MONEY: Expect more intrusions and less roi

Sunday, June 21, 2009

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/5526129/Lloyds-Bank-hit-by-Obama-tax-purge.html

Lloyds Bank hit by Obama tax purge
Banking group drops American customers in UK ahead of costly proposals to stamp out tax evasion
By Louise Armitstead
Published: 9:39PM BST 13 Jun 2009

*** begin quote ***

This week American private client account-holders at Lloyds’s received letters informing them of an “important change in policy regarding clients who are resident, domiciled or linked to the United States by property or asset holdings”. They were told the bank had “no choice” but to “cease acting as your investment manager.”

*** end quote ***

Funny, here comes the unintended consequences!

It will be just the first.

More forms, more intrusive checking, more audits.

Argh!

# # # # #


GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Fixing health care

Sunday, June 21, 2009

http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=279

April 1993
Volume 11, Number 4
A Four-Step Health-Care Solution
by Hans-Hermann Hoppe

*** begin quote ***

It’s true that the U.S. health care system is a mess, but this demonstrates not market but government failure. To cure the problem requires not different or more government regulations and bureaucracies, as self-serving politicians want us to believe, but the elimination of all existing government controls.

*** end quote ***

Summary:

1. Eliminate all licensing requirements

2. Eliminate all government restrictions on pharmaceutical products and medical devices

3. Deregulate the health insurance industry

4. Eliminate all subsidies to the sick or unhealthy

Permit me to add a fifth!

5. Make the tax code neutral with respect to benefits. Emerging form the WW2 wage and price controls, the gooferment has distorted the “playing field”. “Benefits” are deductible to the corporation and not to the individual. That has set up the situation where an individual’s health insurance is tied to their job. No job; no insurance.

How much better would things be if it was like life insurance or automobile insurance. I can buy 20 year term life cheap and no one cares who my employer is. I am required by the gooferment to have auto insurance (an absurd concept), but it’s not tied to my employment.

This seems to be an easy one.

# # # # #


MONEY: Commodity versus fiat money

Saturday, June 20, 2009

http://lewrockwell.com/orig10/hansen1.html

Will Radically Different Banking Plans Work?
Not until we abolish legal tender laws
by Betsy Hansen

*** begin quote ***

Because the fiat money system is both the strength and weakness of America’s tyrants. It bleeds the people’s wealth and labor, but it also threatens to collapse under its own weight – or whenever the scales fall off the people’s eyes. With its green engravings of famous Americans, electrons whirling around in bank computers, and loans created out of thin air, it is one vast confidence game.

*** end quote ***

The Federal Reserve Bank (which is none of those things) allows the congress critters, the Administration, politicians, bureaucrats, and their ilk to raise taxes without explicitly raising taxes.

The sheeple can’t even tell what they are paying in taxes. Inflation erodes their “savings” such that the gooferment can steal all their earnings in a given year. Even the worst tyrant of dictator of old used to have to leave the serfs enough to eat from year to year. And, the sheeple don’t even know they are being robbed.a

Imagine the uproar if a President said: “Sorry we have to take everything you earned this year for the good of everyone.” There would be riots in the streets. But the FED can inflate away. Since 1970, inflation has reduced the value of a dollar 97%!

Sheeple, how stupid can you be?

Independence Day? Don’t make me laff!

We’re not independent as long as the FED exists. Andrew Jackson and Thomas Jefferson, were right.

# # # # #


INTERESTING: A health care plan alternative

Friday, June 19, 2009

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/06/a_real_free_market_health_care_1.html

A Real Free Market Health Care Solution
By Frank S. Rosenbloom, M.D.

*** begin quote ***

Solution:

   * 1. Don’t pass any of the Democrat health care plans. Savings of at least $3 trillion over the next five years.

   * 2. Immediately do away with Medicare, Medicaid, and The Center for Medicare and Medicaid services. No other major industrialized nation has a separate system for the elderly, disabled and the poor. Scrap the Joint Commission on Hospital Accreditation. Savings of nearly $1 trillion in federal tax dollars yearly, $1 trillion in savings for states and billions in savings by dissolving the tyrannical Joint Commission.

