GOLDBUG: Time to return to Constitutional money

Sunday, July 4, 2010

http://www.commodityonline.com/futures-trading/technical/Can-gold-be-valued-in-currency-or-is-itself-money-16935.html

Can gold be valued in currency or is itself money?
Published on June 21, 2010 14:45:00 IST

*** begin quote ***

My suggestion to Ron Paul and all those wanting to return to gold, is the best way to accomplish this is not by proclaiming your determination to replace the Federal Reserve Board with the gold standard, but to attack the legal tender laws of this country.

*** and ***

The key is to go after the governments monopoly on money. If broken, gold will find it’s way into the monetary system, as it is today, and reclaim it’s superior role as long as it is not prevented from doing so. Legal tender laws do just that. They prevent choice.

*** and ***

If governments fail to get their fiscal houses in order there is no telling what the future will bring. Gold offers some semblance of security. Among other things, it is a hedge against stupidity. Given the almost criminally reckless fiscal policies of government, who in his right mind would not want to protect himself. And if a currency crisis occurs, who would believe the promises of a new government paper currency in light of the broken promises of governments everywhere. Gold is not a promise that can be broken, and therein lies its present appeal.

*** and ***

To all the pundits that believe a gold standard is impractical, I suggest they look at the present fiat system and then judge it against the hundred years of monetary stability we enjoyed in years past under the gold standard. Then talk to me about which system is practical and which system is not.

*** end quote ***

The Dead Old White Guys had just experience the inflation of paper money. They saw first hand how it let the Gooferment buy more than it had without any check or balance.

By the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank —

(which: ain’t “federal”; it’s a private cartel of banks; ain’t a “reserve” of anything; it’s ious with the taxpayer being the ower; and ain’t a bank; it’s a price fixing machine that makes the bankers rich and the politicians with an unending supply of spendable “money”.)

— they have made the Dead Old White Guys’ worst nightmare true. Unchecked gooferment.

Argh!

Time to roll back “progress” and go back to gold.

As a check on gooferment spending. ANY gooferment!

How can we be “independent” without honest money?!

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RANT: The Gooferment continues to attack The First!

Sunday, July 4, 2010

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=167845

1ST AMENDMENT UNDER FIRE
Free speech restored at Liberty Bell display
Keeping order isn’t license ‘to deprive an individual of a constitutional right’
Posted: June 18, 2010 8:36 pm Eastern
By Bob Unruh

*** begin quote ***

He also was ordered not to return to engage in “free-speech activities” without first getting permission from the park.

*** end quote ***

Doesn’t anyone find this “amusing”? Like the “free speech zones” at political conventions!

Sorry, but limits are “fire in a crowded theater” and that’s about it.

What other standard could there be that doesn’t gut the First Amendment?

Lysander Spooner was right! ①

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① “Inasmuch as the Constitution was never signed, nor agreed to, by anybody, as a contract, and therefore never bound anybody, and is now binding upon nobody; and is, moreover, such an one as no people can ever hereafter be expected to consent to, except as they may be forced to do so at the point of the bayonet, it is perhaps of no importance what its true legal meaning, as a contract, is. Nevertheless, the writer thinks it proper to say that, in his opinion, the Constitution is no such instrument as it has generally been assumed to be; but that by false interpretations, and naked usurpations, the government has been made in practice a very widely, and almost wholly, different thing from what the Constitution itself purports to authorize. He has heretofore written much, and could write much more, to prove that such is the truth. But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.” Lysander Spooner (1808-1887), No Treason (1870) http://praxeology.net/LS-NT-6.htm#no.6

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RANT: Why I Won’t Call It Independence Day Or Recite The Pledge Of Allegiance!

Sunday, July 4, 2010

WHY I WON’T CALL IT INDEPENDENCE DAY or RECITE THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE!

>Happy 4th of July!….

It’s supposedly Independence Day. Why don’t I feel very free?

