"Bernanke's difficulty for America, as he terms it, can only be addressed by either growing the economy through real free-market capitalism or growing the police state at home in order to protect the politicians, institutions and elites responsible for the "difficulty."

Bernancke is quite correct. However, I do not believe that easy access to IPO markets and less bureaucratic interference with small business will do much for economic growth at this point.

Any small intrepreneur knows that the "legal tender" Federal Reserve Note currency is ruined. There is great reluctance is to invest at all at this stage, because the returns on any investment made at this time are much to uncertain. Yet, the overall economy cannot survive without a healthy small business sector.

If there was "free market" capitalism, it would mean the federal government would be much less involved in small business affairs. The federal government my try to lure investments by making IPOs easier, but it wants the tax return from small business which are paid with actual productivity.

Therefore, I believe the federal government will not get out of the way of small business until the overall economy deteriorates so much that the bullets are actually flying.

It is sad, but that is the caliber of the vast number of federal politicians we have elected. The JOBS legislation, while trying to accomplish all the rights things, is too little, too late.

"The fact is over the last decade in America there has been an 80% drop in small companies going public. They seek to remedy this situation."

Why? Because the governments are so altruistic and loving of the American people?

No, of course not. It's because there are not enough businesses for the governments to invest in anymore in America. They need more IPOs to put all their CAFR money into.

They couldn't possibly put "their" "hard-earned" investment revenue in the tax expenditure kitty. Good grief no!

The parasite is looking for more hosts.

The parasite has become so big now, that if it continues on its present path of anti-competitive regulation and taxation (anti-competitive to the governments' rival business interests), the people will only be employed by the government or on welfare, buying goods made by government-owned corporations operating abroad.

Is that the ultimate plan? I'm not so sure. I think they still need a healthy host to feed on, one which is becoming increasing decrepit by the day.

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I would have thought that the fact that is requires an Act, of Congress, shows that the government is not loosening its grip, but tightening it.

It might create an IPO boom but that's the plan, another BOOM!

"The parasite is looking for more hosts."

That is exactly right. When a culture and a society deteriorates to the point where its government, which is supposed to guard against the free exercise of basic human instinct to plunder (merely take) to survive, instead does everything by policy and law to justify this basic human instinct, it is time that people put bars on their windows.

Bollocks... ... ..I'm a Deer Hunter, Hollow Point Ammunition is not Illegal to own or use in the US... ..

"When a culture and a society deteriorates to the point where its government, which is supposed to guard against the free exercise of basic human instinct to plunder (merely take) to survive"

Are you a biologist Ingo, you have studied animal behaviour? I dispute your claim "instinct to plunder". Leaving that aside, why should the government be the one to guard against this supposed basic human instinct? Why shouldn't I, as an owner of firearms, including one that is capable of putting a bullet between your eyes from in excess of 200 metres, be able to guard myself?

It would certainly put a dent in anybody's instinct to plunder.

While I agree with 95% of what the author suggests, I might take exception to the below quote:

"Third, another major benefit will positively impact less wealthy potential investors in private company start-ups and IPOs formerly generally restricted to high-net-worth Accredited Investors."

I'm not trying to be a 'parent' to small investors, but given the exodus of the 'little people' from equities into bonds during the past few years, I can't help but wonder what they will have left in their portfolios within a few years. Why?

Unless I am sadly mistaken, fiat money always produces inflation. Inflation always produces higher interest rates. Higher interest rates always produce lower prices for existing bonds.

Now, I'm not contending that 'lower net worth' investors should be precluded from investing in IPO's; but, rather that 'crowd-funds', without an extensive self and appropriate education into IPO's will result in 'unintended consequences'.

One example should suffice. While in the audience during a "401k Presentation" by my wife's employer . . . a hospital . . . I was shocked to realize how many of the (educated) nurses didn't even know what the essence of a mutual fund is.

I thank you in advance for listening.

