Record debt levels are choking corporations in America.
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Corporate Debt To EBITDA Hits All Time High
“When using the aggregated data, both gross and net corporate debt/EBITDA are at or near record leverage levels, well above prior cycle peaks.” – Morgan Stanley Apr 21, 2017
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America is drowning in debt. We need re-targeted liquidity, and here is the solution:
The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 – $75,000 per U.S. citizen
The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2279)
Debt is surging in the U.S.
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By Lacy Hunt and Van Hoisington
Excerpts:
Debt. Total domestic nonfinancial debt, excluding off balance sheet liabilities such as leases and unfunded pension liabilities, surged to a record 254.8% of GDP in 2016, 5.6% greater than in 2009 when Lehman Brothers failed (Chart 2). Total debt, which includes domestic nonfinancial, foreign and bank debt, amounted to 372.5% of GDP in 2016, compared with 251.9% of GDP in 2006, the final year of previous tightening cycle, which, in turn, was greater than in any earlier time from 1870 through 2006.
First, in the initial quarter of 2017, the year-over-year change in the monetary base was -4.8%. This comes after sharp contractions in each of the previous four quarters, the largest such decreases since the end of World War II (Chart 3). Some argue that this unprecedented weakness in the monetary base is not relevant since the depository institutions still hold $2.1 trillion of excess reserves (defined as the difference between total reserves and required reserves). The textbook writers emphasize that excess reserves are the key to money and credit expansion. But, the multiple expansion of bank reserves so diligently explained in the textbooks was written for a regulatory environment that no longer exists, which is the second different condition.
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America is drowning in debt.
There is one dynamic solution: Grant U.S. citizens the same access to liquidity that was provided to Wall Street’s financial sector during 2008-2010 – to help them unwind their debt profiles and return to ‘financial stability.’
It is time to unwind debt at ground level – and pump up America’s Monetary Base.
It is time to restore economic liberty for American families and set them on course for long-term ‘financial health.’
The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 – $75,000 per U.S. citizen
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.” -Winston Churchill
“Socialism means slavery.” -Lord Acton
“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.” -Alexis de Tocqueville
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Why Politicians Win (And Workers Lose) Under Socialism
Authored by Hans-Hermann Hoppe via The Mises Institute,
ZeroHedge, Apr 20, 2017 – Excerpts:
Socialism leads to the politicization of society. Hardly anything can be worse for the production of wealth.
Socialism, at least its Marxist version, says its goal is complete equality. The Marxists observe that once you allow private property in the means of production, you allow differences. If I own resource A, then you do not own it and our relationship toward resource A becomes different and unequal. By abolishing private property in the means of production with one stroke, say the Marxists, everyone becomes co-owner of everything. This reflects everyone’s equal standing as a human being.
The reality is much different. Declaring everyone a co-owner of everything only nominally solves differences in ownership. It does not solve the real underlying problem: there remain differences in the power to control what is done with resources.
In capitalism, the person who owns a resource can also control what is done with it. In a socialized economy, this isn’t true because there is no longer any owner. Nonetheless the problem of control remains. Who is going to decide what is to be done with what? Under socialism, there is only one way: people settle their disagreements over the control of property by superimposing one will upon another. As long as there are differences, people will settle them through political means.
If people want to improve their income under socialism they have to move toward a more highly valued position in the hierarchy of caretakers. That takes political talent.
Under such a system, people will have to spend less time and effort developing their productive skills and more time and effort improving their political talents.
As people shift out of their roles as producers and users of resources, we find that their personalities change. They no longer cultivate the ability to anticipate situations of scarcity to take up productive opportunities, to be aware of technological possibilities, to anticipate changes in consumer demand, and to develop strategies of marketing. They no longer have to be able to initiate, to work, and to respond to the needs of others.
Instead, people develop the ability to assemble public support for their own position and opinion through means of persuasion, demagoguery, and intrigue, through promises, bribes, and threats. Different people rise to the top under socialism than under capitalism. The higher on the socialist hierarchy you look, the more you will find people who are too incompetent to do the job they are supposed to do. It is no hindrance in a caretaker politician’s career to be dumb, indolent, inefficient, and uncaring. He only needs superior political skills. This too contributes to the impoverishment of society.
The United States is not fully socialized, but already we see the disastrous effects of a politicized society as our own politicians continue to encroach on the rights of private property owners. All the impoverishing effects of socialism are with us in the U.S.: reduced levels of investment and saving, the misallocation of resources, the over-utilization and vandalization of factors of production, and the inferior quality of products and services. And these are only tastes of life under total socialism.
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America’s plan for freedom and liberty:
The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 – $75,000 per U.S. citizen
The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2272)
The recent Wall Street Journal editorial by Justin Haskins and Michael Hamilton of the Heartland Institute was a step in the right direction. At the same time, it was severely compromised by several major flaws…
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As Republicans take another crack at devising a plan to replace ObamaCare, here’s an idea they should consider: Give each Medicaid patient a health savings account—and put $7,000 in it every year.
Under ObamaCare, Medicaid has become the only option for millions of Americans. But that doesn’t mean much if the doctors in their communities don’t accept new patients through the program—and 30% of physicians don’t.
Full article accessed via Lux Llibertas:
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“Give Medicaid Dollars Directly to Patients” – flaws:
This plan does nothing to offer exemptions from ObamaCare.
This plan does nothing to benefit working families NOT on Medicaid.
It does nothing to untangle and change the complexion of other government health care programs like Medicare, VA, FEHB, TRICARE.
This plan is an ongoing, open-ended cash-based subsidy.
There is a better way.
