What’s In It For Me?—Don’t Have What You Don’t Want
Part 1 of 6
 

Dad sits at the dinner table quietly studying one of the piles of papers stacked neatly before him. He has a problem, the kind of problem one likes to have: Should he accept an $84,000 per year job with a major electrical components manufacturer or take the $102,000 offered by one of the world’s largest automobile producers? Company-paid benefits boost the smaller salary by over 12 percent and the job would be permanent, or at least as lasting as any in an unsettled world. The other offer is a one-year contract with options for renewal. Both jobs require immediate relocation, expenses paid. 

For an interview with the electrical manufacturer he flew to a Midwestern city and spent two days touring the facilities and the city, talking to his prospective new boss and getting the best physical examination he had taken in many years. It was an unusual interview in that there were almost no technical discussions about his capabilities or exactly what he might be expected to do for the company. 

Tactful conversations with a woman from personnel, who claimed no official job title, probed his private life, family statistics, religious preference and hobbies. She took him on a tour of the city pointing out the ‘acceptable’ places to live, the church his family would attend, shopping areas, and the Riverside Bowling Lanes located not far from the plant. 

His prospective boss showed him the office he would occupy, introduced him to the staff and escorted him on a walking tour of the plant. The route seemed illogical until he realized that at every stop he was being introduced to a captain of one of the company’s many bowling teams. At lunch in the company cafeteria he noticed a variety of sports trophies prominently displayed and the friendly, cooperative nature of everyone he met, all one big happy family. On receiving a job offer in the mail a week later he realized that he had been approved for adoption into the tribe.
 

The other interview was by telephone and, in its own way, just as strange. Steve’s firm voice on the other end of the line described himself as a ‘head hunter’ with an employment agency, contracted to find people with particular skills. Dad was quizzed for almost two hours about his experience at Wright Aircraft, about designing special tooling to mass-produce parts from exotic alloys, carbon fibers, glass and ceramics. This prospective employer evidently could not have cared less about who he was, but only wanted to find out what he knew and what he could do. Employment would be provisional; do the job and he could stay. 

Steve turned out to be a likeable guy. Once the inquisition was finished, he patiently answered all Dad’s questions. The job was not the immediate manufacture of automobiles but designing and building a plant to make electric powered cars. 

These were not redesigned standard cars, the gasoline engine replaced with an electric motor and the frame overloaded from the weight of batteries squeezed into every nook and cranny. They were a radical new hybrid design—batteries for short runs in town and a generator powered by a new constant-speed ceramic engine for road trips—virtually pollution free. 

Using the batteries and generator simultaneously, the car climbed a 6 percent grade at 65 miles per hour. Going downhill, its electric motor acts as a second generator and in parallel with the first generator driven by the constant-speed engine replaces some of the battery’s charge. On level terrain the engine/generator/motor combination pushes the car along at a respectable 70 miles per hour while its excess power partially recharges the batteries. Lower speeds recharge the batteries faster. Parked, the generator can take the batteries from dead to full charge in about an hour. A 240-volt outlet would do the same job in your garage in 30 minutes and do it cheaper. 

According to Steve, the car contained no new technology, at least nothing that had to be invented from scratch to make it work. The problem was not building the cars but in the tremendous cost of constructing a plant to manufacture them. Just the money budgeted for tooling would support a small country for several years. NESARA made the project feasible. 

This was Dad’s dream job. Were it not for having a family to support, he would have taken the job at minimum wage. Only his need for security caused him to hesitate and seriously consider other offers. But the more he thought about it, the more he concluded that security was an illusion. 

His ‘secure’ job at Wright Aircraft deserted him; he never left the company. In an Alice in Wonderland world, reality seldom matched appearance—profitable companies continually downsizing, highly educated and experienced people like himself, working harder and earning less. Yielding to fate, he reorganized his life and accepted work in his brother’s hardware store. Then, just as he learned to like the job, NESARA turned the nation upside down. 

Some cried voodoo economics, complaining that the plan was another government mistake. “If so,” Dad argued, “they finally made one in my favor.” 

An increasing daily sales volume at the hardware store marked the bill’s progress through Congress. Customers, wary of an abrupt 14 percent increase in sales tax, rushed in to make purchases. Expensive snow-blowers sold better than snow shovels. When stock ran out Dad refilled the display space with lawn and garden equipment from the warehouse. It sold with two feet of new snow on the ground.
 

Congress passed the bill in the early hours of a Sunday morning after a marathon session. The President signed it late that evening during a televised news conference, congratulating Congress on a superb bipartisan effort and proclaiming the beginning of a new era of economic prosperity. 

After discounting for political exaggeration, prosperity still seemed too strong a word to Dad. He pictured NESARA as some government-granted relief from government-induced aggravation. Those most enthusiastic about the cavalry rushing to the rescue were prone to forget who started the trouble. 

