Galt

I recently read yet another Social Democrat attempting to excuse the President of any responsibility with regard to our debt. The rationale being that he inherited it. While it is true that those who came before have all done their part to create it, it is more than a little disingenuous to give the guy such a ridiculous pass.

Yes Bush is, was and forever shall be an idiot, and yes he did usher in a new age of even bigger and more intrusive government, while setting new records for pissing our money away. This does not however have anything more to do with excusing Obama's failures than it would be appropriate to blame Bush's excesses on his predecessors. While both are true, neither is accurate.

I have also read elsewhere in this forum where the recent CBO deficit estimate was thought a good thing because it showed an undeniable trend downward. This of course is meaningless since it was an estimate being compared to actual past numbers that had all been adjusted up from THEIR original estimates.

The real problem of course is a national debt that could not be dented even if we were to steal 100% of all of the wealth held by America's richest 1%. The size and growth of the debt is such that even with all of the wealth of America's top 5% we couldn't have an impact. This does not mean that our tax code is not an abyss of special interest pay-offs and loop holes for the well connected, it should ALL go. A subset to this problem is that our rulers keep taking pages out of the same failed play book. You wouldn't know it to look at the mess in Europe, or if you attended classes at Harvard, but there is a significant amount of divergent thought from Mr. Keynes's "General Theory ..."

Obama Gives Keynes His First Real-World Test : NPR

Mr. Keynes was an elitist who believed that the world should be run by a small group of people who thought like him, were educated at the same schools as him, and had nothing at all to do with the common man of the street. Sound familiar? He also came of age at the start of our century of war, which by no mere chance coincided with the ascendency of the world's central banks.

http://mises.org/etexts/keynestheman.pdf

One of Keynes contemporaries, F.A. Hayek, wrote a book titled "The Road to Serfdom" which offers a competing philosophy. The greatest of the many differences between the two is that the former has been shown to utterly and consistently fail wherever it is tried. This basic element of nonsense has never been resolved as far as the Left is concerned, and they dutifully persist in perusing a path that has repeatedly proven itself to lead to economic failure. There are no, not one, not any examples where this has worked, so we are left staring into the blackness of illogical diatribe and emotional hyperbole, trying to figure out why they insist on doing it. It simply does not and has never worked... ever.

http://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/RAE7_1_1.pdf

Is it some strange hubris where they believe that they can prove Einstein's observations on insanity incorrect? Perhaps it is the incremental manipulations of Fabian socialists, biding their time and plodding along as determined as the tortoise that is their logo. Either way, it is more than a little disturbing to see so many, who understand so little, becoming so emotional and even more polarized in their thinking. What if it is simply the REAL rulers encouraging an inexorable move toward a collapse that they have plotted and planned for? What if they are simply sitting back and selectively moving key pieces about, awaiting the point of total chaotic collapse, whereupon they can step in and offer their unified theory of a New World Order, complete with a single valueless currency that they and they alone issue and control?

The Fabian Society
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The History Of The Fabian Society, by Edward R. Pease.

I would suggest that everyone who cares about such things actually take the time to read and study the back grounds and history of all of this so that they might decide for themselves, from a better informed foundation. The number of zealots that still call upon Fox or Huffington as authorities is quite alarming at the least. Even people who realize that they are serving up an agenda will acknowledge it... and then insist on quoting them as gospel anyway. It's insane. Do yourself a favor and read what people like Mr. Obama have read and were taught. The narrowness of perspective is fucking scary.

Another suggestion would be to assume that what you were given in school was maybe half truth at best, and build from there, particularly with regard to history. How can you form an intelligent opinion about the Middle East for example, if you don't know their history. I'm not speaking of what you rabbi or teachers told you, I'm talking about the real history. Listening to the variety of farce offered by the politicians and talking heads on the vidiot box, it's no wonder that there are so many ill informed.

Here are a few questions regarding the Middle East ,whose answers I seriously doubt anybody was taught in an American public school. I might also add that there are more than a handful of folks around here that despise theists, while from the other side of their mouth look upon Israel as being a God given State in fulfillment of some Old Testament fairytale. Very curious dichotomy to say the least.

- What were the REAL causes of World War One. The Arch Duke's assassination was a flashpoint, but not the whole story by a long shot.

- How did the Treaty of Versaille set the table for WWII, not just in Germany, but in Italy, the Middle East and Far East as well?

- What is a Jew, what is a Semite, and where did all of the people who call themselves Jews really come from?

- What is the justification for Israel dispossessing the native Arabs.

- What is the history and back ground of the Balfour Declaration, and how does it relate to President Wilson taking the U.S. into WWI?

- What was the basis for the creation of Israel, and why is it the only religious "Homeland"?

- Any chance that the Kol Nidre has anything to do with why there is no treaty between the U.S. and Israel (not that I want one - but it is curious).


I've only studied these things for a few years, but the more that I learn, the more I understand that nothing is what we have been told it is. EVERYONE has an agenda, and at the root of it all is an attempt by some one or some group to take land from and or exercise power over another. The means vary, sometimes religious bred fear, sometimes outright fear of physical harm or death, and sometimes starvation or fear of economic collapse. Most recently we've been the unhappy victims of fear through threat of terrorism, but in the end fear is the name of their game.

And when I say "they" I am speaking of the only group who ultimately benefits EVERY time there is a war.

__________________
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
_________________

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
- Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

Terry

"He's better than Bush" is a chickenshit excuse people use to excuse their own ignorance and wishy-washy ideology.

They try to make it all about us vs. them, black vs. right, Democrat vs. Republican without realizing that until they step back from this bullshit reality they have made for themselves, without rejecting both parties as irrevocably corrupt and evil, our country doesn't have a chance in hell of getting out of this mess.

My two cents.

