Heres the Skinny

Welcome to the March Business of Wine issue of NorthBay biz. This is a rather new cover theme for the magazine. In it, we explore some of the aspects of the wine industry that are so vital to the region’s economic strength. We hope this issue provides some insights and broadens your knowledge of the agricultural juggernaut chugging along in our midst every day. Additionally, complementing the cover theme is a special report on the ever more popular, national award winning, tourism generating, local food and dining industry. So please enjoy all the stories, special features and columns in the North Bay’s only locally owned, glossy business publication—NorthBay biz. And finally, a reminder to vote for your favorite businesses in our 2013 “BEST OF” the North Bay Readers’ Poll. For your convenience, a ballot is included in this issue on page 14 or you can go online to vote at www.northbaybiz.com. Voting ends on March 1.
 
Wow that was close, but thanks to our far seeing, clear thinking politicians, another crisis has been avoided. You see, now that taxes have been raised on the “rich” both nationally and statewide (retroactively, thanks to Prop 30 in California) it’s all systems go. Let the spending spree continue. Fire up the entitlement train. We’re fully funded now.
 
That’s what we’re being told. By just having the “rich” pay a little more, our debt problems are solved. The “rich” didn’t really earn their wealth themselves anyway. Since they did it on the backs of the poor and only through government enablement, justice demands they pay more. “It’s only fair.” The dirty little secret, however, is the mountain of debt is so large that even if the government confiscated the entire wealth of all the “rich” in this country, it wouldn’t begin to put a significant dent in the country’s woeful financial debt.
 
Here’s how bad it is: According to a recent column by Walter E. Williams, the much publicized national debt of more than $16 trillion only hints at the truth. You see, in typical government fashion, the rules they apply to us don’t apply to them. Our business financial statements reflect current and future liabilities and, of course, we must hold reserves against future liabilities. The government finds this kind of honest, open, transparent disclosure to be an inconvenient truth that might make them look bad—make them look like they don’t have a clue about what they’re doing. A conservative estimate of the unfunded liabilities is (are you sitting down?) $87 trillion as of year end 2011.
 
Here’s the skinny: According to Williams, Washington needs to collect/confiscate $8 trillion in tax revenue annually, not to pay down the national debt, but to avoid accumulating more debt. Let’s translate what that number means by using this example: If Congress passed a law to collect the entire earnings of every taxpayer earning more than $66,000 and all corporate profits, it wouldn’t be enough to cover the $8 trillion per year growth of the country’s liabilities. Staggering, isn’t it?
 
If our complicit media was doing its job, perhaps this convenient red herring of taxing the “rich” solving all our financial problems wouldn’t be able to stand the light of day. There aren’t enough “rich” people in the world to satisfy the rapacious appetite of the government’s spending trajectory. So the politicians continue spending us into default, spinning their class warfare rhetoric while the millions of uninformed citizens happily dance to their tune. Yep, raise taxes on everyone, except me, and everything will be just fine.
 
Through time, creative people have dreamt of inventing a perpetual motion machine—a logical improbability. I believe the progressive politicians who currently rule Washington and Sacramento think they’ve stumbled upon this long-sought-after breakthrough. Here’s how it goes: Start with the presumption that government can spend money without any limit. Then partially finance the spending by taxing the job creators and printing more money that the government then borrows. Next, use this money to increase the spread of entitlements creating an ever-expanding, government-dependent class of people. This growing dependent class delivers votes reliably, guaranteeing the progressive ruling class is reelected. As job creation falls, it fuels a steady stream of new recruits eager to climb aboard the entitlement train and, voila, you’ve invented perpetual motion.
 
There’s a flaw to this masterful plan, however. As the ruling class basks in the afterglow of its election victories and moves forward and continues to overreach, confident in its supposed mandate, the results of failed policy will finally be exposed. As the economy continues to falter, perhaps even falling back into another recession, and jobs fail to be created and with no one left to blame in the administration’s second term, Americans will wake to the reality that the cupboard is bare.
 
To be fair, this administration is living up to its promise of five years ago to fundamentally transform this country. It’s worked very hard to implement its vision of an expanded welfare state, class, gender and racial warfare to divide the country into special interest groups that can be inflamed and then pandered to, major tax hikes, government-controlled health care, mountains of debt, regulations to control every aspect of life, joblessness as a lifestyle, curtailment of energy resources and decreased world influence as America takes its place as just another nation instead of maintaining its presence as a global leader. (The administration’s transforming vision of America is indeed large and this list is woefully incomplete.)
 
As we go forward, it will become increasingly difficult to defend the results of these policies to even the uninformed. Let’s hope it’s soon.
 
That’s it for now. Enjoy this month’s magazine.

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