"instinct to plunder". Would be more correctly described as "natural instinct to conservation of energy". For survival, every organism has a natural tendency to conserve energy. All energy has to be replaced and waste makes an organism less competitive.
50% of the cost of the average item is for financing. 19% for trash collection and 78% for public housing. Making America more competitive is impossible without lowering this cost.
It's a losing game anyhow. GB is getting ready to devalue the Pound. Everybody is in a race to the bottom. They all want to devalue their currency so that they can be competitive with the lowest cost producer. Since they impoverish their workers with higher-prices and lower-wages, they can never get ahead.
Everyone is working for survival wages and discretionary spending is gone.

The world is saturated with efficiency and there is no escape. The problem was papered-over with credit but, that is all coming to an end. Here are a couple of good articles on the subject.
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As we get more efficient, there is a natural deflation in costs. Lord Keynes demands an ever-increasing money supply. We race towards the bottom on consumptive power. GOV tries to make up the difference by increasing it's consumption.

The lumpenconsumer has less and less earning and buying power at the same time that he is being loaded with more and more public debt. All of this is done to honor the promise to lord Keynes. The Machines do more and more of the productivity. They produce no wages to tax. Western wages were stagnant,,, now falling. Global aggregate earning is slipping to the lowest level of the lowest-wage market.

The money supply skyrockets to keep the necessary expansion alive. The money expansion tries to counteract the natural deflation caused by efficiency increases.
It's a case of artificial forces trying to fight natural forces. ALL the graphs show things coming to an apex.
Inflation is an absolute necessity for a Keynesian system. Natural deflation and a falling birth-rate make this an impossibility.

Labor-participation rates are going down. The currency supply and bond load are going up. NO amount of domestic productivity can counteract the drain of the welfare-warfare state. GOV creates paper money because it is unable to create wealth.

Mr. Holland, I certainly hope you're right, but I doubt it.

I believe (and, of course this is just my opinion), the US Government has just about reached critical mass. That is, I think the government has just about made it to the point, where it may just be impossible to get it back under control and stop the wild borrowing. Even if, by some miracle, we manage to get someone with the common sense of a Ron Paul in the white house and voters start electing representatives and senators, who will actually do the right thing, the national debt is so large, once interest rates begin to rise, the interest alone will increase as much or more than any savings from cutting the size of government.

Besides, we all know it's the bankers, who control it all. Their obvious goal is to destroy the dollar and create the single world currency and a one world government. If the voters begin to "turn" things in the right direction, the bankers will certainly cause interest rates to increase. They are not about to just give up and go away. Of course, the government could simply abrogate the debt and eliminate the Fed, but it would require creating enough new money to at least pay off the debt that's owned outside of the Fed.

What I'm saying is, the bankers will make certain there is not enough money available to derail their plans. Even if there isn't a real conspiracy at hand, the bankers of Wall Street and London City will act only in their own self interest and they don't see that helping anyone else will help them.

The bankers have successfully stolen nearly all the wealth of the average American. Everything they are doing now, is designed to steal the wealth of the first level of wealth creators. The JOBS act makes it less difficult to get a new business to critical mass. But, the new taxing moves (i.e., The Buffet Rule) are specifically designed to take away that wealth as fast as it's created.

Actually, when you have something like the Fed, that fixes the price of "money", it's actually the higher interest rates, controlled by the Fed, that cause the inflation. And, more to the point, that is the plan... to have lots of inflation. They are counting on inflation, at some point, to lower the actual cost of repaying the debt. It's kind of stupid, but that's their plan. It's no secret. Cause inflation and, they hope, incomes will rise, resulting in more taxes, that can be used to pay the debt, borrowed in money that had a higher value. Problem is, even if it works, they won't use the extra tax revenue to pay the debt. They'll just spend it and the bankers will eventually foreclose on everything.

My cynicism may be revealed when I conclude that either your evaluation is incorrect or the administration is not as competent in pursuit of its goals as is generally thought.

Before anyone gets too enthusiastic about the JOBS bill as a good thing, please read this article from a former financial regulator:
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L: "... the Fed, that cause the inflation. And, more to the point, that is the plan... to have lots of inflation."

B: The Fed interest rate set at 1/8% is high... ???

The problem is not inflastion, the problem is asset deflation. Inflation shows up only in consumer items.

Low interest rates are a scourge to capital heavy industry. It increases their liqudation values.

