Death Spiral

These 11 States now have more people on welfare than they do employed.

We're Outnumbered

By Laura Hollis Nov 08, 2012 Associate Professional Specialist and Concurrent Associate Professor of Law at University of Notre Dame. I am already reading so many pundits and other talking heads analyzing the disaster that was this year's elections. I am adding my own ten cents. Here goes: 1. We are outnumbered. We accurately foresaw the enthusiasm, the passion, the commitment, the determination, and the turnout. Married women, men, independents, Catholics, evangelicals; they all went for Romney in percentages as high or higher than the groups which voted for McCain in 2008. It wasn't enough. What we saw in the election on Tuesday was a tipping point: we are now at a place where there are legitimately fewer Americans who desire a free republic with a free people than there are those who think the government should give them stuff. There are fewer of us who believe in the value of free exchange and free enterprise. There are fewer of us who do not wish to demonize successful people in order to justify taking from them. We are outnumbered. For the moment. It's just that simple. 2. It wasn't the candidate(s). Some are already saying, "Romney was the wrong guy"; "He should have picked Marco Rubio to get Florida/Rob Portman to get Ohio/Chris Christie to get (someplace else)." With all due respect, these assessments are incorrect. Romney ran a strategic and well-organized campaign. Yes, he could have hit harder on Benghazi. But for those who would have loved that, there are those who would have found it distasteful. No matter what tactic you could point to that Romney could have done better, it would have been spun in a way that was detrimental to his chances. Romney would have been an excellent president, and Ryan was an inspired choice. No matter who we ran this year, they would have lost. See #1, above. 3. It's the culture, stupid. We have been trying to fight this battle every four years at the voting booth. It is long past time we admit that is not where the battle really is. We abdicated control of the culture starting back in the 1960s. And now our largest primary social institutions: education, the media, Hollywood (entertainment) have become really nothing more than an assembly line for cranking out reliable little Leftists. Furthermore, we have allowed the government to undermine the institutions that instill good character - marriage, the family, communities, schools, our churches. So, here we are, at least two full generations later - we are reaping what we have sown. It took nearly fifty years to get here; it will take another fifty years to get back. But it starts with the determination to reclaim education, the media, and the entertainment business. If we fail to do that, we can kiss every election goodbye from here on out. And much more. 4. America has become a nation of adolescents. The real loser in this election was adulthood: Maturity. Responsibility. The understanding that liberty must be accompanied by self-restraint. Obama is a spoiled child, and the behavior and language of his followers and their advertisements throughout the campaign makes it clear how many of them are, as well. Romney is a grown-up. Romney should have won. Those of us who expected him to win assumed that voters would act like grownups. Because if we were a nation of grownups, he would have won. But what did win? Sex. Drugs. Bad language. Bad manners. Vulgarity. Lies. Cheating. Name-calling. Finger-pointing. Blaming. And irresponsible spending. This does not bode well. People grow up one of two ways: either they choose to, or circumstances force them to. The warnings are all there, whether it is the looming economic disaster, or the inability of the government to respond to crises like Hurricane Sandy, or the growing strength and brazenness of our enemies. American voters stick their fingers in their ears and say, "Lalalalalala, I can't hear you." It is unpleasant to think about the circumstances it will take to force Americans to grow up. It is even more unpleasant to think about Obama at the helm when those circumstances arrive. 5. Yes, there is apparently a Vagina Vote. It's the subject matter of another column in its entirety to point out, one by one, all of the inconsistencies and hypocrisies of the Democrats this year. Suffice it to say that the only "war on women" was the one waged by the Obama campaign, which sexualized and objectified women, featuring them dressed up like vulvas at the Democrat National Convention, appealing to their "lady parts," comparing voting to losing your virginity with Obama, trumpeting the thrills of destroying our children in the womb (and using our daughters in commercials to do so), and making Catholics pay for their birth control. For a significant number of women, this was appealing. It might call into question the wisdom of the Nineteenth Amendment, but for the fact that large numbers of women (largely married) used their "lady smarts" instead. Either way, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton are rolling over in their graves. 