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The Looters Are in Control
Zero Hedge ^ | Rick Ackerman

Posted on 11/19/2012 7:08:33 PM PST by Perdogg

And now it’s time for Mr. Obama to start paying for all those votes by reaching deep into our pockets. If you intend to avoid paying your “fair share,” however, please take note: There will be few places to hide. For a gimlet-eyed view of what may lie in store for taxpayers and citizens of all political persuasions during the next four years, ponder the guest commentary below, from Wayne Siggard, a regular in the Rick’s Picks forum. RA]

The election was all about new math: 47 = 51. The foresight and genius of the Founders knew no bounds. Ben Franklin said, “Once the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” The trumpets have sounded. The heralds have announced the awakening of the masses to that reality. The greatest and most free nation the world has ever known has just sold its birthright for a mess of pottage; or, at least, the promise of an Obama phone. The takers have voted to take control over the producers.

Everyone will now get a fair shot — except that those who work in government and those who take government welfare will get a fairer shot. Obama knows that you didn’t build that company. You didn’t live frugally and save more money than your neighbor while they spent theirs on drugs or riotous living. He knows this because he didn’t get anything without government assistance — affirmative action put him ahead of more qualified people who earned a spot that he took, just like Elizabeth Warren. You couldn’t possibly have gotten anything on your own merit or hard work.

"A claim for material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers." – Friedrich von Hayek

Von Mises said that full government control of all activities of the individual is virtually the goal of both national parties. Have you ever tried to drill an oil or gas well? Have you ever tried to build a house or commercial building? Have you ever tried to manufacture and sell a product? The International Building Code (IBC) increases in size, restrictions and requirements every year. Why? Because a bureaucracy needs to expand to justify its existence.

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." – Lord Acton

Have you ever experienced the disdain and contempt of a bureaucrat whose permission you sought? It used to be that their power to grant a license or permit was retribution for their pay being less than that of the private sector. Now, you get to pay them 50% more than you would get for the same job, and the disdain has not decreased. Firemen, police officers, and military personnel can retire as young as 38, many making over $100,000 per year if they work until 50, and many can take another job and collect another pension on top of the first. Meanwhile, according to the Census Bureau, the average middle class family’s income has decreased $4,019 during the Obama years, to $50,964. More than half of the lifeguards in Newport Beach, CA, make over $150,000 per year and can collect more than $100,000 in pension benefits starting under 50 years of age.

So, What’s Coming?

That paradigm of preternatural prestidigitation, the Federal Reserve Bank, will continue its policy of zero percent interest. The big banks will mask their insolvency with free money from the Feds. Greedy speculators and fools who overspent on housing will have their mistakes paid for by those taxpayers who had the foresight to save and invest wisely. Obama bundlers and other insiders will continue to get billion dollar investments from the government, sucking valuable capital from the private sector. The official inflation rates will miraculously stay low while you are paying 100% more for gasoline and food.

"History is largely a history of inflation, usually inflations engineered by governments for the gain of governments." – Friedrich von Hayek

Foreign nations are no longer purchasing U.S. government bonds. The largest purchaser is the Federal Reserve Bank. In other words, the government is printing money from thin air. In 1970, you could go to Las Vegas and buy a silver dollar for one paper dollar. It now costs around $35. A mansion behind the Beverly Hills Hotel sold for $200,000. It resold in 2004 for $16 million. A house in Flintridge, CA, sold for $115,000. Its current value is $4.5 million. The base price for a Corvette was $5192. It is now $49,600, a comparative bargain. What you could buy for $1 million in 1970 now takes $36 million. Senator Everett Dirksen in the 1960s is reputed to have remarked,” a billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon we’re talking real money.” You can now add three zeros. The bottom line is that if you are collecting 0.15% interest on your CD, you are losing real purchasing value of at least 10%, and that rate will be accelerating in the next four years. Carlo Ponzi was a hopeless naïf compared to our elected officials.

Harry Reid Has a Plan

Harry Reid already has a bill on his desk which requires that all pension plans (except for the unions, of course), 401Ks, and IRAs be converted to annuities from the government. This pile of cash represents the largest pile of readily available cash in the world right now. The money will be gone as soon as it hits the government’s account, and you will be left with empty promises. There is no money, only a printing press.

Capital export controls will be enacted. You will not be able to get your money out of the country. Already you can no longer open a bank account in Switzerland unless you have over $30 million because the reporting requirements are too onerous for a smaller account. All requests to Switzerland for visas from Americans will be suspended. History will be repeated (shocking, I know), and all gold in private hands will be confiscated. The Republicans will cave, the tax rates will rise, and anyone making more than the insider politicians and government employees will encounter ever-increasing marginal tax rates.