__________________
I don't know but I've been told,
If you never die you'll never grow old

Cerpin Taxt

__________________
Step Back. Evaluate. Recognize.

"All memory is really a form of regurgitation of undigested experience."
-Alan Watts

Galt

While I believe the anachronisms and past use by Crazy Lou Farrakhan have caused this to be relegated to the busted column of urban myths, the message is oft lost in all of the screaming over whether it is authentic or not.
I give you "The Willie Lynch Speech", or as variously referred to - "How Do We Make A Slave".

My personal preference - "We're All Niggers Now"
Just substitute Democrap and Republitard, Right and Left, Conservative and Liberal, Lean Forward- Move On - Restore America, etc.
____________________ ____________________ _____________

Greetings,

Gentlemen. I greet you here on the bank of the James River in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and twelve. First, I shall thank you, the gentlemen of the Colony of Virginia, for bringing me here. I am here to help you solve some of your problems with slaves. Your invitation reached me on my modest plantation in the West Indies, where I have experimented with some of the newest, and still the oldest, methods for control of slaves. Ancient Rome would envy us if my program is implemented. As our boat sailed south on the James River, named for our illustrious King, whose version of the Bible we cherish, I saw enough to know that your problem is not unique. While Rome used cords of wood as crosses for standing human bodies along its highways in great numbers, you are here using the tree and the rope on occasions. I caught the whiff of a dead slave hanging from a tree, a couple miles back. You are not only losing valuable stock by hangings, you are having uprisings, slaves are running away, your crops are sometimes left in the fields too long for maximum profit, you suffer occasional fires, your animals are killed. Gentlemen, you know what your problems are; I do not need to elaborate. I am not here to enumerate your problems, I am here to introduce you to a method of solving them. In my bag here, I HAVE A FULL PROOF METHOD FOR CONTROLLING YOUR BLACK SLAVES. I guarantee every one of you that, if installed correctly, IT WILL CONTROL THE SLAVES FOR AT LEAST 300 HUNDREDS YEARS. My method is simple. Any member of your family or your overseer can use it. I HAVE OUTLINED A NUMBER OF DIFFERENCES AMONG THE SLAVES; AND I TAKE THESE DIFFERENCES AND MAKE THEM BIGGER. I USE FEAR, DISTRUST AND ENVY FOR CONTROL PURPOSES. These methods have worked on my modest plantation in the West Indies and it will work throughout the South. Take this simple little list of differences and think about them. On top of my list is “AGE,” but it’s there only because it starts with an “a.” The second is “COLOR” or shade. There is INTELLIGENCE, SIZE, SEX, SIZES OF PLANTATIONS, STATUS on plantations, ATTITUDE of owners, whether the slaves live in the valley, on a hill, East, West, North, South, have fine hair, course hair, or is tall or short. Now that you have a list of differences, I shall give you an outline of action, but before that, I shall assure you that DISTRUST IS STRONGER THAN TRUST AND ENVY STRONGER THAN ADULATION, RESPECT OR ADMIRATION. The Black slaves after receiving this indoctrination shall carry on and will become self-refueling and self-generating for HUNDREDS of years, maybe THOUSANDS. Don’t forget, you must pitch the OLD black male vs. the YOUNG black male, and the YOUNG black male against the OLD black male. You must use the DARK skin slaves vs. the LIGHT skin slaves, and the LIGHT skin slaves vs. the DARK skin slaves. You must use the FEMALE vs. the MALE, and the MALE vs. the FEMALE. You must also have white servants and overseers [who] distrust all Blacks. But it is NECESSARY THAT YOUR SLAVES TRUST AND DEPEND ON US. THEY MUST LOVE, RESPECT AND TRUST ONLY US. Gentlemen, these kits are your keys to control. Use them. Have your wives and children use them, never miss an opportunity. IF USED INTENSELY FOR ONE YEAR, THE SLAVES THEMSELVES WILL REMAIN PERPETUALLY DISTRUSTFUL. Thank you gentlemen.”
____________________ ____________________ _____________


Authentic or not, I'd say it's been working just fine. Now mix well with a planned to fail educational system that continues to provide fodder for the war machine, and a well populated permanent underclass, incapable of competing in the new information age.

My only question is, how do they intend to maintain control once the scrip collapses. The lesson learned from the precipitous decline of the Weimar Republic is that the government can get away with just about anything, right up to the point where the sheeple discover that the implicit trust placed in the proxy for their labor (fiat currency) is all a sham. At that point, where the people's daily fight to survive is threatened and they've a solid reason to not believe or trust any longer, the rulers have no leverage left to manipulate the behavior. That is the time of the ultimate inversion, where the government has nothing left to rely upon but brute force... and by the looks of things - they're recent practice on the Occupt crowds are just getting them warmed up.

It will initially boil down to whether you're one of the "haves" or "have nots", and a large part of that will be determined by whether you work up in Massa's house or out in the field. The Soviets kept it simple at first - to eat you had to work, and to work you had to be a Party member. What a great recruitment tool. And just how long did that last? People can and will tolerate an unimaginable amount of abuse from their rulers before they say "No More!", but fuck with their basic means of barter and trade, and even the dullest ward of the state begins to awaken. It has only been through the tolerance of the capitalistic "Black Markets" that communism has made it this far. China finally gave up and allowed it out into the open just so they could try and stay in power a little bit longer... but that too shall pass.

Consider the implications of hyper-inflation on an America where almost half of the population depends on the government in one form or another for their very sustenance. The government can only print the paper, they can't MAKE it have value. Suddenly eggs are $10 a dozen, then a week later they are $50, and by month's end $500. Just how fast can the government react? Not nearly as fast as the markets will move - that's for sure. People with something of real value to trade may eat, and people with guns may risk stealing, but at the end of the day, the government will have all or most of the guns, and they will take anything of real value to "redistribute" as they see fit. Read the history, it's all happened before!

Learning to trust in ourselves and each other again unfortunately depends on trust in all else having first been destroyed, but I suppose even after the government is proved beyond a shadow of a doubt evil, there will still be the cults of religion telling them to sacrifice, trust in God, the meek shall inherit the earth, blessed is he who takes it in the ass, and other sundry bullshit. It's hard to compete with a giant tit that gushes largess, and try to make people understand that it may as well be crack.

