GOVEROTRAGEOUS: 1099’s galore?

Monday, May 17, 2010

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/05/democrats_bring_death_by_a_tho.html

May 16, 2010
Democrats bring death by a thousand new regulations
Ed Lasky

*** begin quote ***

The absurdity of this approach is clear in the ObamaCare legislation. Among its features are a requirement that all businesses file 1099s for any person or vendor that they pay $600 or more over the course of the year. This will be a nightmare for many small businessmen already laboring under the impact of existing rules , as well as other ObamaCare impacts, as this Investors Business Daily column makes clear.

*** end quote ***

Has anyone thought about the absurdity of all this paper being mailed around. Is this some type of subsidy to the Post Office? And, how about all the IRS workers that will have to be hired!

Argh!

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: True racism = gooferment eddykation in the inner city

Sunday, May 16, 2010

http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2010/05/05/black_americans_and_liberty

Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Black Americans and Liberty
by Walter E. Williams Townhall.com Columnist

*** begin quote ***

Then there’s the grossly fraudulent education delivered by the government schools that serve most black communities. The average black high school senior has a sixth- or seventh-grade achievement level and most of those who manage to graduate have what’s no less than a fraudulent diploma, one that certifies a 12th-grade level of achievement when in fact the youngster might not have half that. If the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan wanted to sabotage black academic excellence, he could not find a more effective means to do so than the government school system in most cities.

*** end quote ***

It’s a shame what we have done to the inner city. Between the “war on (some) drugs”, the denial of the resident’s right to defend themselves, the dole that saps (i.e., single moms get more unmarried and unpaired; the minimum wage mandates unemployment; the gooferment takes over “charity”; the policing is inadequate; rent control prevents building real wealth; licensing prevents entrepreneurship; “equal opportunity” is anything but), then the final nail is the schools.

It’s racism to deprive the inner city youth of paths to “success”!

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POLITICAL: Obamacare will go broke; only question how fast

Friday, May 14, 2010

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/05/early_harbingers_of_the_health.html

May 04, 2010
Early harbingers of the health care fiasco
Walt Elgin

*** begin quote ***

Speaking of which, nobody knows what it will cost or who covers overruns. Well, that will ultimately be us whether state or federal shortfalls, or both. Last month, dozens of states asked who pays when federal funding runs dry . “You could have a handful of people that could literally bankrupt the high-risk pool,” said Sumi Sousa, special assistant to Democratic California Assembly Speaker John Perez. “What do we do then? The state’s broke.”

*** and ***

And the feds have finally owned up to the real state of affairs; HHS spokeswoman Jenny Backus declined to say who pays when the program runs out of money. “I think we need to get the programs up and running before we start speculating,” she said.

*** end quote ***

All I can do it quote Margaret Thatcher.

“The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”

Some programs run out faster. Like Indian Health Care. Like Obamacare.

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NEWJERSEY: “Public Education” is immoral

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2010/05/voucher-hypocrisy.html

Monday, May 10, 2010

Voucher hypocrisy

*** begin quote ***

Bret Schundler jumps into the voucher hypocrisy pool, dismissing stats that contradict his claims and call into question his proposals.

*** end quote ***

Don’t you think that Gooferment-run schools propagandizing future voters is immoral?

Don’t you think that funding them by stealing wealth from unwilling victims is immoral?

Don’t you think ripping children from their families and imprisoning them for many hours a day for decades being “taught” to be good little robots is immoral?

Don’t you think allowing the Teachers’ Union to become an overpowering force in politics is immoral?

Don’t you think that “public education” in the inner cities (a failure by any measure) is immoral?

Answer those then we can chat about how it’s ineffective and inefficient.

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POLITICAL: Massachusetts Ballot Initiative to Roll Back the Sales Tax from 6.25% to 3%

Thursday, May 6, 2010

http://campaign.constantcontact.com/render?v=001kpRLqd
WUZBx_0UsqDxwznii_dMU1uW53qmQM24Mgbwis-6HZh0z
QU37Fcvz0-tR-cUvgI7ZTtuV0s-U-2NELVTORi0R0MVlYXkWEBYrxAGU%3D

201005060920.jpg

Massachusetts Ballot Initiative to

Roll Back the Sales Tax from 6.25% to 3%

*** begin quote ***

Kelly-Williams is a nurse in Cambridge and a spokesperson of the union-funded Coalition for Our Communities, the main group opposing Howell’s initiative. She points out that the cut would leave a $2.5 billion hole in the state budget.

“And we already have a shortfall of $2.5 billion. Where is this money going to come from?”

Kelly-Williams says she already knows the answer.

“I fear devastating cuts to educational services, as well as fire and police safety for our communities.”

In any case it will certainly mandate some tough decisions from Bay state lawmakers who have $51.8 billion in total state spending to work with this year.

“This will mandate cuts that will be devastating,” said Kelly-Williams.

