There is a lot going on in the world: Obama and Russiagate findings, Middle East powder keg, the Russian/Ukrainian war, etc. But through all this, the American political class continues to constantly deliver its own special brand of insanity, stupidity, wasteful taxpayer spending, and ineffective government programs.
1)We have often discussed the race to bankruptcy court that a number of states (California, New Jersey, New York, Illinois) and cities (New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco) are currently competing in. These cities and states have been run by politicians that have caused mass migration of residents and businesses out of these states and cities because of a number of common problems:
High crime rates.
High taxes.
High energy costs.
High homelessness rates.
Failing public schools.
Crumbling infrastructure.
As residents and businesses leave these locales, the tax base shrinks which causes their politicians to raise tax rates and burdens to make up for the shrinking tax base which drives more residents and businesses out of the cities and states which further reduces the tax base and eventually the city or state goes bankrupt.
Over time, the best candidates to make it to bankruptcy court first changes as events unfold. And it looks like California continues to have a strong position:
From the most recent government unemployment statistics we see that California has the worst unemployment position of all 50 states.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper, the California unemployment climbed up to 5.5% in July.
The most populous state in the country was only able to add 15,000 jobs in July.
The state’s unemployment rate is about 28% higher than the national average which came out as 4.2%.
Given that we have already discussed the reality that companies like Tesla, Toyota, Schwab, Bed, Bath, and Beyond etc. and many others have already moved operations and jobs to other states, it should not be a surprise that the unemployment rate in California is higher and possibly trending higher. This could be a good leading indicator that California may be the leader in the race to bankruptcy. And yet, the state politicians' apparently have no clue how to lose this race. The unemployment numbers do not lie.
The only good news for California is that other states heading to bankruptcy are not doing that great either:
New Jersey’s current unemployment rate is 4.9%, making it the 44th worst rate.
Illinois’s current unemployment rate is 4.6%, making it the 40th worst rate.
Only New York is in decent unemployment shape, ranking 28th with an unemployment rate of 4.0%.
Thus, the race to bankruptcy court is still too close to call.
2)Staying with likely state and city government bankruptcies, a recently released analysis from the database, “Vote With Your Feet,” analyzed the migration patterns of citizens from state to state and what each state is losing, or gaining, from a wealth perspective, wealth that feeds the tax coffers of local and state governments.
The analysis is based on IRS data from 2012 to 2022 which not only tracked residents moving in and out of states but also what the IRS calls aggregated gross income (AGI) that moved with these moving citizens. And not surprisingly, as we pointed out above and other times, four states stand out as losing their tax base, which makes it easier for them to win the race to bankruptcy court:
New York was the top, and unfortunate, loser of citizen AGI over the decade, with net migration of citizens resulting in New York’s economy losing over $111 billion in AGI.
California was also a big loser, losing $102 billion in AGI during the decade.
Illinois lost $63 billion and New Jersey lost $31 billion.
Thus, the four states that we predict will lead the fight into bankruptcy, New York, California, Illinois, and New Jersey combined to lose over $300 billion in AGI according to the analysis.
This is $300 billion that cannot be taxed, cannot contribute to the growth in the economy and reduces the job creation capability of these states.
Not surprising, between New York and California, these two states saw their tax base shrink by 3.4 million residents.
And these states are the ones with heavy taxation burdens, heavy business regulation burden, high crime rates, high homelessness problems, and other issues that have heaped convince residents to seek out better quality of life for their families, a life that has less taxation, less regulation, lower crime rates, and lower homelessness situations.
Florida and Texas, states with better quality of life measures including lower taxation, were the big AGI winners.
Florida gained a whopping $198 billion in AGI and 1.6 new residents over the decade and Texas gained $54 billion in AGI.
Thus, we still stand by our assertion that four states, Illinois, New York, California, and New Jersey are the top candidates to bankrupt their state government in the relatively near future as they continue to hemorrhage residents, businesses, and taxable wealth.
3)Over the years we have covered so many instances where government officials and politicians flat out lied about an issue or topic. A good summary of one politician’s lies, Joe Biden, was summarized in the following post:
https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2023/01/38-times-that-joe-biden-blatantly-lied.html
But he is not close to being the only one. Recent big lies that the government put forth were connected to the covid epidemic. Government folks and politicians told us that the virus occurred naturally (it likely did not), wearing a mask would prevent the spreading of the disease (it likely did not), if you got the vaccine for covid you would not get the disease (certainly not true) and other lies that we will not review now.
James O’Keefe is an undercover journalist that gets important people to give up their truths and these truths are videotaped and made public. One of his latest captures was when a high level scientist on the Johnson and Johnson vaccine team candidly and honestly admitted that the covid vaccine his company put out was probably useless and the long term health effects were unknown.
Thus, those actually working on the vaccine knew their work was bogus but it was making their drug company rich with taxpayer funding. At the same time, politicians were lying and telling us that the vaccine would be a life saver and prevent you from getting the virus. Given the vaccines in real life did not work, I gotta believe the Johnson and Johnson researcher was telling the truth and the politicians and government officials were again lying.
The distressing reality of their lies can be seen at the following:
Enough insanity for today: the government lied again and the race to bankruptcy court continues unabated.
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If you agree that we need to deseat every member of Congress for their lack of success and accomplishment, then please consider going to the following petition link to help the cause:
https://www.change.org/p/deseat-congress-reset-freedom
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