6. It's not about giving up on "social issues.” No Republican candidate should participate in a debate or go out on the stump without thorough debate prep and a complete set of talking points that they stick to. This should start with a good grounding in biology and a reluctance to purport to know the will of God. (Thank you, Todd and Richard.) That said, we do not hold the values we do because they garner votes. We hold the values we do because we believe that they are time-tested principles without which a civilized, free and prosperous society is not possible. We defend the unborn because we understand that a society which views some lives as expendable is capable of viewing all lives as expendable. We defend family - mothers, fathers, marriage, children - because history makes it quite clear that societies without intact families quickly descend into anarchy and barbarism, and we have plenty of proof of that in our inner cities where marriage is infrequent and unwed motherhood approaches 80 percent. When Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, many thought that the abortion cause was lost. Forty years later, ultrasound technology has demonstrated the inevitable connection between science and morality. More Americans than ever define themselves as "pro-life." What is tragic is that tens of millions of children have lost their lives while Americans figure out what should have been obvious before. There is no "giving up" on social issues. There is only the realization that we have to fight the battle on other fronts. The truth will win out in the end. 7. Obama does not have a mandate. And he does not need one. I have to laugh - bitterly - when I read conservative pundits trying to assure us that Obama "has to know" that he does not have a mandate, and so he will have to govern from the middle. I don't know what they're smoking. Obama does not care that he does not have a mandate. He does not view himself as being elected (much less re-elected) to represent individuals. He views himself as having been re-elected to complete the "fundamental transformation" of America, the basic structure of which he despises. Expect much more of the same - largely the complete disregard of the will of half the American public, his willingness to rule by executive order, and the utter inability of another divided Congress to rein him in. Stanley Kurtz has it all laid out here. 8. The Corrupt Media - is the enemy too strong? I don't think so. I have been watching the media try to throw elections since at least the early 1990s. In 2008 and again this year, we saw the media cravenly cover up for the incompetence and deceit of this President, while demonizing a good, honorable and decent man with lies and smears. This is on top of the daily barrage of insults that conservatives (and by that I mean the electorate, not the politicians) must endure at the hands of this arrogant bunch of elitist snobs. Bias is one thing. What we observed with Benghazi was professional malpractice and fraud. They need to go. Republicans, Libertarians and other conservatives need to be prepared to play hardball with the Pravda press from here on out. And while we are at it, to defend those journalists of whatever political stripe (Jake Tapper, Sharyl Atkisson, Eli Lake) who actually do their jobs. As well as Fox News and talk radio. Because you can fully expect a re-elected Obama to try to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine in term 2. 9. Small business and entrepreneurs will be hurt the worst. For all the blather about "Wall Street versus Main Street," Obama's statist agenda will unquestionably benefit the biggest corporations which - as with the public sector unions - are in the best position to make campaign donations, hire lobbyists, and get special exemptions carved out from Obama's health care laws, his environmental regulations, his labor laws. It will be the small business, the entrepreneur, and the first-time innovators who will be crushed by their inability to compete on a level playing field. 10. America is more polarized than ever; and this time it's personal. I've been following politics for a long time, and it feels different this time. Not just for me. I've received messages from other conservatives who are saying the same thing: there is little to no tolerance left out there for those who are bringing this country to its knees - even when they have been our friends. It isn't just about "my guy" versus "your guy." It is my view of America versus your view of America - a crippled, hemorrhaging, debt-laden, weakened and dependent America that I want no part of and resent being foisted on me. I no longer have any patience for stupidity, blindness, or vulgarity, so with each dumb "tweet" or FB post by one of my happily lefty comrades, another one bites the dust, for me. Delete. What does this portend for a divided Congress? I expect that Republicans will be demoralized and chastened for a short time. But I see them in a bad position. Americans in general want Congress to work together. But many do not want Obama's policies, and so Republicans who support them will be toast. Good luck, guys. 11. It's possible that America just has to hit rock bottom. I truly believe that most Americans who voted for Obama have no idea what they are in for. Most simply believe him when he says that all he really wants is for the rich to pay "a little bit more." So reasonable! Who could argue with that except a greedy racist? America is on a horrific bender. Has been for some time now. The warning signs of our fiscal profligacy and culture of lack of personal responsibility are everywhere - too many to mention. We need only look at other countries which have gone the route we are walking now to see what is in store. For the past four years - but certainly within the past campaign season - we have tried to warn Americans. Too many refuse to listen, even when all of the events that have transpired during Obama's presidency - unemployment, economic stagnation, skyrocketing prices, the depression of the dollar, the collapse of foreign policy, Benghazi, hopelessly inept responses to natural disasters - can be tied directly to Obama's statist philosophies, and his decisions. What that means, I fear, is that they will not see what is coming until the whole thing collapses. That is what makes me so sad today. I see the country I love headed toward its own "rock bottom," and I cannot seem to reach those who are taking it there.