Howell isn’t buying it. “This is the Chicken Little, ‘Sky Is Falling’ defense. They say this about every effort to cut taxes.”

“These guys,” she said, referring to Massachusetts elected officials, “are addicted to spending. While the economy has been shrinking, these guys have been spending more money.”

She says the only way to stop them, is through a voter mandate.

“This is it,” she said. “They won’t stop on their own.”

Key Facts About the Massachusetts Sales Tax Roll Back to 3% Initiative:

2010 total Massachusetts state government spending is $51.8 Billion. $3 Billion Higher than 2009.

In 2009, the Democratic state legislature and Democrat Governor Deval Patrick raised the Massachusetts sales tax to 6.25%.

The Alliance to Roll Back Taxes’ Ballot Initiative to roll back the sales tax from 6.25% to 3% will be on the Nov. 2nd Massachusetts Ballot.

*** end quote ***

I applaud Ms. Carla’s tilt at the big gooferment windmill.

It unprecedented to have a roll back of ANY taxes.

Who knows what can happen when they get the “ball” rolling?

Maybe we could have the same in New Jersey?

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Stopping the Social Security Ponzi scheme! “Cold turkey”?

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

http://cafehayek.com/2010/05/stopping-the-social-security-ponzi-scheme.html

Stopping the social security ponzi scheme
by Russ Roberts on May 4, 2010
in Social Security

*** begin quote ***

The way to keep social security from bankrupting the country is to make it a welfare program for the elderly. But what about all the money I “contributed”? Alas, that was a lie. The money wasn’t set aside for the future. It’s like asking why don’t I collect food stamps even though I’m rich. Hey, I contributed so I should get food stamps. That’s a bizarre belief to have. That’s not the way food stamps work. That is the way social security is supposed to work, but it’s a bad idea, it was an illusion that your contributions were really yours and there isn’t enough money to keep the illusion going.

*** end quote ***

The problem is that the gooferment took the “seed corn” from everyone. They skimmed the “cream” off the top. We could have saved MORE for our own retirement, but they STOLE it early (when the savings would have had more impact) and OFTEN (by inflation eats up savings and raises costs). So everyone to now say “too bad, you’re screwed” is the perpetuation of a fraud and a theft. We didn’t get into this mess in a few years and won’t get out of it in a few years. It was decades. So, like Chile, we need time. <sub 40, recognition bond for contributions payable in 40 years; over 40 below 60, you get some choices; over 60, you get the old plan> And you work your way out.

I pitched a similar idea in the NY Tax Revolt in the 80’s. A twenty year plan to get out of gooferment education at 5% a year. Followed immediately by a twenty year plan, to get out of gooferment funded “education” completely. Forty years, like the time the Jews wandered the desert, gives you time to reeducate people and allow them to adapt to the new realities. Too bad they didn’t adopt it, we’d have been half way out by now. NJ’s education expense is crippling the State.

Paradigms and memes don’t change over night. And, folks have to be able to see the path, where it leads to, and how it can be accomplished with 960 (40 times 12) easy monthly payments of some modest amount gets them to Freedom.

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Upon reflection, this would cause violence in the streets. Only the wealthy could survive this body blow. And, with the gooferment planning to “monetize the debt” (i.e., inflate the currency so it can pay off the debt), those on fixed incomes and retired will be slowly strangled. Think the German pre-WW2 hyperinflation that made Hitler possible.

No, we need an orderly multi-generational way to get form here to there. Peacefully. The Chile solution worked well; why not here?

One problem is they were all illiterate and could ignore the liberal media telling us the gooferment’s propaganda line. We’re too “smart” for our own good. And, the youth propaganda reeducation camps are ensuring continued stupidity!

Argh!

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POLITICAL: What a novel idea: voluntary funding of services

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/the-audacity-of-deceit-92614219.html

May. 02, 2010
The audacity of deceit
VIN SUPRYNOWICZ
I don’t think Barack Obama tells the truth.

*** begin quote ***

The freedom ideal would be no compulsory taxation, at all — let all keep their own earnings to invest in growing the economy, while what minimal government is required would be supported by voluntary user fees.

The statists will pretend to object on pragmatic grounds. Let them first answer whether or not they agree this would be the ideal. If they do, then we can try to solve the pragmatic problems. I grew up in a small town, for example, where voluntary membership fees funded the ambulance and the volunteer firemen. The ambulance and the firemen would still respond to a home that had not subscribed — but that homeowner would then receive a bill for the full cost of their services. Few waited to get a second bill before signing up as paid members.

*** end quote ***

My gripe with gooferment is:

  • It uses force even when not needed;
  • We pay for “services” that we don’t want.
  • We pay for “services” that we don’t need.
  • We pay for “services” that we can’t afford.
  • We pay for “services” that are “over priced”.
  • We pay for “services” that are “under functional”.
  • We pay for “services” that are delayed or way overdue.

And pay, and pay, and pay, and pay.

Enuf is enuf!

