Wednesday, March 31, 2010
"If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws -- the first growing out of the last. ... A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government."
—Alexander Hamilton, Essay in the American Daily Advertiser, 1794
A day can be brightened by the glow of an almost 4 year old girl to the point of your heart missing a beat within your chest.
Such was today. Marred only by having to work for a few minutes going to get 40 odd Morgan and Peace $'s. (Tough work, but somebody has to do it)
When ever I'd catch myself withdrawing into my grotto of selfishness I'd go find Callie and her grandmother and walk into the sunshine again.
She has gone home with her dad to see her mother of whom she whispered last night in her bed, "I really, really miss my mom", leaving us the richer for the experience.
For another wonderful experience I have to thank Eric of SWG.
What a gift. Thanks SWG
I especially liked and dedicate to the bride of my youth (42 years ago) the following...
She is abed early because of trying to keep up with a spark of sunshine and taking care of me and the ol' grump.
Sleep well.
and no Boobage from GOC. I may not be able to make it through the rest of the day.
In the good news is the fact that I haven't yet this morning tried to hack up a lung. Two more days on the anti-biotic. The bad news is that I've apparently slipped a disc and can't raise my arms above my head.
I'd like you to go to The Patriot Post, read the declaration and if you can, sign and send it one to your friend and contacts.
A statement of principals that we intend to live up to, signed and pledged to, will help keep our focus on the goals for the future.
A bright morning is dawning, the sun will be above the trees on the horizon any minute and I've had my Cheerios this morning.
Taken the Antibiotics and decongestant so hopefully will have less hacking today.
I'm gonna go visit with the group today to moan and groan about all the ills of the world, we'll have to wait and see if anything productive is proposed.
A little snippet from president # 3 caught my eye....
"[T]he States can best govern our home concerns and the general government our foreign ones. I wish, therefore ... never to see all offices transferred to Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they may more secretly be bought and sold at market. ... [W]hen all government ... shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another. ... Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread."
(Thomas Jefferson)
The entire article can be found at The Patriot Post. You might go over and read the rest. Well worth the time.
Also Sign the Declaration.
Spring is well under way here in the South. The flowers are blooming and birds are starting to look for nesting spots.
Sap is rising in flora and fauna alike and the crazy women who go into heat with the rising of the temperatures are unbuttoning the top two buttons and putting a little sashay into their walk.
Expected here though and allowances are made and young men begin to think of Turkey hunting and crappie fishing.
In Canada, on the other hand the ice is still in existence and cabin fever is rampant on college campussies.
How else to explain their quickness to accuse of hate speech addresses not even given and the subsequent rioting, ranting and raving by the student body of The University of Ottawah at the very thought of Ann Coulter giving a talk.
God protect us from the Vast Reservoir of knowledge and experience that exists on College Campuses.
They better all run out and get a job, quick, before all that certainty and knowledge leaks out of their bubble brains as the thorns and pricks of real life begin to poke holes in them.
The ice packs in Greenland will surly be melting down to mere ice cubes as all that hot air escapes.
Start the Arks.
I hope you will follow this link,
The Old Jarhead
and read it all.
It's a little lengthy, but I think you will be glad you read it; even if it scares the shit out of you, maybe pisses you off, causes you to dismiss him, and by extension, me, as whack jobs.
Read it again.....slowly, thoughtfully, carefully, making notes in the margins, underlining points of interest in red, question it analysis it with your loved ones, family, friends and neighbors.....
Or simply ignore it and go back to watching March Madness and drinking beer, you'll likely never notice the differences anyway.
I'm gonna email the link to ones I care about.
You can do what you want.
Gonna be a nice day here looks like. Mid 70's with sunny-shine. Aahhh Spring.
Got nearly 8 hours sleep and would have except for waking one time around 1:30 fighting with the CPAP mask and having to sit in the EZ chair for and hour or so of fitful sleep.
The missus is back in bed for another day of therapy for her own cold. This one has been a brass bound son-of-a-bitch for sure. The good news is that she is much improved over yesterday. The pooch refuses to get more than 3 feet from her and is in full protective mode.
A few errands to run this morning, then spending some time preparing for the CPA visit next week to have the taxes done. One big change is closing out the business to the status of hobby. The rules say I can loose as much of my own money as I want in a hobby, so why consider it a business.
No news read or listened to this morning, so I'm in a good mood. Ya'll come back later and I'll comment on the idiocies of the day.
As that old soldier played by Anthony Hopkins with Brad Pitt as a bear hunting, injun squaw screwing, moonshining son said of the authortities in what ever movie that was. Good one anyway. Appealed to my inner anarchist.
My hero (cause he gave the finger to the system and moved to Guad, married a senorita and drinks Kino Red and pens prose with bigger words than I even dreamed existed) Fred has much the same to say vis-a-via the current contretemps in That Sewage Pit Draining into the Potomac have stirred up.
Much the same feeling I have which is, Let's see em enforce it or pay for it.
They don't really expect to be able to enforce this monstrosity, they simply think that the gimme class will not realize that they are going to have to actually pay the premiums and not out of BHO's Stash but their own, and will blindly vote to keep them in power forever.
And if that doesn't work will try to enforce it with martial law.
Screw 'em.
Oh Yeah, a Great Movie. Legends of the Fall
I think it's Tuesday, anyway. I could be a day off .....
Nope, I just checked. One more day till the trash bin has to be wheeled down to the end of the driveway and left for the trash man to empty.
It's important to remember these little things.
We can get so tied in knots over the fact that apparently the 50 % of the population with IQ's below 100 are now running the show that we forget that there are at least that many above the line. Scary thought but you just knew that eventually it would happen, didn't you. Ohhh?? Never thought of that? What can I say.
After spending 36 or so hours in a blue funk over the Taxation Without Representation going on in the US, and finally after 5 days of sleeping (actually, not sleeping mostly) in the upright position of the easy chair, hacking and coughing the last little bits of my lungs out, I finally got 7 hours of pretty good sleep back in my bed last night. (Of course about 3 am the missus was up and sleeping the rest of the night on the couch because of her coughing and hacking).
And because of more sleep and upon a few minutes spent reading this afternoon, I've begun to put the passage of The Health Care De-form Bill into perspective.
Newton I think it was that theorized that 'for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction'. I've spent one and a half days (more if you count the ranting done before the vote) being that opposite re-action.
Which is not to imply that is a bad thing, just that it's to be expected.
There is also a saying that, 'we cannot know the good without also knowing the bad'. Makes sense. We have to know them both to be able to judge between them.