   * 3. People should be responsible for purchasing their own health care, not the government or the employer, making health insurance completely portable. Scrap Hillary Clinton’s HIPAA act at a savings of billions yearly. Let’s make it HIPAA-posthumous.

   * 4. A Health Insurance Company must offer a good basic low-cost health care plan with expanded health savings accounts. Taxpayer cost zero dollars.

   * 5. No health exclusions for three years. Taxpayer cost zero dollars.

   * 6. Health plans should promote healthy practices and preventive health. Taxpayer cost zero.

   * 7. For the poor, government should subsidize the premiums, not be involved in paying providers. Taxpayer costs by my estimate around $600 billion per year.

   * 8. Retired people of lower means should be helped as above but should not have a separate insurance plan run by the government. Sorry, Medicare is dead. Promises were broken, but we are mature people and we need to get over it. Let’s not let it happen again! Taxpayer cost around $300 billion per year.

   * 9. End tax penalties for individuals purchasing individual health insurance. Taxpayer cost zero dollars as these penalties are merely punitive, designed to make people dependent.

   * 10. The health insurance companies in each state should have the option of creating a risk pool from some of their premium funds. Taxpayer cost zero dollars.

   * 11. Laws should be changed to allow for private health co-ops to be formed as an option for those so inclined. Taxpayer cost zero dollars.

   * 12. Patients should be free to change insurance plans at least twice yearly and since their insurance would not be controlled by their employer or the government no permission is needed from them. Taxpayer cost zero dollars.

   * 13. There should be no legal right for insurance plans to dismiss competent and qualified contracted physicians for “no cause”, when that no cause is really due to the physician acting as a patient advocate.

   * 14. Tort reform with penalties for frivolous lawsuits and the loser paying some of the costs.

Well, there you have it. The savings for taxpayers over three years: Nearly $5 trillion. Not requiring bills hundreds of pages long: Priceless! A few short regulations and we have a viable health care system for the future covering over 99% of the population, devoid of the treachery of Medicare and without dependence on the federal government. It’s very simple, very sensible, and so easy even a government official can understand it. It’s even short enough for Congress members to read fully, though some may require several days. Oh, yes, Mr. Obama, I want our $600 billion back.

*** end quote ***

Wow! What great ideas. Zero chance to kill Medicare. But, great ideas.

# # # # #


MONEY: What is the correct interest rate?

Thursday, June 18, 2009

http://www.bargaineering.com/articles/fdic-sets-bank-interest-rate-caps.html

Your Take: FDIC Sets Bank Interest Rate Caps by Jim Wang

*** begin quote ***

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation SealNear the end of May, the FDIC Board of Directors approved a rule that capped the interest rate “less than well capitalized institutions.”

*** end quote ***

And, what part of fascism don’t you understand?

The gooferment is trying to run the banks.

What a joke.

# # # # #


MONEY: Don’t mess with Uncle Sugar’s monopoly

Monday, June 15, 2009

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/06/e-gold/

Threat Level Privacy, Crime and Security Online
Bullion and Bandits: The Improbable Rise and Fall of E-Gold
    * By Kim Zetter Email Author
    * June 9, 2009

*** begin quote ***

Jackson has finally registered E-Gold with FinCEN, and has begun applying to states for money transmitting licenses. The company is also blocking people who appear on the Treasury Department’s list of Specially Designated Nationals and plans to follow bank procedures for verifying customer income and sources of transmitted funds. There are other plans in works to clean up the system as well.

*** end quote ***

Read this with an eye towards why this fool was targeted.

Think they care about catch bad guys?

Or, could it be that he was undermining their monopoly over “money”.

That stuff they laughable call “money” … Federal Reserve Banknotes.

Paper!

Fiat trash.

No, he was giving people an easy and cheap way to store value.

That couldn’t be “taxed” by inflation.

Imagine how much better the Chinese would be if they had 5T$ of gold as opposed to Uncle Sugar’s little green pieces of paper.

