The real unsung heros of the economy

While it is easy, and tempting in a lazy sort of way, to point fingers at other groups and scream that they are the "bad guys"who are responsible for the crisis de jour, it is much more honest to realize that most of these "villans" are really straw-men put up as targets for our justified wrath. And is equally easy to overlook the fact that there are a much greater number of average people (and I do NOT mean that as an insult, but rather as a heartfelt compliment to them) out there doing what they need and want to do to make themselves better, and by that self improvement, make our country better. This gentleman says it so very well.

Ours is not a zero-sum economy. I don't have to lose in order for you to gain. We both can work hard and try to prosper, and both of us can make money. That is the beauty of our economy. It can be a win-win economy, and only when gov't steps in to redistribute in the name of "fairness" does it become a win-lose proposition. Our economy, our country as it was set up, does not require, expect, or even allow this redistribution, because our founding fathers knew that once government takes on that role, several things necessarily follow.
1) Those who earn and see their earnings taken from them either become angry and hostile or else simply stop working to produce profits that will simply be taken from them.
2) Those who receive the redistributions quickly learn to expect them, and have no motivation to become earners, since they are already being "taken care of". Why work when all will be supplied to you as your entitlement?
3) The government becomes larger and larger, more and more powerful as one group learns to depend upon it for more and more, and supports those who will continue to coddle and support them in their life of dependence. And the other group, the group of producers, sees more and more of their hard earned rewards being taken from them by the government; their voice in the whole process become smaller and smaller, while that same government that is taking from them, at the same time points to them as evil "profiteers" who are somehow responsible for the downtrodden and dependent group, WHOM THEY ARE SUPPORTING.

How We Need Someone in Washington Like This Man

By now, many of us have heard the speech by this gentleman about his country's slide into economic ruin via socialistic take-overs. For those who have not, and for those who need to once again hear someone say what has to be said, listen here.

Oh for someone to have the courage to say this to Pelosi and Reid, Geithner and Frank and Dodd and all the others who are trying so very hard to tear down this country from what it was into just another socialistic and second rate country.

Follow Up to the AIG Note Below

As noted previously, the Washington talking heads are doing their best to make up a class-envy battle, painting all the AIG workers as the villins because they took their promised bonuses.
Read this letter from someone who worked at AIG and see it from a different viewpoint.

Who do I believe??? Let's just say that there is virtually nothing that anyone from Washington says that I have any reason to believe. Their record of lies and deceit speaks volumes.

A Scary Promise that He Is Keeping

Back in the campaign, candidate Obama was quoted as seeking a "civilian army", and when we of the right raised our voices, we were brushed aside as simply over-reacting paranoids

Some promises that he should have kept, he didn't. Those that align with his "big-government", socialistic mindset are kept and enlarged upon. This is scary stuff and we better start paying attention to what is going on, besides the financial crap.

Gateway Pundit: House Passes Hitler Youth Bill

AIG Bonuses

Congress and the White House are up in arms, enraged, absolutely beside themselves in anger about the bonuses that some in AIG received.

Umm, just a brief burst of reality here, they APPROVED those same bonuses. And they are the ones who are responsible for the credit disaster. It was Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, etc who made it mandatory that banks offer mortgage loans to borrowers who could never repay, and thus the credit system began to weaken until it had to collapse. And it was Dodd, Frank, Obama et al who told us the stimulus bill had to be rushed through....no time to read it, let alone discuss it (where it then sat unsigned for 4 days while the POTUS went on a vacation). And what was in that bill? There was an amendment, the DODD amendment, which specifically allowed those same bonuses about which he now feigns rage. Face it folks, we are being played once again for suckers. Those people who got bonuses were being paid as they were contracted to be paid. Because we are angry that the gov't is throwing money at AIG doesn't invalidate those contracts.
A brief clip, with Shepard Smith giving a clear and concise explanation.

It seems that one of the tactics so often called upon is to try and convince us to aim our anger at some other non-government group, while washington and its insiders go on their merry way. Washington government, the senators, congressmen, presidents, and all the camp followers that surround them, spend our money with absolutely no regard for our wishes, spend money that we don't have and will never have, while they junket to the Netherlands to talk with the queen, maintain million dollar houses in Maryland or elsewhere, don't pay their own freaking taxes, run their offices at 78 degrees, and jet across the country in government jets while they tell us to suck it up and suffer for the greater good of the country. Stop and think, my friends. These people, these people who pose in front of the cameras and microphones and point fingers at AIG and other groups, they are the ones we should be angry at; they are the ones who are driving this country to ruin, not AIG, not the banks, not the workers of these companies, but those who are in a position of power and see nothing wrong with using that position and power to advance themselves and their well-being, while handing us the bills and demanding more and more of our money.

Here's another "clip-and-save" to hang on the 'fridge

We will ALL see our taxes and our expenses rise; not those who make over $???,??? whatever amount is being trumpeted this week, but ALL of us. Between energy taxes and penalties, fewer deductions, higher tax rates, we all are going to pay more.

ATTENTION ALL FISHERMEN

If you have any interest in fishing, particularly fly fishing, check this link. This is a gent who is seeing his time running out and is looking for some help...not charity, but help through his talent and trade. Please check it out.

Is this reprisal?

A while back, I wrote about the gent who was starting a new "stamp act", using a TAX CHEAT stamp on the currency carrying the signature of Treasury Sec'y Geithner.

Well what a coincidence......he just got notified that he is being audited. Coincidence......maybe, or maybe not. Let's watch and see what happens here.

Will the Insults Never End?

I'm struggling; I bet you are struggling; the US economy is going down the toilet; everyones' retirement plans are gone in a puff of smoke.
EXCEPT OUR CONGRESSMEN AND SENATORS

They just got a pay raise. Did you know that?

In addition to the $97,000 "petty cash" increase of a few weeks ago, they just got a
FRIGGIN' PAY RAISE!!!!!!

Remind me how I should treat our illustrious congressman and senator the next time I see their sorry faces! I think I may be sick!! How can they do this, and look at themselves in the mirror each morning? In my worst days, I simply couldn't be this two-faced. "We all have to give some, to suffer a bit for the common good, etc, etc, etc" Except for those who are so much better and more important than us peons. They get a raise taken from MY pocket.

Maybe it's time for a Tea Party in Kingston??

A Little Comic Relief

As I slog through the seemingly endless bad news, every once in a while I stumble across something that just tickles me until I sit here laughing out loud.
Enjoy a few chuckles.

how tv works

what REALLY happens to your icons when you aren't looking

and a different concert

Enjoy

A Very Good Read

There is a gentleman whose site I often read. He presents articles that are considerably "deeper" than the average blog, but often are cause for deep thinking and meditation.

He has just come out with another, and I strongly suggest you pop over there and read it. He presents some views that are cause for concern, but perhaps in the knowledge that he gives us, we have a way to work against it.

Thoughts on the Porkulus bill

It's a given that we tend to see the world with a view skewed by our surroundings. Thus the person from a liberal outlook will see the world through the eyes of a liberal bias and feel that “everyone” sees it the same way because he/she sees it that way as do his/her friends. Likewise a conservative will talk with other conservatives and soon feel that “everyone” feels the same way he does.
Even with this built-in bias, I am sensing a mood change here. I am hearing more people wondering why they are working so hard to stay afloat when the government is taking more and more of their earnings and handing it out to other people and groups who are quite happy to live off the government dole and let others pay their way. “Why shouldn't I just quit and go on public assistance? It would be a whole lot easier and I probably would come out ahead financially as well”, I hear other saying with greater frequency than ever before. And when one looks around, it is easy to see why this feeling is becoming so widespread. We watch as Congress passes a bill that THEY NEVER READ, a bill that will take thousands of dollars from each and every one of us as well as our children and grandchildren, and then hands that money out to people and to groups whose only claim to that money is that they were friends of some congressman. And then as a slap in the face, we're told that we all will get a tax break and that should keep us all happy. Let's see, they take an average of about $13,000 from each of us, give us back $13 a week and tell us to shut up and smile......maybe, just maybe, that is why people are getting fed up. And in my area, we are blessed with a senator who stands up at a press conference and says that the people aren't bothered by the pork in this bill, and a congressman who BRAGS that he didn't read the bill and would vote for it no matter what it said. Lord help me, but I stand almost in awe of the arrogance and stupidity of these people. Hey Mr. Hinchey, that is my money that you just stole. You just took money from my children and spent it on the biggest load of manure ever to come from Washington, and you have the audacity to brag that you didn't even read the frigging bill!!!! Aside from the rather obvious conflict with all that was promised to us about governmental transparency and openness by Mr Obama and the democratic leadership ( 5 days for people to read and comment on all bills), it rubs salt in the wound when it is rushed through as a crisis, an emergency that can't wait even one more day, but then the President leaves it on his desk over a long weekend while he goes on a vacation. Where, or why, or when did we give this bunch of thieves such control over us? Is Mr Shumer or Mr Hinchey or your congressmen and senators, really that much smarter than us, that they can take our hard earned money and our hard earned freedom and squander it on a trillion dollar bill they don't even read? I am old enough and cynical enough to say with complete certainty, NO. They are not smarter. They are not better. They certainly are less interested in your or my well-being than we are, and know a whole lot less about what is good for us than we do. But because they live in DC, somehow they suddenly become experts in economics, in all that passes their desks, even those bills not yet written and never read when they discuss them and vote on them. And the fact that most economists disagree with them, the fact that simple common sense tells us that you can't get out of debt by borrowing more money than you can afford, doesn't bother them in the least. And the Constitution, that piece of paper written years ago, is simply ignored whenever it interferes with their desires and plans. The Constitution has no provision for government take-over of banks; it doesn't allow Washington to set mortgage rates or conditions; it certainly doesn't allow salary caps (in fact it specifically PROTECTS private contracts such as those fixing salaries between employer and employee); it doesn't allow the sec'y of the Treasury (remember him, the tax cheat?) to decide what type and price cars Detroit can manufacture. But no matter, it is just a piece of paper, and our representatives know so much more that our founding fathers ever knew.

"Til Death Do....."

I have no stocks or bonds, so what the market does has little direct effect on me. The credit crunch affects me as it affects us all, but only in a rather indirect way. Unfortunately, I am getting to the point in life that I am more and more aware of my own mortality, and recognize my increased likelihood to need medical intervention to keep me among the living. So when I saw this article about the "little package" buried in the porkulus bill, I cringed.

Now even if you aren't yet at the age of gray hair and creaking bones, please pay attention to what this lady is saying. This package is nothing short of the government taking over medical care, not in a round about "sort-of, kind-of " way, but the direct takeover and control of how YOU and your family will or will not receive care. There will be someone sitting behind a desk in the wilds of Washington, looking at the cost of your care and your age, comparing your case and your prognosis with the costs involved, and deciding absolutely and irrevocably, whether you live or die. You have no say in it, your doctor has no say in it. You can' even opt out and get private care out of your own pocket. You are at the mercy of a nameless, faceless bureaucrat who gives not a rat's posterior about you, your family,your hopes or dreams. He/she is simply following government guideline number something-or-other, and on the basis of that formula, controlling your destiny, your life.

Look east to England to see how wonderfully this system works; watch people being refused chemotherapy because it would "only" improve their quality of life, and would be expensive to use; watch people sent home to die because they are too old to be considered for organ transplant or cardiac surgery, or too fat or too thin or whatever cockamamie reason some bureaucrat comes up with. And as their doctor fights an unwindable battle for their patient, the government accountant looks at the books and nods in approval of the cost savings.

Think really hard about this question......can you think of any project, ANY project that the government doesn't completely screw up? And do you want that same government to take responsibility for the medical care of you and your loved ones?

To make it even uglier, much of this plan is straight from the book of Mr Tom Daschel, the tax evading cheat who was going to run the Dept of Health and Human Services in a fair and honest way, controlling the same companies from whom he was collecting huge fees right up to his appointment. And in that book, he even suggests that this sort of control be snuck in some sort of funding bill, so the poor suckers who will be most affected (that would be you and me) will not even know that it was there until it was too late to stop it.

This is getting really scary, really spooky. Our country is disappearing right before our eyes, replaced by the megalith of a larger and larger Washington bureaucracy that is swallowing us up. As one pundit put it, our country is changing from what we came here to become back to what we tried to escape from 250 years ago in our declaration of Independence. We are ceding our Independence, our country, our future to the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Sen Reid, B Obama, J Kerry, and the hordes of socialistic bureaucrats who think that they are so much smarter and better than we are. Stop! Stop and think where this is taking us. It is a dark and dangerous road that leads to indenture, to slavery, not to another man but to a government of faceless, nameless, uncaring automatons who answer only to a malformed idea of what they think the world should be.

A Helping Hand

A little brightness in an otherwise grim time. We've not heard a whole lot about the fires in Australia...they have been devastating with death toll over 200.

