America’s massive debt burdens are grinding steadily higher, and one of the primary drivers over the past two decades has been increasing growth curve of entitlement spending.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has been warning that the projected forward-looking, 75-year fiscal gap shows us to be on a dangerous, unsustainable fiscal path.

We must make a change…

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Smashing The Myth Of America’s “Stingy” Welfare State

ZeroHedge, Mar 2, 2018 – Excerpts:

According to the 2016 social expenditure database at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), public social spending as a percentage of GDP in the US was 19.4 percent:

One immediate solution is to decentralize the welfare state immediately, and take it out of the hands of the federal government.

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There is a right way to address America’s runaway entitlement spending, and there are wrong ways.

Here is the ONE right way:

The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America – The Leviticus 25 Plan pdf (2677 downloads)

2014 – Money flows to … Russia.

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“Ukraine reached a preliminary deal with the International Monetary Fund to unlock $27 billion in international aid as U.S. lawmakers passed bills imposing more sanctions on Russians linked to Crimea’s annexation.”  Source:  Bloomberg, Mar 27, 2014

$18 billion of that aid package is being anted up by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Note 1: The U.S. finances 17.7% of the IMF budget, so U.S. taxpayers are kicking in a cool $3.2 billion in the deal – to ‘bail out’ Ukraine.

It was also announced (NY Times, March 27, 2014): Congress Approves $1 Billion of Aid for Ukraine

WASHINGTON — The House and the Senate voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to approve a $1 billion aid package for Ukraine….

Total from the U.S. – approximately $4.2 billion

Note 2:  A significant $2.2 billion from these bailout packages will actually go to pay off some Ukrainian debt to……. Russian natural gas giant, Gazprom.

Gazprom has been playing some ‘hard-ball’ lately when it nearly “doubled the gas price for Ukraine to $485 per 1,000 cubic metres, compared to the $370-$380 it charges Europe on average. Ukraine says the new price is unacceptable and is politically motivated.”  Source:  Ukraine fails to pay for gas on time, debt stands at $2.2-billion: Russia’s Gazprom

U.S. taxpayers to the rescue.  Money to Ukraine. Money to Russia.

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This raises an important question: How is it that our government could see fit in 2014 to authorize billions of dollars in bailouts to Ukraine… to help relieve their Russian debt, while at the same time our government would not consider granting equal access to credit extensions to our own U.S. citizens, to advance the cause of debt relief for American families?

It is time for some powerful new economics in America.

The Leviticus 25 Plan – the equal opportunity plan for American families.

The Leviticus 25 Plan pdf (2650 downloads)

The Social Security Old Age Survivors Insurance (OASI) and Disability Insurance (DI) funds are being ‘drawn down.’

The OASDI combined Trust Fund is sustained each year by contributions and interest income, which are currently in surplus versus the annual cost of the program.

The interest income represents an internal governmental entry, since the government has ‘borrowed’ the funds in their entirety, $2.6 trillion, and is ‘booking’ interest obligations at an effective rate of 3.156% in 2016, on those borrowed funds.

The annual ‘contributions’ no longer cover the ‘cost’ of the program, so the earned interest is needed to cover the deficit, and that deficit is growing.

In other words, the ‘interest coupons’ are being redeemed, currently at a $51 billion / year average (2017-2021), and that will rise “steeply” into 2034.

And then… trouble ahead.

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Status of The Social Security and Medicare Programs

A SUMMARY OF THE 2017 ANNUAL REPORTS

Excerpts:

Social Security

The Social Security program provides workers and their families with retirement, disability, and survivors insurance benefits. Workers earn these benefits by paying into the system during their working years. Over the program’s 82-year history, it has collected roughly $19.9 trillion and paid out $17.1 trillion, leaving asset reserves of more than $2.8 trillion at the end of 2016 in its two trust funds.

The Trustees project that the [OASDI] combined fund asset reserves at the beginning of each year will exceed that year’s projected cost through 2029. However, the funds fail the test of long-range close actuarial balance.