The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan is the only comprehensive, citizen-centered health care plan in America. It ‘resets’ the health care industry to present a clean, efficient and responsible system. Most importantly, this plan restores individual freedom and liberty for all participating Americans.
The Plan:
Benefits:
Lower health care costs – With the elimination of millions of minor insurance claims across the nation over the course of each month, system-wide efficiency would improve, medical costs would drop significantly, and the direct patient-provider relationship would be restored. Medical professionals would not have to answer to HMOs, insurance companies, or government agencies in providing basic day-to-day healthcare access for their patients.
Scoring – if 300 million U.S. citizens were to participate in the plan, the total dollar transfer into family-based Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs) would amount to $7.5 trillion.
The potential cost savings from the $5,000 deductible provision for the approximate 150 million people currently enrolled in Medicare (55 million), Medicaid (72 million), VA (6.16 million), TRICARE (9.5 million), and FEHB (8.2 million) would amount to just under $3.75 trillion over the first 5 years (or, one-half the $7.5 trillion initial roll out cost).
Summary:
This plan would generate trillions of dollars in cost savings from streamlining, vastly improved efficiency, and reductions in waste and fraud.
This plan would improve quality and ease of access to health care for all participating Americans.
For patients: It would dramatically lower the cost of health care, while improving quality and access for all who chose to participate.
For providers: It would restore the patient-provider relationship and significantly reduce massive cost and time burdens imposed by a centralized system.
The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan an integral part of a larger, comprehensive economic plan:
The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 – $75,000 per U.S. citizen
The Fed is giving ‘free money’ to the world’s largest banks, and the big winners, according to the Wall Street Journal, are foreign banks. The latest report: $22 billion annually.
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(FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL 12/24/15) By Katy Burne
Some of the biggest beneficiaries of the Federal Reserve’s recent interest-rate increase will be foreign banks.
Units of foreign banks this year [2015] received nearly half the roughly $6.25 billion in interest the Fed paid banks on the money, called reserves, they park with the Fed, the central bank’s data show. Those institutions control just about 15% of all bank assets in the U.S.
The Fed’s interest payments to banks are likely to roughly double next year because in mid-December it raised the rate it pays on reserves to 0.50% from 0.25%. The amounts could rise even more in coming years if the central bank continues lifting the rate, called the interest on excess reserves rate, or IOER.
Foreign banks receive a disproportionate share of the interest payments because they own an outsize share of total reserves.
[snip]
U.S.-chartered banks, including those owned by foreign banking companies, pay premiums to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. — ranging from 0.05% to 0.35% — based on their assets, including reserves but minus other capital measures. But U.S. lenders that don’t take deposits, and firms incorporated overseas whose U.S. operations don’t take deposits, don’t have to pay FDIC fees.
Both foreign and domestic banks can borrow money overnight at low short-term rates and park them at the Fed at a higher rate, earning a profit or “spread.” But for some foreign firms, the spread can be larger because they often don’t have to pay the FDIC fees.
To illustrate: Before the Fed’s rate increase, banks paid about 0.13% to borrow overnight in the federal-funds market and earned 0.25% on their reserves — a difference of 0.12 percentage point. A foreign bank could get a spread of 0.12%. Domestic banks that paid FDIC fees of about 0.07% on average on their insured deposits would be left with a spread of about 0.05%.
After the rate increase, both types of banks could pay about 0.35% to borrow overnight and get 0.50% on their reserves. That is a 0.15% spread for some foreign banks. But domestic banks, after paying the FDIC fees, get a roughly 0.08% spread.
The New York branches of Deutsche Bank AG and Credit Suisse Group AG each had about $40 billion in reserves at the Fed as of June 30, earning about $100 million in interest.
[snip]
Raising the IOER rate to 0.50% from 0.25% will increase the Fed’s interest payments to banks to about $13 billion annually, assuming reserves stay at the same level, said Karen Petrou of Federal Financial Analytics Inc.
The Fed is subsidizing both U.S. and foreign banks, said Joseph Gagnon, a former Fed economist now at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and the latter have a proportionately larger advantage. “I’m surprised it hasn’t gotten more attention,” Mr. Gagnon said.
[snip]
The Fed started paying interest on reserves in 2008. It plans to use the IOER rate as its primary lever for controlling short-term rates, in part because its postcrisis stimulus policies left markets awash in money, rendering its old tools less effective.
Still, some Fed officials have expressed concern about how it looks to have the central bank making big interest payments to banks.
James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, said in an August radio interview that if Congress isn’t comfortable with the size of payments to banks, in particular foreign ones, “They should definitely tell us right now, because . . . we would need to change our exit strategy dramatically if we cannot rely on the interest on excess reserves as being a tool of monetary policy.”
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So the U.S. Federal Reserve is doling out billions of dollars annually in free money handouts to the world’s largest banks, the very banks whose leveraged speculation strategies precipitated the great financial crisis. The very banks that foreclosed on millions of American home owners. The very banks that engaged in blatantly criminal FX and LIBOR rate manipulation, mortgage fraud and predatory lending.
And meanwhile, U.S. citizens are scraping along, neck deep in debt, stalled out with stagnant real median household income growth, lathered up in suffocating social welfarism…?
And Congress is sitting their heads up their ‘rear ends’… and no plan whatsoever to change anything related to the economic mess we are sitting in.
You have got to be kidding me..(!)
It is time for U.S. citizens to be granted the same access to liquidity that the Fed has provided, through various funding facilities, to Wall Street’s financial sector and continues to provide via IOER payments.
The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 – $75,000 per U.S. citizen
The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2260)