“He who will not apply new remedies must expect new evils.” – Sir Francis Bacon
The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens. It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.
The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.
The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America
October 2024 quote – “The safety and prosperity of nations ultimately and essentially depend on the protection and blessing of Almighty God; and the national acknowledgement of this truth is not only an indispensable duty, which the people owe to him, but a duty whose natural influence is favorable to the promotion of that morality and piety, without which social happiness cannot exist, nor the blessings of a free government be enjoyed.” -John Adams, “Proclamation for a National Fast” 1798
By Diccon Hyatt | Investopedia | Published September 13, 2024
Excerpts:
Key Takeaways
The U.S. government will spend a record $1.2 trillion on interest payments in 2024, the highest amount ever recorded.
Interest payments are driven by a combination of deficit spending, especially during the pandemic, and the Federal Reserve’s campaign of anti-inflation interest rate hikes.
The trajectory of the deficit could be influenced by the election.
While both Democrats and Republicans propose new tax cuts and spending that could push up the deficit, Vice President Kamala Harris has proposed tax increases on the wealthy and corporations, to offset them.
The U.S. government is on track to spend more than $1 trillion on interest payments this year, surpassing military spending for the first time in history.
Interest payments on the national debt (held by the public in the form of Treasury securities) will cost the government $1.2 trillion in the government’s fiscal year ending in October, the Treasury Department said in a monthly report on the budget.1 Net interest outlays are the third costliest item in the budget behind Social Security and Medicare benefits.
Economists have grown increasingly concerned about the potential impact of those payments on the U.S. economy. Interest payments took up 2.4% of the entire U.S. gross domestic product in 2023, and The Congressional Budget Office estimates that could swell to 3.9% over the next 10 years.
Why Is The Government Paying So Much Interest? Two major factors have driven those payments skyward. First, the government spent trillions to support households and the economy during the pandemic, paying for it by borrowing rather than raising taxes. Second, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates starting in 2022 to fight inflation, which pushed up how much the government owes for that debt.
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America’s billowing federal debt is a dire national security threat.
There is only one plan on the table with the power to reign in America’s ever-expanding debt and generate annual federal budget surpluses.
The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens. It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.
The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.
The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America
‘Teacher pay’ is a critically important goal for attracting and retaining dedicated, top-notch teachers and providing the best resources for high achievement by America’s school children.
At the same time, rejuvenating financial health for all working American families is a vital cause, all across America.
All working Americans – military, law enforcement, medical / healthcare, maintenance workers, construction, fire and rescue, service workers – are deserving of an opportunity, a comprehensive initiative, to strengthen their families’ financial status and relieve the burden of government interference in their daily lives.
Let’s do some math, and make a comparison between two significant economic initiatives.
Plan 1: The Leviticus 25 Plan – $90,000 per U.S. citizen. $60,000 per U.S. citizen is electronically deposited into a Family Account and $30,000 per citizen is electronically deposited into a Medical Savings Account.
Who benefits? Answer: All participating U.S. citizens and their families.
Who pays? Answer: The Federal Reserve creates a funding facility, a Citizens Credit Facility, to channel liquidity to American families, in the same way that they set up various credit facilities to fire-hose liquidity out to Wall Street’s financial sector during the great economic crises years (2008-2010). Many of these U.S. and foreign banks and insurers were the very institutions that had precipitated the financial crisis with their financial innovation schemes and leveraged speculation – which ‘bled out’ in the form of gaping balance sheet ‘capital holes’ when the big mortgage default wave hit.
How does the Federal Reserve then get the money back, in order to reduce its balance sheet back down to ‘normal dimensions,’ over time? Answer: Through a series of simple recapture provisions.
#1. Participating families would be required to give up their tax refunds each year for a period of five years.
#2. Participating families would also be required give up means-tested welfare benefits, income security program benefits, unemployment insurance, workman’s comp, SSI, SSDI, and various other social welfare benefits.
#3. For participating families, there would be a $6,000 deductible for five years ($30,000 total) for those enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid, VA, TRICARE, FEHB.
The Plan pays for itself over a 10-15 year period.
How much would The Leviticus 25 Plan benefit a typical teacher’s family? Case 1: Family of four. Mother teaches – salary $50,000 / year. Father also works. Two school-age children. $165,000 balance on 30-year fixed mortgage – maturing in 20 years. Two modest car loans. Monthly health care premiums – fairly substantial.
Through the Citizens Credit Facility, $240,000 would be electronically deposited into their Family Account, and $120,000 would be electronically deposited into their Medical Savings Account.
