Farewell Ron Paul

[4est_4est_Gump]

"In the early part of the 20th century our politicians promoted the notion that the tax and monetary systems had to change if we were to involve ourselves in excessive domestic and military spending. That is why Congress gave us the Federal Reserve and the income tax.* The majority of Americans and many government officials agreed that sacrificing some liberty was necessary to carry out what some claimed to be “progressive” ideas. They failed to recognized that what they were doing was exactly opposite of what the colonists were seeking when they broke away from the British.



We Need an Intellectual Awakening. Without an intellectual awakening, the turning point will be driven by economic law.* A dollar crisis will bring the current out-of-control system to its knees."
Ron Paul

It sounds so logical (for farewell speech, click first link below), doesn't it? So why are we in this mess?

The answer is we nominate clowns like Mitt Romney and President Obama and the vast majority of people choose between Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee based on some sense of morality or perhaps some kind of handout.

The pro-life hypocrites were willing to vote from Mitt Romney who is hell bent on starting a war with Iran in spite of obvious failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, in spite of the fact that war kills real living people.

As Paul said, "500,000 Iraqis, mostly children, in the 1990s died, as a result of American bombs and sanctions." Supposedly it was “worth it” for the greater “good”. It was so "worth it" that we did it a second time, and lied to do it.

Congressional lemmings supported the war en masse. Paul didn't. Neither did I, and I am proud of it.

Question of the Day

If Republicans are not in favor of deficit spending and Democrats are not either, then how the Hell do we have trillion dollar deficits?

The answer is vast majority of politicians are liars, with no backbone to stand up and tell the truth to US citizens: "the country is broke".

We cannot afford wars. We cannot afford to keep troops in 140 countries. We cannot afford to be the world's policeman.

We also cannot afford Davis-Bacon and prevailing wage laws. We cannot afford the pension promises we have made. We cannot afford collective bargaining of public unions. We cannot afford all kinds of entitlements that have been promised.

How Does It Happen?

We have all of these things because corrupt politicians buy votes of constituents who want to hear the lie that we can afford those things. In the end, that's what it's really all about.

The unions, the warmongers, the banks, and all the other special interest groups buy votes of corrupt politicians every step of the way. The "compromise" in Congress is Republican get their wars and Democrats get fiscally unsound social programs.

In the meantime, government grows bigger and bigger and bigger. And the Fed (and Congress) repeatedly bail out the banks and the wealthy at the expense of the middle class.

For more on the Fed, please see ...

Ben Bernanke: Inflationist Jackass, Devoid of Common Sense, and Clueless About Trade, Debt, History, and Gold

Hello Ben Bernanke, Meet "Stephanie" (links below)

Click on those links and you will have no problems answering the question "Why is the middle class is shrinking?"

The short answer is inflation benefits those with first access to money (namely the banks, the already wealthy, and the politicians). So does tax policy, favoritism, and special interest legislation.

A day of fiscal reckoning is coming over such economic insanity. From where I sit the sooner the better.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

Read more at http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/#B2IIm3DvupT6CSwu.99
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/03/ben-bernanke-inflationist-jackass.html
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/01/hello-ben-bernanke-meet-stephanie.html

That's what I keep saying...

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The USPS managed to set a new record...

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Among the first and most prominent recipients of the Obamacare waivers for favors were large restaurant chains that provide low-wage, seasonal, and part-time workers with low-cost health-insurance plans called “mini-med” plans. An estimated 1.7 million workers benefit from such plans. Obamacare forced companies carrying such coverage to raise their coverage limits to no less than $750,000 annually. Another Obamacare provision forces all insurers to spend at least 80 to 85 percent of their premium revenue on medical care.

The social-justice Democrats’ goal was to dictate insurance-provider spending not just on coverage amounts but also on executive salaries, marketing, and other costs. The regulation punished companies with mini-med plans whose insurers’ high administrative costs were due to frequent worker turnover and relatively low spending on claims — not “greed.” Complying with the provision would have meant tens of thousands of low-income workers would lose their benefits altogether.