Just because the half the population that actually engages in rational, logical thought, and has seen the bad through a knowledge of history and human failures and could see the inevitable consequences of robbing Peter to pay Paul does not mean that the dimmer bulbs on the Christmas tree have sense enough to come in out of the rain.
And so, this too will pass into the dustbin of history at some point.
The point being that I should relax and try to have fun with it while I may; for all too soon, as time is measured by the universe, the sun will go Nova and all this region of the Milky Way will disperse back into the cosmic dust to wander aimlessly about until captured once again by some speck with enough gravitational pull and coalesce into some other sphere.
So, for now, I will not waste precious metals of brass and copper sheathed lead, and go back to digging another room for the Kudzu Grotto, where I will sit, surrounded by my cases of Canned Pork and Beans, ever vigilant against the encroachments of mildew and rust, laughing hysterically and betimes weeping for what might have been.
All of the forgoing blathering of sanity and insanity should in no way be taken as evidence that the medications will forever restrain the dragons and demons and they'll not come snarling and puffing forth smoke and flame from time to time. Rather that for now the gambler remembers that losing is part of winning......and the games not over until one person has all the chips.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
It disturbs me a great deal that I write the following; but, I am glad the House of Representatives last evening at the time of 11pm voted to pass the Health Reform Act.
Now before you send the ambulance with the white jacketed men wielding straitjackets to round me up and haul my wrinkled ass away, let me continue.
Because, perhaps now the citizens of this Republic will wake fully to the tyranny that can be imposed when we let others make the decisions regarding the totality of our live and will demand that their Freedom be returned.
For as many years as you care to number up to one hundred and fifty the rights demanded by the Declaration of Independence and codified by the Constitution of the United States and especially the Bill of Rights have been slowly eroded by the elected representatives of this country, whether for their own glory, power or enrichment or at the behest of others seeking their own goals.
Slowly, slowly, then more and more rapidly as the demands of honest men to be left alone to seek each their own freedom and security and the same for their families diminished with the passing of generation after generation, lulled by the siren call of prosperity and plenty that had been provided by the earnest effort of their fathers and mothers, this nation became so pliable to the seductive caresses of the velvet shackles that bound first one foot, then another, then a little finger, then another till at last we reach the point of complete restriction except for perhaps a muffled whimper around the edges of the gags imposed upon us.
Perhaps the sleepy giant can yet be aroused to it's full righteous, indignant anger to burst the bonds that keep it from revealing it's tremendous abilities and power. Perhaps these assaults are now sufficient. If not now........when?
We've seen glimpses of that power and those abilities when it has arisen to overcome foreign tyrants intent on enslaving not only their own countrymen but those of it's neighbors, in World Wars of the shooting kind and the lesser bally-hooed wars of ideas and philosophies. From a nation that fed the world and exported the ideas and inventions to the remote places so that other free men and women could feed themselves and their families.
From a nation that envisioned and succeeded in placing men on our closest heavenly neighbor, a nation that led the assault on smallpox, polio, hunger and ignorance.
From a nation that has given freely of the blood, sweat and tears of it's young men, women and families in hopes that the blessings of freedom with all it's attendant benefits could be extended to peoples of every stripe and hue, whatever their beliefs, with only the expectation that both they and we could then live lives of prosperity, plenty and progression together on the world that a benevolent Creator had placed us upon.
I have to believe that ability and power still resides within the hearts of my countrymen, but as history has shown time and time again, freedom cycles from abject slavery to determination by a few to break free, to struggles against overwhelming forces to freedom, to prosperity and security to pride and wealth untold to addiction to feast and entertainment to willingness to let others decide the direction of our lives, back into the shackles of Slavery.
By some counts I am either old or senior, certainly thought of as well past my prime and quite possibly I've been out in the sun too long, but this I vow
"I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."
I take this pledge as a personal Declaration of Independence. As a sovereign individual, I assert the exclusive right to my life, my liberty and my property, as guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. As government is properly instituted to protect my rights, I oppose, and declare as unconstitutional, all actions taken by government that violate the very rights it is charged with defending. I support a return to the principle of individualism upon which this country was founded. And rejecting any initiation of the use of force as being wholy inappropriate, I support a society based strictly upon voluntary association and free trade among its people.
And would you in your arrogance seek to bend me to your will....I have only one thing to say.
Bring it.
“These are the times which try men’s souls. The summer Soldier and the sunshine Patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his Country; but he that stands now deserves the love and thanks of men and women”.
And so it begins...............
The coming War has been a long time in reaching the combustion point.
Today may be either another dash of fuel on the embers or another small dash of water, depending upon how things go in that Great Insane Asylum on the Potomac.
I don't have the talent to express my emotions on the subject and likely would receive a visit by dark suited men wearing sunglasses if I were.
But a Rubicon has been reached in America and perhaps will be crossed today.
Mike V lays it out much better than I, along with others who have been quoted in his post. It's a little lengthy but you need to read it. Follow the links therein.
Then spend some time in fervent communication with your Creator, God, or just with yourself to fully understand and make decisions based on your understanding of where you will stand in the coming days.
Read it Here
So a vote for ObamaCare is also a vote against the vitality of American capitalism. Business elites have mostly held their tongues, or calculated that they can later dump their health-care liabilities on the government. Yet ObamaCare will lead to much higher levels of taxation across society. The tax wedge—the share of labor costs that never reaches workers but instead goes straight to government—will start flying towards the 50% that prevails today in most of Europe. In America, without the same welfare state obligations, it hovers near 30%.
A self-governing democracy can of course decide that it wants to become this kind of super-welfare state. But if the year-long debate over ObamaCare has proven anything, it is that Americans want no such thing. There is no polling majority or any bipartisan support, much less a rough national consensus, for this expansion of government power.
This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.
But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.
And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.
I think I'm gonna jump the gun on April 15th and go buy some precious metal over at Wally-World.
As we watch the Fiasco in DC this weekend I think that it would be so wonderful to have Howard Cosell to bring us the commentary.
Sadly, and probably to his great relief where ever he currently resides, he's no longer around to do that. Go follow the link and see what Bill Whittle thinks of the situation.
I believe that is a good thing, but I am convinced that I could never go 15 rounds with Cassias Clay. Not with the shots he'd give to a torso. I feel like I've been there though. My chest, ribs, and back ache from all the hacking and coughing I've been going through. Not to mention getting what little sleep I have sitting upright in the ezy-chair.
OTC medications were no match for the congestive cold I have and I finally did get to see my primary care Dr. at the clinic.
Some kind of penicillin and strong expectorant is hopefully helping, as well as hot steamy showers to loosen the crud in my head and chest.
Tonight will see me once again upright in the chair, but this time armed with some Tylenol PM, hopefully, a bit more sleep.