The Trustees project that the combined trust funds will be depleted in 2034, the same year projected in last year’s report.

Social Security’s total income is projected to exceed its total cost through 2021, as it has since 1982. The 2016 surplus of total income relative to cost was $35 billion. However, when interest income is excluded, Social Security’s cost is projected to exceed its non-interest income throughout the projection period, as it has since 2010.

The Trustees project that this annual non-interest deficit will average about $51 billion between 2017 and 2020. It will then rise steeply as income growth slows to its sustainable trend rate as the economic recovery is complete while the number of beneficiaries continues to grow at a substantially faster rate than the number of covered workers.

After 2021, interest income and redemption of trust fund asset reserves from the General Fund of the Treasury will provide the resources needed to offset Social Security’s annual deficits until 2034, when the OASDI reserves will be depleted.

Thereafter, scheduled tax income is projected to be sufficient to pay about three-quarters of scheduled benefits through the end of the projection period in 2091. The ratio of reserves to one year’s projected cost (the combined trust fund ratio) peaked in 2008, declined through 2016, and is expected to decline steadily until the trust funds are depleted in 2034.

________________________________

U.S. citizens need a powerful, proactive economic plan ‘in place’ to help insulate them from the effects of the longer-term financial inadequacies of our of our Social Security Trust Fund.

There is one Plan with the raw power to strengthen the future financial health of our citizenry.

The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America –  The Leviticus 25 Plan pdf (2643 downloads)

The banking crisis intensified in 2008 when the subprime default wave exploded across the financial landscape. Major U.S. and foreign financial institutions shifted into high gear with leveraged speculation and undercapitalized hedging strategies. They gambled and lost. And many of them ended up with gaping capital holes in their balance sheets.

The U.S. Treasury Department quickly activated its Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to recapitalize the very institutions that had precipitated the crisis with their high-stakes subprime gambling binge.  Treasury bought equity stakes in those institutions and further helped them to erase billions of dollars worth of toxic debt from their balance sheets.

Federal Reserve also ran quickly to the rescue with its “secret liquidity lifelines” (Bloomberg 8-22-11).  The Fed substantially eased some important collateral rules for banks, “meaning that banks that could once borrow only against sound collateral, like Treasury bills or AAA-rated corporate bonds, could now borrow against pretty much anything – including some of the mortgage-backed sewage that got us into this mess in the first place….  ‘All of a sudden, banks were allowed to post absolute [expletive deleted] to the Fed’s balance sheet,’ [according to] the manager of the prominent hedge fund.” (Source: Bailout Hustle, Matt Taibbi).

The Federal Reserve created various funding “facilities” to fire-hose liquidity out to the big banks and big brokerage firms:

Primary Dealers’ Credit Facility                                            

Term Securities Lending Facility                                                          

Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program                                      

Commercial Paper Funding Facility                                               

Term Auction Facility                                                              

Public Private Investment Program

As referenced previously, the top recipient: Morgan Stanley.   

“Morgan Stanley, facing a crisis of confidence after the fall of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., got a $9 billion injection from Japanese bank Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. and agreed to take a $10 billion bailout from the U.S. Treasury to shore up capital. As hedge-fund customers pulled funds out of the New York-based firm, it plugged the hole with $107.3 billion of secret loans from the Federal Reserve’s Primary Dealer Credit Facility and Term Securities Lending Facility, set up earlier in the year to supply brokerage firms with emergency financing.”

________________________________________

The Leviticus 25 Plan does not seek to ‘interrupt’ or reverse any of the special relationships that have developed in the Fed’s financial sphere.  It only seeks to level the playing field – by providing U.S. citizens the same access to direct liquidity flows that  the big banks enjoyed ‘in their time of need.’

The Leviticus 25 Plan proposes one additional upgrade to the Fed’s liquidity lines:  U.S. Citizens Credit Facility.

U.S. citizens should demand nothing less. The time is now.

