Where Are We Going, Where Have We Been?

Over the past few weeks, my life has turned upside down. Prior to the election, I thought of myself as a typical, repressed businessman, an outlaw guilty of capitalistic thoughts in a going-socialistic western world. At times I would break into night sweats, concerned about the potential problems coming my way via another government induced love-letter: notice of another income tax audit, another fake lawsuit from an employee looking to game our intentionally complex rules, or word of a new fee pushed by a special interest hiding under the guise of justice. It was always something.
Like millions of others, I too found myself fed up with the system, deprived of the enthusiasm necessary to expand my rental real estate business. In the eyes of the elites, we businessmen are perpetrators who should be punished appropriately for our success – success which our “devoted” leaders believe to have come at the expense of the working class. Nothing could be further from the truth. Rather, it is the “success” of our political leaders through their dysfunctional government policies that has impoverished labor. And what do our elitist political leaders do when their policies fail abysmally? They demand even more power – more taxation, more regulation, and more ‘fairness.’ Why break precedence? What a crock!
Yet one unforeseen election result on a Tuesday in November suddenly delivered hope – hope that tax rates will roll back meaningfully for the first time in more than a decade, hope that the monstrous machine of socialism will be slowed or perhaps even blown-up (just kill the beast!), hope that medical reform will actually include true market reform rather than mere giveaways both to the large drug companies and free-loaders with little skin in the game, and hope that one day my young children will enjoy the same opportunity that this great country offered me at a young age through a system that much more resembled capitalism. A least temporarily, my night sweats have now subsided and have been replaced with a newfound sense of optimism. No doubt there are others who are dissatisfied with the election results, but where have they been for the past thirty years while our government has perpetually expanded, destroying nearly every aspect of our lives by meddling in housing, healthcare, and education?

This post was published at FinancialSense on 01/20/2017.