Capital is deflating while labor costs are inflating (99 month of unemployment payments).

Sure, blame the bankers. Don't get me wrong, they are a big part of the problem.

The bankers buy federal politicians with campaign contributions. The politicians use the money to produce campaign propaganda to bamboozle you to vote for them. When your elected "representatives" get to Washington, their banker friends are there to remind them to vote debt. It's the debt which the Fed sells in secondary markets.

When it is all said and done, you will have voted for the politician who voted debt, paying interest, sold through the Fed. The debt and the compounded interest is paid off by you, the voters through income taxes or inflation.

The banks get to circulate the proceeds from the Fed sale of the debt. In turn, the banks pass along campaign contributions to federal politicians who were and are eager to vote more debt.

These Congress people use the money again to produce the propaganda for the reelection campaign, and the dumb voters promptly reelect their "representatives" (the U.S. Senators are the main culprits in this game).

As to the voters, they just keep voting and screwing themselves over and over again.

There is no difference in the way the game is played by these federal politicians, whether they be Democrats or Republicans. It never seems to dawn on the dumb voters how they actually authorize federal politicians to plunder their wealth and steal their hard work. For waht... ??? So that banks can stay in business, and federal politians can get reelected... ???

The scheme I just described was brought in with the Banking Act of 1935, but nobody is willing to point it out. All I hear is this stupid talk about the Fed being a private corporation, and the bankers being responsible for everything. Yes, they supply campaign money, because they want to saty in business, but that the system they were handed in 1935. (Not that they didn't lobby for, though). Wake up, people... .you are the problem.

Hosea 4:6 "My people are doomed for lack of knowledge"

Mr. Bischoff, when I refer to the bankers, I am not referring to the local bank president. I refer to the likes of those controlling the Fed. And, for the record, I very much agree with you, it is the foolish voters, who have for decades now voted us (and themselves) into bondage.

However, I do disagree with you on the interest thing. Although interest rates are near zero now, in my opinion, that is just a way to get tons more fiat money out there. When interest rates begin to rise, I think those dollars will come rushing back to the US by the ship load and that will cause prices to rise, dramatically. It will be like the 70's on steroids, in my opinion. It seems to me there are so many US dollars out there now, the correction that will bring them home will happen, whether the Fed does it or it happens as a part of natural market movements. Although, to consider that anything "natural" has a chance of happening at this point is likely ridiculous!

Laceja,

Thanks for your reply. The local bank president of a small independent bank is generally not part of the Fed system. Small local banks use the clearing system of the Fed to clear checks, but they are not bound by most Fed requirements.

The big banks such as Chase, Citi, Wells, B of A, etc. and all their branch offices are the Fed dependent banks. They are the ones who make campaign contributions to get U.S. Senators elected. These Senators have a guaranteed term of six years, thanks to the 17th Amendment. This makes them an especially good investment.

However, voters will finally catch on. Take Utah, where voters threw out U.S. Sentor Bennett, and are now poised to get rid of Senator Hatch. The hews and cries emitted from those entrenched old politicians reveals how the system works. Big campaign contributions from the banks are just not as effective anymore to propagandize the voters. There are Face book and Twitter social media which can inexpensively counter the conventional propaganda designed to bamboozle voters.

As to the interest thing, you have to understand that in a central banking system such as the 1935 Fed, the FOMC has to set the "prime" interest rate.
Under the gold standard, the "prime " interest rate is set by the individual savers in a free market.

The Fed FOMC has had to lower the interest rates over decades, starting in the mid-1970s from 16% to reach 1/8% today. Why... ??? To save the banks.

Every 50% reduction in the Fed interest rate, such as from 10% to 5%, or from 1/4% to 1/8% effectively doubles the value of the assets on the books of the banks. IOW, individuals cannot buy out of their mortgage without a hefty penalty, nor can businesses pay off their loans ahead of time without incurring a heavy prepayment penalty. That's why the Fed interest rate is very low.

However, this has nothing to do with inflation. Until 2008, the Fred banks could only obtain additional credit authorization from their associate Fed Agent, if they deposited like amounts of T-Bills with the agent. Since TARP, and subsequently QE1, QE2, etc. this restriction has gone out the window, and we are now in full mode of "printing money from nothing" as the DB would say.