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 –  $75,000 per U.S. citizen

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2613)

Some high-ranking economists, along with some elite-class political heavyweights, are carbon tax true believers (WSJ – Jenkins, 11-15-17).  The list includes the likes of Kevin Haslet, Greg Mankiw, James A Baker, Henry Paulson, George P. Shultz, Martin Feldstein, Mitt Romney.

The narrative goes like this: “The virtues of a carbon tax are not in dispute.  It’s a way to raise money that doesn’t weigh on incentives to work, save and invest.”

In truth, new carbon tax government revenues would simply supply fresh new resources to feed the insatiable appetite of a spend-happy U.S. government.

It would do little, if anything, to restore fiscal sanity within the walls of Congress.  It would do nothing to set America back on course for a sustainable, financially-sound, low-debt future.

America needs less government control, not more.  We need a citizen-driven economy and free markets, not a government-centric economy with shackled markets and central planning imperatives.

A new carbon tax would increase financial stress and further impair the monthly balance sheets of millions of American families.  It would do nothing to seriously strengthen growth in real disposable household income.

It would do nothing to cast off the shackles of government control and free the U.S. marketplace for vigorous, long term economic growth and brighten the future of American families with true economic liberty.

…………………………………

Consider this critical point regarding America’s massive debt burden:  Every month hundreds of billions of dollars are obligated to servicing debt.  This massive, never-ending debt-service obligation, including household debt, credit card debt, corporate debt, and government debt, exerts a suffocating effect on economic growth.  It does nothing to enhance government tax revenue flows. In fact, various forms of debt are even tax deductible – thereby lowering potential tax revenue flows.

Household and Non-financial Corporate Debt has recently reached the $47 trillion mark.

Total Household and Non-financial Corporate Debt ($Trillions)

There is one economic acceleration plan in America with the power to get America back up on its feet again.

The Leviticus 25 Plan would eliminate massive amounts of debt across America and generate tremendous growth in government tax revenue flows (federal, state, local),  producing $1.02 trillion annual budget surpluses at the federal level for each of the next five years.

The Leviticus 25 Plan would provide massive debt elimination for millions of American families. It would relieve financial stress and restore financial health for families all across America.  The social benefits would be incalculable.

It would generate electrifying financial benefits to small businesses all across Main Street America.

The Leviticus 25 Plan would reduce the scope of government control over the daily affairs of U.S. citizens.  It would restore economic liberty for all America.

It is time to move.  There is no other plan in America. Period.

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 2018 –  $75,000 per U.S. citizen

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2576) 

“He who will not apply new remedies must expect new evils.” – Sir Francis Bacon

The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan is a dynamic health care initiative with the power to restore citizen-centered health care for America.

The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan grants a substantial initial deposit, $25,000 per family member, into a participating family’s Medical Savings Account (MSA). This robustly-funded MSA would make it possible for families to pay cash for their day-to-day, primary care healthcare needs over the course of the initial 5-year plan period.

Cash payments for day-to-day health care needs would give patients the freedom of choice in choosing their providers, taking greater ownership in their healthcare decisions, and avoiding unnecessary red tape and delays in treatment.  It would avoid penalties families might otherwise pay — for not doing things, precisely, according to government mandates.

The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan would eliminate massive amounts of administrative costs and bureaucratic overhead.  It would allow American families to tailor their spending according to their individual needs, rather than requiring costly coverage in areas that are irrelevant to their needs.

It would provide millions of Americans (those left “uncovered” by the current health law) with access to primary care – without expanding Medicaid.

Cash-paying customers would open the door for countless new efficiencies to be woven back into the system.

It would be a welcome development for nearly all providers.  Instead of turning patients away, due to unacceptable reimbursement rates, they would find ways to appropriately accommodate patients in this newly energized system.

…………………………….

Our current big government program is a massive, inefficient, bureaucracy-driven quagmire…

Columnist Holoman Jenkins, Jr., WSJ  9-25-13:

“Our point is that when Washington legislates on a grand scale, it sets in motion a game whose long-run outcome nobody can predict.  