Index of Cultural Indicators

These stats are from 1990 (22 years ago)…

Since 1960, the U.S. population has increased 41%; the gross domestic product has nearly tripled; and total social spending by all levels of government (measured in constant 1990 dollars) has risen from $143.73 billion to $787 billion--more than a fivefold increase. Inflation-adjusted spending on welfare has increased by 630%, spending on education by 225%.

But during the same 30-year period there has been a 560% increase in violent crime, a 419% increase in illegitimate births; a quadrupling in divorce rates; a tripling of the percentage of children living in single-parent homes; more than a 200% increase in the teenage suicide rate; and a drop of almost 80 points in SAT scores.

The children of this dysfunction voted in the last presidential election. The cultural rot is going to continue to get worse. Nothing can stop it except us, and the majority voted against such an idea in November.

The Beginning of the End

When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

The Decline and Fall of the American Empire

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE

Posted on November 7, 2012

The most charitable way of explaining the election results of 2012 is that Americans voted for the status quo – for the  incumbent President and for a divided Congress. They must enjoy gridlock, partisanship, incompetence, economic stagnation and avoidance of responsibility. And fewer people voted. As I write, with almost all the votes counted, President Obama has won fewer votes than John McCain won in 2008, and more than ten million off his own 2008 total.

But as we awake from the nightmare, it is important to eschew the facile explanations for the Romney defeat that will prevail among the chattering classes. Romney did not lose because of the effects of Hurricane Sandy that devastated this area, nor did he lose because he ran a poor campaign, nor did he lose because the Republicans could have chosen better candidates, nor did he lose because Obama benefited from a slight uptick in the economy due to the business cycle.

Romney lost because he didn’t get enough votes to win.

That might seem obvious, but not for the obvious reasons.  Romney lost because the conservative virtues – the traditional American virtues – of liberty, hard work, free enterprise, private initiative and aspirations to moral greatness – no longer inspire or animate a majority of the electorate. The notion of the “Reagan Democrat” is one cliché that should be permanently retired.

Ronald Reagan himself could not win an election in today’s America.

The simplest reason why Romney lost was because it is impossible to compete against free stuff. Every businessman knows this; that is why the “loss leader” or the giveaway is such a powerful marketing tool. Obama’s America is one in which free stuff is given away: the adults among the 47,000,000 on food stamps clearly recognized for whom they should vote, and so they did, by the tens of millions; those who – courtesy of Obama – receive two full years of unemployment benefits (which, of course, both disincentivizes looking for work and also motivates people to work off the books while collecting their windfall) surely know for whom to vote; so too those who anticipate “free” health care, who expect the government to pay their mortgages, who look for the government to give them jobs. The lure of free stuff is irresistible.

Imagine two restaurants side by side. One sells its customers fine cuisine at a reasonable price, and the other offers a free buffet, all-you-can-eat as long as supplies last. Few – including me – could resist the attraction of the free food. Now imagine that the second restaurant stays in business because the first restaurant is forced to provide it with the food for the free buffet, and we have the current economy, until, at least, the first restaurant decides to go out of business. (Then, the government takes over the provision of free food to its patrons.)

The defining moment of the whole campaign was the revelation (by the amoral Obama team) of the secretly-recorded video in which Romney acknowledged the difficulty of winning an election in which “47% of the people” start off against him because they pay no taxes and just receive money – “free stuff” – from the government. Almost half of the population has no skin in the game – they don’t care about high taxes, promoting business, or creating jobs, nor do they care that the money for their free stuff is being borrowed from their children and from the Chinese. They just want the free stuff that comes their way at someone else’s expense. In the end, that 47% leaves very little margin for error for any Republican, and does not bode well for the future.

It is impossible to imagine a conservative candidate winning against such overwhelming odds. People do vote their pocketbooks. In essence, the people vote for a Congress who will not raise their taxes, and for a President who will give them free stuff, never mind who has to pay for it.

That engenders the second reason why Romney lost: the inescapable conclusion that the electorate is dumb – ignorant, and uninformed. Indeed, it does not pay to be an informed voter, because most other voters – the clear majority – are unintelligent and easily swayed by emotion and raw populism. That is the indelicate way of saying that too many people vote with their hearts and not their heads. That is why Obama did not have to produce a second term agenda, or even defend his first-term record. He needed only to portray Mitt Romney as a rapacious capitalist who throws elderly women over a cliff, when he is not just snatching away their cancer medication, while starving the poor and cutting taxes for the rich. Obama could get away with saying that “Romney wants the rich to play by a different set of rules” – without ever defining what those different rules were; with saying that the “rich should pay their fair share” – without ever defining what a “fair share” is; with saying that Romney wants the poor, elderly and sick to “fend for themselves” – without even acknowledging that all these government programs are going bankrupt, their current insolvency only papered over by deficit spending. Obama could get away with it because he knew he was talking to dunces waving signs and squealing at any sight of him.