① The Gooferment taking an obscene percentage of our income and wealth (it’s incalcuable with taxes and fees hidden everywhere). The only true measure of how much wealth we pay in taxes is to consolidate all the gooferment spending on and off the books. (Yes, they keep multiple sets of books!) It stunning when you add it all up. And “We, The People” pay it.

② The Gooferment has the largest prison population (by number and percentage) in the world. (Let’s free all non-violent drug offenders immediately and lower that number by half!)

③ The Gooferment has economically enslaved 52% the people (i.e., the 52/48 split between welfare / work) and has a huge number of gooferment “employees”.

④ The Gooferment has encumbered us and future Americans with an unrepayable national debt and crushing unfunded liabilities while continuing to “give” us “free” stuff (i.e., health care; porkulous; global warming relief) and wage undeclared wars (i.e., Afganistan, Iraq, Pakistan).

⑤ The Gooferment has re-instituted Prohibition. Instead of alcohol, it some other drugs. It has seized control of our bodies; determining what we can and can not put in them. Is not this the essence of freedom and liberty? Along the way, they have destroyed our cities with Drug Prevention, enabled a massive mafia of drug criminals — foreign and domestic, militarized our police, brought corruption to a massive scale, and killed all sorts of people almost at random.

⑥ The Gooferment has, and continues, to indoctrinate children in Gooferment Skrules. It inculcates the future voter into the cult of gooferment worship. It impoverishes us with its costs. And fulfills the Prussian model: cannon fodder for the army, workers for the factory, and useful idiots to be led by the elite. (Where do Presidents and the elite send their children? Not Gooferment Skrules!)

⑦ Since 1970, the dollar has lost 98% of it’s value. The Constitution says only gold and silver are money. The Federal Reserve System is a banker’s monopoly cartel that has allowed the Gooferment unlimited spending. It has created a “rubber yardstick” where money is concerned. All statistics are “inflation adjusted”; thus meaningless.

⑧ The income tax has been a disaster of special interest meddling. The death tax has destroyed more family farms and small business than can be counted. Corporate taxes bury taxes in both every day items and the capital cost of everything that makes stuff. We can’t even guesstimate what we pay in taxes.

⑨ Gooferment welfare has created four generations of “welfare farmers”. Entire families are trapped in the cycle of poverty and despair. Corporatism, or corporate welfare, has done the same thing to our once vibrant economic industries. Shipped overseas to make the elite wealthier. And the Gooferment has disabled America making it a ward of the State unable to do even daily tasks without assistence and direction from the elite.

⑩ The psuedo war on (some) drugs has, first and foremost, allowed the GOoferment to tell us what we can and can’t put in our own bodies. Isn’t this the very essence of freedom and personal liberty? In doing this, they have really hurt us with unintended consequences: empowered our foreign enemies with drug money; destroyed the inner cities and the minority communities with drugs; militarized the police to kill / maim us while trampling on our supposed rights; filled our prisons; killed our youth with bad drugs; AND driven it as a wedge issue between people (i.e., scared people don’t understand it’s about Gooferment control of one’s own body) and making them believe it can be stopped.

It’s hard for me to say “independence” with a straight face.

>I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE

The Pledge is un-American.

Written by an American Nazi who was a flag salesman.

To indoctrinate school children. (The whole American education system is designed to create dummies. Cannon fodder for the Army> Workers for the factories. Designed to be led by the Elite!)

It’s propaganda. Designed to delude people into nationalism.

We, The People don’t need to “pledge” anything.

And, certainly not “allegiance” to an out-of-control corrupt Socialist gooferment.

Remember: Gooferment is the meme that kills. Only Gooferment can commit genocide.

Argh!

So I’d be happy to sing Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land”. Or, “America, The Beautiful” by Katharine Lee Bates – 1913. Or, even Amazing Grace by John Newton 1725-1807.