Darden Restaurants, the Florida-based parent company of Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, Red Lobster, and other chains, was a member of the Obamacare waiver early-bird special. Their get-out-of-Obamacare card helped spare the company’s health-insurance benefits for nearly 34,000 employees. Breathing a sigh of relief that it would allow chains to continue offering all employees access to affordable health insurance, Darden said in a statement in the fall of 2010 that “the waiver allows us to continue to do that as the various phases of the health care law are implemented.”

Fast-forward to 2012. Darden announced last month that it would begin shifting full-time workers to part-time status to save money, cut health costs, and circumvent Obamacare’s coverage mandate scheduled for full implementation in 2014. The move would reduce full-time employees’ hours to less than 30 hours a week; part-time workers are exempt from the insurance mandate. McDonald’s, another big Obamacare-waiver recipient, is considering the same move.

In fact, a survey of members of the Chain Restaurant Compensation Association (CRCA) conducted last year by Hay Group reported that a whopping 77 percent of “quick serve” restaurant operators said they were considering reducing employee hours to change the employees’ status from full-time to part-time. At least one Denny’s restaurant franchise owner in Florida is cutting hours and has openly contemplated an Obamacare surcharge on meal prices. Jimmy John’s and Papa John’s are also slashing work hours. Applebee’s is mulling a freeze on both hiring and expansion.

“There’s no such thing as a free lunch” is a race-neutral truth. But economically illiterate Obama supporters have now called for boycotts of these businesses and accused them of vengeful “racism” against the president. Instead of sympathy and gratitude for private businesses trying to do right by their workers, customers, and shareholders, the corporate-bashers inundated Twitter this week with profanity-laced condemnations of the restaurant-service industry. One protester tweeted: “@Applebees Your CEO is a racist piece of [redacted], he[’s] not hiring because Obama was elected . . . U WILL LOSE CUSTOMERS.”

“Red Lobster, Olive Garden [are] using Obama re-election as an excuse to deny employees benefits and living wages,” Jon Marquis fumed.

Twitter user Daphine Walker sent unhinged, ungrammatical messages to Red Lobster and Olive Garden in all-caps: “I WILL NEVER SPEND ANOTHER CENT ON THIS RACIST COMPANY WHO DOESNT GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THEIR EMPLOYEES.”

The CEO of Red Lobster and Olive Garden is black. But no matter. Regardless of the actual facts, economic realities, and entirely predictable and inevitable consequences of command-and-control government mandates, it’s always about identity politics for the Obama grievance mob. In good times and bad, the Left never grants waivers from the race card.

Michelle Malkin, NRO

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

There is a silver lining. The collapse and crises of the "Progressive/Socialist" West at least brings us lower prices at the pump...

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The Age of the Welfare State Smashup
Christopher Chantrill
November 16, 2012

It took a day after the election for me to realize what had happened. It is simply this: the old order has ended. We have now moved into a new era. Responsible Republican Reform is dead. The new age of the welfare state smashup has begun.

In the old era, conservatives offered to the American people a gradualist way of reforming the welfare state away from its administrative absolutism. We now realize that our effort was a failure.

Apart from the obvious reason why the American people were never going to give up their entitlements until the money ran out, there is another reason. Karl Marx taught us why in The German Ideology.

The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.

The ruling class can call for an end to racism and then flog its supporters with racist propaganda; it can call for an end to sexism and then make blatant appeals to a single sex. It can deplore private remarks about the 47 percent and then make naked appeals to self-interest. It gets to do this until the day comes when the ruling class loses its right to rule, and that day is not yet.

With the re-election of Barack Obama and the confirmation of the mother of all entitlements, ObamaCare, the ruling class has welded into place the fourth wall of the administrative state, and we all now live in its iron cage. We are now fully confined and controlled by the four-trillion-dollar iron fences of government pensions, government health care, government education, and government welfare, just as liberals want us to be.

For people in an iron cage, the path of gradual change is closed. It will remain closed until the ruling class runs out of other peoples' money.