These liquidity grants are tax-free. The net benefit of these grants would be reduced slightly over the course of time through the loss of income tax refunds for five years (estimate: $5,000 per year for five years: $25,000).
Mortgage payoff example: Family pays off $165,000 balance remaining on a 30-year fixed $200,000 mortgage at 5.5% interest rate / 20 years remaining to maturity with principle and interest payments of $1,136 per month.
Total savings: $165,000 principle and $101,351 interest. Total: $266,351.
Approximate annual savings: $13,600.
This savings amount dwarfs the anticipated $5,000 loss per year from income tax refunds.
Family retains $75,000 in Family Account for additional installment debt reduction, discretionary purchases and savings.
With $120,000 in Medical Savings Account, family chooses to purchase a high-deductible policy with reduced premium costs.
Total impact on family financial health: significant. Benefits: powerful
And even more importantly, all families in America would benefit in similar ways.
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Plan 2: Raise teachers’ pay by a healthy 15% – via tax increases.
Who benefits? Answer: Teachers and their families.
Who pays? Answer: Everyone whose taxes were raised to cover the additional outlay on behalf of teachers. And that would include teachers themselves, whose taxes would also go up – and would therefore slightly reduce the net benefit of a 15% pay raise.
How much would a 15% pay hike actually benefit a typical teacher’s family? Case 1: Family of four. Mother teaches – salary $50,000 / year. Father also works. Two school-age children. $165,000 balance on 30-year fixed mortgage at 5.5% interest – maturing in 20 years. Two modest car loans. Monthly health care premiums – fairly substantial.
A 15% pay raise for the teacher in the family would generate additional gross income of $7,500 per year, or $37,500 over a five-year period – before taxes.
This increased income would provide additional resources for some possible modest reductions in mortgage and installment debt, certain discretionary spending, and it might allow for additional modest savings for their children’s future college education.
Teachers and their families alone would benefit financially. Others would not. Mortgage debt reduction: modest. Health plan premium reduction: none. Net cash benefit over five years: $37,500. ______________________________________
America needs a comprehensive economic acceleration plan that benefits all Americans – through massive debt reduction and the restoration of economic liberty..
The choice is clear.
The Leviticus 25 Plan will also generate $112.6 billion budget surpluses at the federal level during each of its first five years of activation (2025-2029 – compared to trillion dollar deficits each year into the foreseeable future.
The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens. It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.
The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.
The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America
F.A. Hayek is regarded by many as the greatest economist in the history of the Western world. In his famous work, “The Road to Serfdom,” Hayek warned about the dangers of national centralization.
There can be no doubt that most of those in the democracies who demand a central direction of all economic activity still believe that socialism and individual freedom can be combined. Yet socialism was early recognized by many thinkers as the gravest threat to freedom.
It is rarely remembered now that socialism in its beginnings was frankly authoritarian. It began quite openly as a reaction against the liberalism of the French Revolution. The French writers who laid its foundation had no doubt that their ideas could be put into practice only by a strong dictatorial government. The first of modern planners, Saint-Simon, predicted that those who did not obey his proposed planning boards would be “treated as cattle.”
Nobody saw more clearly than the great political thinker de Tocqueville that democracy stands in an irreconcilable conflict with socialism: “Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom,” he said. “Democracy attaches all possible value to each man,” he said in 1848, “while socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”
To allay these suspicions and to harness to its cart the strongest of all political motives—the craving for freedom — socialists began increasingly to make use of the promise of a “new freedom.” Socialism was to bring “economic freedom,” without which political freedom was “not worth having.”
[snip]
Individual freedom cannot be reconciled with the supremacy of one single purpose to which the whole of society is permanently subordinated. To a limited extent we ourselves experience this fact in wartime, when subordination of almost everything to the immediate and pressing need is the price at which we preserve our freedom in the long run. The fashionable phrases about doing for the purposes of peace what we have learned.to do for the purposes of war are completely misleading, for it is sensible temporarily to sacrifice freedom in order to make it more secure in the future, but it is quite a different thing to sacrifice liberty permanently in the interests of a planned economy.
To those who have watched the transition from socialism to fascism at close quarters, the connection between the two systems is obvious. The realization of the socialist program means the destruction of freedom. Democratic socialism, the great utopia of the last few generations, is simply not achievable.
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There is one economic plan with the raw power to counter the false utopian promises of security and equality.
The Leviticus 25 Plan is the one and only economic dynamic in today’s world with the power to advance the cause of financial security for U.S. citizens and economic liberty for the whole of America.