201007021724.jpg

Before I can, we have to:

  1. Return to Constitutional money of gold and silver;
  2. End the personal and corporate dole;
  3. Phase out gooferment public education;
  4. Stop the various wars — foreign, domestic, and especially drug;
  5. Repatriate the troops — bring them all home now;
  6. Downsize ALL the gooferments — federal, state, and local;
  7. Eliminate all taxes but tariffs and excise;
  8. Empty the prisons of non-violent offenders;
  9. End the death penalty immediately; AND
  10. Payoff the debt and unfunded liabilities.

Then we can truly call ourselves the “Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave”.

Declaration of Independence
(Adopted by Congress on July 4, 1776)

The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America

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.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to 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. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Source: The Pennsylvania Packet, July 8, 1776

Until then … … …

… … … don’t talk to me about Independence!

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NOTRECOMMENDED: Apple and MOBILEME

Saturday, July 3, 2010

GAVE THIS FEEDBACK TO APPLE. LET’S SEE WHO CARES. (My guess: No one.)

I have an obviously complex sync problem. The answer I’ve been given is move to a new account. The reason I went to mac was the reinstall blues with windoze. Seems like the same problem here. I’ve rated MAC as “Not Recommended” on my blog FWIW. And that won’t change as long as sync is broken.

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NATIONAL: Why do we suffer the UN fools?

Saturday, July 3, 2010

http://www.prisonplanet.com/dollar-plunges-after-un-call-to-ditch-greenback.html

UN committee calls for dumping US dollar…

*** begin quote ***

The dollar plunged today following a United Nations report which called for the greenback to be replaced as the global reserve currency by the International Monetary Fund’s special drawing rights (SDRs).

*** and ***

The dollar is being targeted for destruction because the financial terrorists who caused the economic collapse in the first place want to exploit the crisis in order to institute a new global currency issued by a global central bank.

*** end quote ***

(What side is George Sorros on? I bet he stands to make a pretty penny off this. He destroyed the Thai Baht, the British pound, and now is working on the US Dollar. Why don’t we have a Constitutional Gold and Silver currency?)

So why are we in the UN at all?

I’m not an isolationist, but have you seen who’s on their Human Rights Committee? Everyone who should be embarrassed at their presence! Argh!

We should withdraw our economic support. They want to dump the US dollar. Fine, we’ll help you start. We won’t give you any.

And where did the IMF get its start?

And, we should cut that nonsense off at the knees.

And, by the way, take your headquarters elsewhere. It’s disruptive. It’s corrupt. And, let someone else deal with their tin pot crack pot ideas. American kids trick or treat for UNICEF so that fat cats can get rich. Argh!

Get out of the UN now. Follow George’s dictum: NO entangling alliances!

It’s all part of that expansionist one world gooferment crap any way.

How does that Johnathan Martin line go: Makes no difference if I am ruled by one tyrant three thousand miles away or three hundred tyrants ten miles away. Or something like that.

<insert Google’s “memory”>

*** begin quote ***

Among the most famous of those witticisms was one Dr. Byles reportedly delivered on 8 March 1770, during the funeral for the first four victims of the Boston Massacre. Witnesses estimated that several thousand people participated in the processions that day, dwarfing even the ceremony for Christopher Seider. Watching this crowd, Byles is said to have asked a young companion:

   which is better—to be ruled by one tyrant three thousand miles away, or by three thousand tyrants not a mile away?

That remark even got into Mel Gibson’s mouth in the movie The Patriot. But how reliable is the quotation?

*** end quote ***

Movies do have the power to inspire one.

Argh!

Argh squared!

Argh cubed!

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INTERESTING: Doing impressive scary stuff for its own sake

Saturday, July 3, 2010

FROM ONE OF MY HIGH SCHOOL CHUMS

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=RobaJKGMMiE (N.B. ten minutes, SFW, in German)

*** begin quote ***

The following was produced as a commercial for a German heavy equipment manufacturer. You don’t want to be in the same marketplace with competitors like this.

The operator isn’t exactly a slouch either.

They didn’t tell us how they got it down

*** end quote ***

Very entertaining.

