Our government

Figures don’t lie …  so, according to our government, everything is just hunky-dory; the borders are safe, and there’s no inflation at all – it’s just that prices are rising, which show positive and great economic percentages in growth – and it has all the data to back up the claims. The fly in all this pile of government manure is that while figures don’t lie, liars can figure.

Insanity is believing that inflation is a good thing and that liars can’t figure…

It’s things like those that make people distrust government.

It seems that those employed in or working for more government, including in Paris, seem to believe in the stupidity of voters.

The City of Paris budget has increased over 7-percent during the last two fiscal years, and it has added two new assistant city managers to help give away cash (and other incentive tax dollars), while adding litter, letting the weeds grow, allowing telephone poles to injure and kill citizens, and watching too many neighborhoods continue to succumb to blight and decay . . .

The federal boys and girls report National Retail sales (NAICS 44-45) increased 3.1% from $5,402.3 billion in 2019 to $5,570.4 billion in 2020, according to estimates from the U. S. Census Bureau’s 2020 Annual Retail Trade Survey <https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/arts.html> (ARTS).

Electronic Shopping and Mail-Order Houses (NAICS 4541) <https://www.census.gov/naics/?input=4541&year=2012&details=454111>)// had $888.5 billion in sales in 2020, up 35.2% from 2019. This was the largest year-to-year increase of any industry in 2020.

Other highlights:
* Motor Vehicle and Parts Dealers’ (NAICS 441) <https://www.census.gov/naics/?input=441&year=2012&details=441>) sales decreased 2.4% from $1,237.7 billion in 2019 to  $1,208.3 billion in 2020.

* Grocery Store sales (NAICS 4451) <https://www.census.gov/naics/?input=4451&year=2012&details=4451>) increased 9.4% from $694.3 billion in 2019 to $759.7 billion in 2020.

* Gasoline Station (NAICS 447) <https://www.census.gov/naics/?input=447 &year=2012&details=447>) sales decreased sales decreased 16.6% from $513.5 billion in 2019 to $428.1 billion in 2020.

The Census Bureau has been conducting the ARTS since 1952. This survey included 16,500 employer businesses that sell directly to consumers classified in the retail trade sector in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. It does not include data for businesses in U. S. Territories. Firms without paid employees (non-employers) are included based on administrative data provided by other federal agencies and through “imputation.”

The data are published on a North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) <https://www.census.gov/naics/> basis. They are used to benchmark monthly retail sale and inventory estimates each spring used by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and other federal agencies to develop related products.

 

According to this data, national retail sales increased by 3.1%, grocery prices by 9.4%, and a decrease in auto sales (2.4%) and gas prices (16.6%).

While the report doesn’t touch it, isn’t it likely that inflation created most of the increases, not value. And consumers made market choices on just what they could afford, and that much of the online and catalog sales came from the politically-inspired Covid19 shutdown? 

As sayth the national Democrat Party and the RINO’s in it, “there is no inflation.” The Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce is just wondering, (a) what caused the prices to increase? And (b) how much neighborhood improvement could be accomplished annually by half of what the City of Paris is now paying its administrative staff?

                                          return to the Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce 

                                                                                                  

blackmail and bribery

Government habitually works on a basis of personal relationships and a system of reciprocal favors. Basically, blackmail and bribery support an orderly process, widely known “as a good thing” of compromises and consensus, “a reasonable agreement on which both sides can agree . . .” Then, they add exemptions.

Even city councils pass ordinances with no exemptions, then allow local governmental units to excel at the granting of exemptions.

Any policy, regulation or law riddled with exemptions is designed to be ignored or broken.

Its underlying purposes are (1) to reward friends or those who are in a position to do favors, and (b) to demonstrate their power to control and/or deny opportunities for those they see as incapable of doing them harm.

Exemptions are arranged in secret meetings with insiders; developers, industries and other large or inside endeavors. Each meeting is generally conducted in an alternation of blackmail and bribery. Taxpayers are stuck with the bill for each exchange . . .

Earlier this year, the Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce vented about how the weeds and wild grasses of 2021 and 2022 were still standing all over Paris, and the new crops of 2023 were doing well, despite ordinances that existed against such things, even how high they could grow . . .

We’re not happy to report that three years of crops are still standing in several places. Or, that as the crops were growing, our local city government grew an assistant city manager and a deputy city manager to help the city manager to grow more government at a compounded 3.5-percent annual clip; which in ten years adds an estimated 40-percent increase to the taxpayer’s cost for bad government.

Ask yourself: What did Paris need most, weeds cut or a larger city administration?

Now it is what it is, and excuses and misinformation and blaming “the other guy” doesn’t change the changeable process. But government, of all kinds, must have exemptions from its own rules, polices, and public utterances or the exchange of blackmail and bribery won’t work.

 

Government is fertilized by thinking that government is good.

Government claims its purpose is to make our lives better.

Government’s purpose is to grow.

Or there wouldn’t be exemptions.

The very last thing every government wants is a way for the ordinary citizens to improve their lives economically – Oh, right!

We do or once did have the Constitutional guarantee of equal economic opportunity; whereby, each of us had an opportunity to improve our lives economically. But as voters, we allowed those we elected to ignore the Constitution by telling us that only government can make our lives better.

Its the Big Lie.