Like all ruling classes, liberals have maintained power by offering loot to their supporters. Like most previous ruling classes, they have begun to run out of loot and plunder to distribute among their supporters. Thus Glenn Reynolds:

Sooner or later, you run out of other people's money. Something that can't go on forever, won't. Debt that can't be repaid, won't be. Promises that can't be kept, won't be.

That is the foundation of our hope. When the ruling class runs out of money, it will also run out of the ability to buy the support of the voters and also to set the rules of the debate.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/11/the_age_of_the_welfare_state_smashup.html

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

With a Union yell, they cried MO MO MO!!!

"Hostess Brands, the maker of Wonder Bread and Twinkies, said in a court filing that it will wind down operations and sell its assets after a fight with labor unions."

Having lived in Emporia, they are not going to find a lot of Union Bakery jobs.

Having built part of that plant, they are not even baking. They are running baking machines. Any fucking idiot can do it. Our construction tools required more training and skill as well as being able to perform an astounding variety of tasks...

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The president is convinced Americans need to pay more in taxes. Here's what he said yesterday.

“I think everybody out there understood that was an important debate and the majority of voters agreed with me. By the way, more voters agreed with me on this issue than voted for me! So we've got a clear majority of the American people who recognize if we're gonna be serious about deficit reduction we gotta do it in a balanced way."

But let me tell you, come January 1, you're probably not going to be happy with the amount of taxes you're paying. That's because it's not just Federal taxes that you pay.

A middle class taxpayer pays 25% percent of their income in Federal Income Tax. Sounds, ok?

Then there is the Federal Social Security and Medicare payroll tax of 13.3%. You pick up 5.65% while you're employer pays 7.65%. Add them up and that's 38.3% of middle class family incomes going to Uncle Sam. But we aren't done, not by a long shot.

According to the Tax Foundation, the average state's income tax rate on the middle class is 4.82%. Of course, some states have it and some don't, but we're taking an average here.

Now the total: 43.12% of middle class income to taxes.

Oh, and I almost forgot, unless congress makes a move, Federal Income taxes go to 28% for middle income folks next year as the Bush tax cuts expire.

Neither party has said they want that to happen, but in Washington, well, you never know.

Also the payroll tax for those folks will go to 15.3% from 13.3%percent.

Did I mention state, property, corporate, and excise taxes? No?

All told, next year, total taxes will go to almost 50% for the middle class; the very group that the president says he wants to protect. That means 50 cents out of every dollar earned has to go to the government. Half of everything will go to an entity that didn't earn that money, and shouldn't be entitled to all that dough.

Unbelievable. You think most Americans agree that's fair?

I don't think so.

Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/w...f-your-paycheck-government-2013#ixzz2COEUSYWW



I think that it is more than fair. It is what we voted for; revenue to continue spending and the rich simply do not have enough revenue to cover the desired levels of spending and the Democrats can find no real spending cuts that does not hurt the core of their constituency, so the Middle Class should pay for what it voted for. If the Social Welfare State it to succeed, then the Middle CLass is simply going to have to follow the example of Europe and accept a lower standard of living, more urban living, smaller homes and apartments, more public transportation and shared sacrifice...

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Further prolific government spending will doom the president in his second go-round, some say. Actually, our credit card-happy chief executive has and will do more than harm his own fortunes. He's setting up hardworking Americans for quite a crash. The nation's debt is above $16 trillion -- and the debt clock keeps on ticking. Manifestly unsustainable spending and borrowing were the president's record going into election day. But Obama's voters -- most, anyway -- didn't give a flip.

You would think that young people, whose futures are on the line, would care most about Washington's debt mega bomb exploding. But the younger cohorts came out for the president (talk about handing Mr. Obama the rope that becomes young voters' nooses).

Mr. Obama, an egregiously bad steward of the public purse, wasn't held accountable (through an election loss) for his maleficence. So, over the next four agonizingly painful years, more spending, borrowing, and ballooning of the national debt is going to fuss the Obama majority?