__________________
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
_________________

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
- Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

Galt

I believe the Libertarian addendum to be: Sequent the vote, the outcome is contested by a well armed sheep.


My favorite is Lewis Black's comment on Democratic and Republican bipartisanship - to paraphrase - "Nothing's worse than when these two pricks get together!"

__________________
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
_________________

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
- Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

Roach

I'll still vote straight Democrat.

We all know politicians suck, just by their nature/design.

And since America couldn't handle total anarchy, In todays century, democrat is the way to vote.

__________________

לזיין את הקופים

K10

Taking the risk out of democracy: corporate propaganda versus freedom and ... - Alex Carey, Andrew Lohrey - Google Books

Pretty relevant read if you're so inclined. Decent amount of it on google books for free above.

__________________
Just because you tie dye your wool, doesn't mean
you're not a sheep.
R.I.P. Alice D.

Roach

The real problem is the wealthiest Americans not paying their fair share for how many years of accumulated interest on the national debt.

I suppose it would be simpler if America were communist. But that's just not the case.

__________________

לזיין את הקופים

Galt

I'm not doubting that you will, but I am curious why you would? Excepting Dr. Paul, I've seen or heard of no Democrat or Republican that has any interest in changing the current policy of criminalizing over 40% of our populace with this crazy drug war. They also sing the same song when it comes to American hegemony and perpetuating unlawful wars abroad. Lastly, none but one has any clue, much less interest in salvaging our currency - without which there can be no social welfare, national defense, roads, or any of the other things that are still of interest to our civilization.

Regardless of the Presidential race, "straight" Democratic? I'm no lover of the Republitards, but what has you so enamored of the Demagogues that you can't be bothered even considering any alternatives? If you aim to please the status quo by mindlessly falling in line, congratulations, you've just made their job a whole lot simpler. Realizing that it's a stereotype, it is an accurate one nonetheless - are you a government employee, a union member, living off of some government handout or Black? If not one of those than your position makes no sense. If you are, well then it makes total sense, and I can't say as I blame you since you'll basically just be voting to give yourself more of somebody elses money. You should be so proud! If you vote that way and your Black, then you're just horribly misinformed. They don't appreciate your loyalty, but they will take it for granted all the same.

Sellin' yourself a little short there Roach.

In the final analysis, the anarchy you mention may be the unavoidable consequence if too many act as you think. The Fed has already dropped interest rates to nothing, so they are completely out of tricks. All that is left is to continue creating more fiat currency out of thin air, and sooner rather than later, that WILL come 'round to bite you in the ass. Please take the time to read up on life in the Wiemar Republic when this happened there. We are already at a REAL rate of unemployment around 20%, and REAL inflation is at or near double digits. Just how long do you think that can be sustained, because nothing REAL is being considered to correct or stop it - certainly not by any Democrats.

__________________
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
_________________

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
- Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

Galt

Which of the wealthiest do you speak of? The Steve Jobs types that make their products overseas and then bring them back here to sell them, the military industrialists at L-3 and Northrup who keep the their Dem/Rep hookers fed to keep us at war, the crony capitalists like Soros and the hedge fund cats, or just wealthy in general. According to your President, anybody makin' what... about $200K a year is part of that crowd. I don't live there, but $200G's doesn't go all that far in New York (somethin' to do with taxes I guess).

I have no problem with everybody having to shoulder some responsibility here. I do have a problem with moochers crying for more claiming fairness. There is nothing fair about 40% of America paying nada. Just what would you consider "fair" and why? You try to make it sound as if anybody that has more than you got it dishonestly and should give it back 'cuz you want some more.

I would agree that the wealthiest are at least equally to blame for our debt, because the vast portions of it that were taken on to fight wars were of no real benefit to the majority of us (unless your union pension fund owned some Northrup or L-3 stocks). The wealthy did and does benefit disproportionately from those endeavors, but just raising taxes to get even doesn't address curing the disease. How about we end these stupid fucking wars while we're at it, bring our troops home and start actually cutting for a change. Your fair share whine gets us nowhere 'cuz there just ain't enough really rich folks to go around. I would further qualify that by saying that the really uber rich, like the Rotchschilds, Rockefellers, et al, could never be taxed enough. Their history of plunder is unimaginable and unfathomable. They have profited from our suffering for over a hundred years, so yes - I'd say if you can catch them and hold them down long enough, I would gut them, like the pigs that they are, but to justy blindly cry for more from people who have more than you because they worked hard and or saved is just ridiculous... and UNFAIR.

Not sure where you intend to go with the lament about communism, but you might try reading what life under their glorious system was like also before you go pining for that. If you think that our current system is "not fair", then you obviously know nothing of reality under a communist regime. Again which of the groups are you are member of - union tit, government tit, welfare tit... ?

__________________
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
_________________

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
- Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

Terry

Democracy for some means voting for one party simply because they have a D or R in front of their name sadly.

__________________
I don't know but I've been told,
If you never die you'll never grow old

Roach

to eliminate the republican bottleneck that's keeping legitimate legislation from being passed.

It's really not that hard to figure out. Establish a realistic income amount say 2 million so you definately do not further harm the working class, and stop calling corporations people. Steve Jobs took advantage of cheap chinese slave labor (which isn't as cheap as it used to be)

Apple/Apple execs. would not be rolling in money had he not been able to surcumvent fair trade practices, and deregulation of "imported" products.


again that's a republican defense for not paying taxes.
Taxes do not need to be raised if the loopholes, "corporate" tax breaks, and deregulation are eliminated.

There is such a thing as not enough protectionism. A tax shelter on some tropical island or switzerland is not protecting anything but individual wealth.

__________________

לזיין את הקופים

stoneric

Generalizing again? Some union people actually earn a living.