This weekend may be one of those defining moments in history that you read about;
Will We The People of The United States of America be ruled by Law as laid out in the Constitution or will we be ruled by men who care nothing for us.......only for their own power?
As the Ancient Chinese Curse says, "May you live in interesting times".
There are muffled clicks as stones are dropped into pouches and pockets all across this land, and off in the distance you can hear a faint drumbeat....and what sounds like a fife....
A Call.....??
My dear Three Blue Star Mom Sister is home again.
If you paused a moment to send kind thoughts her way....God Bless you.
After much prodding and poking and scanning with whirl-a-ma-jigs and thing-a-ma-bobs she was unceremoniously evicted from her hospital room way up there in the wilds of Maine into the arms of her tiny husband (6' 8" and looking like a redwood) who had soldiered on as best he could with out her being there every day to make sure he brushed his teeth and combed his hair. (Think of the Giant Guy from the Harry Potter Movies) (just kidding)
Take care Sis.
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/2087-A-Very-Serious-Warning-To-Nancy-Pelosi.html
Posted by Karl Denninger in Politics at 18:50
A *Very Serious* Warning To Nancy Pelosi
I know you're not going to listen to me.
I'm going to say it anyway, because as a concerned citizen of The United States of America, I must.
You are making a grave, perhaps nation-ending mistake.
Attempting to "deem" the Health Care bill passed when it has not actually been voted on is not Constitutional. Article 1, Section 7:
All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.
Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.
This is the black-letter law of the land.
There are millions of Americans who are extraordinarily pissed off right now. Some of them, like me, write scathing columns on The Internet or we rant on Talk Radio and Television (such as Judge Napolitano)
But some just smolder. Some remember the other founding document of our Republic, The Declaration of Indpendence, which says, in part:
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
That doesn't sound so good. What has tempered these people is largely what always has in all nations, that is:
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
Indeed.
Neither you or I know where the line is for that cross-section of the citizens in this land. I cannot speak for them, for I am not inclined toward the sort of actions that they are, nor do I countenance them. As such I'm not exactly on those folks' "A list".
In fact I fear the day they decide to express their disgust, for while in singular number those expressions are horrifying, as a group such actions harken to a time I hope we would never revisit in this nation.
But I do understand, and see, that they are seething in anger at what has befallen this once-great country.
They have watched as thirty years of corruption in Washington DC has turned our economy and government into a bad joke.
They have watched their jobs go overseas to a Communist Nation for the benefit of a handful of corporate oligarchs, while Washington chortles.
They have watched banksters do everything in their power to imprison them in debt, including bribing Congress to remove usury laws, "reform" bankruptcy so as to render a significant percentage of the population under effective indentured servitude (allegedly prohibited by the Constitution) while the very same banksters declare bankruptcy at the drop of a hat and stick lenders with losses, and while these very same banksters peddle fraudulent securities, cook their balance sheets and generally defraud everyone in the nation - then force the taxpayers, at gunpoint (quite literally, if you remember the fall of 2008 - you were in the room with Bernanke and Paulson when they threatened tanks in the streets) to bail them out.
Finally, they have watched Health Care turn into a monstrous mess, with cost increases of 10, 20 even 30% or more a year. These costs are expanding at that rate because ambulance chasers like former Presidential Candidate John Edwards make millions while Congress has passed laws forcing Americans to eat the development expense for every advanced medical technology over the last 30 years. Congress has refused to demand that medical practitioners bill everyone the same price for the same procedures and drugs. Congress has passed laws exempting medical providers and insurers from anti-trust law, so those aggrieved cannot sue in private causes of action for these abuses. And finally, Congress has forced all of us to eat the cost of care for illegal invaders who commit their first crime with their first step over our national boundary. All of these abuses and more could be addressed, but none of them are in the bill you wish to advance, and that, Madame Speaker, is intentional.
But all of this, while it has been outrageous and even criminal, has been, for the most part, Constitutional. It may be the stuff of a Banana Republic, and it may violate equal protection of the law (a founding principle and in fact a guaranteed right), but Congress has never cared about any of that in my 47 years on this planet.
Witness all the laws you, Madame Speaker and the rest of the Government (including this Health Care plan) do not have to obey while the rest of us do under pain of fine or even imprisonment.
What you propose to do now, however, is not Constitutional.
Rather than negotiate, advance and pass something like my four-point plan that would, along with dropping anti-trust protections and ending the practice of preventing reimportation of drugs and devices, attack the problem at the source, you instead are putting forward the Senate's 2200-page monstrosity.
You are doing so because this bill is not about Health Care at all. It is about revenue, and you know it. It is about the fact that The Federal Government is running into a wall at warp speed trying to furiously cover up all the fraud and scams in the financial system while at the same time spending over $1.5 trillion we do not have to replace collapsed consumer demand.
You must raise revenues, and you know it - or this ship called "The USS Treasury" sinks beneath the waves, and the first sacrifices to go overboard will be all the Seniors on Medicare and Social Security - not by choice, but by force of fiscal insolvency.
In short, this is just another Washington scam.
But this time you're going too far, and you're taking a horrific risk.
You must not, Madame Speaker.
You must instead face this nation and tell the truth.
We cannot fund the scams and frauds any more. Those who committed them must go to prison, even if they're campaign contributors.
We cannot borrow 10% of our GDP and spend it forward, as the CBO projects we will try, in a futile and permanent attempt to replace consumer demand.
If we do not stop this idiocy we will soon be unable to fund Social Security, Medicare and Welfare in all its forms, leading to an immediate and critical breakdown of our society.
The mad reach for revenue, Madame Speaker, is why you're in such a hurry - and you know damn well I'm right.
If you succeed, we will get your tax bill now and the promised health care never.
That's a fact.
There is a bright white line for every person in this country who has taken an oath to uphold our Constitution. It is in different places for each of those individuals, but you had better believe it exists.
For some it will be crossed if you try to disarm Americans, as was attempted after Katrina.
For some it will be crossed if you try to occupy their homes.
And for some, it may be crossed if you attempt to "deem" this bill passed, when The House has not actually passed it.
I pray this evening I am wrong, and that for no material number of people - indeed, for no one person - that is where their personal line is.
But I am reasonably certain that this prayer will be offered in vain.
Therefore, the choice is yours, not mine, for all I can do in furtherance of my hopes (and abeyance of my fears) is pray.
You, Madame Speaker, on the other hand, can act to quell this idiocy.
Or you may tempt fate, you may tempt the millions of people who have swore an oath to defend and uphold The Constitution and, having done so, went to war throughout our history. Many of those people, along with millions more who never wore a uniform stand today in defense of that "quaint" old piece of parchment - but not in defense of you, nor any other person.
You may also provoke States to assert their long-dormant 10th Amendment rights for real, not in some quaint "one off" regarding intra-state weapons manufacturing. That, Madame Speaker, harkens back to a time I'd rather not revisit as well.
You will almost certainly lose your Speaker's Gavel come November, as the mortal sin against the Constitution of deeming a bill passed without actually voting on it is so inimical to a republican form of government and displays such gross arrogance that you have forfeited your right to wield that gavel by mere contemplation of the act.
I am quite certain that I stand with millions of other Americans who are willing to put forth whatever effort is necessary to see that occurs come November - at the ballot box - whether you proceed with your abhorrent plan or not.
But what I pray for this evening, as I complete my day and offer homage to God before retiring, is that your office, and those of your fellow Democrats who are about to violate your sacred oaths willfully, intentionally, and with malice aforethought - is all you lose.
The simple truth is...
If you think you're a victim, you will always be a victim.
If you search for reasons to be depressed or to quit trying, you will find them.
If you justify your failure by blaming it on others, you will find plenty of people willing to exploit you by
justifying your depression... confirming your victimhood... and commending you for your failure to give it your all.
A couple of years ago, a woman told me she could never make it in
business because she was a female.
Years earlier, a guy told me he'd never make it because he was black.
Guess what? Neither one of them made it.
Did you catch yourself, just for a moment, having thoughts like these? Ever?
Much screaming and shouting, pointing and pontificating has been going on over the last year about what must be done to fix health care in this country.
Hey, I get my health care free from a Government Run Bureaucracy I'm allowed to talk about it.
Everyone on both sides of the political spectrum up in the AOTP (Asylum on the Potomac) has his or her own idea of how best to control the dumb masses back home in every aspect of their daily lives. (Watch them, listen to them, if you don't come to the conclusion that they all think we're too stupid to breath without them pumping on our chests, then you would never make a good scout, or spy and need to rethink your future career path.)
I have been really glad that I'm enrolled with the Veterans Administration for my health care needs. It would have been even better though if I had not needed to pull that little obligation for past services rendered out of my pocket. (Probably most people who have known me over the last 40 years realized it a long time before I did).
I have received what I consider excellent care by caring professionals, but looking closely at things one can see a vast bureaucracy that any private organization would pare by considerable, and you can still hear of instances where substandard treatment is given to Veterans and the facilities are not anywhere near as modern as what we are lucky enough here in Georgia to have.
UPDATE AT 3:42AM
Of course what I neglected to write last night as it was just a severe head cold, I thought, is that I would wake up a few minutes ago with what seems like Pneumonia, and instead of being able to go to the local emergency room for treatment on the government teat as one would be able to you'd think, I as an enrollee in the VA system have to have authorization from my local VA provider to do so, else I can still go to the local emergency room and receive treatment at my own expense, which would be good except that the Budget for this months VA Disability Pension Check has already been spent.
So I wait.....till the hours of normal business times.....when I can try to cadge my way into a visit with my physician at the local Charlie Norwood VA Medical Clinic, but sense I don't have an appointed time will likely either be told that I can wait all day in the waiting room and they will try to fit me in, or I can drive or be driven down to Augusta to the Main VA Medical Center Emergency Care Unit, which will of course necessitate the time to drive and then wait in line until they call me there, during which time no palliative care will be forth coming.
This is Government Run Health Care.......Are you sure this is what you want.
Face it.....people come from all over the world to be treated here in American Hospitals. Would they do that if their own countries health care was up to the task. Sure the expense's are great. Look at the amount of make work they are required to do by a Federal Urge to Control run AMOK.
Perhaps we should read what Ann
has to say in her article today; after that perhaps it could be suggested to youngsters at an early age that they have a responsibility to take care of their own needs starting at and early age both for medical care and the possibility of living to an age where they can earn a living as once they did.
You know, saving a little for a rainy day, not counting on the next generation outside your own family bearing the burden of supporting you. Might make you rethink some of the things you tell your kids, wouldn't it.
They say tomorrow never comes......
That's true I suppose in some sort of Alice in Wonderland kind of way, but the present of tomorrow will be completely controlled by the decisions of today and yesterday.
Suffice it to say that the medication I normally take every evening has been enhanced by the various OTC potions and palliatives I'm taking to deal with a nasty head cold, sinus draining and a throat made "So-So" (so sore you can't touch it with a powder puff) by hacking and coughing.
Fortunately apple cider vinegar mixed with raw honey with hot water will give temporary relief, I just hope some one of the medications will knock me out long enough to get a couple hours sleep tonight.
Of course then I might dream of the coming financial tsunami that's right now sucking the water away from the beaches.
A couple of paragraphs of one of the newsletters I read tonight......
If Congress can keep the illusion of Federal solvency
only by inflation, it will inflate. This is as sure a
thing
as there is in politics.
If the FED finally balks at hyperinflation, as I think
it will, and Congress does not nationalize it, then there
will be the other kind of default: the across-the-boards
default. This will take down all of the programs. I think
this is what will happen. I think we will avoid
hyperinflation. Call me an optimist.
When the great default pulls the plug on Social
Security and Medicare, what will you do? Do you have a
plan?
On a more personal note, my Three Blue Star Sister up in the North Woods has been admitted to the hospital because of a series of mini strokes.
If you can send some good thought and prayers her way I would take it as a great kindness.
It's the E.C.O.N.O.M.Y. STUPID.
The Arrogance of our evil Over lords continues to be blatant and in our face more and more every day.
Not only are they damned and determined to ram health care up our collective asses, in a time when American Companies are scrambling for every contract and unemployment is at a very real 17% when you include those whose unemployment has run out before they can find a job or those who have just given up and are either applying for welfare or trading in the under ground economy, the State Dept. orders $5.4 Million of Crystal Glass Ware from foreign companies without taking bids from American Companies.
Yeah, they are really concerned for the citizens who pay their salary.
Don't visit this Link if you've just eaten.
If you do look take these precautions first.
1. Set any food or drink aside, well out of reach of the keyboard or monitor.
2. Make sure that you have swallowed any food or drink that may remain in your mouth.
3. If you are on high blood pressure medication be sure you have taken it and it has time to start working.
4. Don't blame me if you clicked before reading all percautions.
We'll discuss the ethics of euthanasia at another time.
"In order to pay for the enormous amounts of food she is eating — her weekly grocery bill is $815 — Ms Simpson makes money by running a website where men pay to watch her consume fast food."
Damn
Guyk has hung it up.
I'll miss his shit and wit.