During his 1956 presidential campaign, a woman called out to Adlai Stevenson: “Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person!” Stevenson called back: “That’s not enough, madam, we need a majority!” Truer words were never spoken.

Similarly, Obama (or his surrogates) could hint to blacks that a Romney victory would lead them back into chains and proclaim to women that their abortions and birth control would be taken away. He could appeal to Hispanics that Romney would have them all arrested and shipped to Mexico (even if they came from Cuba or Honduras), and unabashedly state that he will not enforce the current immigration laws. He could espouse the furtherance of the incestuous relationship between governments and unions – in which politicians ply the unions with public money, in exchange for which the unions provide the politicians with votes, in exchange for which the politicians provide more money and the unions provide more votes, etc., even though the money is gone. He could do and say all these things because he knew his voters were dolts.

One might reasonably object that not every Obama supporter could be unintelligent. But they must then rationally explain how the Obama agenda can be paid for, aside from racking up multi-trillion dollar deficits. “Taxing the rich” does not yield even 10% of what is required – so what is the answer, i.e., an intelligent answer?

Obama also knows that the electorate has changed – that whites will soon be a minority in America (they’re already a minority in California) and that the new immigrants to the US are primarily from the Third World and do not share the traditional American values that attracted immigrants in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is a different world, and a different America. 

Obama is part of that different America, knows it, and knows how to tap into it. That is why he won.

Obama also proved again that negative advertising works, invective sells, and harsh personal attacks succeed. That Romney never engaged in such diatribes points to his essential goodness as a person; his “negative ads” were simple facts, never personal abuse – facts about high unemployment, lower take-home pay, a loss of American power and prestige abroad, a lack of leadership, etc. As a politician, though, Romney failed because he did not embrace the devil’s bargain of making unsustainable promises, and by talking as the adult and not the adolescent. Obama has spent the last six years campaigning; even his governance has been focused on payoffs to his favored interest groups. The permanent campaign also won again, to the detriment of American life.

It turned out that it was not possible for Romney and Ryan – people of substance, depth and ideas – to compete with the shallow populism and platitudes of their opponents. Obama mastered the politics of envy – of class warfare – never reaching out to Americans as such but to individual groups, and cobbling together a winning majority from these minority groups. 

Conservative ideas failed to take root and states that seemed winnable, and amenable to traditional American values, have simply disappeared from the map. If an Obama could not be defeated – with his record and his vision of America, in which free stuff seduces voters – it is hard to envision any change in the future. The road to Hillary Clinton in 2016 and to a European-socialist economy – those very economies that are collapsing today in Europe – is paved.

A second cliché that should be retired is that America is a center-right country. It clearly is not. It is a divided country with peculiar voting patterns, and an appetite for free stuff. Studies will invariably show that Republicans in Congress received more total votes than Democrats in Congress, but that means little. The House of Representatives is not truly representative of the country. That people would vote for a Republican Congressmen or Senator and then Obama for President would tend to reinforce point two above: the empty-headedness of the electorate. Americans revile Congress but love their individual Congressmen. Go figure.

The mass media’s complicity in Obama’s re-election cannot be denied. One example suffices. In 2004, CBS News forged a letter in order to imply that President Bush did not fulfill his Air National Guard service during the Vietnam War, all to impugn Bush and impair his re-election prospects. In 2012, President Obama insisted – famously – during the second debate that he had stated all along that the Arab attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi was “terror” (a lie that Romney fumbled and failed to exploit). Yet, CBS News sat on a tape of an interview with Obama in which Obama specifically avoided and rejected the claim of terrorism – on the day after the attack – clinging to the canard about the video. (This snippet of a “60 Minutes” interview was not revealed - until two days ago!) In effect, CBS News fabricated evidence in order to harm a Republican president, and suppressed evidence in order to help a Democratic president. Simply shameful, as was the media’s disregard of any scandal or story that could have jeopardized the Obama re-election.

One of the more irritating aspects of this campaign was its limited focus, odd in light of the billions of dollars spent. Only a few states were contested, a strategy that Romney adopted, and that clearly failed. The Democrat begins any race with a substantial advantage. The liberal states – like the bankrupt California and Illinois – and other states with large concentrations of minority voters as well as an extensive welfare apparatus, like New York, New Jersey and others – give any Democratic candidate an almost insurmountable edge in electoral votes. In New Jersey, for example, it literally does not pay for a conservative to vote. It is not worth the fuel expended driving to the polls. As some economists have pointed generally, and it resonates here even more, the odds are greater that a voter will be killed in a traffic accident on his way to the polls than that his vote will make a difference in the election. It is an irrational act. That most states are uncompetitive means that people are not amenable to new ideas, or new thinking, or even having an open mind. If that does not change, and it is hard to see how it can change, then the die is cast. America is not what it was, and will never be again.

