Fucking The Fed Right Back

One would have to be pretty much obscenely rich not to have felt the effects of the economy since it crashed in late 2007.
One would also have to be deaf dumb and blind not to see that the crooked banksters and their financial institutions have been putting people all over the world into the poorhouse.

To add insult to injury, even though they have been exposed repeatedly in their thievery, not a single one of the motherfuckers has done one hour of jail time. They simply electronically transfer a portion of their illegal gains into another account with some government agencies name on it and go right back to their thievery like nothing happened.

The unemployment rate here and abroad has been tenaciously stubborn in coming below 8% in this country and is at 25% in Spain as I type this.

Yet contrary to every economic indicator dictating that the economy should be drowning in the toilet, personal consumption in this country is at or above pre recession levels.

How can that possibly be, you ask?

The Underground Economy.

Measuring an unreported economy is obviously tricky. But look closely and you can see the traces of a booming informal economy everywhere. As Feige said to me, “The best footprint left in the sand by this economy that doesn’t want to be observed is the use of cash.” His studies show that, while economists talk about the advent of a cashless society, Americans still hold an enormous amount of cold, hard cash—as much as seven hundred and fifty billion dollars. The percentage of Americans who don’t use banks is surprisingly high, and on the rise. Off-the-books activity also helps explain a mystery about the current economy: even though the percentage of Americans officially working has dropped dramatically, and even though household income is still well below what it was in 2007, personal consumption is higher than it was before the recession, and retail sales have been growing briskly (despite a dip in March). Bernard Baumohl, an economist at the Economic Outlook Group, estimates that, based on historical patterns, current retail sales are actually what you’d expect if the unemployment rate were around five or six per cent, rather than the 7.6 per cent we’re stuck with. The difference, he argues, probably reflects workers migrating into the shadow economy. “It’s typical that during recessions people work on the side while collecting unemployment,” Baumohl told me. “But the severity of the recession and the profound weakness of this recovery may mean that a lot more people have entered the underground economy, and have had to stay there longer.”

I am certainly no stranger to the workings of this unofficial economy and I personally know someone who supported not only himself but his family for years without ever having a “job”.

I’m talking nice house with a mortgage and nice cars in the driveway.

His wife worked for the county and made good money but he always had something going on and made decent money himself.

Without ever paying one red cent in taxes.

It helps if you have a skill set that is in popular demand.

Craigslist is one of the great enablers of this recordless cash flow as is Ebay.

Word of mouth cannot be emphasised enough if you have skills and services that people want.
I know this for a fact.

For many years, I was a certified automotive technician with a steady job at a medium sized dealership that sold and serviced upper end vehicles for one of the Big Three.

After work and on weekends I would take on vehicle repairs for friends and family occasionally.

Well”occasionally” turned into damn near a full time job by itsself.
I would charge less than half of what most shops were charging, have the customer pay up front for the parts and then use my discount to get them cheaper than list price and pocket the difference for my time and effort for that part.

By word of mouth, I got so busy, after working my full time job at the dealership, that one time after work I stopped in at the tavern kitty corner from my house to have a beer and there was seven people lined up wanting me to either look at their car or make an appointment.

It took me forty five minutes to look at a bunch of cars and talk to folks before I had a chance to even take a sip of beer.

I seriously considered starting my own business and probably should have because I could have retired by now.

It basically got to the point I was spending more money at one certain parts place near where I worked “officially”, that I spent more there in one month on parts than the actual dealer did!

Eventually it just got out of hand. I was so overworked that it was killing me and I had no free time.

So I quit doing side jobs, even for relatives. I was flat burned out.

This is just one example of how the underground economy can flourish.

People collecting unemployment often work under the table to supplement their income.

The same thing for retireees on Social Security.

This has gone on since money and taxes were invented.

Candlemakers, brewers, plumbers, seamstresses,chicken farmers, you name it.
If you have a skill that can be traded you can make money and take the governments hand right the hell out of your ass pocket doing it.

Right this minute there is a TWO TRILLION dollar a year underground economy in this country.

I suggest you take a serious look at just how you can participate in it and send a big Fuck You to the thieving sonsabitches robbing the planet blind while doing it.

at April 28, 2013