John F. Kerry

nice post galt! i was just thinking this same shit!

__________________
Nasa under Obama

kamikazi89

__________________
katie west is the best

Galt

While I appreciate that it's everyone's Right to make those decisions as well informed or as ill informed as they wish, it will never deter me from encouraging people to challenge authority and learn for themselves. Life is about growing and learning. Some just go about it a little differently I suppose.

First you assign blame for legislation being held up on the Republicans, and follow that up with an assertion that there is "legitimate" legislation being negatively effected, as if that which is not blocked by them is illegitimate. I'm curious how you became the absolute arbiter of what is one or the other. I would suggest that what annoys you is the system of checks and balances working as it was intended. This has also been shown to annoy your preferred party of late, not that Bush and the Republicans were exempt - but I believe his excuse was just that he was stupid and Born Again nuts. President Obama gets annoyed with it too, so he just goes around it by whatever means he can concoct - making him doubly dangerous, since he refuses to recognize the intended purpose of restricting the Executive branches power in the first place. We are a Republic that elects a President, not a monarchy placing someone on a throne.

Take heart that the very means by which legislation that you favor gets held up, is also used to deter the opposite. I would suggest that we would all be better served if none of it was ever enacted. We have more crap law now than any human could ever possibly digest or understand. How about for every new bullshit Bill, they must first repeal two existing. At least then they might be a bit more selective in what they try to pass. This would be a nice switch from what we now see too much of, and which I'm guessing is what you are favoring, which is some sort of partisan bullshit that both sides introduce - knowing full well that it won't ever pass - but for the expressed purpose of giving them a political card to play their bullshit games with. It's all absurd.

Not much of what you've responded to impresses me as having much substance so far, so how about serving up some crow for me and fill me in on exactly what piece(s) of legislation are being held up, and the stated reasons why, along with why you feel that they are "legitimate"? I only ask because I get the distinct impression from your posts that you are just repeating hyperbole that you absorb from others and adopt as your own without vetting. Not accusing, just offering my impression - sorry if I'm wrong.



I guess I find it kind'a scary that anyone thinks it's "not that hard" to decide to steal shit from someone else, just to help themselves and others like them. What you deem to be "realistic" is absurd to me and many others. I'm also more than a little disappointed in your rather unthinking representation of the "working class". The context imparts a feeling that those who have any wealth have not worked. This is ridiculous. The wealthiest are typically that way because they worked the hardest. You might have lost sight of this but THAT's why people want to come here in the first place. The establishment of the welfare state has certainly expanded our immigrant appeal, but by and large, the whole work hard and get ahead has been the basis of our rapid ascension to world power in less than 200 years.

Harming the working class is best accomplished by taking incentive to succeed off of the table. In your scenario, if I'm anywhere close to the 2 mil mark, I'm goin' on vacation - 'cuz I'll be fucked if I'm going to hire one more person, or sell one more widget, just so I can get fucked with the Roach Tax! Of course we do have an ever rapidly expanding non-working, generational unemployed, wards of the state class, but they have continued to do better and better even as the middle class has been going to work every day and getting crushed... but I'm sure that those two realities don't exist in your socialist wonderland. A simple fact of American life is that demonizing the wealthy never really goes too far because most of us all still aspire to be one of them one day. It's only the socialists that have more limited aspirations, and the bum class that has none, that are comfortable with the classification. Again - if you want to publicly execute the uber rich like the Rothschilds and Rockefellers, hey, don't let me miss the party. Bring all of your President's buddies from Goldman Sachs along as well. But the guy who started a construction business, or a trucking company and just worked hard to succeed... why can't you and your ilk just shut the fuck up and leave them alone? They are the life's blood of our communities, not the vampire squid money lenders and welfare bums.

And no, I'm not saying that everybody on welfare is a bum, but a HUGE fucking number are, and ignoring that is complete and utter bullshit.

How about this, contrary to your perspective, I think it completely "realistic" that the Feral government is not entitled to one thin dime of anyone's money. Our country functioned just fine for about 150 years without an IRS, a Feral Reserve, or a personal income tax. I also do not find anything about an unequally apportioned tax to be legitimate in the first place, because that very thing is not permitted by our ultimate set of rules and protections - our Constitution.

Your insistence on perusing the fruits of others' labors leads me to believe that you are in fact either a socialist, a communist, or simply consider our Constitution a worthless inconvenience, and you have absolutely no respect for individual rights. By extent, that would likely make you a sexist, racist, homophobe and general all around xenophobe. Since you have expressed a particular affinity for Democrats, which you seem to identify with very closely, so I suppose it would be just as fair and reasonable an analysis to suspect that those who you are comfortable with likely share the predominance of your views. It would be equally safe to say then that ALL Democrats are as bigoted and close minded as you. How strange that these are the very labels and phrases that I more typically hear being tossed about by people like them.

You can't protect the rights of ANY group if you are unwilling to stand up for the protections of the smallest minority - that of the individual.

Another way of looking at it might be - who the fuck are you to decide? Even if you had the economic academic credentials, to venture such disturbia, the "professional" economists are still the first to admit that there is little they can do but hope and guess, wait and see - so all of the study in the world still makes all of their shit just a guess. But you're cool stealing other peoples' shit to support bloat and waste... based on an uneducated and ill-informed interpretation of somebody elses guess. Wow!

Lastly, try and get your mind around this; the German Mark of the early 1920's was worth about 60 to a U.S. Dollar. The onset of hyper-inflation saw that drop to a point where a single pound of meat cost 36 BILLION Marks, a loaf of bread 0ne BILLION Marks, and a glass of beer four BILLION Marks. all within less than 18 months.