No, anyone who messes with that monopoly, will bring the goons out in force.

# # # # #


POLITICS: Obama’s inflation will break the country

Saturday, June 13, 2009

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=329091224620125

Obama’s Plan For A Debt-Ridden Future
By ERNEST S. CHRISTIAN AND GARY A. ROBBINS | Posted Friday, June 05, 2009 4:20 PM PT

*** begin quote ***

In effect, American families would over time lose an amount greater than an entire year of GDP — a blow far more severe than the damage being done to them by the current recession.

*** end quote ***

Between debt and unfunded liabilities, we are falling further and further behind. Sad to say, we can’t even guess how much we pay in taxes. The politicians have succeeded in hiding and burying taxes in every conceivable manner.

When Obama’s inflation starts, it’ll be too late to react.

Gold! The ancient store of value.

There’s a reason that Jefferson and Jackson were against “central banks” like the Federal Reserve Bank and paper money. Those allow politicians and bureaucrats to hide the true cost of their evil deals.

Imagine how they’d be on the hook, if they could NOT silent tax every dollar in the world with inflation?

Like withholding and corporate taxes, everything gets hidden from view.

# # # # #


LIBERTY: The Gooferment is in charge!

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D98NEVL80&show_article=1

High court won’t block Chrysler sale
Jun 9 06:27 PM US/Eastern

*** begin quote ***

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court has cleared the way for Chrysler’s sale to Fiat, turning down a last-ditch bid by opponents of the deal.

The court said late Tuesday it had rejected a plea to block the sale of most of Chrysler’s assets to the Italian automaker. Chrysler, Fiat and the Obama administration had warned that the high court’s intervention could have scuttled the sale.

A federal appeals court in New York had earlier approved the sale, but gave opponents until Monday afternoon to try to get the Supreme Court to intervene.

*** end quote ***

The bondholders really couldn’t expect “justice” from a gooferment court.

Talk about a stacked deck!

The President’s plan taken before the Government’s Court. And, you expected a different result.

Watch the bond markets now! Nothing is safe from gooferment manipulation.

Now what happens to the Indiana pensioners who just got screwed?

# # # # #


POLITICAL: Class Warfare doesn’t work

Sunday, June 7, 2009

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124329282377252471.html

* REVIEW & OUTLOOK
* MAY 27, 2009

Millionaires Go Missing
Maryland’s fleeced taxpayers fight back.

*** begin quote ***

Maryland couldn’t balance its budget last year, so the state tried to close the shortfall by fleecing the wealthy. Politicians in Annapolis created a millionaire tax bracket, raising the top marginal income-tax rate to 6.25%. And because cities such as Baltimore and Bethesda also impose income taxes, the state-local tax rate can go as high as 9.45%. Governor Martin O’Malley, a dedicated class warrior, declared that these richest 0.3% of filers were “willing and able to pay their fair share.” The Baltimore Sun predicted the rich would “grin and bear it.”

One year later, nobody’s grinning. One-third of the millionaires have disappeared from Maryland tax rolls. In 2008 roughly 3,000 million-dollar income tax returns were filed by the end of April. This year there were 2,000, which the state comptroller’s office concedes is a “substantial decline.” On those missing returns, the government collects 6.25% of nothing. Instead of the state coffers gaining the extra $106 million the politicians predicted, millionaires paid $100 million less in taxes than they did last year — even at higher rates.

*** end quote ***

Does anyone really think these “liberal” politicians, bureaucrats, and media cheerleaders have any clue about human behavior?

Maybe they should get CSI to look into where all the rich folk went!

Idiots.

Read the Austrian School of Economics and you will find “Human Action”. Humans act. Maybe not ALWAYS rationally, but the do eventually. Unlike the frog in the mythical pot to be boiled, rich people have the most ability and incentive to move.

The loss is worse than the unnamed author makes it out to be!

And, who’s more likely to have a business, hire a staff, and have a big property tax bill? Sure not the low and middle class.