The Leviticus 25 Plan provides direct liquidity access for participating American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens. It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.
The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.
The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America
Natixis SA is a large French corporate and investment bank that took a big ‘hit’ in the fall of 2008 when the massive Bernard Madoff $50 billion mega-fraud ponzi scheme blew up on it and a lot of other big ‘players’ in the world of global finance.
Natixis’ exposure in the Madoff fiasco was estimated at 450 million euros ($605 million).
Natixis had also during this time been riding the red-hot subprime bandwagon, and when the mortgage default wave steamrolled through, Natixis’ got walloped again. Their write-downs topped out at $1.75B.
Natixis needed liquidity to survive, and the got it – courtesy of the U.S. Federal Reserve (and, indirectly, U.S. taxpaying citizens). ……………………
Bloomberg Nov 28, 2011 – Excerpts: Natixis SA reported the biggest net losses of any French bank during the financial crisis and kept an outstanding balance of more than $10 billion of loans from the U.S. Federal Reserve for six months. The loans peaked on Dec. 22, 2008, when the Paris-based bank was borrowing $15.5 billion from the Fed’s Commercial Paper Funding Facility and Term Auction Facility.
In February 2009, Natixis‘s main shareholders, Groupe Banque Populaire and Groupe Caisse d’Epargne, announced they would merge to form Groupe BPCE, and the French government bought about 3 billion euros ($4.25 billion) of preferred shares in the combined entity and 4 billion euros of subordinated debt. The deal closed in July 2009. Natixis paid off the last of its Fed loans in January 2010.
Peak amount of debt on 12/22/2008: $15.5B
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And so, here we have a large foreign bank getting sucked into some high-risk, speculative financial ventures, losing big…. and then getting bailed out by the Fed.
Natixis tapped the Fed’s Commercial Paper Funding Facility, Term Auction Facility and Discount Window for a cool $15.5B.
‘Thank you,’ U.S. taxpayers…
And now it is time for fair play. U.S. citizens deserve nothing less than the same access to liquidity (it’s our money after all) that was so generously extended to Natixis, and many banking heavyweights… during their ‘time of need.’
The mechanism: A Federal Reserve Citizens Credit Facility.
The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America
p.s. For the record, Société Générale’, BNP Paribas, HSBC, and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) were among other big banks with large exposure to the Madoff ponzi investments, along with massive exposure to subprime leveraged speculation – and also received Fed emergency loan funds (courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer).
The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America
GE Capital, along with several other very large, well-heeled fiduciary entities was charged and convicted in a major municipal bond bid-rigging scandal in 2012. GE Capital had been shaking down municipalities across America, and screwing the pants off hard-working U.S. citizens. On a large scale.
“The state’s first witness, confusingly, was a CDR broker named Doug Goldberg… Right off the bat, in fact, Doug Goldberg explained that while at CDR, he had routinely helped the cream of Wall Street rig bids on municipal bonds by letting them take a peek at other bids:
Q: Who were some of the providers you gave last looks to?
A: There was a whole host of them, but GE Capital, FSA, J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, Société Générale, Lehman Brothers, Bear. There were others.… [snip]
Goldberg went on to testify that he repeatedly rigged auctions with the three defendants. Sometimes he gave them “last looks” so they could shave basis points off their winning bids; other times he asked them to intentionally submit losing offers – called cover bids – to allow other firms to win. ,,,,. The broker went on to detail how he had worked with the GE executives to manipulate a number of auctions. _________________________
Several short years prior to this monumental scam, U.S. taxpayers were helping bail GE Capital out of a financial hole, courtesy of generous Federal Reserve emergency lending initiatives.
Excerpts from Bloomberg report: Bloomberg Nov 28, 2011 : General Electric Co.’s GE Capital finance unit was the biggest U.S. issuer of commercial paper in 2008. GE, the world’s largest maker of jet engines and locomotives, turned to the Federal Reserve for emergency liquidity after the market for commercial paper — bonds with maturities of less than 270 days — froze in late 2008.
GE Capital, which had $91.8 billion of CP outstanding at the end of September 2008, borrowed from the Fed’s Commercial Paper Funding Facility from October 2008 through February 2009, with a balance as high as $16.1 billion, data show. Initially, a GE spokesman said the company borrowed from the program “to demonstrate our support for what the Fed is doing.” In December, GE Treasurer Kathryn Cassidy said the company was using the CPFF “primarily as a liquidity backstop.”
Peak amount of debt on 11/21/2008: $16.1B
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If the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve can firehose liquidity out to companies like General Electric Co, in its time of need….