I couldn't think of an Air Force saying for the title, so substituted an old Navy farewell. I do indeed hope he and his sweet thing fare well down there on the left coast of Florida.
The older I get (and I'm not old, just getting a little older every day) the more people I can look back with thankfulness for having them be a small part of my life; especially the ones who I never met except through their writings.
I sometimes think that writers have helped shape my life more than some of the actual people and events I've known and experienced.
Which is not to say that family upbringing and school didn't help shape me, it did in ways that I'm still discovering. A little time spent among the fellowship of warriors in strange and far away places has left it's inevitable mark upon my soul. A mark that is still sometimes hard to ignore.
Raising a family and trying to be a husband and father went a long way towards revealing my inadequacies and teaching me a little bit about love.
Failures, of which there have been many, have taught me much more than any of the successes that came my way. Missed opportunities have tried to teach me to seize the day and not worry about what might of been, only of what is yet to come.
Through all of these though, I have been fortunate enough to have read the works of a few writers which have caused me to think on the nature of humanity and the works of men.
The works of Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Mark Twain, Will Rogers, Homer, Lucretius, Shakespeare, John D. McDonald, Robert Heinlein, Moses, Isaiah, The Gospels, Nephi, Smith.....
Hell I could go on for pages and not give credit to them all. Nowadays a lot of them write blogs that are funny, sad, angry, commensense...too many to get to everyday without neglecting some of the more important things in life.
Funny the things that go into shaping a person.
Guy, for the little bit of shaping that came from you, Thanks.
Every administration in the White House and the Congress are accused of being untruthful once in a while......hell even most of the time.....especially by the opposite party.
And generally the accusations are true to one extent or another.
But I have never before seen such a blatant example of the lying as practiced by the current President and his sycophants. It's as if they are taking the of adage of "repeating the big lie often enough and it becomes the truth" ala Orwell's 1984 to newer and bigger heights.
Andrew Mickey has a few thoughts.
www.q1publishing.com
Too Much Hope and Audacity: Obama’s Budget is Worse than You Thought
Forget the current estimates, the deficits are going to be much, much worse.
Just a few days after Senator Jim Bunning was labeled a “lunatic” for trying to enforce the recently enact Pay-As-You-Go laws, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) releasted its analysis of the Obama Administration’s federal budget proposal.
The CBO forecast the massive deficit spending to add $9.7 trillion to the U.S. government debt. That was $1.2 trillion more than the administration had forecast.
The CBO expects the government debt to increase to 90% of GDP.
(Has any nation ever survived such a ratio?)
The thing is though, these dire estimates are extremely optimistic.
The reason is because the assumptions the projections are based on are absolutely ludicrous.
The generous assumptions include NO recession in the next 10 years (it’s the 90’s boom time all over again! What…nobody told you?), record low inflation, and businesses across the country going on an unprecedented hiring spree, just to name a few.
When these hopeful assumptions never materialize, the ramifications will be widespread.
Although only time will tell how bad the deficit/debt will actually be, we can be pretty sure it will be far worse than both the White House’s and the CBO’s estimates. The reason is because they are based on five assumptions which, quite frankly, just aren’t going to happen.
Unemployment Rate:
Assumed: 6.68% 10-year average
Reality: The current headline unemployment rate is 9.7%. The last time it reached this high was in 1982.
Back then the government was cutting taxes and deregulating businesses. They were making mostly right moves. But even making the right moves still led to an average headline unemployment rate of 7.04% for the following decade.
The booming 80s couldn’t even bring unemployment down as fast as the Obama administration expects over the next 10 years.
(If you've lost your job or are in one that is less than optimal, in your opinion, you'd better create your own source of additional income, because jobs are not going to come back to this country until we enact something along the lines of the Fair Tax to make the economic climate conducive to business.)
As long as the economy fails to ever truly recover, unemployment benefits keep getting extended, and the cost of employment (taxes, mandatory healthcare, higher minimum wage, etc.) keep going up, the next decade averaging 6.68% unemployment is nearly impossible.
Inflation
Official Assumption: 1.61% annual average
Reality: We hear all the regular talk about how inflation isn’t a problem and how the Fed – despite its entire history - will know just the right time to start hiking rates. But if you take a look at the budget assumptions, you can see they truly believe the right moves will be made at just the right time that will lead to the lowest inflation rate in 70 years.
The budget assumption is for inflation in the next decade is lower than any decade since the Great Depression. It’s lower than the 40s, 50s, 60s, and on and on. It’s lower than the long run annual average (1913 to current) of 3.4%.
It’s not impossible, but it hasn’t happened in the past 70 years and none of those decades started off with near-zero interest rates and trillions of freshly printed dollars handed over banks.
10-year T-bond Interest Rate
Assumed: 5.06% average annual rate
Reality: Despite a deficit (as a percentage of GDP) nearly tripling the GDP growth rate and a debt that’s working its way to 100% of GDP, the administration believes it will still be able to borrow money very cheaply.
The assumption, however, is more than 20% below the 57-year average 10-year treasury interest rate of 6.35%.
Unless the government will be able to borrow money at lower rates as its creditworthiness deteriorates, the government’s ability to borrow at the rate of 5.06% is highly doubtful.
Average Interest on 3-Month T-bill
Official Assumption: 3.42% 10-year average
Reality: Same situation as with the 10-year T-Bond. As borrowers credit risk increases, the cost of borrowing does NOT go down.
The assumed 3.42% rate is one of the lowest decade-long average rates in the history of the 3-Month T-Bill.
And to give you an idea of the economic conditions necessary to create such a good environment, you have to go back to the decade between 1997 and 2006. The 90-00s boom years, when population demographics and low inflation were supporting strong GDP growth and low rates, the 3-Month T-Bill yielded an average 3.42%.
Right now, none of those pillars of economic growth are present. But the budget proposal is based on the presumption they are.
Real GDP Growth
Official Assumption: 2.5% annual average
Reality: This is probably the most plausible assumption, but it’s still very optimistic. A quick look at history shows why.
During the stagflationary years between 1972 and 1982 real GDP only grew at a 2.4% annual rate. So 2.5% seems realistic. However, the boom years between 1998 and 2008 was led by 2.66% annual growth in real GDP.
Right now, the government is expecting a return to prosperity despite a massive credit contraction, increased regulation, higher taxes, etc.
Clearly, 2.5% is very optimistic.
(remember, numbers don't lie, but liars will throw out numbers all day to convince you of their expertise)
The budget proposal, which assumes such a strong recovery and an era of unprecedented economic growth, is presenting a “best-case” scenario. And it is still expected to increase the federal debt level by another $9.7 trillion.