So, Blackmail and bribery

The only way you can rise above poverty is by acquiring property (assets). But our national banking policy is “cash-flow loans only” – and has been since the early 1980s, when our government outlawed asset-based lending.

When the acquisition of private property (ownership of assets) is no longer available, you’re limited on how you can economically improve your life.

Crooks in big financial institutions and the national swamp, using lobbyists, paid for the exchange from a Private Enterprise System to State Capitalism, the partnership between Big Business and Big Government. One minor reason for outlawing asset-based lending was to provide a way to launder the $150-billion a day cash-flow of illegal drug money, which the government now uses as an excuse to keep tabs on individuals doing $600-and-up transactions in a bank. It also provides those in Nutland, D. C., who keep tabs of such things, a secret list of millions and millions of people, all categorized by income, location, and occupation.

We’ve allowed the con-artists, snake oil salesmen, magic bean promoters, shysters, liars and advocates of Big Government to remove equal economic opportunity from our Constitution, which also effectively removed equal treatment under the law.

Of course, that same bunch of no-goodniks removed many of the Constitution’s constructs and mandates, including the three independent branches of government; one-man, one vote: limiting central government power; each state a separate nation; borders must be protected; privacy in our homes and papers; crimes punished; etc.

They claim our Constitution (a system of lawful principles to live by), is just parchment; a piece of paper where words were written down as an experiment . . .

 

Today, self-responsibility and accountability are just words

Like the Second Amendment, principles are basically gone: Today, IF you try to defend yourself against a gang of armed thugs, you are the domestic terrorist.

We’re told:

  • to close down businesses and to wear a mask
  • you, as a parent, have no right to determine how or what you want your children taught in school
  • “equal outcomes” are more important than Equal Justice
  • support of Constitutional constructs cannot be posted on social media
  • illegals are legal
  • you MUST choose movies, music, and books and your friends based on equity, inclusion, and diversity
  • be ‘nice’ to individuals you wouldn’t go with to a dogfight or allow in your home

As they campaign for more government, totalitarians are dividing the nation, as seen in a corrupt U. S. Department of Justice carrying out blackmail and bribery, while claiming additional exemptions from principles and values.

That we’re also told to allow, just as we’re being told a lot of other things that rate high in stupidity and falsehoods.

                                                                                        return to      Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce

 

              Affordable Housing                             and                               Fish or Cut Bait                                   or                                   The Community’s Condition

(It doesn’t seem the first part of this has a point to it. But it does. And it doesn’t have anything [much] to do with football. The first four paragraphs are just there to lead you to the first of two points).

Arkansas 2022 offensive line commit Eli Henderson (6-4, 305 pounds) of Duncan (S.C.) Byrnes gave his pledge to the Razorbacks on Aug. 10, 2020, despite having never set foot on campus.

Henderson, who chose the Razorbacks over Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia Tech, Arizona State, Louisville, and 15-other Power 5 schools, was emotional walking into Reynolds Razorback Stadium with Arkansas coach Sam Pittman. “The Zoom and online stuff doesn’t do it justice,” Henderson said. “I have to tell you that when I first walked into the stadium with Coach Pittman by my side, I almost teared up a bit, because you don’t get the full impact until you are actually there.”

Henderson has talked plenty of his desire to play for Pittman. “He is a genuine guy in a very non-genuine profession,” Henderson said. “You don’t see that much. He is a very special guy in a very special city. Everyone there loves him and it’s not just because he is the head coach and they are not just saying it, you can see that everyone actually does love the guy.”

After he and his family spent four days in Fayetteville last week, Henderson said, “My family loved it. My mother had a ball up there. They showed her a great time . . .”

(And here is the first point of this): “We went out a couple of nights while we were there … and I talked to as many people as I could to ask them about the area and I literally heard nothing bad at all. We tried to look for a piece of trash on the ground, but we couldn’t find one. It was amazing how clean it was. It was awesome.”

In Paris, Texas, its difficult to find a piece of ground without trash on it.

 

If Fayetteville, Arkansas can do it, why can’t Paris Texas?

Fayetteville, the woo, pig, sooie! capital of Arkansas, was founded in October, 1828; Paris, once the North Star of Texas, was founded in December, 1839 – only 11-years later. 

In 1920, Fayetteville’s population was 5,362; population in Paris was 15,040.

So, where do the two cities stand today?

Fayetteville: The 1990 federal census showed population to be 42,099, an increase of 15 percent from the 1980 census. And the 2020 census reported a population of 73,580. It has been chosen as the best city in all of the SEC states to live in, and the #3 best place in the nation to live, by Forbes Magazine.

Paris:  From a 1880 United States census population of 3,980, the population of the City of Paris increased to 25,898 at the 2000 census; in 2020, however, its population had declined to 24,171.[3].  It now ranks as the 9th worst place to live in Texas by the Texas Police News, which uses the crime rates for property and violent crime for its assessment. According to their statistics, you stand a one in 17 chance of becoming a violent crime victim in Paris.

 

NOW, don’t shoot the messenger.

The Paris Texas Chamber is just reporting existing information and data. We don’t like the bed we find ourselves in. Either.

It’s hard to feel pride when you’re in a city known as the 9th worst place to live in a state with 254 counties, and 1,216 incorporated cities.

So, as promised: The second point being the question, what made the difference between these two towns?

There’s always a reason . . .

                                     return to  Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce