What We Must Do Now
posted at 12:58 am on June 3, 2009 by Doctor Zero
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The economy stinks, and it’s going to get worse. Much worse.
What stinks about it? For starters, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has been fluctuating between eight and nine thousand, which is about five thousand points below its 2007 highs. The Dow is a calculated average of industrial stock prices, meant to measure the overall value of the American industrial sector. It includes major companies like Coca-Cola, Intel, Microsoft, Exxon-Mobil, and Wal-Mart. These companies lost a huge amount of value over the last two years, and they’re not growing in value now. They represent every major sector of the economy, so when the Dow is flat, it means none of the leading companies in any industry are gaining in value. That’s especially bad news, because as mediocre as it’s been, today’s market is probably as good as it’s going to get for a while. Huge amounts of “stimulus” money have generated nothing except waste and graft. The coming wave of tax increases, along with energy shortages from Obama’s insane energy policies, haven’t slammed into the industrial sector yet. The Dow also maintains indexes for transportation and utilities, and they don’t look so good, either. Cap-and-trade energy taxes will kill entire industries stone dead. Incidentally, one of the companies in the Dow industrial formula, since 1931, was General Motors.
What else is bad? Unemployment. Companies that are losing value don’t hire people. The current unemployment rate is 8.6%. For most of the Bush years, it was around four to five percent. Nobody expects this rate to go anywhere but up, or the media wouldn’t be parroting Obama’s ludicrous “create or save” language about jobs – a rhetorical dodge that only someone with great faith in the boundless stupidity of the public would attempt.
Another dangerous economic indicator is the trade deficit. It’s about six percent of our gross domestic product at the moment. The trade deficit means we’re importing far more than we’re exporting. To finance these imports, we have to borrow money from countries that are running trade surpluses. Running such a huge trade deficit means we’re not supplying our own domestic needs, and foreign customers aren’t buying our products. One of the major producers of a high-value product that both domestic and foreign customers used to be interested in was General Motors. Its transition from failing private-sector corporation to government-run disaster will not help that trade deficit any.
And of course, the fourth horseman of the economic apocalypse is our federal budget deficit, which has passed astonishing and become obscene. Endless billions plunged into pork-barrel spending, coupled with doomed attempts to keep the bloodless corporate host organisms of labor unions on life support, have threatened the bond market and the value of our currency. The current federal government debt is now over half a million dollars per American household, with plenty more reckless spending yet to come… including plans for a nationalized health care system that will suck another few trillion in imaginary money out of an utterly broke government that is mortgaged to the hilt. Among the genius ideas floated to pay for the nationalized health system is a brand-new value-added tax, a super sales tax of 10 to 25 percent, added onto the sales tax you already pay. The major immediate effect of such an idiotic scheme would be a massive reduction in spending by consumers, making an 8000 Dow look like a wistful memory of a bygone era. A significant result of nationalized health care will be a dramatic reduction of the average life expectancy, as a desperate government rations health care by declaring elderly people too expensive to treat. The elderly are generally wealthier than younger age cohorts, since they had a long lifetime to amass money and property… and since they won’t be able to spend money on staying alive, they’ll have more cash in the bank when they pass away, and those massive death taxes kick in. This will make one of the “unforeseen consequences” of socialized medicine an even greater wealth transfer from the private sector to the government.
These dire economic indicators are merely the prelude to the detonation of Social Security and Medicare, the Fat Man and Little Boy of financial catastrophe. These programs were going bankrupt anyway, but the doomsday clock has been greatly accelerated by a weakening economy and worse-than-broke government. Socialized medicine would relieve the pressure somewhat, by killing elderly people sooner and reducing the strain of paying their Social Security benefits, but it won’t be nearly enough to stop the avalanche of entitlement spending on the aging Baby Boomers. Retirees will fight to the bitter end to collect the benefits they paid for all of their lives, and it will be absolutely impossible to pay them.
We need dramatic action to remedy the collapsing economy now. A state-run economy does not have the flexibility to survive sudden expenses, such as major natural disasters or terrorist attacks. Everything that’s wrong with America is doubly wrong with California – what happens if they finally get that big earthquake they’ve always been worried is coming? Beyond the immediate physical destruction, the economic shock wave would bring the creaky American system crashing down, because we’re all plugged into California, whether we like it or not.
So, what can be done to fix these problems? It seems to me that we need the exact opposite of what we’re getting from the hapless Obama Administration. We need increased industrial activity, spurred by increased consumer demand, resulting in higher employment and more exports. None of this can come from tax-and-spend statist policies. The government does not create wealth, value, or hours of productivity when it spends money. It takes the money away from those who create those things, then skims a huge amount off the top due to bloated overhead costs, political graft, and the natural reduction of economic activity that comes from high tax rates. Major corporations and wealthy individuals have ways of avoiding high taxes, and most of them result in higher unemployment and reduced industrial output. The shriveled resources appropriated by the government are then spent inefficiently, with decisions made according to neurotic obsessions and political convenience. Digging our way out of the economic hole will require maximum productivity and efficiency. The path between employee, producer, and consumer must be as direct as possible.