It’s yet another case of great expectations. And as we say in our free e-letter, the Prosperity Dispatch, great expectations inevitably lead to great disappointments.
When it comes to the budget, the disappointment will have a widespread impact.
Just think…What happens when the best-case scenario doesn’t materialize, the coming higher tax rates reduce tax revenue, additional entitlement programs get added to the mix, or the economic consequences of a random event like a natural disaster or another major terrorist attack are added into the mix?
None of the answers are good.
For anyone interested in maintaining and growing their wealth in the years ahead, the options will be limited in this kind of environment.
When interest rates rise, the government takes resources away from the most productive areas of the economy, and consumers are paying down debt, it’s going to be a tough run for the most popular investments over the past three decades – stocks and bonds.
Better do what it takes now.....no matter the pain...... to position yourself to survive.
Wow!
What a dream.
Did ya ever wonder what sparks the meandering of the mind during a dream?
I just came thrashing up out of the covers on the bed; ripping anda snatching at the CPAP mask on my face.
John Wayne and I along with a few other including a house of gold-hearted working girls in a bar/meeting hall had established the beginnings of a town in a bucolic valley deep in the mountains way the hell off somewhere. (hey it's a dream there were no road signs, OK?)
Working to build living quarters and protecting the place from nefarious types from far and wide. Claims jumpers, beaters of women, you know the type, we were kept busy just trying to keep the rif-raf out.
Despite our best shooting and efforts the town grew....technology intruded......a sawmill...
roads...new houses...flattening of the mountain tops for the building of new house with the inevitable influx of new people, till.......
....... despite numerous wounds received in battles big and small we were reduced to pensioners waiting of the dividend checks from the electric power station up near the big highway, which John tells me I should be glad to get.
Strange, the things that flash between the bits of gray matter late at night, or depending on how you look at it......early in the morning.
Does it mean anything......or was it that last handful of bugles I washed down with Diet Pepsi before bedtime?
Whatever, John Wayne will always be a hero of mine for one quote...
"Life is hard, it's even harder when you're stupid."
As the child of parents who were born during the Great depression and grand child of their parents who experienced the boom times of the twenties and the bust of the thirties, I remember well the admonitions of both groups to save my money and prepare for a rainy day. Placing my allowance of 50 cents into a large Welch's Grape Juice can once a week was just one of the many ways they contrived to screw up my young life by not allowing me to obtain what I wanted when I wanted, no matter the cost.
Like so many of my generation we were sure we were smarter than those old fogeys and besides it was the age of Aquarius and free Money had to go hand in hand with Free Love, didn't it?
Despite all their teachings and counsel we chose instead to listen to the siren call of living and investing with OPM (other people's money) and letting the natural process of inflation in the price of everything be paid with ever decreasing value of those green pieces of paper with pictures of dead presidents on them.
Never having learned that the value of the USD $ did not change for one hundred years since shortly after the founding of this Free Nation to the confiscation of real money by Frank Roosevelt and the Creature from Jekyll Island in 1934 and the subsequent declaration after said confiscation that it was suddenly worth 75 % more than they had told us it was worth as they conned us out of it, effectively making them that much richer than the day before.
Every dog has it's day doesn't it?
By convincing us to live for today and they'd insure tomorrow we allowed them to force our industries overseas, assuring us that we'd become a service economy just shuffling paper and enjoying mindless entertainment.
How's that working out for you now? Huummmm??
We don't laugh at the court jesters as much these days when they tell their little stories about the lords and ladies, all done with massive loads of sarcasm and humor so as to blunt the daggers and arrows of scorn which they so richly deserve, making the wounds seemingly minor and diverting our attention away from the trickle of blood which gradually becomes a pulsating torrent of ichor draining down or leg and out through the gutters as we watch dazedly, weakened past the point of reacting, to our doom.
Maybe we ought to laugh, after all, we've all contributed to the bloodletting.
So for your amusement.....
One of the Court Jesters.....
Borrow and Spend Economics to Pay for Borrowing and Spending
by The Mogambo Guru
Okay, I will admit that we had a little accidental gunfire around here recently, but nobody was hurt, and all that really happened is that I wasted a lot of very expensive ammunition and scared the hell out of a lot of people, including myself, a commotion which instantly activated my Amazing Mogambo Reflexes (AMR), making me drop the delicious Hostess Cupcake that I was noisily eating and take cover on the floor, falling, as I did, on top of the aforesaid cupcake, smashing it all over myself, and all over the floor, which made it taste terrible after that.
But the surprising gunfire was not my fault, as I had just read that the Federal Reserve is being as dangerously incompetent as ever by continuing to massively increase the money supply (which is so horrible because it causes inflation in prices) so that they can buy up (monetize) at least a part of the massive, monstrous, mega-moolah Treasury debt issuance that will be necessary to fund the unbelievable sum of, as I understand it, $1.9 trillion in government deficit-spending in the upcoming One Freaking Year (OFY) as a result of the massive spending of the terrible, awful, worse-than-I-had-feared, demon-from-hell Obama administration, plus trillions more for the needs of the private sector, and a trillion or so in Congressional "supplemental appropriations" throughout the year as Congress periodically, almost ritually in a Satanic kind of way, "discovers" that their original estimate of their borrowing needs was inadequate, and - surprise! - that these slimy, lying bastards need LOTS and lots more money!
I can see by rereading that paragraph that I was so wrapped up in heaping Massive Mogambo Scorn (MMS) on the arrogant, radical-Left Obama, on every sniveling Democrat in the place, most of the Republicans, and on the despicable, guilty-as-charged, incompetent Federal Reserve that I never actually got around to telling you how much money and credit the Fed created last week, which was the original point I was going to make for some reason other than decrying such irresponsible expansions of the money supply that will guarantee horrific, economy-destroying, dollar-destroying, soul-destroying inflation in prices, but I forgot what I was planning to say about it, to tell you the truth, but with or without it, the increase in Fed Credit last week was another $5.2 billion, which (although terrifying), is less than his usual increase, and at $5.2 billion, is merely twice the usual weekly rate of money and credit creation by the monster Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, who - single-handedly! - created all the economic mess of the world by merely creating $10 billion-or-so per month of new Federal Reserve money and credit!
Now, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, a clueless academic, still stubbornly hews to that same, tired, insipid-yet-stupid neo-Keynesian econometric theory that has now been shown to be not only wrong, wrong, wrong, but also stupidly and catastrophically wrong, which doesn't say anything at all about the morons, like Ben Bernanke and Alan Blinder, who are themselves mere representative examples of the neo-Keynesian econometric bozos rampant in the world today, all of whom believe in such imbecilities as their precious economic theories in the face of, literally, overwhelming evidence to the contrary! It is absurd on its face! Ya gotta laugh! Hahahaha!
