In the People’s Republic of Hodesistan (PRH) unemployment always hovers around 9-10%. That’s the new normal. And it has to be. No matter how many bail outs and prop ups and incentives Mr. Hodes conceives to redistribute your earnings, there is never enough of other peoples money. As the tax dollar pool from which his false growth shrinks, the ability to prop up markets or industries becomes more difficult. Sure, there are government jobs, but even those are limited by the abuse of natural resources (other peoples incomes) required to support them. When the money runs out and no one is getting paid, you get national strikes and shutdowns sometimes violence and riots. Not exactly a path to the shining city on a hill. More like a burning hovel in a flooded ditch.
Debt is a huge problem in the PRH. Without any incentive (other than corruption and patronage) to take risk because of heavy taxation on what is left of the upper class, and shackled with the tremendous bureaucratic burden created by the uncontrolled tumor of government, the number of wealth creators diminishes, forcing Mr Hodes to widen the tax base until he is taxing everyone often. No one wants to invest there unless they are connected to someone in government who can make it worth their while. This keeps unemployment high and prosperity at a minimum. And there is only so much there to tax. As the gap between the political class of wealthy connected or privileged grows the middle class is diminished to an upper-lower class living at the cusp between subsistence and squalor. Everyone else is on a diminishing government subsidy (which must also be taxed), and can only supplement their income through acts of thuggery or thievery.
The declining cultural significance of living under the yoke of such "leadership" is demoralizing. Pursuits of pleasure are few, and given the economic situation limited to sex and drugs which exacerbates the health burden on the government subsidized medical programs. Fatherless children are in the majority as their unemployed mothers pursue what little pleasure is left in the world. Bearing more children from new yet similar (and likely abusive) fathers makes them very briefly feel needed or wanted, but they are ill prepared for that responsibility. The government–which is more than willing to play the role of parent and has taught generations to trust it with their children–gets what it paid for; single parents that not abandon their children to the state, or expect it to do the job they are themselves no longer capable of, leaving successive generations to a morally rudderless secular socialist system incapable of teaching even basic skills to the next generation. It is a farm incapable of growing anything but welfare recipients.
In Hodesistan you are not allowed to defend yourself, so only criminals–of which there are always a growing number–have all the weapons. What little you do have is tenuous as any number of thugs may feel inclined to deprive you of it at their convenience, (simply to better their own intractable nanny-state existence) so property rights no longer exist in a way necessary to a growing and healthy democracy. Not that you really care. Years of over-regulation into every aspect of your life has made you numb to the notion of personal rights of any kind. The state manages your body, where you work, how you get there, what you can earn, and how much of that you can keep. Choices are limited by regulation, and what you can buy is taxed further. Quality is unimportant as your possessions have no real value–you could be denied them at any time by the government or some thug–neither being much discernable from the other.
All in all, the only thing you have to look forward to is someone else’s misery being greater than your own, a dimishing state pension, and perhaps an early death to relieve the pathetic existence the state permits you. But not to worry. In Hodesistan, the state sanctions suicide. And since most of its citizens are more of a burden than a benefit–though the state will never admit its complicity in that result–they are more than happy to get you off the dole if you can find and convince a disinterested government paid doctor to write you the proper prescription.
And don’t begin to think you can object to any of this. The only speech permitted is that sanctioned by the state which controls the money, the media, how candidates get their money, and diminshies objectors as racists, hate mongers. liars, and anti government agitators guitly of treason.
This is what it is like to live in Hodesistan. Enjoy your stay.
Cross posted at NH Insider