We have to shut down the government. A great deal of it, anyway.
I wrote earlier about the enormous economic stimulus that would come from privatizing education. Many other such industries must be pried loose from the government’s talons, and fed to the private sector, where they can spur employment and commerce. Laws must be passed to prevent the sickening travesty of government officials controlling, or subsidizing, private industries. Laws that enable labor unions to bleed industries dry must be repealed, and the unions broken. Unions may have begun as collective bargaining entities protecting workers from exploitation, but they have devolved into quasi-governmental agencies that exploit everyone who doesn’t belong to the union – literally, in the case of the United Auto Workers, which has lifted about two hundred dollars out of your wallet over the last six months.
The only way to achieve these goals is with massive tax cuts. The leviathan can only be killed by starving it to death. Progressive taxation is a moral and practical atrocity that should be replaced with a flat tax or consumption-based tax (an argument for another day, but either would be better than the sheer tyranny of requiring half the country to pay 100% of the cost of bloated government.) We should flood the private sector with immediate, real money, broken loose from the government’s vaults. Since stock prices are predictive of anticipated trends, and companies figure upcoming quarterly tax assessments into their business plans, nothing could stimulate the economy faster than tax cuts. Tax and spend economies are simply a collectivist instrument for directing production as the political class sees fit, as wasteful as they are immoral. Return the freedom to create, hire, produce, and purchase to the private sector, and let the creative energy of millions of private citizens, making billions of transactions, produce results that can only astound the politically straitjacketed, manifestly incompetent minions of the Obama government. The spectacle of Treasury being run by a tax cheat, health care being administered by a lawyer with no medical training, and the fifty-billion-dollar GM boondoggle being captained by someone who appears to have been chosen randomly from a list of campaign operatives, is darkly amusing – but not at all surprising. This is the kind of garbage that happens every time politicians are given too much power. The private sector usually knows better than to hire a fraud like Turbo Tax Tim Geithner, and if it did make the mistake of hiring him, it would have fired him by now.
A revitalized, deregulated, lightly taxed private economy is the only chance we have of staving off the Social Security meltdown until private sector solutions can be applied to it. It is the only chance we have of preserving the value of the dollar, or stabilizing the bond market enough to make the Chinese stop laughing at us. Everything taken over by the government gets more expensive, but it never gets any better. We have to improve, to survive the coming storm. We need an army of screaming apparatchiks staggering out of Washington in shock, wondering what just hit them. We need the government to make sacrifices for a change. It is the largest employer, lender, borrower, and consumer in the country… or in the world. We’ve had enough of a blundering giant staring down at the little people and telling them to tighten their belts. It is time to declare the utter, absolute failure of socialism, made agonizingly obvious by the expensive fumbles of this President, and the coming crash his policies are only making worse. Socialism has failed comprehensively, in every particular. Every single problem it asserted the power to address has gotten worse. Its acolytes have brought a mighty engine of growth and commerce crashing into ruins. Its early New Deal triumph is about to collapse into a black hole that will obliterate the wealth of future generations. The current socialist government can only pretend it’s working by fudging numbers, making ridiculous excuses, and desperately trying to create distractions. We can’t afford this foolishness any more. The obsessions, hatreds, and superstitions of the Left have grown too expensive. We’ve arrived at our last opportunity to cancel their credit cards and make them get real jobs.
The national debt is currently 80% of our gross domestic product. In ten years, it will be 100%. No one can argue that’s efficient, moral, or sustainable. Bringing this bloated, spendthrift government down will not be an easy task, but we have no time to lose. We, the people, still have the power to control the destiny of the United States. We can do all the things the “smart set” tells us are impossible. We could do them in one single election. There’s no reason Obama should be anything but a helpless lame duck from 2010 to 2012. Bullies are also cowards. Instead of watching the Dow Jones Industrial Average drop another couple thousand points, let’s make the value of a Senate seat drop. Scare those people half to death in 2010, let them know you’re ready to finish the job in 2012, and a great many things can change very quickly. The second quarter of 2009 can either be the high-water mark of the post-Bush economy… or it can be remembered as the high-water mark of the total state. The choice is ours, as it always has been, but may not be for much longer.
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Great article.
Sidebar:
I think it is actually 8.9% for April. May coming soon on Jun 5, and will likely be higher still.
MB4 on June 3, 2009 at 1:55 AM
I’m with you.
jimmy2shoes on June 3, 2009 at 6:09 AM
Another brilliant piece by the Doc!
I’m forwarding this article to everyone on my email list…
Amen…
Keemo on June 3, 2009 at 8:05 AM
Agreed!
We’re on the “Road to Serfdom.”
We gotta’ re-route soon
blatantblue on June 3, 2009 at 8:09 AM
Dr -
As always – a great article.
The education portion is interesting (as is your May 22 article)and workable. I recall in my junior high school year – due to a pending tax increase and the high % of fixed income elderly in our disctrict – the vote was “no increase”, putting us into austerity for the upcoming school year.
Know what happened? The community rallied together through fund raisers, car washes, bake sales and reached out to local businesses for “non education funding” – which included sports, arts, field trips, etc. The net, net result – roughly 5% more was raised than the pending tax revenue.
It was a micro-free market example that additionally brought up the moral and feeling of “community”. Hell, I think our football team cracked .500 for the first time in 15 years… and I want to add – the following year 34% of my graduation class was honors, with 60% attending college.
Odie1941 on June 3, 2009 at 9:59 AM
Dude, run for something. You’ve got my vote.
Vashta.Nerada on June 3, 2009 at 11:43 AM
He obviously doesn’t live in the SoCal. 10.9% and climbing in the PRK.
Fighton03 on June 3, 2009 at 11:44 AM
Congress to teh rescue!
ranchoforte on June 3, 2009 at 11:45 AM
my unemployment observation should only be taken as additional supporting evidence for this piece though. I agree, shut it down.
Fighton03 on June 3, 2009 at 11:46 AM
Fantastic article. Really well written.
You would think more people would pay attention to what’s going on in the government but they are so stuck on loving Obama that they’ve lost the ability to think rationally.
This article should be turned into a movie. I’d pay to see it, if I can still afford to.
Nate A. on June 3, 2009 at 11:47 AM
fabulous, thank you
ginaswo on June 3, 2009 at 11:48 AM
Absolutely. CHANGE NOW.
Mommypundit on June 3, 2009 at 11:53 AM
Very good piece and summary of what this country is facing. But it almost implies that Obama and his minions really believe that their policies will ultimately work, which we know they won’t.
The suggestions above all make perfect sense which is why Obama or ANYONE in Congress for that matter will try to do the opposite. Obama and his minions have no interest in creating the environment for economic recovery. They are doing everything possible to nationalize large segments of what’s left of our manufacturing and financial base while polarzing and destabilizing the citizens.
Whether it’s a terror attack on our soil or the quick and sudden collapse of the dollar or our fragile economy, rest assure that it will all happen on purpose to create a crisis severe enough for further power consolidation.
It’s happened all throughout the 20th century and the seeds are beeing sown for it to happen here.
TheAdmiral on June 3, 2009 at 11:54 AM
The good Doctor has spoken well.
Mason on June 3, 2009 at 11:54 AM
We have already started cutting back and consolidating we don’t have to but we are because we think the answer is to starve the Progressives out. I am not going to contribute to consuming anything that isn’t a need. Consuming to pump up this economy, that will prolong this punitive taxing of the American Taxpaying Citizen. No Way! I don’t have any sense of Patriotic responsibility to this Government, that allows statements by the highest offices in the land, that are basically Blame America First and as Often as Possible. Gone Galt hunkering down and voting opposite of anyone who voted for TARP Porkulus Geithner nomination ect in 2010.
No Mr Powell turns out Americans don’t want to pay more taxes for a mediocre government that is actively hostile to it’s own citizens. In fact I would like Collin Powell to show me where in the United States Constitution this Government has a right to do most of the legislation they are passing. Mr Powell you raised your hand to protect and defend the Constitution of the U.S. explain punitive regressive taxes to us.
http://youhavetobethistalltogoonthisride.blogspot.com/2009/05/life-liberty-pursuit-of-happiness.html
Dr Evil on June 3, 2009 at 11:55 AM
Hey, quit being such a big baby.
If the unemployment rate is 8.6, then the Communisty Ørganizer has saved 91.4% of the jobs!!
What more can you ask for?
Chickyraptor on June 3, 2009 at 11:56 AM
I say you’ve solidly got one-third of the electorate behind you and Newt on a shutdown ticket. A little Geithner arithmetic might improve the numbers — but my guess is that Chicago style ballot boxes are being installed everywhere and they’re imbedded with a secret tally limit on the GOP side.
Mark30339 on June 3, 2009 at 11:56 AM
I’m making copies and placing them in the office breakroom and in the airport gate areas. I may even slip some copies into the newpapers in the corner boxes.
stenwin77 on June 3, 2009 at 11:57 AM
Of course this is what needs to happen but how do we turn the tide??
Rod on June 3, 2009 at 11:57 AM
Not a chance…to many commies.
JIMV on June 3, 2009 at 12:00 PM
Phenomenal article. Had me pounding my table in agreement. At the moment, my primary contribution to the cause is my ongoing (since election 08) attempt to convince my fiance that free market capitalism combined with limited government is the best path to prosperity (paraphrasing Larry Kudlow there). For the record, she’s a Manhattanite from a left-wing family, and most of her friends are star-struck Obamaphiles. It’s an uphill grind, but we win elections one vote at a time, right? Right?? Ugh, God help us all.
onetoomany on June 3, 2009 at 12:02 PM
Michael Steele–are you listening?!?!?!
Start taking the fight to the Left NOW. Start showing the horrors of what this administration will reep NOW. Start pumping a simple alternative to these usurpers NOW.
To paraphrase Sean Connery’s Jim Malone: “You wanna know how to get Obama? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue! That’s the Chicago way!”
catholicdude on June 3, 2009 at 12:02 PM
But, I thought only government can break the vicious cycles that are crippling our economy. President Obama said so, and he’s hip and stuff.
forest on June 3, 2009 at 12:03 PM
We sort of are a feudal society, aren’t we? Isn’t that what gangs are, including government funded ones, maybe ACORN?
In a feudal system, citizens submit to a feudal lord in return for protection, the feudal lord often holds a vassal relationship, a vassalage, with an adjoining monarch to whom he gives fealty in exchange for protection? Obama would be the monarch, and the vassalage is to deliver votes and rough up the neighborhoods, I’m thinking of those scary dudes who blocked the voting place in November, the ones Obama just released from custody.
I’m pretty sure we’re already living in a feudal system.
I don’t know why Dr. Zero talks in future tense, the deed is pretty much done.
jeff_from_mpls on June 3, 2009 at 12:10 PM
Currently, the government is the vicious cycle crippling our economy.
Count to 10 on June 3, 2009 at 12:11 PM
As long as there are more takers than payers in the system, we will never win again electorally. Particularly given all the in-fighting in our own party. We can’t even convince each other to support elected Republicans, much less the voters in the middle.
I agree with you completely that this is the only thing that will save us. However, it means that tens of millions of people have to be abruptly pulled off the government teat. I doubt that they would realize it’s for the good of the country. After all, shutting down SS and Medicare today might save us. They constitute well over 60% of federal spending all by themselves, and that number is about to explode. But as you rightly pointed out, Doc, the retired and soon-to-be-retired will fight with everything they have to get their benefits. And they still have the voting numbers to keep us from shutting it down.
aero on June 3, 2009 at 12:17 PM
When will our eloquent version of Daniel Hannan emerge in the US and confront Obama like he confronted Gordon Brown?
smartsy on June 3, 2009 at 12:24 PM
The only way to accomplish these goals would be for every federally elected official to resign their positions and go home or…some man made disaster, like planes flying into the Capitol during the State of the Union speech. Something crazy like that.
mr1216 on June 3, 2009 at 12:25 PM
Good post. Well conceived and well written.
Blacksheep on June 3, 2009 at 12:26 PM
Statism and it’s many varied flavors of failure has to rely on achievers and producers – the actual PAYERS of Taxes – to sacrifice themselves to the collective.
After a while they will decide they don’t want to be enslaved and either escape or simply shut down and the system will implode.
The achievers and producers are going to have to take action to stop this train ride to economic oblivion.
They are going to have to demand an end to this tax and spend madness.
Fake8 on June 3, 2009 at 12:27 PM
Don’t forget to privatize TRANSPORTATION – the transmission of the economy. Ports should be leased, FAA should include only regulators, get the Feds off the railroads backs and sell big chunks of the Interstate system to the highest bidder.
rock the casbah on June 3, 2009 at 12:28 PM
Did you see Ed’s interview with Marco Rubio from yesterday? Some of the best stuff I’ve heard from a Republican in years.
forest on June 3, 2009 at 12:29 PM
I may have to write in your name for POTUS in 2012.
Yakko77 on June 3, 2009 at 12:30 PM
Doctor/Zero ‘12
LibTired (KO) on June 3, 2009 at 12:30 PM
Excellent Article.
Also one of the few that deals with the necessary consequences of “cutting taxes” with truth. That is to say; feeding regulation books into the fire and firing millions of bureaucrats. Closing the EPA, the Agriculture Dept, the BATF, the (Insert endless list of alphabet agencies here) can be done either by will or by the way it has been done historically, collapse of the government like Eastern Europe.
Thanks Doc.
GunRunner on June 3, 2009 at 12:31 PM
Me and you, Yakko. We see eye to eye.
LibTired (KO) on June 3, 2009 at 12:31 PM
No need to worry – The world is supposed to end on December 21, 2012 anyway.
http://www.adishakti.org/mayan_end_times_prophecy_12-21-2012.htm
http://www.viewzone.com/endtime.html
LODGE4 on June 3, 2009 at 12:35 PM
By the time the electorate sees the truth of your words it will be too late. The shattered economy will have created panic and people will be paralyzed by fear. A fearful populace is easily led by hitleresque glib demagogues and will not rebel against the status quo, they will cling to it for comfort and empty promises. I have little hope that the elections of 2010 will produce anything but more of the same. Dear God, please let me be wrong.
SKYFOX on June 3, 2009 at 12:40 PM
Doc Zero,
Great article. You’ve summed up the current cluster-foxtrot as well as anyone I’ve read. I fear that the sheeple won’t wake up until it is too late.
I’m sending this to everyone I know.
Great job.
mountainmanbob on June 3, 2009 at 12:44 PM
Unfortunately it will take a great hard crash & a severe depression before anything is done. Only when it dawns on the folks that love voting for socialists that they were very, very wrong will it turn around. Perhaps a pocket of America like say the STATE of TEXAS can avoid the depression if we cut loose from the idiots in Washington. Perhaps China can set-up it new HUMMER shop in Texas because Texans will be the only ones who will be able to afford them and only be the ones left in America with gas. Imagine an unconstrained Texas with NO FEDERAL rules & regulations. Sure we have some socialists in Texas but they can move to D.C. and whine to the Obamanation. Texas could mount it’s own military in about one day. I keep seeing more SECEDE bumper stickers and it may be time. The sooner we can stop feeding the beast the better. We will take care of our own parents because we know the federal government will not.
izoneguy on June 3, 2009 at 12:46 PM
Preach on, brother!!!
cthulhu on June 3, 2009 at 12:50 PM
You expect me to fight to save a country which approves of the policies that are killing it? Last time I checked, Obama’s approval ratings are still in the sixties. I’m more than happy to help someone who wants it, but you cannot help the unwilling. I’ll extend a hand to anyone who asks, but why should I sacrifice myself for those who will persecute me for doing so?
JohnJ on June 3, 2009 at 12:52 PM
You know a President that actually cared more about the people of this country than accruing power in the Federal Government could eliminate much of the federal bureaucracy by just pointing out that it is unconstitutional. He could state that he intends to abide by his oath of office where he swore that he would, “to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
With the Justice Department arguing on the President’s side in this, it is doubtful that large sections of the Federal Government could survive this type of Constitutional challenge.
One can always dream, can’t they?
Buford on June 3, 2009 at 12:54 PM
Nothing will save us now, short of a revolution.
TheSitRep on June 3, 2009 at 1:00 PM
I love everything about this post. I agree with what Doc is saying. But there is one flaw in the “solution.” We can “shut down” the government in 2010 by voting people OUT–but who are we voting IN? We have one year to FIND politicians who disagree with what’s happening and who will fight for us. Obama, as much as I know he’s driving the train, isn’t the one who is passing all the legislation. Where are the leaders who will vote against these obscene ideas? What we need is people on the ticket who can articulate the economic landscape that way you can, Doc–and then we need to vote THEM in. Otherwise, yeah, we’re “firing” the current representatives, but we’ll just get more of the same sorry, mediocre, cowards we have now.
Leiren on June 3, 2009 at 1:01 PM
Thank you, Doctor Zero, for an outstanding article.
Right_of_Attila on June 3, 2009 at 1:05 PM
Tour. De. Force.
juanito on June 3, 2009 at 1:09 PM
Great great article. Of course, there is zero chance that our economy will be saved.Not with the three stooges running things – Uhhhhbama, Pelosi and Reid.
Re: education. My grandson just finished first grade. Seven of the seventeen students is his class were held back. His school has never passed the ISTEP tests. I think his parents are going to send him to a private school next year.
darwin-t on June 3, 2009 at 1:15 PM
I wonder how those 95%ters are going to feel when they get hit w/Cap&Trade, VAT and oh wait he wants to tax ALL healthcare!
xler8bmw on June 3, 2009 at 1:15 PM
I’ve been wondering a lot about this myself. About how to beat the government at it’s own game before it’s not possible. I just haven’t nailed exactly how to go about it.
If we allow the Obama Administration to produce a false economy based on the cult of Global Warming and National Health Care, it will always be at the teat of government similar to Amtrak and ethanol.
If Obama’s ambitions were truly interested in reducing oil consumption and health insurance for everybody, he would be dropping government regulations and allowing a free-for-all of capitalism to find solutions.
But he isn’t. Like I tell my kids. Never listen to what a politician (especially a dem) says, watch what they do.
I can’t stomach listening to him, and what he is doing is making me even more sick.
cntrlfrk on June 3, 2009 at 1:19 PM
The Fair Tax is looking better all the time.
Bugler on June 3, 2009 at 1:20 PM
Doctor Zero………..
…….. +7%!
Seven Percent Solution on June 3, 2009 at 1:21 PM
In April 2009, 13 U.S. cities had unemployment rates top 15%.
1. Longview, Wash. 15.2%
2. Hanford, Calif. 15.3%
3. Redding, Calif. 15.4%
4. Visalia, Calif. 15.4%
5. Fresno, Calif. 15.5%
6. Bend, Ore. 15.6%
7. Stockton, Calif. 15.6%
8. Modesto, Calif. 16.8%
9. Elkhart, Ind. 17.8%
10. Yuba City, Calif. 18.2%
11. Merced, Calif. 18.3%
12. Yuma, Calif. 20.3%
13. El Centro, Calif. 26.9%
Source:Bureau of Labor Statistics
This is what the rest of the country will experience under Obamanation rule…
izoneguy on June 3, 2009 at 1:41 PM
75% of Americans don’t even know what Cap & Trade is…..
I am sure the Obamabots have a plan to spin the huge increase
in electricity bills as Bush’s fault.
izoneguy on June 3, 2009 at 1:43 PM
Great piece Dr.
Wine_N_Dine on June 3, 2009 at 1:46 PM
Unfortunately, The Messiah’s followers will never see anything this intelligent. They are either watching Oprah, or reading a People Magazine article about Michelle Obama’s style.
Star20 on June 3, 2009 at 1:48 PM
We need to elect good people in 2010. I don’t mean Republicans, I mean intelligent, good people. I just hope there are some running.
kc8ukw on June 3, 2009 at 2:06 PM
*golf clap* This artice was a mildly amusing fantasy. The solution it proposes at first blush seem real, but upon closer examination turn out to be invisible pink unicorns. By which I mean, he offers no road map to the ends he proposes other than ~vote~. If that had been a real solution we would not have lost the last election, nor would the Bush administration started bailing out the financial industry. As a fantasy the author proposes a comic book super Regan that a hundred million mythical rational voters will support like Moses’s arms over the battle. And to make matters worse than finding this fairy tale amidst the weeds of current contenders, the author wants us to find dozens of them to retake the halls of congress. No one has had the will or capital to touch the third rail known as social security, and this bozo wants someone who will do that, reduce taxes, and radicaly cut spending. Get real! I can’t even imagine the person who would attempt the last, much less get their plans past congress. The howls of special interest touting their dead babies in rubble like pictures would overwealm any non-Kryptonian man.
Your prose may be pretty but you’ve done nothing more than shout “Rah, Go Team.” And sadly, others here bought your tripe.
AnotherOpinion on June 3, 2009 at 2:15 PM
Basically, we’re done. All the talk here means nothing for the ONLY fact nothing is going to happen no matter what we say here.
About the only way things will change at this point is a genuine revolution, armed or not, against this government that is sliding toward a tyranny. Wait till this joker in the WH is forced to declare martial law and suspend the Constitution.
Think it isn’t going to happen? Wait another year. Congress might end up dissolving itself but you can bet your bottom dollar (worth 13 cents compared to 1973) those F-ers will still get their pensions.
The fledgling United States recreated an economy in 1784 and look where freedom got us. Now we’re about to lose all that.
Time, it seems, to re-water that tree of liberty, as Thomas Jefferson once wrote.
Otherwise, we’re sunk and all our mighty words won’t change that outcome.
Liam on June 3, 2009 at 2:21 PM
Dittos on that!!
Chainsaw56 on June 3, 2009 at 2:24 PM
I agree 100% with this statement:
But I have a serious question: They are talking about a value-added tax on top of the sales tax we already pay (which is crazy), but what is the difference between a value-added tax and consumption-based tax? From what I can see, a consumption-based tax is tax on what you buy i.e. consume, like a sales-tax. But isn’t the value-added tax a sales tax as well? I understand that what they are talking about is piling on the value-added tax on top of what we already pay and not getting rid of anything, but in theory if they did get away with everything else, wouldn’t the value-added tax just be a consumption-based tax?
aggie13 on June 3, 2009 at 2:27 PM
Who decides that attributed ‘value’, but government. And on what might it base the assumed value? Against gold? Against sheep? How about a tax on your rare-breed Himalayan flame-point cat? The beastie might be worth $400 on the open market, so should you pay a value-added tax to adopt one from a shelter?
We’re quibbling about taxes here when over-bloated government is the problem! We shouldn’t be fretting over tax rates. We should be concerned about a sickened government trying to tax us to death in the most insipid ways it can find.