ObamaCare, to be sure, was not reform—it was a piling on of subsidies that can only throw fuel on the fire of health-care inflation. Not even the usual mouthpieces pretend otherwise anymore.

But a society can’t give a subsidy to everybody for the same reason you can’t give a subsidy to yourself—you end up paying for your own subsidy and aren’t better off.  In fact, you are worse off thanks to the administrative overhead involved in taking money away from you and giving it back to you.      

You are also worse off because of the perverse incentives engendered by diverting yours and everyone’s health-care spending through a common pot. 

These pathologies have undermined U.S. health care for two generations, and nothing has been solved, nothing has been fixed…”

______________________________________

The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan

It is time for a new strategy – that puts citizens back in charge of their health care resources and decision-making..

_________________________________

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:

1. The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan is available to each and every U.S. citizen – with no coverage mandates. Each U.S. citizen who wishes to participate will be granted a full and complete exemption from the ACA.
2. This plan offers freedom of choice and equal justice for all. Those Americans who might wish to stay with the ACA may stay (‘If you like your ObamaCare, you can keep your ObamaCare’).
3. Each participating U.S. citizen shall receive a credit extension, through a special Federal Reserve Citizens Credit Facility, of $25,000, electronically deposited into a Medical Savings Account (MSA) – for direct allocation toward family health care needs.
4. Private insurance – Families shall be allowed to enroll in high-deductible ($10,000 – $15,000) major medical plans, to include basic, ‘no frills’ medical plans which best suit their individual needs and desires. These streamlined plans would lower premium costs for employees and employers, encouraging employers to cost-share savings with employees through incentive-based employer MSA contributions.
5. Policies would not be automatically loaded with expensive government healthcare mandates.
6. Those with extraordinary medical issues may be included in a high-risk category, with such plans being eligible for a government subsidy (similar to current Medicare Advantage).
7. Federal / state programs – Individuals enrolled in Medicare / Medicaid / VA / TRICARE / FEHB programs would maintain their covered status, with an annual deductible of $5,000 per year per enrolled family member, for a period of five years for those benefits. The dedicated MSA funds would fully fund the offset for the higher ($5,000) deductible feature for that five-year period. MSA funds could also be used to pay Medicare supplement premiums and other potential co-pay obligations.
8. Where health care services paid by patients directly with MSA funds, providers would not be bound by federal / state rules pertaining to Electronic Medical Records (EMRs), and other unnecessary administrative burdens.

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 Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2570)

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Notes:

Exemptions:                                                                                         ObamaCare currently offers hardship exemptions for individuals who have a recognizable inability to pay for a plan or pay the penalty. The ACA also currently offers exemptions from certain provisions within the health care law, such as the reinsurance provisions, for various union organizations.

And certain U.S. Territories are exempt from specific ACA measures: The Hill, 7-17-14:  “Insurance companies in Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands are no longer required to implement a number of ObamaCare measures such as the community rating system, a single-risk pool, the medical loss ratio or guaranteed benefits.”

Administrative costs – bureaucracy:               

The Federal government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars to construct the monstrous ACA ‘machine.’

Billions of dollars have been spent on the roll out costs, insurer subsidies, management, monitoring, advertising, technical ‘fixes,’

There will be hundreds of billions of dollars yet to come with legal costs/prosecution, audits, regulatory costs/burdens, and much, much more.

September 2012: “QE3 – Pay Attention If You Are in the Real Estate Market” by Catherine Austin Fitts

Excerpts:

[Note:  The Mortgage Electronic Registration System (MERS) is a private company that electronically tracks and records ownership and servicing rights of mortgages across the country.]

“The Fed is now where mortgages go to die. Thousands of mortgages on homes that do not exist or on homes that have more than one “first” mortgage are now going to the Fed to disappear. Thousands of multifamily and commercial mortgages will be bought up as well. As this happens, trillions of dollars that have been amassed offshore will be free to come back into the US to buy up and reposition land, farmland, residential and commercial real estate and other tangibles.”

