Posted on 10/25/2013 8:02:43 AM PDT by Attention Surplus Disorder
Folks, if you have read me recently you know that I've said that you are the problem and that the reason this is true is that you won't go on strike, you won't picket DC and refuse to leave until the government stops stealing from you and debasing the currency, you won't reduce your spending and income to only that which provides necessities, and most of you go on to justify your behavior with "my kids (and/or family) deserve what I can provide."
You're fools and I'm going to prove it.
Further, I'm going to prove -- by arithmetic -- that if you follow the above path you will destroy yourself along with your children and grandchildren.
Here's why.
There were 108,592,000 people in the United States in the fourth quarter of 2011 who were recipients of one or more means-tested government benefit programs, the Census Bureau said in data released this week. Meanwhile, according to the Census Bureau, there were 101,716,000 people who worked full-time year round in 2011. That included both private-sector and government workers.
None of the people getting means-tested government benefits will ever vote to reduce them, nor vote for any politician that will reduce them.
But it's factually much worse than it first appears because federal government workers will not vote to fire themselves either, just as the 17th Amendment (ed: The worst thing to ever happen to this country) is inviolate because The Senate will never vote to fire itself.
So we must in fact subtract 21,880,000 from the full-time worker count.
In other words you're outvoted by 36%.
Does it make sense yet? This is not a small margin and it cannot be politically reversed because the margins are too high. Were the skew relatively small (and it looks small until you subtract out federal workers) you could potentially do so, because some people won't vote and you could "motivate the base." But note that with the federal workers out, and we're not subtracting the State workers, which also exist on this same largesse, you can't get there because this means nearly 40% of those receiving such benefits would have to stay home when reductions are proposed, and they never will.
As such you cannot vote your way out of this.
You cannot politically organize your way out of this.
You can't do it in the Democrat Party and you can't do it in the Republican Party. Nor can you do it in a third party.
Every single person who argues otherwise is an idiot or worse, a fraudster (if they have run the numbers above.)
Delusions persist because people don't examine the facts in detail. I recognize that I participated in attempting to politically change things for far too long because I did not look, in detail, at the math.
But I can no longer make any logical argument that political activism is useful in any way, shape or form. It is a waste of energy, time and money that I can expend elsewhere on something that brings me more joy, rather than tilting at windmills.
There is only one remaining peaceful way to change things: Withdraw your consent and thus intentionally but peacefully and lawfully destabilize the underpinning of the government debt market, thereby denying the government the means to continue screwing you, your children and grandchildren irrespective of the vote count.
The only other choices remaining are consenting to your own economic death, along with that of your children and grandchildren, or violence.
If you claim that you will "get yours" for "your kids" (or your spouse, or just yourself) you're deluding yourself as the odds are that (1) you will fail and (2) even if you "succeed" the victory will be both temporary and pyrrhic as you cannot overcome the voting block deficiency.
In short, read this Ticker again in light of the above mathematical facts.
Then act, or not, but the math doesn't care if you agree with it or not.
The 17th needs to be repealed and never should have been ratified. I really don’t understand what the states were thinking. I hope William Jennings Bryant is burning for what he started.
“There is only one remaining peaceful way to change things: Withdraw your consent and thus intentionally but peacefully and lawfully destabilize the underpinning of the government debt market,”
Forgive me. I haven’t had my coffee. What does this mean practically? Going Galt?
And vote fraud isn’t even part of the above equation...
Bump
The US economy will crash quickly or slowly regardless of our consent. How's this for a actual strategy?:
1. Work hard and make the most money you can.
2. Use that money to prepare for the unavoidable collapse.
3. Preparing means moving away from high population areas and buying real things - defensible arable land, guns and ammo, food and medicine, etc.
4. Join with your neighbors and similarly minded folks in defense groups.
5. Develop a non-technology based skill - farming, carpentry, tailoring, food prep, etc.
6. The most important - Get right with God. Join a church, read your Bible, pray for revival.
Somehow, I think these ideas might prove more successful that "withdraw your consent".
Hmm. Sobering article, and things do look bleak, but the author is making a few assumptive mistakes that work in the favor of his thesis.