Payoffs for votes will be made. Affirmative action requirements will be increased in every field of endeavor. Women’s abortions and contraceptives will be free. Regulations will stop the advent of fracking and the boom in oil and natural gas will come to an abrupt halt. Payments to environmental groups for lawyer’s fees will expand exponentially. Government-controlled lands with oil and gas potential will be declared wilderness or national monuments, just like Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah. I could go on for another ten pages, but , in a nutshell, the message from Mr. Obama is, “You lost.”

And finally, Israel has recognized that Mr. Obama will offer no succor. Before the end of January, they will raid Iran. Gasoline will reach $7 per gallon, and voila, solar and wind energy will be competitive. No matter that your thermostat is set at 40 degrees, if you can get fuel or power.

The looters are in control. Set your alarms.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Editorial; Politics/Elections
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41 posted on 11/20/2012 4:55:05 AM PST by jersey117
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To: R0CK3T

I doubt it, the red has already figured it out and does nothing.

People always want the solution to be peaceful, so they rely on going to the voting booth to correct the political ailment. That alone is why the left has gained so much ground.

The voting booth has been corrupted and the only recourse left would be very unpeaceful.


42 posted on 11/20/2012 4:59:16 AM PST by dforest
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To: dforest

“The voting booth has been corrupted...”

I never thought I’d see Communist subversion succeed in the United States of America.

IMHO


43 posted on 11/20/2012 5:19:48 AM PST by ripley
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To: Newton

I’ll trade you a 5 gallon flush toilet for a case of 100 watt bulbs. I will even throw in an unrestricted shower head.


44 posted on 11/20/2012 5:27:01 AM PST by central_va ( I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: ripley

I was just saying the same thing to my husband this morning.

It was successful because the schools and media were instrumental.

What makes me sad is that many of the young people do not understand the misery they have set up for themselves in the coming years.

When they figure it all out, it will be too late and the cost to get out of it would be very high.


45 posted on 11/20/2012 5:34:36 AM PST by dforest
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To: Elsie

“we’ve just not coalesced into a force to actually DO something other than bitch.”

You got that right. Conservatives wouldn’t know how to organize a three-man protest against a local village council sidewalk tax. It’s pitiful watching these people bitch about the federal fascists taking over, and they’re too damn stupid to realize that conservatives and patriots now control 30 states. That’s up from 25 in 2010. They all wonder where the army and political forces are to take on Buckwheat and his commies, and the answer is staring them right in their faces.

They’re so myopic that they concentrate only on Washington and fail to notice that they have enough power now, if they organize, to completely crush the criminal fascist syndicate occupying Washington.

I’d bet my next paycheck that not one in 100 conservatives know that the Founders left us a blueprint to overthrow dictators, and it begins with organizing Committees of Safety, or some facsimile, in the states.


46 posted on 11/20/2012 7:05:06 AM PST by sergeantdave (The FBI has declared war on the Marine Corps)
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To: Tublecane

They will take the fund electronically, just like Aegentina did over 2 1/2 years ago. They hid behind “We have to pay off the country’s debt & everyone has to help”.

The didn’t touch UNION pensions or Public Employee pensions—only private money. Sooo- ‘everyone’ did NOT help-—only a portion of Argentina ‘helped’-—and got heavily burned in the process.

Now, 2 1/2 years later, after $69 BILLION was stolen there, Argentina is knocking on the door of bankruptcy again—and there is no more fund of private money to steal.

Some estimates are that there is $13-15 TRILLION in PRIVATE pensions & IRA’s, etc. That would put a huge dent in the USA debt payoff, but Obama will never pay back our loans. He will only spend more money- and a great deal of it will be spent on his private army so he can continue as King of the USA until he dies & then he will expect Michelle to take over-—also like Argentina has done. A husband & wife down there concocted a plan to have them each serve 2 consecutive terms, and then hand everything over to the other. Their laws say ‘2 CONSECUTIVE’ terms—not ‘2 TERMS—NO MORE, PERIOD’.

Husband did 2 terms. Wife got next 2 terms. So, after 4 terms in the same marriage, the stage was set for the Husband to take over again for another 2 terms in 2013.

OOOOPSS—he died in 2010, so the wife is trying to change the Argentina laws again to benefit her, so she can ‘stay Presidente’ forever.

Moving all this money into the Federal coffers will collapse the banks—Wall Street—Money Markets—everything.

I predict that the DOW will fall below 2000—if not more.

Such a collapse will trigger other countries to also teeter—and NO country will ever loan monty to the USA again.

This isn’t a threat—it is a fact.

Obama will take this country below the status of any country you can choose in Africa—which was his entire plan all along. He is ‘leveling the playing field’-—to the stanards of Somalia or Zimbabwe.

The media will not be exempt from trouble, either. They will run out of places to hide.

All those on Federal handout recipients will find their benefits will stop in the same blink of an electronic eye. Feral behavior will surface in about 15 minutes.