With documents shredded, criminal liabilities extinguished and financial institutions made whole, funds can return without fear of seizure.

QE3 proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that the extent of the fraud was as bad as I said it was. You can count up the bailouts and QE1, QE2, QE3 the numbers speak for themselves. The fraud was indeed in the many trillions of dollars. It was intentional. It was a plan.

Now, the $64,000 question for those whose house is underwater or whose mortgage is in default is whether or not you still owe on your mortgage.  Certainly, you still do as a legal matter.  If the bank has been paid off, arguably in some cases several times, why not you? Let’s see if Fannie, Freddie and the big banks are under orders to quietly pass through a portion of their largesse to troubled homeowners in amounts sufficient to unfreeze the market. If you are in a workout situation, you need to take notice. If enough mortgage write-offs flow through, the Democrats will quickly amass a lock on the elections in November.

If you are in the market to buy a home or other real estate, you also need to pay attention – a major turn is now underway. Watch to see how much the banks pass through to homeowners and property owners to see how fast and big the turn may be. Watch to see the inflow of funds from offshore. This is not only funds returning but investors around the world looking to exchange their dollars for tangible assets to protect themselves from debasement of the dollar denominated deposits and securities they hold. Watch to see what the renegotiation of federal tax policy and the reengineering of the federal budget in response to the “fiscal cliff” do to reposition housing and real estate prices and cost of financing for an inflow looking for large accumulations.

Finally, the way the Fed has engineered the Slow Burn to date is to continually offset monetary inflation with labor deflation. It is worth contemplating how much labor deflation will be required to offset QE3 and how sufficient additional labor deflation might be engineered. Ben Bernanke was quite clever to tie QE3 to unemployment. The problem has become the solution, which is the basis for QE-Infinity.”

About the Author
Catherine Austin Fitts began her career on Wall Street and eventually rose to managing director and member of the board of the firm Dillon, Read & Co. Inc. In 1989, she was appointed Assistant Secretary of Housing – Federal Housing Commissioner in the first Bush administration. Following this appointment, Catherine became president of The Hamilton Securities Group.

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Again… “With documents shredded, criminal liabilities extinguished and financial institutions made whole, funds can return without fear of seizure…. The fraud was indeed in the many trillions of dollars. It was intentional. It was a plan.”

The Fed buried trillions of dollars in fraudulent real estate loans on its own books, and in the process ‘relieved’ major banks and insurers of massive financial liabilities and erased the trail of criminal enterprise.

It is now time to “retarget” liquidity infusions to upgrade the financial health of 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 2018 –  $75,000 per U.S. citizen

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2559)

Massive debt equals massive debt service obligations, and over the long run – U.S. citizens lose.

It is time for a new plan…

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Source: Federal Reserve, Bank For International Settlements, US Treasury

The data is very clear that we, as an economy, are massively more indebted than any point during the last recession. As a system, there is $20 trillion more of debt. To put that into perspective, if that debt had an average interest rate of just 2%, that means the economy would be paying an additional $400 billion a year just to service that debt. That is nearly 50% of last year’s total increase in gross domestic product.

As debt levels increase, it takes a greater and greater percentage of the national income to service that debt, causing the saving rate to fall and causing a lower percentage of income to be invested into long-term cash-flow-producing goods and services.

The Federal Reserve, with their zero interest rate policy for an unprecedented length of time, was the primary driver behind this massive debt increase.

[snip]

Economist Lacy Hunt estimates that over the next year, of the current $70 trillion of total debt (Federal, State & Local, Corporate, Household), around 28% or $20 trillion dollars worth will have to be repriced to current interest rates. This is a combination of short-term debt that was taken out 1-2 years ago, as well as longer-term 5-year paper that was taken out in 2013 when interest rates made a short-term low of around 0.70% on the 5-year Treasury.

