As IF Times

Who doesn’t despise politicians? It’s a profession as ancient as the “oldest” one and the similarities are quite striking. They both claim to make your life better; they tell you things you want to hear; but in reality, they both cost you money and in many cases, you’re actually worse off.  In reality, the true purpose of both of their jobs is to get you to use them again.

Nothing has changed much in our lifetime except that the compensation for being in the political racket has vastly outpaced the compensation from the more pedestrian ‘oldest’ profession. In fact the ability to enrich themselves is quite a remarkable skill since politicians are able to parlay somewhat nominal salaries into improbable fortunes during their terms.  They all seem to have miraculous money management skills; at least personally.

In practice, politicians come and go, at least in so-called democracies. The premise is that if the citizens are not amused with the activities of the incumbents, they get tossed out at the next election; provided of course that they actually hold an election.

If only it were that simple.  What politicians leave behind, even as they leave the active theater of politics are often an enormous legacy of bureaucrats that continue to operate without controls.  People who populate bureaucracies are fully aware that once a trajectory has been initiated on a program, then it becomes almost impossible to stop, even with changing political faces.

Bureaucracies have become effectively a fifth column. While ostensibly created to facilitate the wishes of politicians, with time, they become their own arm of influence, not accountable to the electorate.  This reality was brought into stark focus recently with the revelations of the expenditures of USAID, an organization created to “spread American goodwill”. There’s more than enough discussion of disclosures involving their expenditures over the decades in previous articles and elsewhere, so no need to enumerate them here.

Bureaucracies are a social and economic malaise that infects all nations of course.  In the possibly future 51^st state of Canada, the growth of public sector employees between 2019 and 2023 grew by 13 percent; 3.6 times the growth in the private sector. These kinds of bureaucracies serve to make life difficult for those having to deal with them.  Think the motor vehicle licensing station on a super scale.

But the activities of another more dangerous bureaucracy has revealed itself recently and that is the European Union.  Some may be aware that originally this body was formed to look after the economic interests of the nations within the European Union.  The main purpose was to ensure economic activities passed smoothly between nations and to create internal rules for such.  How big need this body be?  Each nation sends a few reps and you get some accountants to work the numbers.  That would seem logical.  But in a recent interview with Viktor Orban, the president of Hungary, he revealed that the EU bureaucracy now numbers over 30,000 employees.  So for each of the 27 nations represented in the EU, that amounts to over 1100 bureaucrats per nation. As an aside, the number of employees estimated at another world bureaucracy, the UN, numbers over 133,000.

Well you may say, it’s Europe, they love their bureaucracies, their holidays and their social systems, so it’s no big deal.  Of course, we can accept that, since they can spend their money as they wish.

Of more sinister issue is that the EU have expanded their area of influence to dictating policies to their member states that have nothing to do with trade, or that  involves non-members such as Ukraine.  Suddenly, the unelected bureaucrats are now directing political and military policies as well. Thus, rather than permitting member nations to retain their own identity, they are all being forced to comply with edicts issued by the unelected tyrannical bureaucrats effectively removing nations’ constituents from decision making.  This was starkly demonstrated recently when they decided to suspend Hungary’s voting privileges for reasons of ‘solidarity’; ironically supposedly fighting for European democracy.  They have confused themselves with NATO.

Suddenly, an organization that was formed to police agricultural and marketing policies internally are now mandating military expenditures to fight the imminent existential threat of Russia! The EU, a trade organization, has been allowed to morph into a political entity not beholden to the wishes of their own member nations.

As we’ve observed here in the US, the taking back of power and influence from entrenched bureaucracy will not be easy. The structures took generations to build and they cannot be dismantled without severe pushback from entrenched interests. We’ve seen the image of Musk wielding a chainsaw to this monstrosity in the US to the horror of bureaucratic beneficiaries.  It would appear that a bit of horror is needed at the EU.

link: Trump driving migrant debate among GOP field – The Washington Post

Donald Trump continues to dominate the news headlines with his populist rants about what ails the nation.  As noted in earlier pieces, the fact that these numerous festering issues have been brought forward for public discussion is a refreshing change from the PC sensibilities of both political parties and the media in general.

Until Trump, public figures were unable to speak candidly about numerous social and economic topics for fear of negative media characterization.  It’s as if someone had imposed an omerta edict, banning honest discussions on key social issues that could be spoken of in polite company.  Immigration, unemployment and the general fecklessness of the  sitting administration and congress are issues which affect most every citizen. Many likely feel that the America they’ve known is disappearing because of problems created by ill conceived policies.  Until Trump, no one had the cojones to talk about solutions for them in blunt unvarnished terms.  Indeed, at this point in the election process, the combatants appear to be less Republicans vs Democrats and more of the people vs Washington elites.  Trump’s great feat is that he’s able to discern that people hate all politicians,  tapping into that antipathy to become the de-facto spokesman for the silent majority.  Imagine that, Trump speaking for the common man!

Many of his proposed solutions resonate with the average guy since they seem to have some basis of common sense.  Building a wall to protect the southern border may have populist appeal, but we’re not sure if he can do that without hiring low cost Mexican workers.  Union labor rates would cripple the project.  On that note, one of Trump’s other populist notions is to bring back jobs from China.  Hmm…not sure he’s thought this one through.

Over the past few generations, the manufacture and fabrication of virtually all consumer goods has been ceded to China.  Why? Because workers there are cheap, plain and simple.  The result is that the west has grown accustomed to cheap clothes, cheap electronics, cheap iPhones, cheap furniture, even cheap rocks.  So now, that’s Americans’ favorite price point, cheap. But now, let’s say we could mandate that companies use only domestic labor for manufacturing.  That means that the price of everything skyrockets.  Wal Mart would go bust.  So would Costco.  No more buying one suit, getting 3 free at Joseph.A.Banks.

What Trump likely knows and is not revealing is that the real way to rebuild wealth in the west is not to bring back low wage jobs. How much can you pay someone to  put the caps on toothpaste? It’s only by dismantling the obstacles and regulations and taxation constraints that stymie business formation and growth that wealth creation can happen.  The villains aren’t in China or Mexico.  The guys with the twirly mustaches sit in government offices in state and federal capitols in the USA!  If Trump doesn’t make that point clear, then he is catering to populist sensibilities….like the politicians he claims to loathe.

Still, Trump is the right man at the right time. The pendulum of political correctness and progressive policies has swung so far to the left that a catalyst was needed to swing it back.  Trump is like chemo therapy for a cancer patient; strong medicine for a severe ailment.