Let's say that the IRS and the whores in Congress decided on some arbitrary figure to start going balls deep on folks. Maybe they pick your number. As our inflation continues its present ever increasing spiral, that threshold will continue to extend closer and closer to what is left of the sacred middle class, and eventually beyond. Markets have ALWAYS out-foxed the central control freaks, and they have always moved faster than any legislature. So wha'cha gonna do when inflation makes the guy making 70 or 80 G's a year today as a union carpenter - a millionaire eligible for the Roach Tax? Government's gonna turn all altruistic and shit right?. Even smokin' crack this doesn't ever make sense. The unions will make sure that that happens too, so maybe the best medicine would be to just let all of the socialist have whatever they want and step back to watch. At least it would bring the waiting to fail to an abrupt end, and maybe we could get started trying to rebuild a little sooner.

Since the Feral Reserve was created to protect our currency about a hundred years ago, it has lost 98% of its value - so even under much less stress this current system is and has been an epic fail, one that is only gathering magnitudes of speed. That means that it would cost almost a buck to buy today what was 2 cents in 1913. Please tell me that you can do the math to extrapolate where that gets us. Consider also that the current regime has doubled the rate at which this is occurring, just as the fool before this one did the same. That's a geometric progression, not an arithmetic one, kind'a like radioactive half-life in reverse.

Another aspect of your intended, short sighted, and illegal rape is that people with wealth aren't typically the slow witted ones. The dim wits are the asses that we pay to work in government. The ones who always over react after the fact, when everything that they do is useless and idiotic. Look at HLS and airport security. If I'm a terrorist, I look at that shit and scream GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOAL! No the quick little fuckers with all of the gold are the first to bail, not the dim witted shits that you see standing in front of the boarded up banks and businesses... that would be us. Aside from the fact that even if you stole all of their wealth it wouldn't make a dent, once you've taken it what do you do next? So much for teaching a guy to fish, huh? The Soviets had great success removing all incentive to work hard and get ahead, and it led to their eventual and unavoidable collapse, not to mention the fact that it all sucked a dog's ass the whole way down, and that started with day one of their reign.

The fact is that already even today, the push back to ever increasing taxes is a burgeoning of the underground economy and so-called black markets. That is a free market resisting your compulsion to take what you are not entitled to. Most people are reasonable and recognize that living in a civilized and social environ benefits us all. They also recognize that there are limits to what is reasonable, and most folks innately sense that we left that behind a long time ago. The best way to foment a war between the classes is to try and help one take shit from the other that isn't theirs and that they are not entitled to. What you and the socialists seem to miss is that civilization depends on the rule of law and enforcement of property rights. The reason is that people can only live together if there is some way of keeping others from stealin' your shit. When that system breaks down, or worse, when the system itself becomes the biggest criminal, then everybody just says fuck it and gives up or leaves. That's what happened in the Soviet Union, that's what is happening here, and that's what you are espousing support for. Please understand that that is why so many people will always disagree with you.

Couldn't agree more! Individuals are the only thing that have rights... unless you support that whole gimme yours shit that the socialists and communists favor. Then you have to accept the idea of corporations having rights just as you support the idea of the central planner's having all of the supreme rights over their serfs and subjects. The State is no more an entity with rights than a corporation is, unless you're a lover of big government - and that's a commonplace Democrat AND Republican affliction these days.

Again, your perceptions sound like a regurgitation of a rah rah session of the AFL-CIO. Red China does not practice slavery, they practice the type of collectivism that socialists, communists and unions have always supported. There are quite a few recipients of American foreign aid practicing slavery, but not the commies. They DO maintain work camps (political re-education camps) where salt is still mined by hand, and mortality rates approach those of the Chinese that were killed building our great western railroads. These are the broken machines that the communists deal with by shipping them off to some wilderness shithole to toil til they drop. We need to help raise our little yellow brothers' consciousness, so that their collectivist policies just herd the problems into urban shitholes to die, like we do here.

Jobs tells the story of a last minute screen change being made to one of their products about 10 days before the release date. The Chinese engineers managed to re-work a fix, source the new parts, ramp up production and within 24 hours had a factory of 8,000 workers back on the line pulling 12 hour shifts to make it happen on time... which it did. This is why those 700,000 jobs that Apple created overseas will never return. Not because Americans are stupid, or lazy, unwilling or incapable of duplicating that outcome. The will never return because there is no long term stability in the likelihood of workers performing that way. Unions and Feral regulators have made certain of that.

Hell I've worked plenty of jobs that required even longer hours, both for myself and for employers. I understood that if we didn't get the job done on time that we would loose the work, and eventually we'd all be unemployed. My friends that used to make steel and cars and ships were a little slow learning that, and now they all pretty much sit home waiting to die from asbestos, or heavy metal induced cancers. Oh yeah... they were all union. Used to brag about how much they fucked off, how rich they'd be when they retired, and how great their union was. It would almost be funny if it weren't so tragic.

People want their cheap shit, that's all there is to it - and they're gonna keep buying it no matter what petition gets signed, or high a tariff you place on bullshit free-trade green peace weenie shit. In the final analysis, the majority doesn't give a good fuck about the Chinese any more than they really do about some ugly bitch in Iraq havin' to wear a burkha, just give us our new flat screen and I-Fuck. It is also a basic maxim of economics (and this is one that CAN be proved) that capital ALWAYS chases cheap labor. It used to happen right here in our own country and the unions slept. The textile industry migrated south and emptied out most of New England. So they responded by raising taxes and making life miserable for any manufacturer dumb enough to try and stay. "We'll show those stinking capitalists!". Yeah, that worked out real good now didn't it?

Recently Boeing took a powder out'a the Northwest, and why shouldn't they? They'd have been in Mexico a long time ago if they could have, and they'd have forced France's government subsidized Airbus to drown their government even faster to keep any market share, even with their new plane. There are consequences to all of this, much too complicated for a couple of Harvard pukes to get their heads around, much less there grubby little socialist-ass fingers.

The only thing we make and export anymore is death, and that's only still made here 'cuz of national secret shit having to do with our weaponry - but not to worry - the Chinese will get a hold of it all eventually, and copy the fuck out of all of it, and then the only unions left working here will be the government. Their dream is that we all end up with them, just like joinin' the party back in Soviet Union.