Using Lacy Hunt’s estimate, $20 trillion that needs to be repriced at an average interest rate that is 80 basis points higher translates to 160 billion of additional annual interest expense.

[snip]

A $160 billion hit to an average $600 billion GDP increase equates to a 25% reduction in growth. Growth has averaged 2.1% over the past 7 years so all else equal, we are looking at growth in the next two years to drop to around 1.6% simply due to an increase in debt expense.

This does not even take into consideration the decrease in disposable personal income growth, the decrease in the savings rate, or the increased rate of monetary tightening from the Federal Reserve, which is designed to stunt inflation and growth.

____________________

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 2018 –  $75,000 per U.S. citizen

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2552)

Andrew Huszar: Confessions of a Quantitative Easer – WSJ

Andrew Huszar directed the Federal Reserve’s [QE1] $1.25 trillion agency mortgage-backed security purchase program which kicked off during March 2009.

Here are his after-thoughts…or “confessions”  (Andrew Huszar: “Confessions of a Quantitative Easer”) excerpts: 

“We went on a bond-buying spree that was supposed to help Main Street. Instead, it was a feast for Wall Street. 

I can only say: I’m sorry, America. As a former Federal Reserve official, I was responsible for executing the centerpiece program of the Fed’s first plunge into the bond-buying experiment known as quantitative easing. The central bank continues to spin QE as a tool for helping Main Street. But I’ve come to recognize the program for what it really is: the greatest backdoor Wall Street bailout of all time. 

Five years ago this month, on Black Friday, the Fed launched an unprecedented shopping spree. By that point in the financial crisis, Congress had already passed legislation, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, to halt the U.S. banking system’s free fall. Beyond Wall Street, though, the economic pain was still soaring. In the last three months of 2008 alone, almost two million Americans would lose their jobs.

The Fed said it wanted to help—through a new program of massive bond purchases. There were secondary goals, but Chairman Ben Bernanke made clear that the Fed’s central motivation was to “affect credit conditions for households and businesses”: to drive down the cost of credit so that more Americans hurting from the tanking economy could use it to weather the downturn. For this reason, he originally called the initiative “credit easing.”

In its almost 100-year history, the Fed had never bought one mortgage bond. Now my program was buying so many each day through active, unscripted trading that we constantly risked driving bond prices too high and crashing global confidence in key financial markets. We were working feverishly to preserve the impression that the Fed knew what it was doing. 

It wasn’t long before my old doubts resurfaced. Despite the Fed’s rhetoric, my program wasn’t helping to make credit any more accessible for the average American. The banks were only issuing fewer and fewer loans. More insidiously, whatever credit they were extending wasn’t getting much cheaper. QE may have been driving down the wholesale cost for banks to make loans, but Wall Street was pocketing most of the extra cash.

Trading for the first round of QE ended on March 31, 2010. The final results confirmed that, while there had been only trivial relief for Main Street, the U.S. central bank’s bond purchases had been an absolute coup for Wall Street. The banks hadn’t just benefited from the lower cost of making loans. They’d also enjoyed huge capital gains on the rising values of their securities holdings and fat commissions from brokering most of the Fed’s QE transactions. Wall Street had experienced its most profitable year ever in 2009, and 2010 was starting off in much the same way.

That was when I realized the Fed had lost any remaining ability to think independently from Wall Street. Demoralized, I returned to the private sector.

Where are we today? The Fed keeps buying roughly $85 billion in bonds a month, chronically delaying so much as a minor QE taper. Over five years, its bond purchases have come to more than $4 trillion. Amazingly, in a supposedly free-market nation, QE has become the largest financial-markets intervention by any government in world history. 

And the impact? Even by the Fed’s sunniest calculations, aggressive QE over five years has generated only a few percentage points of U.S. growth. By contrast, experts outside the Fed, such as Mohammed El Erian at the Pimco investment firm, suggest that the Fed may have created and spent over $4 trillion for a total return of as little as 0.25% of GDP (i.e., a mere $40 billion bump in U.S. economic output). Both of those estimates indicate that QE isn’t really working.