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MONEY: WW2 Wage and Price control were disasterous and carry through today

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

On Apr 24, 2010, at 5:58 PM, LUDDITE wrote:

http://finance.yahoo.com/focus-retirement/article/107923/8-great-companies-to-retire-from.html?mod=fidelity-changingjobs

At a time when some firms have cut back on benefits, these employers offer notably generous plans. Fortune picks some of the best.

# – # – #

Good for you. But bad for us as a society. Pensions and benefits are a result of the WW2 wage and price controls. Big companies bent the salary cap rules by giving these inducements to get good workers. This was a gooferment distortion of the employment marketplace which as usual has had disastrous side effects. I’m not a economist; nor a social scientist, but let see if I can enumerate the ones I know about.

(1) Medical insurance tied to employment had several bad effects. It locked up workers who couldn’t or wouldn’t change jobs due to losing their benefits or the “pre-existing conditions of going to a different insurer. Lose your job due to poor performance, bad economy (i.e., recession), or structural changes in the economy (i.e., rust belt) lose your benefits. It disconnected the link between the expense and the pain of paying thus inducing folks not shop around, negotiate, or even look at the bills.

(2) Pensions are in effect deferred compensation. It locks up capital in the company pension plan — with its risk in bankruptcy — from the individual. So, for example, an employee, if they had that money, could have used it as they saw fit to provide for their own retirement. In my own case, I could have had an extra X$/month to pay down my mortgage sooner and had that capital asset for my retirement. It’s about Freedom and liberty. I was FORCED to trade X$ per month at that time for a future cash flow at age 65 assuming I lived so long. If I didn’t, it was lost. Like “Social Security”!

(3) Pensions were such an expense that the Aircraft companies were firing “old” injineers just before their pensions vested to hire new graduates cheaper. (The fact that much of their work was for the military and the gooferment made it hurt even more.) Hence, having created the problem, the Gooferment gave us the solution — more gooferment — the ERISA laws. (Argh!)

(4) Pensions and benefits, due to it hidden sunken costs, makes the workforce less flexible and nimble. You had to have a much bigger opportunity in a new job in order to justify leaving the security, pension, and benefits in an old employer.

(5) Increased regulation of the workplace, such as OSHA, FALSA, and NLRB, all sprung out of that New Deal thinking. And, was as taxation and regulation, a drag on our economy.

So that’s why this is bad for us as a nation.

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RANT: Government is not us

Saturday, May 1, 2010

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/56930.html

Not Us. Never, Ever Us.
Posted by Charles Featherstone on May 1, 2010 10:50 AM

*** begin quote ***

But second, it’s important to emphasize again and again and again that this notion that we, the people, are in any way the government is fraudulent. The government is not us. It cannot ever be us. If it were, there’d be no need for signs that say “Property of the United States Government” with warnings to trespassers because how can citizens — who are sovereign — trespass on the property over which they are sovereign? It’s the problem of socialist property writ large, and it’s why popular sovereignty is bunkum. All human societies become societies in which a relatively tiny elite rule a majority, and democracy (along with ideology) is just modernity’s method of legitimizing that elite rule. I have compared democratic rituals to religious rituals before, and I do believe that elections are the central sacrament of democracy. A pointless sacrament of an idolatrous religion.

The truth is governments are always a menacing entity. Often times they are evil. Sometimes they are even foreign. Government is not us. And it will not ever be us.

*** end quote ***

Important to underscore.

This is not a democracy.

It’s an oligarchy.

Leadership by a political elite, who do what they want.

(Think the healthcare polls!)

We have to follow Gandhi and just not cooperate!

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MONEY: ROTH IRA’s tax-free status may NOT be dependible

Saturday, April 24, 2010

http://www.ricedelman.com/cs/pressroom/pressroom_detail?pressrelease.id=1122

Roth IRA Conversion Question
For Immediate Release
April 22, 2010

*** begin quote ***

Question: Regarding Roth IRA conversions, what is there to prevent the government 10, 20 or 30 years from now taking these Roth IRAs and changing rules and making them taxable, either all or in part, or making them subject to the AMT?

Ric: There is nothing preventing Congress from doing that. That is one of our objections to the Roth IRA and specifically to the Roth IRA Conversion.

Congress says Roth IRA withdrawals are tax-free, but we get a new Congress every two years. Planning to retire in 20 years? That’s 10 Congresses from now.

If the government needs more revenue, a future Congress might decide to tax the money held in Roth accounts. You can even argue that this is why Congress allows Roth conversions in the first place: The conversion does not necessarily lower your taxes, but it does accelerate your payment of them. By getting you to convert, Congress gets the tax revenue now. Clever, huh?

Do you trust Congress to honor its promises? The more you do, the more confident you can be about putting money in the Roth IRA. Personally, I am not terribly confident.

*** end quote ***

The out of control congress doesn’t inspire confidence.

As they cast around for “revenue”, the 401ks and IRAs must certainly be attractive.

Watch your wealth it’s hunting season for money in DC!

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