…then shouldn’t honest, hard-working U.S. citizens also be granted the same direct access to liquidity to restore financial health, across the board, to America’s working class, tax-paying U.S. citizens?
Answer: Yes they should.
Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America
Bloomberg excerpts: “As an insurer, American International Group Inc. didn’t qualify for the Federal Reserve’s crisis-lending programs for banks. So when trading partners squeezed AIG for liquidity in 2008, the Fed gave the New York-based company two credit lines all its own, with a combined borrowing capacity of $122.8 billion.
AIG’s balance under the credit lines reached about $90 billion in October 2008, data show. By then, the U.S. Treasury Department had taken over AIG, making about $70 billion of separate capital injections during the crisis.
In January 2009, the company borrowed $16.2 billion from the Fed’s Commercial Paper Funding Facility. Bloomberg didn’t include the credit lines in its Fed-loan ranking because they weren’t available to a range of institutions and the borrower was never kept secret.
Peak amount of debt on 1/27/2009: $16.2B ______________________________________
AIG FP (AIG Financial Products) raked in billions of dollars selling credit default swaps (CDS) during the housing boom. And they did not set aside adequate “reserves” to cover the potential of a hard down-turn in the market.
That hard down turn arrived when the housing bubble popped in 2007. And when the storm hit, AIG FP was sitting on $450 billion in CDS contracts. They could not ‘cover’ their counterparty obligations – to major fiduciary institutions like Goldman Sachs, Societe Generale, and many others. And those counterparties did not adequately verify that AIG had the unwalled reserves necessary to cover their massive exposure.
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The Fed then stepped right up to the plate… to cover those obligations – 100 cents on the dollar. Note: The Fed “gave the New York-based company [AIG] two credit lines all its own, with a combined borrowing capacity of $122.8 billion.”
It is now time for the Fed to step up to the plate and provide one new credit line, a Citizens Credit Facility, to American families (who, by the way, did not ‘roll the dice’ with leverage speculation like AIG and other major Wall Street players).
It is time for U.S. citizens to be granted the same direct access to liquidity extensions.
The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America
Washington Republicans are back at the table… with no politically feasible, economically credible plan to solve America’s ongoing, run-away budget deficit catastrophe — and put an end, once and for all, to these exasperating budget impasse episodes.
Main Street America Republicans do have a plan – a powerful deficit-eliminating, ‘hands-down’ election-winning plan.
Trump urges party to take hard line on election security in negotiations with Democrats
By Katy Stech Ferek | The Wall Street Journal | Updated Sept. 18, 2024 – Excerpt:
WASHINGTON—An initial proposal by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) to fund the government was voted down Wednesday, underscoring the divisions within the Republican Party but potentially setting the stage for talks with Democrats on avoiding a partial shutdown at the end of the month.
The vote on the short-term funding bill was 202 in favor to 220 against, with more than a dozen holdout Republicans joining most Democrats in opposition. Two Republicans voted present.
With the House GOP’s initial effort defeated, Johnson now must quickly decide his path forward. Some GOP figures, including Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, are demanding that Republicans leverage the specter of a shutdown to strike a hard bargain with Democrats to tighten voter-ID rules, while others say such an effort would be futile and wrongheaded just ahead of the November elections.
Johnson’s initial proposal would have extended government funding levels for six months past the Sept. 30 end of the current fiscal year. The bill, known as a continuing resolution, also includes a provision that would require voters to provide proof of citizenship to register, nodding to an issue that is a priority for Trump and many Republican voters.
After the measure failed, Johnson said he was disappointed and was talking with Republican colleagues about his next steps. He didn’t provide details.
“Now we go back to the playbook. We’ll draw up another play, and we’ll come up with a solution,” he said. “We have time to fix the situation.”
“This bill is an admission that a House Republican majority cannot govern,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee.
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The Main Street America Republican economic plan generates $112.6 billion budget surpluses annually, during the first five years of activation (2025-2029).
It restores financial security for millions of American families by eliminating massive amounts of Household Debt, re-incentivizing work and productivity, and minimizing government control over the daily lives of countless numbers of U.S. citizens.
It provides U.S. citizens with gold-plated reasons to elect Republicans across the board in election cycles for years to come.