Lock and load—and keep your weapons handy.

This is all another reason why Obama wants to take all our guns.

Obama is on the path of a scorched earth policy—and Dirty Harry is willing to light the match and Pelosi is willing to pour on more fuel.


47 posted on 11/20/2012 7:58:20 AM PST by ridesthemiles
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To: sickoflibs

I don’t see this coming up for a vote even if it really exists”””

So- we will get an Executive Order, instead, and Obama will blame the Republicans for ‘not helping erase the national cebt.....etc...etc.


48 posted on 11/20/2012 8:01:00 AM PST by ridesthemiles
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To: Perdogg
I am worried about private property. We have an 80 acre tree farm in Oregon and I already have gotten some hints that 80 acres is more than we need, "don"t you think you should distribute some of that to others less fortunate?"

The most ironic part of that above statement is that Oregon has the most restrictive zoning laws in the nation and forbids division of my property. So some day they may come and take the whole thing.

You have to have a permit to drill a well on your land, you have to have a permit to hold surface water (a spring) on your property, as all the water belongs to the state. You have to have a permit to put up a pole barn, shop or God forbid a home. I have to have a permit to cut our trees or put in a pond or irrigation from that pond. Do we really own real property?

49 posted on 11/20/2012 8:53:41 AM PST by thirst4truth (www.Believer.com)
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To: dforest

“When they figure it all out, it will be too late...”

Maybe they will never figure it out because they think the situation they will be in is normal, and above all,
George Bush’s fault.

They will never blame those who will become their masters or the choices they made to place themselves in such positions but will consider it a direct result of someone else’s actions.

Maybe long periods of darkness are inevitable.

IMHO


50 posted on 11/20/2012 9:00:15 AM PST by ripley
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To: DNME

“Growing food on your property”-Have you ever heard of the Supreme court case- Wickard vs Filburn 1942. Gov’t can prevent you from growing food on YOUR OWN land


51 posted on 11/20/2012 9:12:29 AM PST by capt B
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To: djf

“Conservatives believe in helping the poor, but NOT helping them STAY POOR!!!”

Absolutely. As Rush says: Liberals measure their success by how many people are on welfare, conservatives measure success by how many people don’t need it.


52 posted on 11/20/2012 10:04:28 AM PST by CodeToad (Liberals are bloodsucking ticks. We need to light the matchstick to burn them off.)
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To: CodeToad

I just updated my tag line, same idea...!!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!


53 posted on 11/20/2012 10:10:14 AM PST by djf (Conservative ideals help the poor. Liberal practice help them STAY poor!!!)
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To: djf

Vote buying is expensive.


54 posted on 11/20/2012 10:14:35 AM PST by CodeToad (Liberals are bloodsucking ticks. We need to light the matchstick to burn them off.)
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To: CodeToad

And illegal.

Offering anyone any kind of benefit, consideration, or employment for their support in any general election is a federal felony. Five years, IIRC.

We’ll see pigs fly before they do anything about that one, eh?


55 posted on 11/20/2012 10:24:56 AM PST by djf (Conservative ideals help the poor. Liberal practice help them STAY poor!!!)
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To: sergeantdave
I’d bet my next paycheck that not one in 100 conservatives know that the Founders left us a blueprint to overthrow dictators, and it begins with organizing Committees of Safety, or some facsimile, in the states.

IF my people...




WASHINGTON'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS

OF 1789

A Transcription

							[April 30, 1789] 

Fellow Citizens of the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Among the vicissitudes incident to life, no event could have filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the notification was transmitted by your order, and received on the fourteenth day of the present month. On the one hand, I was summoned by my Country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen with the fondest predilection, and, in my flattering hopes, with an immutable decision, as the asylum of my declining years: a retreat which was rendered every day more necessary as well as more dear to me, by the addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent interruptions in my health to the gradual waste committed on it by time. On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my Country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens, a distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but overwhelm with dispondence, one, who, inheriting inferior endowments from nature and unpractised in the duties of civil administration, ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies. In this conflict of emotions, all I dare aver, is, that it has been my faithful study to collect my duty from a just appreciation of eve ry circumstance, by which it might be affected. All I dare hope, is, that, if in executing this task I have been too much swayed by a grateful remembrance of former instances, or by an affectionate sensibility to this transcendent proof, of the confidence of my fellow-citizens; and have thence too little consulted my incapacity as well as disinclination for the weighty and untried cares before me; my error will be palliated by the motives which misled me, and its consequences be judged by my Country, with some share of the partiality in which they originated.

Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station; it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official Act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the Universe, who presides in the Councils of Nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the People of the United States, a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes: and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success, the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the Great Author of every public and private good I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own; nor those of my fellow-citizens at large, less than either. No People can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the Affairs of men more than the People of the United States. Every step, by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency. And in the important revolution just accomplished in the system of their United Government, the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities, from which the event has resulted, cannot be compared with the means by which most Governments have been established, without some return of pious gratitude along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage. These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me I trust in thinking, that there are none under the influence of which, the proceedings of a new and free Government can more auspiciously commence.

By the article establishing the Executive Department, it is made the duty of the President "to recommend to your consideration, such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." The circumstances under which I now meet you, will acquit me from entering into that subject, farther than to refer to the Great Constitutional Charter under which you are assembled; and which, in defining your powers, designates the objects to which your attention is to be given. It will be more consistent with those circumstances, and far more congenial with the feelings which actuate me, to substitute, in place of a recommendation of particular measures, the tribute that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications, I behold the surest pledges, that as on one side, no local prejudices, or attachments; no seperate views, nor party animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests: so, on another, that the foundations of our National policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality; and the pre-eminence of a free Government, be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its Citizens, and command the respect of the world.

I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my Country can inspire: since there is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the oeconomy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity: Since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained: And since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.

Besides the ordinary objects submitted to your care, it will remain with your judgment to decide, how far an exercise of the occasional power delegated by the Fifth article of the Constitution is rendered expedient at the present juncture by the nature of objections which have been urged against the System, or by the degree of inquietude which has given birth to them. Instead of undertaking particular recommendations on this subject, in which I could be guided by no lights derived from official opportunities, I shall again give way to my entire confidence in your discernment and pursuit of the public good: For I assure myself that whilst you carefully avoid every alteration which might endanger the benefits of an United and effective Government, or wh ich ought to await the future lessons of experience; a reverence for the characteristic rights of freemen, and a regard for the public harmony, will sufficiently influence your deliberations on the question how far the former can be more impregnably fortified, or the latter be safely and advantageously promoted.

To the preceeding observations I have one to add, which will be most properly addressed to the House of Representatives. It concerns myself, and will therefore be as brief as possible. When I was first honoured with a call into the Service of my Country, then on the eve of an arduous struggle for its liberties, the light in which I contemplated my duty required that I should renounce every pecuniary compensation. From this resolution I have in no instance departed. And being still under the impressions which produced it, I must decline as inapplicable to myself, any share in the personal emoluments, which may be indispensably included in a permanent provision for the Executive Department; and must accordingly pray that the pecuniary estimates for the Station in which I am placed, may, during my continuance in it, be limited to such actual expenditures as the public good may be thought to require.

Having thus imported to you my sentiments, as they have been awakened by the occasion which brings us together, I shall take my present leave; but not without resorting once more to the benign parent of the human race, in humble supplication that since he has been pleased to favour the American people, with opportunities for deliberating in perfect tranquility, and dispositions for deciding with unparellelled unanimity on a form of Government, for the security of their Union, and the advancement of their happiness; so his divine blessing may be equally conspicuous in the enlarged views, the temperate consultations, and the wise measures on which the success of this Government must depend.


Washington's distinctive signature


56 posted on 11/20/2012 11:12:57 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I plan on taking it back in the form of severely reduced spending (*cough* starve the beast *cough*). If the SHTF, though, my first choice for an escape strategy is a mountaintop in the Phillipines.


57 posted on 11/20/2012 1:20:29 PM PST by Windcatcher (Obama is a COMMUNIST and the MSM is his armband-wearing propaganda machine.)
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To: greeneyes

“A few changes, and wahla it is all constitutional”

Yes, the infamous Helvering debacle, which in part you can thank for the Obamacare debacle.


58 posted on 11/20/2012 3:47:10 PM PST by Tublecane
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To: greeneyes

History is instructive, but the most important thing to know is that whether or not it was true of the schemes which prompted SS, it is nit now nor for 75 or so years has it been “insurance.” It is pure redistributionary welfare. My point was simply that fedguv has already stolen responsibility for your retirement from you. That it lets you keep some money in a fancy legal thingamajig isn’t any more notable than that it lets you keep other money wherever you happen to keep it.

Like I said, if the mood strikes they’ll take it. Just like when the mood struck it took our gold. When you complain, in addition to it being for the starving children and so forth, they’ll pat your head, asking, “What are you sore about? We took over your retirement way back when, remember? There’s a good boy, now run along and play.”


59 posted on 11/20/2012 3:55:29 PM PST by Tublecane
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To: sickoflibs
Well if Ryan, Bohner and the rest of the R house are going to help Obama confiscate our retirement savings in private companies (the silly idea you are claiming), then why the hell did we want Republicans to take the house?

We aren't in any immediate danger of retirement account changes, but there are lefty groups that do want changes. Here is one such example.

www.harkin.senate.gov/documents/pdf/5011b69191eb4.pdf

60 posted on 11/20/2012 6:20:30 PM PST by EVO X
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