Well, if burgeoning debt leads to collapse, it will, some say. On the current trajectory, when -- not if -- a debt-induced collapse comes, we'll see if enough of Blue America rises up and repudiates Mr. Obama. Of course, a collapse would have to happen on the president's watch. A disaster of such magnitude means a crisis and national emergency. Who do people invariably turn to when there's a crisis: the government. Uncle Sam, in this case. The left, regardless the stripe, are adept at exploiting crises and satisfying a fearful public's need for strong central direction in times of uncertainty and peril. Are we sure a collapse would convert untold millions of Obama supporters to limited government and the free market? The jackbooted left might be welcomed by the Obama majority. Cancerous statism may metastasize and strength its hold on the nation.

Third, and finally, President Obama will moderate his approach and seek compromise with Republicans to ensure his legacy. This one's a real knee-slapper. Mr. Obama is a dyed-in-the-wool leftist ideologue. After Obama's Democrats and he were pummeled by voters in a lower turnout midterm election, and with his reelection looming, the president didn't moderate much of anything. The man's aim is purposely single-minded and his intransigence is part of him. Add conceit to the Obama mix, conceit that could only have swollen after winning the election.

Mr. Obama isn't interested in a legacy of compromise and get-along. The president wants to go down in history as a great game-changer. He wants the left to venerate him for ages as the leader who resurrected statism and gave it new vigor after the setbacks of the Reagan Era. He wants a big, gaudy monument on the mall. Compromise and accommodation are for wussies in Mr. Obama's book -- unless his opponents compromise and accommodate him in ways that are efficacious to his agenda. That's bipartisanship, Obama-style.

J. Robert Smith
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012...cond_term_and_why_they_arent_encouraging.html

 

[Liar]

Pity reply.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

You know you are on ignore.



Why bother?

 

[Liar]

Entertainment value for the less stuck up.

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

Pity reply.

You know you are on ignore.



Why bother?

Entertainment value for the less stuck up.

*guffaw*
The Cap'n doesn't know when to quit..
*Hint* If you have to bump your own thread multiple times with zero replies.. it's past time.

 

[RobDownSouth]

*guffaw*
The Cap'n doesn't know when to quit..
*Hint* If you have to bump your own thread multiple times with zero replies.. it's past time.

His new strategery of ignoring those who dare to disagree with his "initial comments" aren't working out quite as well as he planned.

Bumping your own thread 6 times in two hours?
Pathetic.

 

[Sean]

He has everyone that's replied to the thread on iggy. LOL.

 

[blobfish]

What has any of this to do with Ron Paul?

 

[Liar]

What has any of this to do with Ron Paul?

One could argue that it's a collective statement regarding RonPaul's relevancy.

 

[rosco rathbone]

lol

In a move that's baffled and enraged his staunchly libertarian fans, three-time presidential candidate Ron Paul has asked the World Intellectual Property Organization to confiscate two domain names currently held by his supporters: RonPaul.com and RonPaul.org. In a Friday blog post, the sites' proprietors fired back at their hero by claiming that they'd already offered to let Paul buy RonPaul.com (and its 170,000-follower mailing list) for a measly $250,000. (RonPaul.org was apparently thrown in as "a free gift.") After all, that's the proper market economy way to handle this situation … right?

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/02/paul-sues-supporters-for-control-of-ronpaulcom.html

 

[RobDownSouth]

lol




http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/02/paul-sues-supporters-for-control-of-ronpaulcom.html

Especially funny that Ron Paul is seeking the help of an agency of the dastardly United Nations (an organization he has railed against for years).

Oh well, Randroids like Ron Paul and AJ have long believed in two sets of rules: one for them and one for everyone else.

 

[Cade Is Here]

Bumping your own thread 6 times in two hours?
Pathetic.

That is exactly what seanh and rory does. They bump their threads over and over again..


So you also admit that they are very sad fucks hey

 

[rosco rathbone]

Especially funny that Ron Paul is seeking the help of an agency of the dastardly United Nations (an organization he has railed against for years).

That is what i was loling at.

 

[renard_ruse]

The pro-life hypocrites were willing to vote from Mitt Romney who is hell bent on starting a war with Iran in spite of obvious failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, in spite of the fact that war kills real living people.

Abortion kills "real living" people as well. Obviously this quote is NOT from Paul.

Paul has been a lifelong unwaivering voice for the pro-life movement.