How did we get there... .why the need for TARP, QE1, QE2... , etc... .???

The Congress votes debt and since 1935, its own central bank, the 1935 FED them markets this debt with interest payments in secondary markets. That's how the FRNs get into the Fed banking system.

However, back to the Congress. The interest that is due a year later is debt that becomes part of other budget deficits and again is monetized. The Fed takes this debt paying interest and sells it again. What happens is that the interest is compounded. Over several decades, the interest expense becomes larger that the original debt. At that point, you can no longer sell debt paying interest, because the overall debt cannot be reduced. The interest will always add more debt than you can payoff.

When you can no longer sell debt for Chinese or German or anybody else's productivity, and your own electorate will throw you out of office, if you want to tax them to keep the banking system going, what choice do you have... ??? You've already tried everything, such as interest rate swap derivatives, mortgage backed securities, along with hundreds of other derivative variations, and it finally started to fall apart in 2007 with it's climax in 2008. Nobody is fooled anymore. What do you do... ???

The only thing left was to monetize all bank mortgages and credit card debt which was not being serviced, and use it to print FRNs against it. When the TARP money was gone inside a three month period, it was time for QEs... ..

The inflation come through the QEs. You see it when you buy domestic consumer goods. However, as refards capital investments, nobody in his right mind will plunk down FRNs of a certain value today, for value which will be much less within a year.

The reason why the USD/FRN still has value is, because of its status as the world reserve currency. It has that status, because the Saudis quote oil exclusively in USD/FRNs. Once they start quoting oil in any other currency, the USD/FRN is toast.

That is why I propose that the states demand to get rid of the 1982 legal tender protection for the FRN, and that they charter banks to create RBD currency under the gold standard. That gives people, who are invested in the FRN, a chance to cash out for RBD currency. I am convinced that it will work.

The federal government can turn the FRN into a Bill Credit and go back to the Treasury Department "U.S. Greenback" which can compete with the RBD currency.

Then it's time to get rid of the 16th Amendment. Federal employee can be paid with Greenbacks. People will vote daily to accept those Greenbacks on par with RBD currency, as long as they approve of how the the federal government is run.

RBD currency and the gold standard is the power which people ought to wrest back form the federal government. It would put federal politicians back in their place.

Then it's time to get rid of the 17th Amendment, so that what happend in 1935 with the Banking Act won't ever happen again. Then the country is "free" again. Wouldn't that be nice... .??? Well, we all can dream, can't we... ???

"Our tax rate and regulatory burden is a drain on American economic growth, competitiveness and job creation. "

yup

"the federal government gobbles up 25% of the entire Gross Domestic Product. And GDP includes government spending. Take it out, and the feds spend one-third of all production. The true cost of government, however, is even higher than that, because state and local government spending, which is huge, is excluded from the chart."

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So Fed GOV grabs 1/3 of GDP. State and local grabs more on top of that.

50% of the cost of anything is for finance. That is a 100% markup on American products. GOV is trying to trash the currency to make us more "competitive".
Pretty funny, GOV wants us to be more competitive but they just keep adding the the burden of parasites.

"in the United States today, government now employs nearly twice as many people (22.5 million) as work in all of manufacturing (11.5 million)."

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The younger generation evidently doesn't see this as a problem. This is from students in an economics class.

"Out of 180 students participating, only about 10% wanted the government to leave them alone and not tax them too much, but a whopping 80% wanted the government to provide pretty much the whole dream thing wrapped in a tidy bow - including free college tuition and health care, jobs, even the down payment on their future homes, money for retirement and hard cash, taken in the form of taxes from rich people."

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We've lost about 9 million jobs. About 165,000 join the labor force every month.

The kids are going to be sorely disappointed.

to see why the 'small businesses' have been strangled the past few years, one only need look at the u s supreme court rulings the past 4 years-time after time they place roadblocks in the lttle guys path. the last clear indicator was the patent law ruling. the multi-national corps. rule!

This seems like the right thread for this link.
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