Liam on June 3, 2009 at 2:34 PM
I have on problem with this…
…none of this is anything that I can do personally, and I have to wait at LEAST another yr to do anything about it, which is limited to only voting someone else in Congress, which doesn’t necessarily mean any of what you wrote about is going to change.
What I want to know is, what I be doing to protect me and my family RIGHT NOW?
ballz2wallz on June 3, 2009 at 2:37 PM
This is what we (corporate we, meaning the governing bodies of the USA) should do, but we (the citizens) know they won’t.
So what do we beyond stocking up on canned goods? Should I pay off my mortgage now, or should I wait and let inflation wipe out the value of the mortgage? Should I purchase land, or will the government start confiscating private property in the same way they are now violating bankruptcy laws and nationalizing businesses? Where do I put my investments that they won’t be wiped out by (1) decreasing stock market values and (2) inflation? At what point does it become beneficial to pull the money out of the 401K, pay the penalties, and put the money in … what?
CJ on June 3, 2009 at 2:49 PM
The idea behind the consumption tax is to use it instead of direct income taxes on people and businesses. This means any such plan would include the repeal of the 16th Amendment. The most popular version of this idea to date is called “The Fair Tax,” and you can find out more about it here.
The Fair Tax guys have some ideas about how to deal with this problem, but frankly the point you raised, plus the sticky business of repealing the 16th Amendment, have always led me to prefer the flat tax reform plan. I also worry that the Fair Tax would make paying taxes too painless, by assessing them in small chunks with every purchase. Filling out a quarterly flat tax form and writing a check to Uncle Sam would hurt. Paying taxes should hurt.
My point is that the current system is unsustainable, and rapidly approaching the point of total crisis and collapse. It was one thing to worry about impending doom in the 90s, when impending doom was thought to be twenty or thirty years away… not to say we shouldn’t have taken action then, but it’s easy to see how the Left could lull everyone back to sleep with soothing noises. A population that believes itself to be riding a perpetual bull market is not ready to hear about disasters looming two decades in the future.
Now we have arrived at the edge of the precipice, and I believe we must do all we can to embrace and promote dramatic solutions. The implosion of Social Security will be a complete systemic collapse, unlike anything seen before in American history, and I would dare to suggest unlike anything the world has ever seen. Reckless spending policies and politicized economics have hurried this collapse. If we don’t take drastic steps now, we’ll have to take them among the smoking ruins of a shattered nation. I say it’s better to take them now.
You can dismiss both the problem, and the proposed solutions, as a fantasy if you like, but to quote the redoubtable Sarah Connor: in a few years, it’s going to feel pretty damned real to you, too.
Doctor Zero on June 3, 2009 at 2:49 PM
Doctor Zero:
Nail. Head. Hit.
Thanks!
KendraWilder on June 3, 2009 at 2:53 PM
Some ideas:
First, if you don’t own firearms, legally get some. And ammunition for all of them. The time might come when you have to defend property and family. BTW–teach all your family to use those weapons safely.
Work your ass off and lay in some savings in a bank best you can. We’ll have time to make full withdrawls when things get really bad. The money might become worthless in the end, but you’ll have something to use in the interim.
Lay in canned goods not to be used right away. Canned foods are cheap and last almost forever, so if the sh*t hits the fan you have something to barter. Forget gold, gems, and other trinkets. The hungry can’t eat diamonds.
Most of all, you and your family are a unit. Use your minds and devise on your best own to win. Stick together, love each other, and weather whatever might come. Take each day, do and be the best you have to offer, and remind those in your household they are also the same.
It’s all we have. Many times, in hardship, that’s more than enough to win.
Liam on June 3, 2009 at 2:57 PM
Hi!
I’m fine with a flat tax. The problem of it, since the 80s, has been full of complications–nuance. Another fluffer and distraction from the whole point.
It’s not complicated, but Beltway people make it so. Then it degenerates until we, the people, argue with each other. And isn’t that the aim of government?
Same with the old battle over choosing to die under extreme circumstances. In the 80s, the battle raged around choice to die. Politicians–Dems mostly, fought the idea. This didn’t involve assisted suicide. It was about not having hospital personnel making heroic efforts to resusitate.
All Congress needed was to allow a card, like a donor card, that stipulated no emergency measures would be taken in cases where the injured would be left forever and fully incapacitated.
A personal choice, a chosen desire of a free American. But Congress made it so complex the subject went away.
Congress could F up it’s own funeral. Before it does, it’s going to F the rest of us.
I’m with you on a flat tax but it won’t ever happen. That screws government plans to spend out the ass with impunity.
Too bad, really. We’d all be better for yours and mine ideal.
Liam on June 3, 2009 at 3:14 PM
“Invisible Pink Unicorns” eh?
