that most of the world, especially the US is fucked. We already have big government. When congress passes the Equality Act, mandates the limitation of words in public speaking, and ruins the lives of people for having different beliefs as them, at what point does government go from small to “big.” Our bureaucrats are incompetent in the ability to send out a check to the people who should get them. Unemployment is cut off to those who need it and paid into the system for decades until they needed it. Laws are created out of thin air and not questions by law makers even when they don’t make sense and do not hold up to science. Rioters and looters walk free while gym owners are sent to jail for keeping people healthy during a pandemic. As for finances…

Our current national debt is over 27 trillion dollars and congress wants to add another 1.9 trillion during a year where tax revenue will be down and there isn’t a sign that the economy will get better in the near future. A wise man once said, “government has killed more people than a virus.” If I had to choose between making my own choices to live a happy and healthy life during a pandemic or letting the government do it for me, I would choose my own judgement over a bunch of office trolls any day. The government’s inability to manage healthcare for decades now isn’t going to drastically change overnight. Firing the deep state and replacing our elected officials with competent people isn’t going to happen. As for finances, if the government was run as well as the officials own bank accounts, we would be the wealthiest country in the world, however these old crow foot wearing, leather skinned, bags of bloated pig fat are too busy stealing from the rest of us to run the damn country in a positive way. Covid-19 will not solve this and Schwab needs to share whatever he was smoking with the rest of the world to think that it is even a possibility.

“A few examples illustrating the point strongly suggest that this time, as in the past, taxation will increase. As in the past, the social rationale and political justification underlying the increases will be based upon the narrative of “countries at war.” Page 90.

America is broke. We hold several IOUs and at any point one of the countries we owe will call on our dent and we will have nothing to offer. If the government tries to say we are at war the justification will not hold and people will resist. To say we are at war with a virus that has a 99.9% survival rate is ridiculous. It’s like saying Canada is a threat and we need to start fighting back for their poor choice in music exported to the states. 99.9% of people who listen to Canadian pop stars don’t usually kill themselves, but listen to Nickelback or Alanis Morissette too many times and you might want to put a bullet in your head. Does this mean we should go to war, tax the public, and make everyone’s life a living hell to save the .1% of people who make poor choices? No thanks, plus we know that the money they take from us will not go towards the efforts they say they are. It will go to black farmers because the bank account of a poor black farmer is different from the bank account of a poor white farmer. Or maybe they money goes toward critical race theory therapy programs. Or gender studies in a country like Pakistan where most of the population is Muslim and gender is pretty well defined by their religion. The point is that the government can come up with all kinds of excuses to tax the hell out of people, a war on Covid-19 won’t fly and I doubt most people would pay a drastic increase when they don’t have to.

“They should also ensure that partnerships with business involves government funds are driven by public interest, not profit.” Page 92.

When government offers to pay a certain amount of money for a product it is in the company’s best interest to make the product for the lowest possible price to profit the most they can from the deal. We have all heard the stories about the army paying $50 for a hammer and $120 for a toilet seat. After working for a few non-profit companies, I can tell you for a fact they are not interested in saving money. These places are designed to share the wealth as long as the money travels to the top of the food chain. If Pfizer had the public interest at heart would they have rolled out a vaccine, skipping several safety steps and studies, and shipped out millions of doses without knowing what the possible side effects were of a never-before-seen mRNA vaccine?

“Central banks decided to cut rates and committed to provide all the liquidity that was needed, while governments started to expand social-welfare benefits, make direct cash transfers, cover wages, and suspend loan and mortgage payments, among other responses. Only governments had the power, capability and the reach to make such decisions, without which economic calamity and a complete social meltdown would have prevailed.” Page 92-93.

This statement tries combine several different policies together as if all governments implemented these policies and ignores the countries that didn’t lockdown or take drastic measures. Central banks have left rates low since 2001 and they haven’t gone up since then. With 27 trillion in debt when have they ever said to providing liquidity? Social-welfare benefits are one of the main reasons that the economy is struggling to get back on its feet. When a person is making more money on unemployment why would they want to return to work? The direct cash transfers are a joke and an insult. If $1200 is going to change your life, Covid-19 is not your problem, you are your own problem and you need some fixing before worrying about a virus. Several countries delt with loans and mortgage payments in a different way. In the US some states suspended rent payments and mortgage payment but with the understanding that the amount owed would be paid at the end of the set time period. If people haven’t been working how are they going to pay three to six months’ worth of rent at one time. Most households had less than $500 in savings before the pandemic. In Italy, the government stepped in and said that during lockdown people didn’t need to pay rent, the landlords did not need to pay their mortgage and banks and loan companies were not to take payments. Everything was frozen in the economic system and when it was over, they would all continue as if the lockdown never happened. I found this to be the best policy and I was disappointed that others didn’t follow its example. As for the argument that these policies prevented calamity and social meltdown, no it didn’t. now we have anti lockdown riots happening. Camps are being proposed in several countries to lock people up in if they are suspected of having the virus. The governments are creating the meltdown and they continue to push people further towards destruction.

“…To preventing banks from incentivizing consumer debt.” Page 94.

Are we serious here? What world is Schwab living in? While we look at the crappy system, we currently live in that pushes people into debt what about the companies that work through a debt system, or the governments, state to federal, who work with a massive amount of debt. Our whole economy, because of interest rates, is based on debt. As long as there are central banks there will be debt. The banking system itself relies on loaning money that could never be returned to keep people as indentured servants for the majority of their lives.

This was a difficult chapter to read considering the amount of misinformation and half truths thrown in to make it sound like Covid-19 was a good excuse to create “bigger” government than what we currently have. During my lifetime I have seen nothing but expansion of the Federal government. There was the Patriot Act, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the merger of Big Tech and the Federal Government. I don’t know how much bigger Schwab thinks governments need to become in order to create his new world order but he better keep in mind to stay off my lawn.