First, it is wrong to assume that EVERY govt worker is going to vote liberal Democrats all the time. They don’t. The majority does, but to assume 100% skews his figures greatly.
Second, it is wrong to assume that EVERY means tested recipient will vote liberal also. Many of those are on SS and they are conservative. Again, by assuming 100-0% instead of maybe 70-30% his total skew is huge.
Third, it ignores the fact that the way the geography is laid out, conservatives are in a great position to continue to win House seat majorities because the libs are cloistered in inner cities.
And fourth, if he were correct, the margins in 2008 and 2012 would have been MUCH larger and 2010 would not have happened, not to mention all the good elections in 2009 and 2011 in odd run-offs, etc.
Overall, I think his premise is correct, just not nearly as correct as he says, because he is cooking his own books.
Yes. Earn less. Pay as little tax as possible. Stop trying to get ahead.
Their whole master plan is based on exploiting through excessive taxation what they see as the "greed" of the white middle class - that we will keep trying to earn bigger houses, bigger cars, bigger salaries - at any costs. When we stop, and teach our kids how the scam works, then the whole rotten edifice comes crashing down - just as it did in Atlas Shrugged.
Pretty much. Starve the tax power base via producing and consuming less. This ploy could work for a while until, in my humble opinion, a wealth tax is instituted. Government only represents the biggest voter base (takers including ALL government workers/contractors)and those with the means with which to buy influence. Everyone else......eat your peas.
“What does this mean practically? Going Galt?”
If that’s the two-word summary, I suppose so; but modified slightly. It means (as I understand Karl) reducing your income and income-producing activity and trinket acquisition activity to the point or “a” point where your tax contribution to the government is minimized or eliminated.
In Libertarian (of which I don’t consider myself one) terms, if you believe (in general) that taxes are theft (and while some taxes are necessary, eg; in support of constitutionally-specified mandates, whether you and I may or may not agree on just what those are, inarguably and obviously, the amount of taxes devoted to redistribution, graft, and corruption, massively exceed whatever is Constitutionally-mandated or even reasonable)
Further: [in a previous Ticker]
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=225292
“reduce your spending and income to only that which provides necessities”
Way ahead of you on that one.
“As such you cannot vote your way out of this.
You cannot politically organize your way out of this. “
Eventually, we’ll probably have to shoot our way out of this.
“Somehow, I think these ideas might prove more successful that “withdraw your consent”.”
Agreed.
“1. Work hard and make the most money you can.”
As a thought exercise, when you do that, assuming you do so legally and taxably, roughly 50% of that money is removed from your control, tracked, and in general, housed within a government-controlled entity subject to partial or full confiscation. Unless you coffee-can it which is increasingly an actionable activity in and of itself, should you be discovered. Of that which is removed from your control, roughly half probably goes to a “program” of sorts that is designed to empower, either by vote-recruitment or armed paramilitary recruitment, folks who would be happy to turn you and yours into food. So if you make $1000, $250 potentially goes to pay some dudes from the hood armed with AK-47’s that you probably paid for. Your taxes bankroll the opposition, in effect. If you’re confident in your ability to fend off a Waco-grade assault, fine.
Your other points I (and Karl) agree with.
As a former government employee of 25+ years who happens to be a libertarian—there are a number of us in government ‘service’—I can’t ever recall ANYONE who ever willingly voted for a pay/benefit reduction. ALL of our jobs were ‘essential’. I don’t know many ‘conservatives’ who are for a reduction in SS. In other words neither party is facing the real exponential math outcome....and the math doesn’t give a damn which political philosophy you adhere to.
When that crash comes there will be no peaceful solution to the millions of enraged non-producers who will panic, rob, rape and destroy.
Our currency will become even more inflated than Karl's ego. The only hope is Christian revival, a concept that Karl cannot fathom. Short of that, prepare to defend your family and property, and be ready for the rebuilding when rage eventually burns out and becomes despair.
You can’t make all the necessary preparations without money regardless of what the FedGov takes unless you already have loads of cash. I can agree with the concept of lowering income AFTER you have prepared, but not before.
As bad as the 17th amendment is, I think the 16th gives it a run for its money in the worst amendment race.
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