All the kings horses and all the kings men are going to be needed.

My opinion on this issue is that America is too far gone, and we need to break into geographical nations to form real cultures to fix anything. But let’s do some hypotheticals.

So you want to fix America to make it livable and make democracy work without having a proper nation. You are going to need to address some key issues in the economy, culture, and social structure to fix this nation. I realize boomers and morons who made their economic stances their religion will object to most of this, so if this is you, please just go read someone else’s posts.

The Economy

This, of course, is the biggest issue in our nation. We have both unrealistic expectations and a populace who have been forced into basically slavery, chasing the third world down the toilet.

All sides of this argument are wrong and right at the same time. The suburbanite dwelling management class that thinks that men should not be doing back-breaking labor is completely wrong. The men who think all men should work with their hands and put in 90 hours a week are completely wrong. The people who think that college is the only answer are completely wrong, and the men who think that freedom is the answer are completely wrong. The people who think immigration is the solution should be shot out of a cannon into the sun.

The problem ultimately comes down to economists and our religious teachings that all men are created equal and that labor is immune from the laws of supply and demand.

Labor is like any other commodity; it just cares about how much it costs.

An economy can really be broken down into 4 main parts. The government, labor, producers, and geography. All economies have a government, whether it is a tribal chieftain or the bloated monster that is the United States Federal Government.

About 20 million people work for the government in the US. This does not include military contractors and private-sector NGOs that are completely reliant upon it.

You need government; all you libertarians and anarchists need to grow up. This Ayn Rand, Mises, Friedman, bs needs to die a horrible death. Government settles contracts, provides military protection, builds roads, infrastructure, water, and electricity, manages currency, and provides rules for international and intra-federal trade; these are necessities. I don’t know about you, but I like having my sewage not get dumped in the street.

Labor is self-explanatory; it is just the people who do the work.

Producers are the corporations, including everyone from farmers and restaurant owners to giant meat packers and tech firms. This also covers the mining companies, factories, large trucking firms, and all entities that are corporate fiction. It does not include individual workers who are 1099; they are part of the more fluid labor force.

The geography is something liberals wish didn’t exist. They dislike the fact that they cannot alter the amount of iron ore in a certain area. Your geography is a fixed reality. It encompasses the land, water supply, mountains, rivers, resources, and terrain.

The government protects and controls the geography. Producers borrow currency created by the government to hire labor for plowing the land, mining, transporting resources, and processing them. The workers use the currency they earn from the producers to pay taxes and buy goods produced by the producers. The producers then use the currency to repay loans and either make a profit and consume or reinvest in new ventures.

This is the basic structure for all economies around the world.

Let’s look at a simple example of how this works.

An island is discovered with no people. A group of 20 humans shows up. Each of these men has a certain skill set. They need to quickly figure out food, water, and shelter. The men organize and scour the island for resources. Water is found, fish are discovered, and trees are abundant. Among these men, two are skilled fishermen, two are skilled builders, two are good crafters, and two are good fire makers. The other 12 men have few skills but are able to walk and communicate. The 8 skilled men utilize the other 12 to carry water, cut trees for housing and fire, and craft buckets and basic tools. One man from the fishing group gets into a fight with a lumberjack, and the lumberjack harms the fisherman. The fishermen, angered by their friend’s injury, try to exact revenge. A member of the crafters, seeing thier food and wood sources threatened, steps in and negotiates a settlement in which the lumberjack puts in labor hours towards building a fisherman a hut to sleep in. A problem arises where the lumberjack doesn’t actually know how to build a hut, and so it is decided he will instead pay with leaves and bark used to make rope, clothing, and toiletries, and money is born.

Money is used to pay unskilled and skilled men to build things and do tasks. This money is abundant and not static.

One day, when pulling a log out, a shiny rock is found. It is brought to the leader of these men, and he asks if there is more. A search goes on, and more of this shiny rock is found, and it is decided that this will be used as money from now on.

The rocks are used to pay for men to perform other tasks and build structures for the common good. Another tribe is discovered, and trade is established based on this shiny rock.

Animals and crops are brought by members of the tribe, and land is granted for farming. The farmers produce regular food, and their food is not shared but purchased by other members. The farmer needs workers to help produce food, and they need to be paid while animals and crops grow. The farmer borrows money to pay the workers and repays the loans once the crops and animals are ready for harvest.

This farming allows for excess population. This excess population engages in activities that are not just necessary for survival but also for creative endeavors and city-building.

These creative endeavors lead to technological improvements, enabling this tribe to conquer other islands and lands.

The government swells. The population has been growing, so it borrows money based on future generations paying taxes.

The original farmers who grew the food are being outcompeted by pillaged farms elsewhere, and the farmers stop farming and move to the city.

Factories are erected to build ships and machines of war. Buildings are built to house government structures. The population, once engaged in agriculture, now needs food and welfare structures to be put in place.

Slaves are used to do basic tasks, and the labor is outcompeted. The men who used to do labor to earn money are left in a position where they are unreliable, and women stop having children. The government can no longer support itself and pay its loans back or pay its soldiers.

A new tribe comes and conquers the land.

This was the history of every people ever.

I know that was a lot, but a lot needed to be broken down.

How does this apply to us? Well, currently our economy is at a point in the process where we have made men unstable, and women are no longer having children.

If you want to fix America, you need to fix this process.