Sales were slower than slow at the hardware store Monday. Resetting the cash registers by adding a 14 percent national sales tax to the 7 percent combined state and local sales tax produced some significant numbers. A $10 purchase now carried a $2.10 sales tax burden. The totals always provoked comment but surprisingly little of it was bitter. Initially, public mood centered on resignation—one endured what could not be avoided or changed. 

Public attitude improved during the week along with sales volume. By Saturday afternoon the situation seemed near normal. Things improved for Dad as he picked up his weekly paycheck. He smiled at the total, noticing that the $69.86 deducted as income taxes had been added back in the miscellaneous column. Actually seeing the check finally made it real for him. 

Losing his job at Wright Aircraft, an employment package worth more than $40 per hour counting benefits, had been difficult for Dad, if not exactly unexpected. Everyone knew the company was experiencing financial problems. During the previous four years salaries were frozen. His ego, damaged in the fall to a $10.90 per hour job with no benefits, partially recovered with the sudden increase on his check. On the way home he chuckled to himself, amused by the amount of pleasure one got simply by receiving the money he earned. 

Mom noticed and commented on Dad’s contagious good mood at dinner that evening. “I don’t think it’s my fried chicken,” she said. 

“Why not?” asked Dad. “Fried chicken, potato salad and your baked beans are some of my favorites.” He smiled as Sissy and Junior paused, looking at him along with Mom. Nobody was buying it. “Well, my paycheck was larger because of no more income tax withholding. That might account for some of it.” 

“If that makes you happy,” replied Mom, “you will be ecstatic at the end of the month when our house note is eliminated.” 

“I’ll believe that $800 when I can count it, just like the money on my check,” said Dad. 

“It won’t be $800,” Mom warned, “because that total includes taxes and insurance which we still have to pay every month. Should be something over $600 though.” 

“How can the bank just cancel our house note?” Junior asked between bites. “Doesn’t the money have to be paid by somebody?” 

“Now you’ve done it,” said Sissy. “Mom is working for a tax attorney and you ask a technical question. We are going to get a lecture and a pop quiz with dessert. Since I don’t have my notebook with me, you will have to help me with the answers.” 

“I am not that bad!” Mom laughed. “Besides, the answer is easy. Money is just like my recipe for baked beans.” 

Junior stopped eating, watching Mom with a puzzled look on his face. “Your recipe for baked beans?” 

“Sure,” Mom said smiling. “No matter how many times I give that recipe away I never run out. The banks do the same thing with money, creating and issuing it as credit. But problems occur when they create excessive amounts so laws regulate its total volume. Congress just changed the law—the old one did not work very well—and in the process erased some public and private debt. Banks will now cross some assets and liabilities off their books in equal amounts, and pay themselves for their efforts with new money the law allows them to create for that purpose.
 

“Almost everybody ends better than they started. Banks will operate more efficiently and with far less risk. The cost of some bank services, like checking accounts, will increase. The cost of short-term loans remains about the same. Long-term loans for things like homes are much cheaper. A 30-year loan under the old system is paid off in about half that time with the new law. Since the new law applies retroactively to our home loan and we have been paying on it for over 17 years, it’s paid off.” 

“Does everyone get their home loans paid off?” Sissy asked. 

“No,” Mom answered. “Many people recently refinanced their homes, taking advantage of lower rates. The new rules apply to them, the same as everybody else, but the time starts with the new contract. If you obtained a 30-year loan two months ago, you continue to pay the same monthly amount but only for about half the time, not for 30 years.” 

“Do we get money back for overpayment?” Junior asked. “I mean, suppose someone had been paying for 29 years; would the bank send them the extra money?” 

“I am afraid it doesn’t work that way,” Mom said. “Nobody gets worse than they bargained for, although some will do better than others.” 

“How about old variable rate mortgages?” Dad asked. 

“Works the same way, only better,” Mom replied. “As rates go up, monthly notes increase but the total time required to pay off the loan drops. Because principal must be paid first, the total cost can be much less. The usual problem with an increasing variable rate loan is getting the money each month to pay a higher note. But under this new system an increase from 7 percent to 14 percent on a 15-year loan increases the monthly note by less than $1.50 per $1,000.” 

Junior still looked puzzled. “You said almost everyone ends up better off. Some don’t?” 

Mom smiled and said, “My boss for one. Our office followed the legislation all the way through Congress. The new law is very simple compared to the old version. Under this new system there won’t be much need for tax attorneys after next year.—Or for their secretaries,” she added in a lower tone of voice, glancing at Dad, her smile fading. 

Sissy exclaimed, “That’s how you know so much about the new law!” Looking from Dad to Junior and back at Dad she grinned and said, “You see, you two just don’t know beans about high finance!” 

“Obviously,” Dad thought, “but ignorance is usually a curable condition; I can fix that.”