Yeah, it's only the rich Republicans that break the law, cheat on their taxes, and rob people of billions. Two names for ya: Madoff and Corzine. Ring any bells? Step the fuck back and get a grip. They are all crooks and liars bro'. Ascribing integrity to one or the other just 'cuz you wish it doesn't make it so. They are no longer distinguishable on that front. They want big government, they want power, and they don't give a fuck about any of us. That you can "take to the bank", as Mr. Obama once famously said.

Just for shits and giggles, just TRY and imagine a world where WE decide for ourselves how to spend our money. Corporate taxes should be FLAT. Reduced, but the same for every one of them. Our government should not be taking our money at gunpoint to play grant giver, empire builder and re-distributor of anything. EVERYTHING they touch turns to shit, so why let them touch anything more than we absolutely have to?

We can still have safety nets, and medical care, and all kinds of money left over for retirement and other goods things - without letting the government fritter and fuck away a third of it just because it went through their hands first. What is the Progressive's problem with trusting US and allowing US to act like adults without their elites being in charge? Most of all, why can't their followers see that this represents the most egregious form of totalitarianism the world has ever seen?

Again, confusing ideas and realities with something you probably heard in a distemperate Kieth Olbermann rant. Tax shelters are not the same as Swiss accounts, and anybody that's a U.S. citizen and maintains ANY undeclared overseas accounts can and will be prosecuted as a tax cheat at the least, and a terror suspect at worst. Just putting money there is not illegal. Not declaring it is, but they would rather take a piece and let ya live, so it's not usually an automatic jail term. That's how the vampire squid that is big government works. Tax shelters can be any instrument or investment that is meant to allow asset retention or growth without incurring an additional or excessive tax burden. Buying government debt instruments shelters against taxes 'cuz their earnings are usually tax exempt to sucker investors into buying them. Fucking government... allowing all of those unscrupulous bond buyers to make money off of us and not pay any fucking taxes... why it's just not FAIR! Beginning to understand why it's ALL REALLY bullshit, and yet they just keep suckin' you in?

BTW, individual wealth is the most important kind, so keep your fucking hands off unless you wanna be known as stubby.

If your reference to protections was directed at tariffs, well then we are in agreement. Not in the sense that the unions always push for - hyper inflated tariffs to allow them to compete, but rather tariffs that serve to level the playing field with other countries who subsidize their industries and or manipulate their currency. This too would pass if we would go back to a gold standard and insist that others who we trade with do the same. Fiat currencies have always come to a bad end.

The funny part is that were we to stick to just those two simple ideas, we could force a kind of world wide reform that would allow all of those poor and down trodden to elevate themselves and compete fairly, while joining the higher living standards of the modern world. China's recent hybrid capitalist/communism can never go back, it has nowhere to go but forward, and we will likely see their rulers on the same heap as the Soviets in the next few decades. If we could redirect our attentions to rebuilding ourselves, rather than continuing to fuck with every body else in the mean time, we could be in a really great place by the time that happens.

Interesting word choice Stoner (earn vs. make), and the precision of the difference isn't lost on me. Yes there are exceptions to every rule, generalization or stereotype. The defense of the rules, general wisdom and stereotypes however is that they are all founded on truth, which is how and why they exist in the first place. The other problem is that as the unions continue to find themselves becoming ever more archaic and the antithetical to what we need, they resort to ever wilder and crazier bullshit and lies to try and justify their existence. Already they have nothing left from a moral; perspective to offer that they haven't shit on enough to totally discredit themselves - so they have to resort to the very tactics that they used to rail against in order to stay empowered. Extortion, intimidation, assault, disregard for the rule of law, property rights, and the list goes on and on. For what?

They try to take claim for the 40 hour work week, medical benefits and work place safety improvements, and the truth of the matter is the complete opposite. Of course if you are a member and have been told this for years by them, and maybe your family before that, you probably think that I'm full of shit and they are the ones speaking the truth. Sorry. They are in the power and greed business and have been for a long time. They abandoned the moral high ground decades ago. Not coincidentally, that also signaled the beginning of the United States' ultimate decline and utter disintegration of heavy industry and manufacturing. Just a coincidence I guess.

Obviously there are people that belong to unions that go to work every day and try to do the best job that they can, but damn few, and the ones that would argue that point are either delusional, or they are the one that's working hard while their union brothers are sitting back and laughing or getting pissed for makin' them look bad or have to work harder (been there... more than once). The core flaw however is that they still share the same broken reality that socialism and communism has always failed from. Collectivism has never, ever worked. It is against human dignity and basic nature to work hard forever if there is no incentive to do so, and the very core concept of union protections is that even the weakest shall prevail. The unfortunate reality is that that has ALWAYS translated into "work to the ability and productivity of the slowest and least capable." This is not a core value that breeds anything but eventual failure through homogenous dilution - kind'a the opposite of the cream rising to the top.

I gotta flash for ya... we are not all equal. Not in school, not at work, not in the field of sports, or on the stage of debate and ideas. The strongest group is that which learns to recognize these differences and focus the efforts of the best and brightest while helping the rest find a productive and rewarding way to contribute. Trying to exclusively support one at the expense of the other, or trying to force everyone to be the same has never worked in any endeavor. Pure free markets and laissez-faire capitalism are as close as we can get, whereas socialism, communism, collectivism and unionism is as already mentioned - the antithesis.

My assumptions about Roach were founded upon his statements and positions. Everything that he has written that I have read, I have heard from others who were either union employees, government employees, welfare recipients, minorities that never questioned, or some combination thereof. He has not refuted it, therefor it seemed logical and reasonable to think that the shoe may not fit exactly, but he doesn't seem to mind keeping it in his closet.

The tit analogy is just a mental image that their existence conjures up in me every time I see one having it removed from their mouth, or even a discussion is heard by them where it is considered or discussed. I have raised quite a few kids of my own, so I am more than a little familiar with the noises that they make when they don't get what they want. It makes sense to parents and adults at its root, but it still tends to eventually get on our nerves if they don't grow out of it.