The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America
“Hudson Castle Group Inc., a firm started by former Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. executives, sponsored three asset-backed commercial paper conduits — investment vehicles that bought financial assets and raised money by selling short-term bonds. Such conduits were among “shadow banks” that “contributed significantly to asset bubbles” by converting “opaque, risky, long-term assets into money-like and seemingly riskless short-term liabilities,” according to a July 2010 report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
On a combined basis, Hudson Castle’s three conduits had as much as $16.2 billion of outstanding loans from the Fed’s Commercial Paper Funding Facility in March 2009. They included Belmont Funding LLC, Ebbets Funding LLC and Elysian Funding LLC.
Peak amount of debt on 3/31/2009: $16.2B
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Here we see the Fed providing emergency funding to bailout a company that had “contributed significantly to asset bubbles” by converting “opaque, risky, long-term assets into money-like and seemingly risk-less short-term liabilities.”
The Leviticus 25 Plan levels the playing field by restoring financial security for players who had ‘not’ contributed to asset bubbles” through “opaque, risky”carry-trade schemes, namely U.S. citizens.
The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens. It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.
The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.
The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America
As chief executive officer of Bear Stearns Cos. in 2008, Alan Schwartz tapped the Federal Reserve for as much as $30 billion of emergency cash to float the New York-based brokerage until it could be acquired by JPMorgan Chase & Co.
By June 2009, he was CEO of closely held Guggenheim Partners LLC, whose special purpose financing affiliates borrowed as much as $16.4 billion from the Fed’s Commercial Paper Funding Facility. Liberty Hampshire Co., a Guggenheim unit, sponsored asset-backed commercial paper conduits, which removed mortgage securities and other assets from companies’ balance sheets and provided cheap financing. Such conduits were among “shadow banks” that helped inflate pre-crisis asset bubbles, according to a July 2010 Federal Reserve Bank of New York report.
Peak Amount of Debt on 12/10/2008: $16.4B ________________________________________
Guggenheim Partners, LLC received their Fed liquidity transfusions through Commercial Paper Funding Facility, one of the many credit facilities created by the Fed to rescue companies that had rolled the dice with leveraged speculation – and lost.
These Fed’s liquidity transfusions come with a price. They represent a ‘draw’ on the purchasing power of the future earnings of millions of U.S. citizens.
U.S. citizens should receive nothing less than that same direct access to liquidity – through a U.S. Citizens’ Credit Facility, from the Fed.
The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America
Société Générale S.A. (SocGen), the 3rd largest bank in France and 8th largest in Europe, hit some ‘speed bumps’ in 2008. They announced to the world on the 28th of January 2008 that one of their junior future traders had racked up a series of regrettable trading losses. And the company was ‘out’ a cool $7.2 billion.
At about this same time, wiser minds at SocGen were ‘chasing yield’ and loading the company up with Mortgage Backed Securities, including certain ‘cesspool grade’ MBS’s, packaged and pedaled by Goldman Sachs. They insured their mortgage-backed asset portfolio with billions of dollars worth of hedging in AIG ‘sewer-quality’ credit default swaps (CDS’s).
AIG, with no meaningful reserves, bled out quickly when the mortgage default wave ripped across America in 2007-08, and SocGen was staring up at an $11 billion loss.
The U.S. Federal Reserve stepped in to ‘cover’ AIG’s counterparties (at 100 cents on the dollar), and SocGen promptly received (courtesy of U.S. taxpayers) $6.9B in CDS payments and $4.1B in collateral postings from AIG in March 2009.
On top of all that, the Fed aimed the “secret liquidity lifeline” water canon SocGen’s way and soaked them with an additional $17.4B.
And SocGen regained its ‘financial health’ by the end of 2010. Thanks to U.S. taxpayers.
Excerpts:Societe Generale SA, which in January 2008 spooked investors by announcing a record 4.9 billion-euro ($7.2 billion) trading loss from unauthorized bets by a former trader, was one of the earliest borrowers from the U.S. Federal Reserve’s discount window during the crisis. On May 22, 2008, the Paris-based bank got $3.5 billion of loans from the window — 23 percent of the total outstanding for all banks on that date — in addition to $13.9 billion from the Term Auction Facility.
After Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s collapse in September 2008, Societe Generale received 1.7 billion euros of preferred shares and 1.7 billion euros of subordinated debt from the French government to bolster its capital and lending. The bank repaid the state funds in November 2009 after a rights offering.
Peak amount of [Fed-based] debt on 08/22/2008: $17.4B
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U.S. citizens deserve nothing less than to be granted access to the same direct liquidity flows that major U.S. and foreign banks received during the financial crisis of 2007-2010.
This access to liquidity would relieve debt burdens at ‘ground level’ in America, and restore ‘financial health’ to U.S. citizens.
The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America