Having racked up hundreds of billions of dollars in opaque Fed subsidies, U.S. banks have seen their collective stock price triple since March 2009. The biggest ones have only become more of a cartel: 0.2% of them now control more than 70% of the U.S. bank assets.”

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The Leviticus 25 Plan levels the playing field by granting direct liquidity extensions to U.S. citizens for massive debt elimination at ground level.

This would provide dynamic economic stimulus for Main Street America.  And it would restore economic liberty across the land.

America, it is time for a change.  It is time for a bold, new economic plan. 

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 –  $75,000 per U.S. citizen

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2543)

WSJ: ObamaCare’s Tax on the Poor

By The Editorial Board – Sept. 22, 2017

Democrats claim to have a monopoly on caring for the poor and suffering, and this week the left is portraying a GOP health-care bill as an attack on society’s vulnerable. So check out the data on how ObamaCare is a tax on some low-income families.

IRS data offers insight into who paid the law’s individual mandate penalty in 2015 for not buying health insurance, the latest year for which figures are available. Spoiler alert: The payers aren’t Warren Buffett or any of the other wealthy folks Democrats say they want to tax. More than one in three of taxed households earned less than $25,000, which is roughly the federal poverty line for a family of four.

More than 75% of penalized households made less than $50,000 and nine in 10 earned less than $75,000. Fewer families paid the tax in 2015 than in 2014, yet government revenues increased to more than $3 billion from about $1.7 billion, as the financial punishment for lacking coverage increased.

These Americans are paying a fine to avoid purchasing a product they don’t want or can’t afford but government compels them to buy. Such individuals don’t suddenly have access to less expensive or higher quality medical care, but they do have less money for household expenses, which can consume a high share of income for this class of families.

The unfortunate irony is that ObamaCare destroyed the private market that offered options that in some cases made sense for these people. For example: High-deductible, limited coverage for unexpected events.

Then again, the point of this coercion was to substitute the government’s political preferences for individual judgment, while forcing the young and healthy to pay more to finance the mandated benefits that Democrats think everyone must have….

______________________________

It is time to set things back in order…

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:

1. The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan is available to each and every U.S. citizen – with no coverage mandates. Each U.S. citizen who wishes to participate will be granted a full and complete exemption from the ACA.
2. This plan offers freedom of choice and equal justice for all. Those Americans who might wish to stay with the ACA may stay (‘If you like your ObamaCare, you can keep your ObamaCare’).
3. Each participating U.S. citizen shall receive a credit extension, through a special Federal Reserve Citizens Credit Facility, of $25,000, electronically deposited into a Medical Savings Account (MSA) – for direct allocation toward family health care needs.
4. Private insurance – Families shall be allowed to enroll in high-deductible ($10,000 – $15,000) major medical plans, to include basic, ‘no frills’ medical plans which best suit their individual needs and desires. These streamlined plans would lower premium costs for employees and employers, encouraging employers to cost-share savings with employees through incentive-based employer MSA contributions.
5. Policies would not be automatically loaded with expensive government healthcare mandates.
6. Those with extraordinary medical issues may be included in a high-risk category, with such plans being eligible for a government subsidy (similar to current Medicare Advantage).
7. Federal / state programs – Individuals enrolled in Medicare / Medicaid / VA / TRICARE / FEHB programs would maintain their covered status, with an annual deductible of $5,000 per year per enrolled family member, for a period of five years for those benefits. The dedicated MSA funds would fully fund the offset for the higher ($5,000) deductible feature for that five-year period. MSA funds could also be used to pay Medicare supplement premiums and other potential co-pay obligations.
8. Where health care services paid by patients directly with MSA funds, providers would not be bound by federal / state rules pertaining to Electronic Medical Records (EMRs), and other unnecessary administrative burdens.

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 Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2543)