We, in the USA, have lost that “competitive feeling”.

Why did these guys do it? Who cares they did it.

I think it has to do with the feminization of our culture. Women’s rights has emasculated us. No one does big scary shit just for the sake of the adrenalin rush. Still still, be polite, don’t offend anyone, political correctness, graft, laziness, and corruption are the values praised today.

Argh!

We should have rebuilt the WTC in record time with three towers, the middle one being a little taller.

We should throw out all these “leaders” an get some Pattons, some Jesse Venturas, some Reagans. To inspire us.

We have a temporary advantage while the Arab countries fight with one hand behind their back (i.e., they suppress their women).

We need to eliminate the welfare / warfare state and throw open the borders to anyone who wants to come here to work. We need the energy.

Drill, nukes, as well as conservation and new technology.

We need honest money to make this all possible.

Most of all we need to take back our birthright as “not females”!

Argh!

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<Yes, dear, put down the computer and finish the housework.>

Argh! Squared!

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GOLDBUG: A buying opportunity

Friday, July 2, 2010

Like the guy on the TV says: “Wealth Protection”. Gold has never been worth zero. Unlike the Zimbabwe dollar, the German pre-WW2 Mark, and countless other fiat currency (i.e., printing press printed paper that is only “money” because guys with guns say it is). Even the most wildly bullish tout like Kudlow, and “the every feeling is expressed” Orman, wouldn’t argue with 5 to 10% in gold. Due to the “interesting” numbers in the CFTC, the number of contracts outstanding, and the various derivatives around commodities, I’d suggest that bullion coins from a low cost / low overhead reputable dealer is the best way to have that investment. Call it Gooferment Insurance. I’d further suggest that you want “good delivery” where they put the coins in your hot little hands. Then you can put them in an interesting place (e.g., curtain rods; taped to the hidden in the wall side of your medicine chest, or (my personal favorite) inside some furniture that ain’t easy to move like a grandfather’s clock. (No fire risk. Gold doesn’t burn. Like paper money.) I don’t recommend burial because you, or your heirs, will forget where you stashed them. (And, for my fellow tin foil hats, the gooferment has ground penetrating radar.) :-) And, please, don’t even consider “numismatic coins” from ANYONE. (Overpriced misgraded and in some cases fakes and frauds. And, the Gooferment will seize them as quick as anything else if they’re desperate enough.) Remember FDR broke into bank vaults during the “bank holiday” for folks’ gold stashes.

imho ymmv faiwwypfi tanstafl!

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From: APMEX News <news@apmex.com>
Date: July 1, 2010 6:28:53 PM EDT
To: @reinke.cc
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POLITICAL: DIck Morris starts a rant

Friday, July 2, 2010

http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/2010/07/01/obamas-immigration-hypocrisy/

OBAMA’S IMMIGRATION HYPOCRISY
By Dick Morris And Eileen McGann
07.1.2010

*** begin quote ***

When Obama could have passed comprehensive immigration reform – when he still had 60 Senate Democrats – he didn’t lift a finger to push it. Now that he can’t pass it – it is too late in the year, he doesn’t have 60 votes, and many Democrats will defect – he aggressively pushes it in a national speech.

The opportunism and hypocrisy of his attempt to manipulate America’s Latinos into forgetting his previous inaction is transparent and obvious.

*** end quote ***

Dick Morris made an interesting point. When BHO44 had the majority in the Senate, he couldn’t be bothered with immigration reform. No that he can’t get it done, he wants to push it. Argh! Typical Chicago politician. He wants the political power from the fight about it. He can posture as the “immigration reformer” while painting his opponents into the corner as anti-immigrant anti-Latino. Voters are so stupid.

If I was the R’s, I’d immediately propose: eliminating all personal and corporate welfare and throwing open the “golden door”. We need imigrants who want to come here to work. I’d ask for a DNA swab, a fingerprint, a quick check for communicable diseases, and then immediately issue them a new combination visa, work permit, and tax id number. Welcome to America, the land of opportunity, and fat poor people. We want those people, we need those people, we can definitely handle those people.