I Wish I Thought of This

We now have a tax cheat as Treasury Secretary. If you feel as frustrated and helpless as many others do, perhaps this will be a way for us to have our voices heard. Consider it a "stamp act" of 2009.

Why are We Putting Up With This ??

Over the weekend, when most people are not paying attention, the slimeballs in Congress voted them selves a $93,000 raise. When you and I are getting clobbered with recession and financial hardship, they are going home with an additional $93,000 in petty cash!!! And they have the nerve to say that it is for their constituents.

This country is in a serious hurt, and it isn't the financial crisis. We are being ruled by a group of corrupt, selfish, amoral or immoral pieces of crap, and we put up with it!

Am I getting REALLY pissed off??

From Instapundid website:

"It seems Tom Daschle recently paid a little over $100,000 in back taxes and interest after failing to tell the IRS that he was receiving a free car and driver from a Wall Street friend for three years. If you’re keeping track, that’s a little over twice the amount Tim Geithner paid in back taxes and interest."

This is starting to get to me, especially when I spent a fair part of the day calculating and paying my 941 and 940 taxes (quarterly income and Federal Unemployment ), my quarterly State taxes, and my state unemployment taxes. While I'm giving away, no, while I'm FORCED to turn over a very large chunk of my earnings, and on the same day that I get my home taxes and see a 21% increase, I see that yet another member of our new cabinet seems to have "forgotten" $100,000 in taxes, and once again he pays it back and there is NO PENALTY. We truly are fools to put up with this blatant double standard. These people in Washington, people who are supposed to be our leaders and better than us, are a bunch of thieves, not paying the taxes that they impose on us, and getting away with it simply because of who they are. Truly disgusting.

the Rangle Bill

Yes, YES YES. This is a bill that I support wholeheartedly. If it is good enough for Rangle and Geithner, it's good enough for the rest of us.

The Speaker of the House Speaks

By now I guess most of us have heard about Nancy Pelosi's "brilliant" response that birth control and abortion is a necessary part of a stimulus bill because if these measures are taken, there will be less drain on the economy.
Aside from the fact that such statements make words like "stupid" and "un-befreaking-lievably idiotic" sound waaaaaaay too tame, it is also enlightening to see how this mouthpiece of the Democratic party and its policies sees her constituents and her country. People, real, live people, are seen, not as an asset to the country, but as a potential drain on the economy. Who does she think makes the economy work? Who does she think is earning the money that she and her friends blow through in Washington? Why are people a drain, and not an asset? How dare she look down her Patrician, upper crust nose at us, the riff-raff that are here only to be controlled and used by those who REALLY KNOW what is best? Wake up people, while you still can. This brood of vipers in Washington want to control you, to own you. And what better way than to create a panic about the economy, then use that panic to justify the largest seizure of our country's private ownership ever in our history. Is the economy in trouble....sure is! It's in a recession, one of many that we have gone through and have survived. Is the cure for that recerssion to have the Government spend gazillions of dollars, most of which is going to glorified pork-barrel projects, while printing more and more worthless money? Is it logical to give OUR money to companies who made such bad decisions that they are now failing? Does this woman and her cronies in Washington have a clue what they are doing? Is she some sort of economic genius, or is she a power hungry politician who sees "us" simply as a drain on the economy? Even the Congressional Budget Office, reveiwing the bail out bills, comes to the conclusion that these "Rush them through..we need relief NOW" bills will feed barely 10 % of the money into the economy this year. Most of it will not have any effect until the next election year (Gee what a coincidence THAT is!!!).

Once again, we are being set up as the fall guys for the government and our so-called representatives to rob us blind and steal away some more of our liberties.

He Can Do No Wrong

When was the last time that you can remember any president, in the middle of a news conference, turning and asking for help with an answer???
Well, I'm afraid that it is happening. He can't even tell us what the executive order that HE JUST SIGNED is supposed to say or do! It promises to be a long and scary 4 years under this man. I've said it before and will repeat it yet again......his only claim to fame is being able to read a good speech and to write books about himself.

A Scary Graph

As my 3 readers know, I've been a'moanin and a'groanin about the growth of government.


Well, I'm afraid it can now be shown.
graph courtesy of Fabius Maximus.
Government payroll now exceeds manufacturing AND construction payroll. The difference.....they produce something, government produces nothing.