JK, while I appreciate the solidarity, I would suggest that any time that you walk into a room where you find yourself in complete agreement with anybody, you need to check your premise, especially where I am concerned.

I assume you are familiar with the term bi-polar? Well I am something beyond that... let's call it tri-polar, with a heavy dose of paranoid schizophrenic on the side. If you dropped THAT much acid, then you should probably be in an institution somewhere with lots of nice soft shit all around you so you can't hurt yourself or others. I would be, but they said I was a little too far out there for them to cope with, so they just sent me home and told me to think about starting my own religious cult.
Still workin' on that one...

__________________
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
_________________

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
- Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

Galt

Kaz, I absolutely love that picture. Definitely worth more than my usual thousand words.

It did bring to mind something else though that I would urge everyone to do. A couple of things actually.

First, I got my shit from a variety of places, but it is ridiculously cheap these days, and works amazingly well. They sell a little key fob stealth A/V recorder on Ebay for just a few bucks that uses Micro SD cards and records a good deal on a single charge. I've used it to trip up a crooked lawyer, and left it in a room after a meeting where shit was said after I left - and it was REAL fuckin' helpful to be able to hear after I came back fifteen minutes later claiming to have forgotten my keys.

I have two different types hardwired into my vehicle, one looking out the front and one out the side that I can turn to record out the back. I run them anytime I'm on the road, and catch all kinds of shit - which I burn to disc and froward to the local news agencies with appropriate commentary.

Also had a friend give me a set of sunglasses that have an A/V micro SD recorder built into them so anything I see is being recorded. Best part is that these have GPS and blue tooth so it all goes straight to my cell and home if I want.

Had more than one stop recorded where somebody tried a search and I ascerted my rights - "I do not consent to ANY search" never fails to freak them the fuck out.
"Well we'll just get the dogs and..."
"Hey man, I know you're just doin' yer job, but I do not consent to any searches... ever", "Am I being detained, or am I free to go?"

Usually after a few threats a supervisor shows up and they loose interest, or the guy who stopped me gets spooked when I start quizzin' him about how long he's been on the force and how he likes the benefits. It's not necessary to get all in their shit, it's enough just to imply that you know what the fuckin' deal is, and that you aren't gonna be fucked with lightly. Of course you better make sure that you know what the fuck you're talking about before you open your piehole, ... and a video recording or two certainly helps take the pucker factor down a few notches when they ignore you and decide to search anyway. I can't stress this enough, setting up to feed remote records is the ultimate safety. It's like carryin' your own witness, just like LEO.

Another issue is the DOXing shit that the Occu-idiots were pullin'. That was friggin' classic! I think that most of what they pull is bullshit, but when they DOXed the fucking pigs that were lumpin' on the kids in NYC and Cali... I would've voted for any one of them for prez I was so proud. I am convinced that this modern day version of the old stocks is just what the doctor ordered, for a world upside down. Since I can't get enough people fired up to start choppin' off heads, maybe, if we start using tools like that to beat the fucktard bureaucrats back into line, we'll be able to impress upon them that YES - THEY DO FUCKING WORK FOR US!

__________________
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
_________________

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
- Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

stoneric

Man, I don't want to get into it with you again. I don't know where you've worked but i can assure you there are union shops where more than just a "damn few" put in an honest days work. I guess you think only people being treated like dog shit have any work ethic. Talk about dellusional.

Galt

The exceptions that I've seen were very limited, the aerospace and military contractors - yes, very professional, conscientious, and highly skilled. However, they were also working on stuff that was ridiculously expensive and specialized where there were often two or three others checking on everything that they did. Not their fault, just the nature of the work. My mailman, crazy hard worker, always bein' fucked with by their supervisors (which they have way too many of). It's no wonder they earned the idiom. Got friends and neighbors that are fire fighters, all union, all eat smoke - life shortening toxic shit smoke nearly every day, for pretty shitty pay, and they love it. Got nothin' but good to say about all of them, but that's pretty much about where it ends.

In the construction trades, cabinet shops, foundry, ship yard and several manufacturing facilities I witnessed exactly what I stated as more the norm than the exception. I've had to work with union turds on critical path projects and every time that they were to be counted on for anything other than the bare minimum of their contract requirements, they failed miserably. More often than not they were incapable of completing anything properly and on time. Certainly not 'cuz I wished it, 'cuz we were tied to the same wagon. It's just that when the customer would make changes or ask for anything beyond the minimum they would just lay down.

Many years ago I worked in a garment factory. The company was falling on hard times due to foreign competition - Japan at the time. The company needed us to work two hours over Monday thru Friday for two weeks, and two Saturdays, to make sure that we delivered on time. The reason we were behind in the first place was because we had more than half of the crew draggin' ass and fuckin' off at every opportunity. When we were offered the overtime, almost to a man they were like "fuck it". We weren't being asked to do something for nothing mind ya, just accept time and a half to catch up with where we should have been anyway but weren't by their own fault. Well, the union sure showed them. The plant closed within 6 months.

Same bullshit at the local car plant where my buddies worked. They used to laugh about the cars that they fucked up that were delivered off of the line to some poor workin' stiff. They didn't give a fuck. It was all about doing as little as possible while getting the most that you could out of the company. It's not that I can't appreciate the idea that a company can take advantage of its workers, but I have never been able to approach any job the way these guys did all of the time. I always understood that we were all in the same boat, and I genuinely wanted the company to do well and make money. That probably has a lot to do with why I ended up running things instead of spending my life as a drone.

Did quite a few large retail, commercial high rises and government projects over the years, and without a doubt, the union shops all up and down the East Coast that I came in contact with were absolutely for shit at least 90% of the time. The really crazy part was that the less work that the dumb fucks had, the more they fucked it up. The end result being that even the customers who preferred using union labor would go out of their way to avoid it a second time around, and I couldn't even blame them.