And, by turning up the fire, the gooferment may have induced those 1,000 rich folk to jump before the real estate market collapsed. I can here the conversation at the new (Pick one: Yacht, Tennis, or Country) Club now. “Yes, Muffie, I miss Maryland too. But not 16 grazillion dollars worth. Now here’s a new Mercedes SUV that I bought to console you.”

OK, corny, sure, but you get the idea. Ten per cent of a million is 100k a year. That’s the minimum bite. That is a powerful incentive to move.

Makes you wonder why there are 2,000 left. Cal Ripken is probably one. Who else?

So who gets to make up the missing 200k$ that the politicians planned for? You don’t expect them to cut anything, do you?

# # # # #


MONEY: The absurd claims of a bureaucrat

Friday, June 5, 2009

Acting U.S. Attorney Edward R. Ryan of the Western District of North Carolina said, “When groups seek to undermine the U.S. currency system, the government is compelled to act. These coins are not government-produced coinage, yet purchasers were led to believe by those who made and sold them that they should be spent like U.S. Federal Reserve Notes. Such claims are in violation of federal law.”

I have never read such blatant nonsense.

Yes, the seek to return the United States to honest Constitutional money. At the very least, this is an exercise in political dissent protected by the First Amendment.

And, any REASONABLE person can instantly distinguish between a “Liberty Dollar” and the a paper Federal Reserve Banknote. Silver and gold are very different from paper.

In order to spend them like a Federal Reserve Note, one would have to have the intent to defraud!

Sorry, this is a political indictment intended to chill any inquiry into the nature of Federal Reserve Banknotes.

And, how is it that the Government has departed from money as defined in the Constitution.

Perhaps, we should be asking “Is the inflation of the value of Federal Reserve Banknotes a government “taking” under the terms of the Fifth Amendment?”

Hopefully, people will see this for what it is. An attempt to keep the people blind to the unConstitutional conduct of their government.

# – # – #

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Acting United States Attorney Edward R. Ryan

Western District of North Carolina

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Suellen Pierce

JUNE 3, 2009 704.344.6222

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/ncw Fax: 704.344.6629

FOUR DEFENDANTS INDICTED IN UNLAWFUL COIN OPERATION

Former Executive Director of Liberty Dollar Services, Inc. Charged in Federal Indictment

ASHEVILLE, NC – Bernard von NotHaus, 65, formerly of Evansville, Indiana, and two

additional defendants from Evansville, along with William Kevin Innes, 53, of Asheville, North

Carolina, have been indicted in U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina on

conspiracy and other charges in connection with an alleged unlawful operation to publish,

possess and sell for profit, coins in resemblance and similitude to U.S. coins. All four defendants

are also charged in the alleged conspiracy with uttering and passing, and attempting to utter and

pass, a coin of silver in resemblance of genuine coins of the United States in the denominations

of five dollars and greater, and intended for use as current money. The four are also charged

with one count of mail fraud, while von NotHaus and Innes are both charged in two additional

counts each, with selling and possessing with intent to defraud, Liberty Dollar coins; and with

uttering and passing, and attempting to utter and pass, a coin of silver in resemblance of genuine

coins of the United States of the denominations of five dollars and greater, and intended for use

as current money.

Today’s announcement is made by Acting U.S. Attorney Edward R. Ryan for the Western

District of North Carolina; Owen Harris, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of

Investigation (FBI) in North Carolina, and Van Duncan, Sheriff of Buncombe County, North

Carolina.

Acting U.S. Attorney Edward R. Ryan of the Western District of North Carolina said,

“When groups seek to undermine the U.S. currency system, the government is compelled to act.

These coins are not government-produced coinage, yet purchasers were led to believe by those

who made and sold them that they should be spent like U.S. Federal Reserve Notes. Such claims

are in violation of federal law.”