What is mentioned above might seem unlikely. Unlikely as, say, a very far-left first term Senator with no executive experience, a Muslim background (while we’re at war with Muslim terrorists), very little national exposure, and a history of supporting the most extreme anti-life, pro-abortion policies imaginable beating the Goliath that was Hillary Clinton solely on empty slogans and the dog-in-heat praise of the media, beating the Republican nominee, and then socializing much of the country including General Motors, most of the banking industry, (and soon) health care, giving away billions (nearly trillions) of dollars to every single Democratic pet project and group imaginable and quadrupling the annual deficit all within three or four months of taking the oath of office?
Is it that unlikely? I think so.
But, as has been proven, nothing is out of the realm of possibility anymore. And, once the country fully feels the results of Obama’s policies, most of it will move to the right.
If the Republicans don’t get their act together quickly, then the Libertarians will elect their first President soon (assuming that there are Presidential Elections after 2010).
Theophile on June 3, 2009 at 3:14 PM
Might I offer a practical step toward this end? Help to organize and promote a July 4th Tea Party protest in your area. Maybe offer to speak at the rally and use the good Doctor’s text as a start for your speech, refined and rewritten as you see fit, but give the speech as close to word for word as you can. It’s important to articulate the reasoning as much as it is the solutions. The solutions will garner applause, but the reasoning is what makes them stick in the memory and it’s what people walk away with and repeat to friends and neighbors.
I know that public speaking is difficult for most people, but that discomfort is really the only immediate sacrifice you’ll have to make (in addition to organizing and promoting the event). Additionally, while at the Party talk to others about finding locals to run for Congress and state legislatures who agree with these ideas. Find local Repub candidates who agree and are genuinely committed to these ideas and join their campaigns. If they exist they’ll likely be attending the event.
The Apologist on June 3, 2009 at 3:24 PM
Great idea.
Theophile on June 3, 2009 at 3:31 PM
I said nothing about the statement of the problem. I also don’t have a problem with the end of the solution. I have a severe problem with an article claiming to present a solution, spending 90% of it’s time rehashing the problem, and offering no serious roadmap to the proposed end solution. Such a ’solution’ is a pipe dream without a roadmap. It is a sophomoric article restating what is known. What is unknown is how to get from here to there, overcoming the obvious obstacles demonstrated by the recent past.
I don’t have a solution, but I did not say I had one. You don’t have a solution either, you have a dream. You did not even offer the oft repeated hope that a crash will wake america up enough to change, which is also a dubious assertion.
AnotherOpinion on June 3, 2009 at 4:15 PM
EXACTLY. Nothing substantive will be done to foster an economic recovery UNTIL the Democrats get their healthcare “reform”, i.e. nationalization of even more of the private sector.
“Never let a serious crisis go to waste.”
Woody on June 3, 2009 at 4:42 PM
There are places in this world for both strategies and tactics. Solutions require both. If you’ve got something to say regarding tactics, do so, but it’s silly to excoriate someone’s strategic vision for a lack of tactics.
TheUnrepentantGeek on June 3, 2009 at 4:55 PM
Faux Winston Churchill,”Gentlemen, we are going to retake Europe. Now you work out the details while I smoke this cigar.”
Or, an even better analogy: FWC,”Gentlemen, once Europe has been retaken I have BIG plans to rebuild it. Aren’t you excited? Now, call me when you’ve won.”
Except the article was worse than that. It proposed a Utopian Europe requiring Herculean effort once victory was achieved. Let’s look at the last time ‘we’ had power, what did we do? Abolish the IRS… no, that would be the battle of a lifetime. “Fix” social security… no THAT would be the battle of a lifetime. Well then, we massively reduced spending and defunded the NEA… no, no, no. But, the magic fairy godmother of victories once invoked will solve all of these things at once thus saving the day at the last second… NO! I say you have confused strategy with a dream. And if I rebel at this so strongly it is because it is a regurgitated victory dance, a very premature dance repeated ad nauseum. He does not even make the appeal that by adopting his platform candidates can win, which is also a dubious assertion.
There is little place in this world to foist oft repeated pablum as meat, and that place is already overflowing. It is not even real pablum, it is the hopey promise of pablum in the future. Adults should know better.
AnotherOpinion on June 3, 2009 at 6:19 PM
Excellent article for dismal times. Like Kim Il Jong, our dear leader is not interested in economics, only power power power.
The invisible hand will become an iron fist which will smack him down, and all of us as well.
Dismal times indeed.
Dhuka on June 3, 2009 at 7:21 PM
When they do leave the union or attempt it, I’ll be there with boots, rifle, gold, and water.
I will eagerly toss my USA citizenship away to be a free Texan if they need my help to secede and be free.
Sapwolf on June 3, 2009 at 10:45 PM
The Apologist on June 3, 2009 at 3:24 PM
Nicely stated…
Keemo on June 4, 2009 at 7:06 AM