Had teamsters that would block docks in Manhattan like they owned the building just to fuck with some poor out'a towner trying to make a delivery. Burned heavy equipment that was being used by a non-union company that wasn't even on their site - they were on a private project next door that those scumbag fucks would have never even have bid on. I was a ltd. partner in a project where the union trades had to finally be escorted off of the premises, and their local sued for damaging other people's work and dropping a cinder block off of a roof and nearly killing someone. Of course they thought it was all great fun and justified. Fuck them. They are the most putrid type of shit, and just because you may know a few exceptions, fuck it I wouldn't care if you knew of a thousand, there's enough of the other that they all smell like shit to me.

I don't know how much sharing you can stand, but I gotta million of 'em. Riggers that fucked shit up 'cuz a customer didn't want to be illegally charged for an extra oiler on a simple shit 30 ton hydraulic crane working with no jib in an open field. Cock sucking piece of shit that purposely reset grade stakes and caused a non-union competitor to waste tens of thousands of dollars. Union electricians that would climb up in the ceiling and take turns sleeping, while three other trades waited for their dead asses to finish and get the fuck out of their way. Iron workers that were so cracked out when they showed up for work that they could barely light a torch, but ya couldn't send 'em home. The welds that they dd were job critical and required X-ray, typically half would fail on any given shift. Finally ended up bring in a retired ex-union master to fix all their shit on our dime. The union cats still got their time and pay.

Picked up a gig hangin' drywall back in the 70's, piece work, which meant that we got paid a fair wage for just what we did. Workin' in an ocean front highrise, non-union obviously. Union riggers on the job hated that we could work our asses off and out earn them for the week in three days. No charges were ever filed, but a simple sling rig slipped a dropped a pick that fell through seven floors, killed two and maimed 3 or 4 others on the way down. We got to climb down through the debris and pick past the smeared and crushed body parts. Oh yeah... I've got nuthin' but respect for some piece of shit union.

Local mill that used to make steel. Guys that ran plant power, maintenance and worked in a few other critical departments had grown up with me. They would stay out gettin' fucked up as shit til it was time to go to work. They'd just punch in and go coop up in the rafters or out in their truck for half the shift and then roll in so somebody else could do the same.

While workin' in D.C. we used to hang in a bar across from the Post to shoot darts. The Pressmen would punch in, set some type, get the press rollin., and then leave some deaf kid to sit and stare at 'em til somethin' got fucked up while they would all spend the rest of their shift at the bar.

Union electricians workin' a highrise where we had crews hanging shaft liner in the old elevator shafts. Everything locked out tagged out and OSHA compliant. Somehow the electricians manged to re-energize the elevators and kill the work lights just before they disappeared for an early lunch. Almost killed two guys, could'a been six... but hey, they were non-union so I guess it doesn't count. Fucking scumbag turds!

Had a neighbor that came from a long line of longshoremen - four generations I believe. Every fucking one of them a thieving shit bag and proud of it. The senior guys sat in the shack playin' cards all day, plain and simple. The only time they got off of their fat asses was to check out something that one of them thought they might want to steal.

Most metropolitan police forces are union... need I say more? So are the pathetic shit teachers that we pay top dollar full time wages to for a part time job. Our State and Feral workers that are unionized do at best a shit job, but try and scale back their numbers when demographics shift or the economy retracts. Holy shit I can hear Wisconsin from here.

Stoner, I've got mad respect for you personally, but just because you're one of them and don't act that way, it can't undo what I've witnessed in a lifetime. Just because you don't do it, doesn't invalidate everything that I've witnessed and had to deal with. My only real issue with you personally is that you always seem so unwilling to acknowledge that this happens... frequently. Maybe not in your shop, but that is more the exception than the rule in my experience, and I'm not exaggerating one little bit. Don't know where you are, but for what it's worth, I had better experiences in the L.A. area than I did in Philly or D.C., but New York can just suck my sweaty salty balls. This is not personally directed at you, but at the union pukes that have worked so hard to lose their opportunities to work, and now cry a river for someone to set them up so they can take a shit on it again. I also have a really hard time taking these hypocritical assholes seriously when aside from shitting all over the great opportunities that they have, they still have the balls to yell "Buy American" while their locals are out suckin' every illegal's cock in town to add them to the membership. What a crock of total shit. I actually got into an argument with a retired union welder in a Harbor Freight store. The fuckhead was wearin' a hat that said some Buy American bullshit while the dumb fuck was shoppin' in China 'R Us.

You don't want any competition, and then try to wrap yourselves in the flag. How do you explain the unions all suckin' Clinton's cock, and he helped pave the way for all of this shit to fly to Red China? You guys are all about "what's good for the country" as long as it's good for you and nobody else. How the fuck can anybody be against merit pay for school teachers, and better learning opportunities for kids that get a chance to go to a charter school? Unions are - all day every day and fuck those kids, right?

I can't count the number of union douche bags that would take a lay-off, go on unemployment, and try to work for us under somebody elses name when we had a big scrap job - 'cuz they heard that we were payin' tonnage piece work rates for burners and riggers. Now those guys were Steam Fitters, and they knew their shit and could move on high steel, but still, if the job had been Davis-Bacon, their local would have been down there screamin' scabs and picketing the job for a month. Again, they want it eight ways, and all of them their way.

And for what it's worth, I've never had anybody treat me like dog shit 'cuz I always understood that respect had to be earned, so I did. Funny thing, I worked hard, always did at least what was expected, and the respect was always there. I never saw a hard worker that knew what he was supposed to know being treated like dog shit either. Usually the only people that were treated like dog shit were the ones that worked hard to prove that they were, and the only ones that I ever witnessed that pattern in were members of a union. I didn't do it, I'm just sayin' what I saw, and I have no reason to lie about any of it.

__________________
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
_________________

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
- Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

stoneric

Same here. On all accounts.