Defendant William Kevin Innes was arrested on the charges on June 2, 2009, and made

an initial appearance before a federal Magistrate Judge in Asheville today. Innes was ordered

detained pending a detention hearing which is now set for Monday, June 8, 2009 at 9:35 a.m.

before Magistrate Judge David Cayer in the federal courthouse in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Bernard von NotHaus, 65, Honolulu, Hawaii

Pending arrest

Sarah Jane Bledsoe, 42, Evansville, Indiana

Pending arrestDistrict of North Carolina; Owen Harris,

– 2 –

Rachelle L. Moseley, 34, Evansville, Indiana

Pending arrest

According to the allegations contained in the indictment, which was returned and filed

under seal by a federal grand jury sitting in Charlotte, North Carolina, on May 19, 2009, since

1998 NORFED, The National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve and Internal

Revenue Codes, together with its officers, members, associates, and customers (collectively

NORFED), has been issuing, disseminating, and placing into circulation, including by use of the

Postal Service and United States mails, the Liberty Dollar in all its forms throughout the United

States and Puerto Rico. The indictment alleges that the purpose of NORFED is to mix Liberty

Dollars into the current money of the United States, and further alleges that NORFED intends for

the Liberty Dollar to be used as current money in order to limit reliance on, and to compete with,

United States currency.

The indictment alleges that members affiliated with NORFED sell the Liberty Dollar coin

at a greater price than they pay for it, and that the profit for these individuals is the difference

between their discounted purchase price and the price for which they sell the coin. Additionally,

according to the allegations contained in the indictment, a person who is not affiliated with

NORFED pays the face value minted on the coin.

In the allegations of the indictment, Bernard von NotHaus is described as having been the

president of NORFED and the Executive Director of Liberty Dollar Services, Inc. until

September 30, 2008. He is also described in the allegations contained in the indictment as the

monetary architect of the Liberty Dollar and has been the Regional Currency Officer in

Evansville, Indiana where NORFED corporate offices are maintained. According to the

indictment, Bernard von NotHaus designed the Liberty Dollar currency in 1998. The indictment

alleges that William Kevin Innes is the Asheville, North Carolina Regional Currency Officer for

NORFED and one of three members of the NORFED Executive Committee. Also, according to

the allegations contained in the indictment, until around March 2008, Sarah Jane Bledsoe was the

NORFED Fulfillment Office manager in Evansville, Indiana, and Rachelle L. Moseley works in

the Evansville, Indiana corporate office of NORFED and has been employed as the Regional

Currency Office Manager and Chief Operations Officer.

“People understand that there is only one legal currency in the United States. When

groups try to replace the U.S. dollar with coins and bills that don’t hold the same value, it affects

the economy. Consumers were using their hard-earned money to buy goods and services, then

getting fake change in return,” said Owen Harris, the Special Agent in Charge of the Charlotte

Division of the FBI. “No one in this country is above or beyond the law, and our law

enforcement partners will continue to bring violators to justice.”

If convicted, each of the defendants faces a maximum sentence of five years’

imprisonment on the conspiracy charged in Count One and a maximum sentence of 20 years’

imprisonment on the mail fraud charge in Count Two. As to the additional counts with which

von NotHaus and Innes are charged, Count Three (publishing) carries a maximum sentence of 15

years’ imprisonment, and Count Four carries a maximum sentence of five years’ imprisonment.

– 3 –

The indictment includes a Notice of Forfeiture and Finding of Probable Cause that the

defendants forfeit to the United States all of the property involved in the offenses with which

they are charged in the indictment, and all property traceable to such offenses.

The case was investigated by the FBI, and the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office, with

assistance from the U.S. Secret Service, Treasury OIG for Tax Administration, the NC Joint

Terrorism Task Force, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. Acting U.S. Attorney Ryan

express his gratitude to the United States Mint for its role in the indictment. Ryan characterized

the Mint’s role as “significant and vital.” The prosecution is being handled by Assistant United

States Attorney Jill W. Rose of the Asheville Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Western District

of North Carolina.

The details contained in the indictment are allegations. The defendants are presumed to

innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

A copy of the bill of indictment can be viewed by visiting website:

http://www.ncwd.uscourts.gov and clicking on the word “news.”

# # #