Interestingly, a crucial part of the stupid Keynesian nonsense holds that the government can, by virtue of borrowing the money, replace any perceived lost "consumer demand", in any economic downturn, by merely borrowing and spending money, even if borrowing and spending money was the cause of the original downturn, and that there are no repercussions that cannot be solved by more borrowing and spending, and that inflation in prices has nothing to do with the money supply but with irrational exuberance! Which doesn't even make any sense! Hahahah! It doesn't even freaking make sense!!
Sharp-eyed Junior Mogambo Rangers (JMRs) will recognize the two exclamation points as indicators of something, usually the preceding sentence (as in this case), as being very important, as, now that I notice, it is, in this case, in that it is Beyond Freaking Crazy (BFC)!!!
Horrors! The punctuation using the rare triple exclamation point! You can tell I am on a roll here! I suggest you go to someplace safe in your house where your enemies would have to attempt a painful frontal assault against you, and as you wait, you think to yourself, "Obviously, this is extremely important! As indeed it is, now that I think about it after it has been drawn to my attention, thanks to the Magnificent Mogambo (MM), because you do not get anything except total, unmitigated disaster from inept management by people who cannot be controlled and who are Beyond Freaking Crazy (BFC)!"
I am very proud of you for thinking this, as it shows that it has all become clear: The preponderance of people on this planet, and in our universities, and in our media, and in our governments, and in our central banks are BFC lunatics if they think that borrowing (racking up debt) and spending money will "cure" the bust of the boom produced by borrowing (racking up debt) and spending the money! Hahahaha!
I immediately think of the joke, "Doctor! I've been gorging myself, but I never lose any weight!" but it doesn't seem to fit the conversation, somehow, and it doesn't really seem to have anything to do with anything I was talking about, which makes me think that maybe my subconscious is telling me that I SHOULD have been talking about it, which doesn't make any sense, either, because I don't think anyone needs advice on how to gorge themselves, and in fact, people seem quite disgusted when I do it, although it makes their kids laugh, meaning that the kids like me better than they like their own parents, which is a small victory for me and, although small, is a victory.
So I say to the kids, who just showed how much they love me, "Hey, kids! Tell your parents that they are idiots unless they buy gold, silver and oil right now, because unless they do, they are going to be poor when excessive government deficit-spending and excessive Federal Reserve over-creation of money and credit make prices soar as the buying power of the dollar falls, which means that you will be poor, and you tell them how you don't want to be poor, and how you have been thinking about, in an idle sort of economic self-defense way, the many, many advantages of being too young to be charged with a capital crime should they fail to acquire the aforesaid gold, silver and oil!"
This is where the parents turned around and gave me this "dirty look", which I interpreted to mean, "I surrender, under protest, to your magnificent, powerful presentation of the case for gold, silver and oil, enhanced by the paranoid notion that my own children are threatening to kill me in some bizarre extortion racket involving gold, silver and oil that you have planted in my head, which I realize is all for my own good because I now see that only an idiot would not buy gold, silver and oil when the government and the banks are acting so despicably! Thank you, handsome stranger!"
The name's Mogambo, ma'am. It's my job.
For way too many years now I've ranted and raved about everything from Real Money to Fraudulent Government by Fiat Money to Idiots like the current crew of critters in the Asylum on the Potomac.
Most of my family and friends got tired of listening to me and tuned me out. That's not surprising in retrospect, although it did give me a little bit of cynicism and disgust with the average intelligence of people in large groups. If your IQ is 115 or over just look around; Every other person you see has an IQ of less than 100, that has to scare you just a little bit. Of course as a former Troop Commander in Germany told a group of us at the Officers Club at Grafenveer; "There is a place in the world for the professional private. Some one always has to do the scut work".
Just try to make sure it's not you! Helps if you actually paid attention in grade school.
In part this feeble effort at wit and wisdom is to give an anonymous outlet (well, if you discount the fact that my e-mail is readily available to anyone who wants it) for those disturbing factoids, paranoid phantasys, cobbled together conspiracy theories, and an occasional shout from the watchtower about the imagined hobgoblins bearing down against the unprotected village.
So tonight rather than try to come up with yet another improbable explanation for my agitation I'll let someone else give you their idea of what's coming.
He stated that this article could be shared with any of my friends, as since you are either friends I have met or friends I haven't met yet, here you go.
What OBAMA!'s Budget Doesn't Mention
By Porter Stansberry
Nobody likes bad news.
A few years ago, I got in hot water by insisting General Motors was bankrupt. Supporters of the company (whether investors or unionized employees) got mad at me and said I was exaggerating. They rightly pointed out GM was still servicing its debts and was still owned by its equity holders. Thus, technically at least, GM wasn't bankrupt.
In order to avoid any unnecessary litigiousness, I began to write in parody, pretending to be the chairman of General Motors and warning of the company's impending bankruptcy. One of the few ways you can still speak unpleasant truths in America is by using – or pretending to use – humor. That's why, for example, Chris Rock and Bill Cosby are our most poignant commentators on race relations and why John Stewart is perhaps our most insightful news commentator.
Meanwhile, the bankruptcy of General Motors was far from a laughing matter.
GM had no conceivable way to repay its debts. It was even borrowing money to pay for the interest expense on its existing debts.
Monitoring the company closely between 2006 and 2009 taught me quite a bit about willful self-deception. Here are the three key traits I look for now in companies facing major financial stress...
No. 1. There's never any real tally of the total amount owed. GM used byzantine accounting to hide the truth of its deteriorating fiscal condition for nearly 20 years. It was impossible for any outside analyst to get an accurate, consolidated account of GM's total debt.
No. 2. None of the company's "turnaround" plans include any efforts to actually repay principal amounts owed.
No. 3. The company's spending is out of control. In GM's case, it was also rife with fraud and absurdity – like, for example, its jobs bank where people were paid not to work.
If you don't know how much you owe, if you make no attempt to ever repay your debts, and if your spending is out of control, there's no way to avoid bankruptcy. In retrospect, these facts seem so plain and obvious. But who else was warning about GM? No one.
I bring this up to you today because the exact same things are now true about the United States of America.
We don't know how much we owe. We don't have any plan to repay our debt. And our spending is still completely out of control...
OBAMA! has sent a new budget to Congress. It contains several provisions that will make people unhappy. Taxes are going up on the rich. They're going up on private-equity firms and hedge funds. They're going up on oil and gas companies. And they're going up on multinational companies.