First off, slaves. We like to pretend we don’t have slaves in our economy, but the truth is a large swath of our economy is based on slavery. We can start overseas, where the food and goods we consume are produced. The vast majority of the raw materials for our tech are based in third-world countries where the populace is actual slaves or very close to it. The food, like cocoa, bananas, coffee, tea, and most fruit, is either picked or packaged by workers who, if they were here, would be slaves. I understand food only grows in certain places; papaya, coffee, and bananas cannot be grown in the US. We should be paying the price for what it would cost here to grow. It is a zero-sum game when it comes to things like food because you can only eat so many calories. If you are consuming bananas, then you are not consuming watermelon, which is grown here, and the farmers and their fruit are part of supply and demand economics, just like anything else.

Things like cobalt and lithium, which do not exist in our geography, are a different economic story, but ultimately, allowing our companies to use local slaves or buy from local companies that do so is still driving down the cost of global labor. This also drives unsustainable economic growth. The growth from, say, China having hordes of cheap labor is now over, which is causing the world to panic. We became reliant on trade from an unsustainable source. The China swap, which made goods cheaper while stripping out the industrial heartland, has now been shown to be extremely detrimental.

Let’s also discuss our use of slaves in our actual economy. Meatpackers, car manufacturers, and many other companies have been shipping in children from across Central America to work in their businesses.

See the 8-year-old in that picture, all suited up in a factory in the Midwest? Yeah, that’s neither morally good nor economically good.

This must end. That’s step 1: the immigrants must go. If they won’t go willingly, then violence must be used. We must become reliant upon ourselves and grow and suffer together. The basic premise is that the balance between producers and labor must be achieved.

Second, the cost of living has to go down. This has to be done in multiple ways. Public transport, housing, energy costs, and taxes.

Public transport is a basic thing. People are driving and holding onto their cars longer than ever before. This is partly because quality has improved, but ultimately because, to find cheaper housing in safer areas, people have to live farther from where they work.

I know you are screaming, cars have not gotten better. Son, I grew up in the 90s. A 1989 Cutlass Ciera would be lucky to see 150k miles. I know Honda, Toyota, blah blah. They should never have been let into the country, as far as I am concerned. I am a car guy, I bleed gasoline, trust me, the quality of vehicles has improved regardless of what the recall reports say. You just didn’t have access to information back then. A 2002 Ford Explorer had a 40% of transmission failure in the first 100k miles. I replaced 4 heads on my old caravan in a year, one time. My current caravan is a 06 and runs like a champ at 200k+ miles, oil changes, and basic maintenance. I don’t drive it anymore because of rust, but that’s due to our new chemical snow-melting program.

Wages either have to go up or the cost of living has to come down. Saving people money by putting in public transport is a basic structure that can save $5k to $6k a year in car payments and insurance.

Housing needs to get cheaper, no matter what. There is no way that the cost of houses should be this high. I agree with my boy Alistair on this one. BlackRock needs to be liquidated, and corporate landlords need to be eliminated. I will add that property taxes need to go away. The local and state governments have been using property taxes to cover for pension hole they created. Adjusters and inspectors have been overvaluing homes by as much as 500% nationwide. This is why prices have skyrocketed so much. People have been using these fake values to withdraw money to survive in retirement, locking out younger generations.

The property tax also incentivises local communities to restrict use for things like growing food or children’s toys, or even playing games outside (looking at you, Highspire, PA).

Let’s talk energy costs. Electricity is produced in America by either natural gas or coal.

This chart shows that natural gas and coal make up about 2/3 of the mix. Green energy is regional. Solar doesn’t work in the North, and damming up every river is horrible for the environment. I get the call for nuclear power. I really do, but I have lived near TMI my whole life and have seen the water needed to run the system, and it is immense. I am a river rat. I spend my entire summer on the river and feel a way about the dams and environmental destruction.

Here’s the thing: these giant companies like Amazon or OpenAI need to pay for their electricity. The drain on local grids creates excess demand, driving up energy prices. If these companies want to operate, they need to subsidize electricity for the places where they want to put the server farms. You cannot drain out all the water resources and then drive up the cost of energy for everyone else.

Taxes. Oh, we all hate taxes. Ok, so let’s talk about regressive vs progressive taxes. Regressive taxes disproportionately affect lower earners, while progressive taxes allow lower-wage people to pay less. This is always brought up when we speak about a national sales tax. I think we need to eliminate payroll taxes. I am an independent contractor. So are 70 million other Americans. The payroll tax for guys like me, who aren’t high earners, is insane. I can write off everything and game the system, but it requires so much bookkeeping and nonsense, and it’s basically lying and cheating. This immoral, corrupt incentive structure needs to end. The structure of our taxes keeps wages excessively high for no other reason than to eliminate dollars out of circulation and infuse the elderly with the blood of the young. This burden is no longer viable. I get it, promises were made, and everyone was told they were paying into a fund that would support them later in life. The Supreme Court has ruled that it is not your property, so that should disabuse you of that idea. We need to institute a 25% sales tax on all purchases other than food and adopt a basic structure based on earnings that allows some to be tax-free, and maybe provide a basic income. No more filing income taxes for the majority of people.

This, combined with a focus on local food production, which will keep more people in the local community growing food for themselves and others, which reduces grocery budgets and tightens the labor market, while instilling a culture and transaction between men and women, should repair the system to the point where we all don’t want to go and hang the leadership.

Hope y’all enjoy, and hope you all had a good weekend.