At the same time, I’d end the drug war. (What does a drug dealer do when Walmart sells marijuana, crack, cocaine, and speed; all for the price of aspirin. I’m confident that they Walmart and the other Pharmacy Companies will do a far better job of controlling drug addiction that the Gooferment. Look at the business made out of weight reduction and smoking cessation.

(What will the Colombian Drug Lords do when WalMArt insists on low cost high quality “junk”? Take up tourism? And, what will the Taliban do in Afghanistan when WalMart doesn’t have to pay top dollar for their poppy plants? Go back to being a fourth world country? Argh!)

AND, we won’t have children die from “illegal drugs” of unknown strength and unknown quality. (Who’s body is it? Isn’t the decision what to put in it the ultimate expression of self-ownership.) (Given that youth like to rebel and do “cool” stuff, won’t making drugs “legal” take all the allure out of taking them? Kinda hard to envision yourself as a James Dean type rebel when you are in the queue at WalMart with Granny buying pot for her glaucoma!)

Pardon the non-violent offenders in Federal prisons. We could then close more than half the prisons. And focus on the really bad human beings who kill and hurt people.

And along with “fixing” (i.e., nuking) the drug laws, let’s eliminate the death penalty nationally. Aside from it not being cost effective, the gooferment should NEVER have the power to kill its citizens. I agree with Bill O’Reilly; Alaska sounds like a nice tropical resort for criminals. Create a place like the French Devil’s Island. No cruelty; just isolation of the truly dangerous.

And, let’s talk energy. France gets 80% of its electric power from nukes. They have a few national “standard designs”. If a company uses one of them, then there is expedited approvals. Now we need to import less oil.

Why does the Federal Gooferment have any role in the national electric grid? Sell it to the power companies.

Why does the Gooferment run airports? Sell them to the airlines. Why does the Gooferment run airport security? Turn it over to the airlines.

Suddenly we need a lot less gooferment workers! With bug salaries and big pensions.

And speaking about pensions! Why can’t we get out of the pension business completely.

Like any other fraud, we should prosecute any crime with the objective to make the victim whole. Restitution! Not incarceration or even rehabilitation. Let’s make sure that crime doesn’t pay.

The Gooferment should only be a referee; not a participant. And certainly not an operator. Gooferment skrules, gone. Clearly we need a 20 or 40 year transition plan.

Gooferment “social security” fraud, gone. Clearly, we need a fifty year transition plan.

Argh! There so much to do. Old Wall Street expression: When you’re in a hole, stop digging. We should not be creating more “holes” for future generation to dig themselves out of.

(Where do politicians, bureaucrats, and the elite send their children to school? Certainly not the “public school”! Argh!!)

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MONEY: Benefit are a big loser for employees

Friday, July 2, 2010

Home » 2010 » 07 » 01 »

COLUMN: Can we put an end to corporate socialism already?
Thursday, July 1, 2010 | 12:49 p.m. CDT; updated 3:04 p.m. CDT, Thursday, July 1, 2010
BY George Kennedy

*** begin quote ***

New state employees, most of whom will earn less than $25,000 a year, will have to start contributing 4 percent of their salaries to their pension program, which has long been one of the benefits that compensate for low-paid careers.

*** end quote ***

Why do you have a Gooferment pension plan? Isn’t that socialism as well? Aren’t you in effect saying that people aren’t capable of managing their own money?

Maybe that 4% is more important to pay for something the individual values more than a “pension” sometime in the future.

Let’s not overlook that there are some “interesting” unintended consequences.

(1) What happens if the new employee doesn’t do the five years to get vested? Guess that poor slob made a bad bet.

(2) What happens if the Gooferment decides to pull the rug out from under them and changes the “law” so there’s no pension?

(3) What happens if the pension plan is underfunded? (Here in NJ the gooferment hasn’t funded the state pension plan in a decade and no one really knows what that means.)

