{"id":57,"date":"2009-02-08T17:58:39","date_gmt":"2009-02-08T23:58:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfo.markbaileyco.com\/?p=57"},"modified":"2009-02-08T17:58:39","modified_gmt":"2009-02-08T23:58:39","slug":"uncle-sam-needs-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.excelsisaccounting.com\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/02\/08\/uncle-sam-needs-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Uncle Sam Needs You!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-117\" title=\"Uncle Sam Needs You\" src=\"http:\/\/cfo.markbaileyco.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/unclesam-218x300.jpg\" alt=\"Uncle Sam Needs You\" width=\"153\" height=\"210\" \/>In 1966, the finger pointed directly at you from the fierce visage of a red white and blue top hatted bearded Uncle Sam on the recruiting poster.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t look away in good conscience then and it is no less difficult now.\u00a0 In an article posted on CFO.com titled <strong>Walker Makes Plea to CFO\u2019s<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cfo.com\/article.cfm\/12448209\/c_12447541\">http:\/\/www.cfo.com\/article.cfm\/12448209\/c_12447541<\/a> David Walker the former U.S. comptroller general asks CFO\u2019s to help bail the country out of its\u2019 current economic crisis and a $50 trillion deficit.\u00a0 While, as with most of you, I\u2019d be the first in line to offer my services, it won\u2019t happen.\u00a0 The first responsibility of every politician is to get re-elected.\u00a0 Correspondingly as long as we have a system that allows for \u2018pork\u2019 trailers in legitimate bills, legislators unwilling to make the unpopular decision and lacking the intestinal fortitude to enforce a balanced budget, I\u2019m not sure there is much we can do as advisors.\u00a0 Because they just won\u2019t listen!<\/p>\n<p>The government bureaucratic system is not predicated on economic motivation from &#8216;self interest&#8217; and individual benefit and correspondingly can&#8217;t be successful as a participant in a capitalistic economy. As Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, summarized in <strong>The Wealth of Nations<\/strong> &#8211; &#8220;I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good&#8221;.\u00a0 If you haven&#8217;t read <strong>Free to Choose <\/strong>by Milton and Rose Friedman this would be a good time.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a great example found on the internet last week:<!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Back in 1990, the Government seized the Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada for tax evasion and, as required by law, tried to run it. They failed and it closed. Now we are trusting the economy of our country to a pack of nit-wits who couldn&#8217;t make money running a whore house and selling booze?<\/p>\n<p>The solution doesn\u2019t seem to be particularly difficult to outline, but how do we start the ball rolling?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1966, the finger pointed directly at you from the fierce visage of a red white and blue top hatted bearded Uncle Sam on the recruiting poster.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t look away in good conscience then and it is no less difficult now.\u00a0 In an article posted on CFO.com titled Walker Makes Plea to CFO\u2019s http:\/\/www.cfo.com\/article.cfm\/12448209\/c_12447541 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.excelsisaccounting.com\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/02\/08\/uncle-sam-needs-you\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Uncle Sam Needs You!&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,37],"tags":[34,35,36,38,39,40,41,42],"class_list":["post-57","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accounting","category-decomplexifying-accounting","tag-capitalistic-economy","tag-comptroller-general","tag-david-walker","tag-father-of-modern-economics","tag-mustang-ranch-brothel","tag-rose-friedman","tag-tax-evasion","tag-uncle-sam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.excelsisaccounting.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.excelsisaccounting.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.excelsisaccounting.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.excelsisaccounting.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.excelsisaccounting.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.excelsisaccounting.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.excelsisaccounting.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.excelsisaccounting.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.excelsisaccounting.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}