These new taxes are what you'll see people arguing about. They are what the politicians will complain and campaign about. Nobody wants to pay the costs of government, so that's the easy sell. But the taxes aren't the real problem with OBAMA!'s budget...
The real problem is that government spending is literally out of control.
The government is going to reduce its so-called "discretionary" spending by a grand total of $200 billion. Only about $1.4 trillion of the government's $3.8 trillion budget is discretionary. The rest is legally required, thanks to unfunded entitlement programs, like Medicare. So right now, far less than half of the government's annual budget can legally be restrained.
Meanwhile, there's no accurate tally of the government's debt. Supposedly, we owe around $12 trillion. This number is so large that it is meaningless. What does it really mean? According to the IRS, almost 143 million people filed tax returns in 2007 (the most recently reported year).
Of these people, roughly 96 million paid something in taxes – even one penny. Thus, technically, you could say there are basically 100 million taxpayers in the United States. Dividing the total debt ($12 trillion) by the number of taxpayers, you can see our total debt is actually $120,000 per taxpayer. How many people do you know can afford an additional $120,000 in debt?
And the truth is, the $12 trillion figure is only a down payment on our actual debts.
For example, nobody really knows how much more money Fannie and Freddie will require. (My bet is $500 billion each – or $1 trillion.) On Christmas Eve, when no one was looking, Congress approved unlimited funding for the two national mortgage banks.
And that's far from the only "off-budget" item. We have committed to fighting two civil wars – in Iraq and Afghanistan. The costs are likely to be $50 billion or so next year alone. How much over the next 10 years? Maybe $1 trillion? Or maybe more. And there's a new "jobs package" that's estimated to cost $76 billion next year with another $25 billion to bail out cash-strapped state governments.
Even if you only looked at the dollar amounts that have been budgeted today and you ignored all of the rest of the growth of future entitlement spending, you'll discover that we actually owe something around $20 trillion right now.
And if $20 trillion is the real number, then the amount owed by taxpayers is actually $200,000 each. Of course, that's if you're counting all of the taxpayers. Most people, though, pay almost nothing in taxes. Unless you're earning more than $50,000 per year, you're not really contributing to the tax receipts. Roughly 50 million folks are in this category. These people pay less than 10% of all income tax receipts. So you shouldn't count on them to repay much, if any, of these debts – they can't.
What's the real per-capita number? My best estimate – just on the money we actually owe today – is $400,000 per taxpayer. At a reasonable (6%) rate of interest that's $24,000 each – just to pay the interest on these debts each year. How many people do you know that could afford $24,000 a year in higher taxes? How many people can afford additional debts of $400,000?
My point? Our government is bankrupt – right now, today. Sure, it might still have access to the credit markets. And yes, since it owes dollars, it can always simply print more. I realize the government can't go bankrupt they way GM did. Our bondholders won't end up getting title to our national parks and the strategic petroleum reserve. No, that's not going to happen.
What will happen?
I can't say for certain. But here's what I know: It's not a good idea for the world's largest debtor and the world's strongest military power to go broke. Bad things happen in democracies when the government goes broke. At the very least, our creditors will demand much higher interest rates and abandon the use of our currency. That's going to devastate our standard of living.
These facts and figures should cause you to wake up and think about what you're doing with your savings. Here's a hint: Don't save dollars. And don't count on whatever the government has promised to you, whether it is a retirement or medical care. The government is bankrupt. It won't be able to deliver.
If anyone sees a good way out of the coming mess, I'd appreciate a heads up on how to go about avoiding it.
Did you ever sit in a math class and watch as one student just could not understand the concept.
Maybe in this case Obama should suspend for a moment his arrogant assumption that he is the All-Wise-All-Knowing Wizard and look behind himself to realize that the curtains have been drawn and he's revealed at the charlatan he really is, standing there pulling levers, blowing smoke, clashing cymbals, while all the time the little boy is pointing, laughing and shouting, "The Emperor has NO clothes".
(sorry for the mixed Metaphors)
Of course it would be easier to expose him were he not surrounded by moonbats like Pelosi, Reid, Rham and the whole of the MSM.
is only 18 days and a few hours away.
Just a little bit longer than it's been since finger took to keyboard here at the Kudzu Grotto (KG).
We had one of those snowy days that I as a born and bred Southerner like to see. A quick snow shower that lasted from about 8:30am 'til 3:00pm or so. A wet snow that stuck to the ground and roof tops but didn't build up on the trees and power lines. By supper time is was rapidly melting away. What makes it through the night will likely be gone by this time tomorrow.
Nothing much happening around here worthy of talking about; hence the lack of posting. To be true it's not the first time for such a hiatus, and won't be the last I reckon.
It seems our political overlords are damned and determined to ram through a health care bill over the objections of the majority of the citizenry.
This is what happens when we elect politicians who think they know better than we what is good for us. Have you scrapped those Obama/Biden stickers off your car bumper yet?
I'm getting a bad feeling about this folks. It's as if they are determined to force a bloody confrontation between the tit and the tit suckers. The suckers and suckees if you will. I don't know about you but I've been shot at before and am not looking forward giving anyone another chance to ventilate this aging carcass. It's a good thing though that I had the sighting eye adjusted back to 20/15 for those long shots. May be time to invest a few bucks on some range time soon. Send some precious metal down range.
In other news I see that the Postmaster General suggested that drastic changes would have to be made in the postal system soon. Of course no one paid him any attention, but if it would save $8,000,000,000.00 a year to a system to that currently loses $4,000,000,000.00 a year to cut out Saturday delivery, it makes sense to me.
Face it, the USPS is a dying dinosaur. True the Constitution (Article 1. Section 4) calls for the establishment of Post Offices and Post Roads, but it didn't say they had to be continued if new technology and private entities were able to more effectively and efficiently provide the same services. Let it die. It doesn't have to do it tomorrow, but the artificial life support we provide it by subsidizing continual monetary losses will only prolong the agony to little effect. Of course if it were able to downsize and become financially competitive again I'd be a strong supporter and would cheer from the sidelines enthusiastically, but without drastic changes which will be opposed at every turn by the Postal Employees Union I don't see that happening. After all, today I paid this months bills by Bill Pay from my bank, sitting in the comfort of my five way adjustable office chair. No stamps, no envelope, no problem, no muss. Why didn't I do this sooner?
Nancy Pelosi, the harridan from Haight Ashbury has opened her mouth again to say
"Bipartisanship is a two-way street. A bill can be bipartisan without bipartisan votes. Republicans have left their imprint."
Can you believe the voters in her district keep re-electing her term after term?
If no one from the opposite party votes for it, how is that bipartisan?
Only in the minds of liberals folks.