(4) What happens if like CALPERS that investments don’t keep up with obligations?

(5) What happens if the poor slob dies the day before he retires? Day after? Like Social Security, it’s probably a bad bet.

(6) What happens if we have inflation? And our poor slob is retired on fixed income. Bad bet? (If he or she had a their OWN diversified investment portfolio, then they’d be capable of making some adjustment. In theory, portfolio income would go up to in some way compensate. The defined benefit of a pension plan means they are screwed.)

(7) What if when the poor slob retires, he wants his money to make a big purchase? A vacation home for cash. Buy into an assisted living. Or anything. What’s he do, go to JGWENTWORTH to sell his pension at a discount?

SO I think what you have is socialism at the expense of the low wage person. (Poor slob is intended to engender sympathy for some one who just has to shut up and take it.)

Along time ago, I talk to an AT&T pension actuary who explained how benefits were a huge win for the employer and a big loser for the employee. It’s never changed.

And don’t get me started on the Social Security Ponzi-like Fraud.

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Upon reflection, the Employer could, as a condition of employment, negotiate that a suitable third party pension plan must be taken by all employees. So that no one retires on welfare. Wonder what the CEO and CFO would say? TO that I say, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

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QUOTE: The most sensitive “nerve” in the human body is the one attached to the wallet

Friday, July 2, 2010

“In my business arena, Tax Preparation, Audit Representation and Bookkeeping, the customer is SELDOM right. They are in fact not Customers but Clients (in the same sense that Doctors of Medicine have Patients and not Customers). Everybody is a tax or accounting expert (your bartender, your barber, neighbor, co-worker, etc.), and they firmly believe the half truths they hear about on the TV News or read in the Tabloids (such as the NY Times). Why? Because what their other sources tell them is less painful than what I tell them. It is human nature. The most sensitive “nerve” in the human body is the one attached to the wallet and that is where I often have to do surgery. So I have to take control of the relationship with my Clients and educate them so they ask me first before they make a move. If they could be ALWAYS right then Turbotax would put me out of business instead of bringing me so many more Clients.”

By Roger Garay, CEO at On Line Bookkeeping & Tax Service Inc

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Interesting, I’ll have to reflect upon the difference between Customer / Patient, Customer / Client, and Payer / Client.

Interesting about “The most sensitive “nerve” in the human body is the one attached to the wallet”. I disagree. It may be surpassed by the one attached to their perception of what is theirs (e.g., failing to let some one over in traffic; cutting in the queue ahead of others; (or the one that I do all the time) failure to merge early to get ahead. (Yeah, if I do pass the “final judgement”, vel non, then I’ll be doing a lot of time in Purgatory for my venial sins. I got a lot of them to atone for. Sigh!) And, another nerve is the one attached to their self-image.

Argh!

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RANT: Shool sucks for everyone

Thursday, July 1, 2010

http://www.schoolsucksproject.com/

*** begin quote ***

“School sucks”…is perhaps the most common phrase students use to describe their feelings about public education. Yet this seemingly bitter and reductive slogan is actually quite clever, and perhaps the most accurate and astute synopsis of the system I’ve ever heard. Here’s why:

1. The twelve-year process of an American public education has a dramatic effect on the mind of a child. When we first enter school at age six, many of our best personal attributes are already in place. We are curious, innovative, unique and creative in ways that we will rarely be able to replicate throughout the rest of our lives. But over time, school sucks those essential attributes out of too many of us…and replaces them with predictability, obedience and indifference.

2. The public school system sucks off the productive capacity of hard-working people. In other words, whether public education succeeds or fails (spoiler alert: it fails) at providing real education to the public, the cost goes up every year.

For too long, this sentiment that “school sucks” has existed only as a silent thought, a quiet mumble or a scribble on a notebook. It’s time to project this idea out into the mainstream, and to show how true it actually is. The path towards solutions begins there.

*** end quote ***

Absolutely agree.

