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.
Well, I have no doubt that the government will lie, cheat, and steal. Nor do I doubt that they are good at it and have had lots of practice.
Oooooo! Five gallon toilet!!! That’s gold!!! Don’t they still sell them in Canada? Wonder if I can smuggle one in via Mexico -cover it with a burka and they’ll let it right in......
Someone mentioned the Philippines and their ex-military US expat community (which is quite large comparatively); the Filipinos are old friends, if not quite current, and the ties go back 114 years. I think the Flips will let you own a gun, but they can't protect you from China, and they have some China Quislings on the General Staff (one of them wrote some ChiCom propaganda a couple of years ago, about how all-that the PLA is).
Singapore is all Overseas Chinese, and Indonesia is in pretty much the same boat as Flipland and Malaysia: militarily weak, resource-rich, and already infiltrated with Chinese influence agents (remember Lippo Bank, anyone?).
You might have to run all the way to Oz (no guns, tho', thank you) or to India to find a power center capable of resisting the Chinese for more than 40 minutes. And the Chinese are already slipping a noose around India's skinny neck.
Most of the big countries in South America are run by Communists now -- Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil, not sure about Chile right now, but I think Peru is run by some sort of Leftists, Bolivia has their Left revolution (and talk about expropriating the North American silver miners) and Guevarist hero-caudillo "Evo" from a few years ago -- I think he's still there, but check your watch: in their first 120 years of existence, Bolivia had 126 permanent governments.
Right now Bolivia has a new gig: source country for hardscrabble Leftist-led rent-a-mobs of indigent Bolivian Indians being brought in, given (seized) land, (other people's) jobs, and money, and "settled" by the left-wing Kirchner dictatorship in Argentina .... and of course registered to vote right away. Any Argentine who complains about this process is called a "racist" by his government. Argentina seized retirement savings accounts four years ago.
Any of this sound familiar?
So if the agenda is to evade seizures by the Communizing Obama Regime and keep safe from an increasingly bullyboy China, things are looking awfully thin, guys.
Seizing private resources to feed disorderly state finances has been a favorite avocation of despotisms since the time of the Roman Revolution. Just condemn the guy, kill him, and take his property. Presto, financial stability. Egg, meet omelet.
You can take burnt-out flourescents (big and little) to a building-supply outfit like Lowe’s or Home Depot. They have a dropoff you can use. Drop off your fluorescent when you check out with a cart of new incandescents! lol
Oh, really? How about if it got rolled into the "fiscal cliff" "statesmanship"?
Never let another Democrat-created crisis go to waste.
When the Greek city-states screwed up and lost their freedom to Philip of Macedon's birdcatching diplomacy, they didn't recover their freedom for another 2160 years.
Let's see, 231 years of American freedom / 2100 years of serfdom and slavery, what sort of ratio would that work out to in our case?
The House GOP majority(now lame duck) has their hands all over that.
Specifically they passed those delayed spending cuts then spent almost a year complaining about them as if they had nothing to do with it.
On the tax cuts. The last R lame duck congress minority (mainly the Senate Rs) got those extended getting O to give in (which is what he wanted then) and if this House lame duck gives in to Dems the question will be “Why didn’t they just do it in late 2010 so Obama would NOT have had it as an election issue and the Republicans would?”
“What sort of ratio would that work out to....”
Ten to one that one sees the shirt color that is chosen by the enforcers of social justice.
IMHO
Does that include those new bulbs with the mercury in them?
If the Dim appeal has been and will be, "Raise taxpayers' taxes so we can give you tax eaters more Free Stuff", then all you can do is fight the bribe the best you can and GOTV among your own.
But that's not an argument for caving as the forehand option. Give up the principle, and you might as well go home; you're not doing anything, and everybody knows it.
Just make sure the mountain isn't conical, or your retirement might be, as Admiral Crowe once put it, "colorful, exciting, and short."
Yes, it does — long tubes or short and curly, they’ll take all your old mercury bulbs.
? -- sorry, I don't get your drift. WAG would be, bright red, but still unsure of your meaning.
The only problem is that is that is exactly what Obama did in late 2010 by accepting and signing extending all the tax cuts temporarily.
So that way not only couldn't the R nominee accuse O of raising those upper income taxes the cause of the economy problems, but Obama used that as an issue to beat Romney over the head endlessly with EVERY DAY. “That out-of -touch rich guy Romney is just protecting his rich buddies. We tried that and its not working. Why should you sacrifice when he is giving them even more and they are doing so good now?” was the O line.
So Dems didn't refuse the come out and vote because Obama gave in on those tax cuts at a strategically right time ( esp since they were temporary) , they rallied behind him when he made it an issue in the 2012 campaign against Romney.
If those taxes went up passed by the 2009 to 2010 Dem congress then Republicans would have had a real issue in 2012. I agree that Republicans couldn't come out looking like they were for raising taxes as that would defeat the whole idea, and they would have to be much smarter than they are to make this work.
So if they give in on taxes now after setting O up for re-election they will really look like complete fools. They lost everything. If they beat Obama+Dems back again now then not so bad.
Here’s a really bad scenario. House Republicans give-in/lose on those taxes now (which they probably will do as they expire) and then in 2016 voters perception is that the economy improved under Obama, meaning Republicans are not able to sell the case that those higher taxes hurt the economy as they been claiming they would.
“Sorry.. I don’t get your drift.”
He mentioned something about a “national security force” that’s just as well organized and funded as the military in the 2008 campaign. We have organized and funded police forces, why do we need a “national security force”?
(Reminds me of the black and brown shirts worn by
“national security forces” of the past.)
Just saying.
IMHO
(Personally, it makes me think of the brown and black shirts worn by “national security forces” of the past.)
Another scenario, some of those taxes go up in January as O appears to win a standoff and the economy crashes (for whatever reason) and Republicans have an issue for 2012.
Sorry mean :”....and Republicans have an issue for 2016.”
I tend to agree with you, but these days I don’t count anything out of bounds with this crew we’ve got in Washington, D. C.
I don’t get your point here. Perhaps you could expand your thoughts a bit so I can understand where you’re coming from.
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