I’ve ranted about “gooferment skool” on my blog for a while.

I can’t think of a “more wronger” thing in our society.

Hope this project succeeds!

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FUN: Completed the 750WORD monthly challenge

Thursday, July 1, 2010

http://750words.com/entries/stats/177342

201007010752.jpg

Strangely addictive!

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TECHNOLOGY: Just had a robocall from a car dealer

Thursday, July 1, 2010

… calling to wish a happy birthday.

Good thing it didn’t wake up the house lady.

Argh!

How stupid are people? Technologists?

And where were they last year?

Argh squared!

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INTERESTING: Time to nuke Freddy and Fannie!

Thursday, July 1, 2010

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703513604575310383542102668.html?mod=WSJ_hps_sections_realestate

CAPITALJUNE 17, 2010
Rethinking Part of the American Dream
By DAVID WESSEL

*** begin quote ***

In hard-hit Las Vegas, nearly 59% of households own their homes, but only 15% to 19% of households own a home in which they have any equity left.

For many, the American dream of home ownership turned into a nightmare of debt and foreclosure. Some people should rent.

As late as the 1930s, a U.S. mortgage was generally a loan for three to five years, at which time the borrower had to pay it off. Then the government fostered the 15-year fixed-rate mortgage—and eventually the 30—and the concept that the homeowner would pay off principal in monthly installments.

*** end quote ***

Argh!

Several thoughts occur to me here:

① 15 to 20% of homes left with the owners having equity? All those senior citizens who bought retirement homes? That’s astounding.

② Talk about malinvestment. (That’s Austrian economics term. See below.) Detroit, Flint, and Gary are destroying houses to avoid providing gooferment services. We as a society have our wealth destroyed by such action. Are there no homeles there?

③ It would seem that the FTC and the TREASURY / FED / SEC could stop this disaster anytime they want to. Regulations of minimum down payment like stock margins. Rules about honest disclosure. Limits on what banks can resell as “securities”. AND, the biggest rule, the originator get stuck with defaults! No more package it and forget it. (But then we’d see just how crappy the economy is. And, how many banks would be insolvent. It’s in the Gooferment’s interest to keep putting lipstick on the is pig. Pucker up! Guess who’s going ot have to kiss it?

④ I remember reading that Freddy and Fannie make the economy more uncompetitive and more “rigid” in that owning a home meant the workforce could not adapt to new opportunities in new locations. A high percentage of folks renting means they can move more quickly. Didn’t the Mayans force migrations by burning the village and forcing them to move hundreds of miles? Is this our modern equvalent?

⑤ Speaking of Freddy and Fannie, I see where bailing them out is going to be the “mother of all bailouts”. Shouldn’t we put them out of their, and our, misery? Time for a Constitutional Amendment banning all GSEs! (Gooferment Sponsored Entities)

⑥ Why don’t we bring back the 30 year Treasury Bond as a method of financing the deficit and easing the pain we are facing? Or is the GOoferment afraid of what that 30 year rate will be?

⑦ On HGTV, there are a lot of home buyers, some first timers, who are buying big ticket homes with nearly nothing down. Several hundred thousand dollar mortgages and they need “mortgage assistance”, seller paid closing costs, and even the tax credits to make the numbers work at all. And, in the cases of two income “families” (i.e., DINKs), one paycheck is completely going to the mortgage. Isn’t that a recipe for default in a job loss scenario?

⑧ Perhaps, it’s time for multi-generational households (i.e., grandma and grandpa buy with their retirement money; mom, dad, and the grandkids bunk in)? Wasn’t that the model before Social Security allowed Grandparents to escape to Florida? Makes the Grandparent able to dodge the nursing home.

⑨ Interesting that the Wall Street Journal paywall isn’t very encompassing.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malinvestment

“Panics do not destroy capital; they merely reveal the extent to which it has been destroyed by its betrayal into hopelessly unproductive works.”

— John Mills, December 11, 1867, on Credit Cycles and the Origin of Commercial Panics

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