For Jews, mostly assimilated anyway and staunch Democrats, the results demonstrate again that liberalism is their Torah. Almost 70% voted for a president widely perceived by Israelis and most committed Jews as hostile to Israel. They voted to secure Obama’s future at America’s expense and at Israel’s expense – in effect, preferring Obama to Netanyahu by a wide margin. A dangerous time is ahead. Under present circumstances, it is inconceivable that the US will take any aggressive action against Iran and will more likely thwart any Israeli initiative. That Obama’s top aide Valerie Jarrett (i.e., Iranian-born Valerie Jarrett) spent last week in Teheran is not a good sign. The US will preach the importance of negotiations up until the production of the first Iranian nuclear weapon – and then state that the world must learn to live with this new reality. As Obama has committed himself to abolishing America’s nuclear arsenal, it is more likely that that unfortunate circumstance will occur than that he will succeed in obstructing Iran’s plans.

Obama’s victory could weaken Netanyahu’s re-election prospects, because Israelis live with an unreasonable – and somewhat pathetic – fear of American opinion and realize that Obama despises Netanyahu. A Likud defeat – or a diminution of its margin of victory – is more probable now than yesterday. That would not be the worst thing. Netanyahu, in fact, has never distinguished himself by having a strong political or moral backbone, and would be the first to cave to the American pressure to surrender more territory to the enemy and acquiesce to a second (or third, if you count Jordan) Palestinian state. A new US Secretary of State named John Kerry, for example would not augur well. Netanyahu remains the best of markedly poor alternatives. Thus, the likeliest outcome of the upcoming Israeli elections is a center-left government that will force itself to make more concessions and weaken Israel – an Oslo III.

The most powerful empires in history all crumbled – from the Greeks and the Romans to the British and the Soviets. None of the collapses were easily foreseen, and yet they were predictable in retrospect.

The American empire began to decline in 2007, and the deterioration has been exacerbated in the last five years. This election only hastens that decline. Society is permeated with sloth, greed, envy and materialistic excess. It has lost its moorings and its moral foundations. The takers outnumber the givers, and that will only increase in years to come. Across the world, America under Bush was feared but not respected. Under Obama, America is neither feared nor respected. Radical Islam has had a banner four years under Obama, and its prospects for future growth look excellent. The “Occupy” riots across this country in the last two years were mere dress rehearsals for what lies ahead – years of unrest sparked by the increasing discontent of the unsuccessful who want to seize the fruits and the bounty of the successful, and do not appreciate the slow pace of redistribution.

If this election proves one thing, it is that the Old America is gone. And, sad for the world, it is not coming back.

We Get What We Deserve

Let's look at what we have learned from this election…

Twenty-one of 22 incumbent senators were re-elected, and 353 of 373 incumbent members of the House were re-elected. 

The American people have re-elected 94 percent of the incumbents who were running for re-election to an institution that has an approval rating of about nine percent.  

This indicates, as an electorate, we are a nation of idiots. 

We're now stuck with the useless, dysfunctional government that we deserve.

In other words, the voters, not the politicians, are the problem.

Why It's Over for America

Bad things happen to an economy when debt exceeds 77 percent of GDP.  When debt exceeds 90 percent, growth rates are cut by half or more.  Our $16 trillion debt exceeds 100 percent of GDP.  

Presidents Harding, Kennedy, Reagan and George W. Bush each made major reductions in income tax rates.  Each time, revenues rose substantially.  Yet Obama wants to raise them.

Since it's the effective ceiling on revenue, no matter how we manipulate the tax code, spending must be held below 20 percent of GDP.  If the government keeps adding to our mammoth debt, it won't just exert more drag on the economy.  It'll crash it entirely.

Adios, America.

But, hey, you got a free cell phone!

The Roots of Our Economic Trouble

An excellent explanation of how an economy works...

By George Leef

http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-roots-of-our-economic-trouble/

Another Reason Why I've Given Up The Fight

This is exactly why Mitt Romney said that 47% of the people are too dependent on the government. They have learned to work the system…

A Ford Dealer's Report - From Tom Selkis' (Latham Ford) Facebook - True story from the dealership.

"I'll try to make this as short and to the point as I can. One of my salesmen here had a woman in his office yesterday wanting to lease a brand new Focus. As he was reviewing her credit application with her he noticed she was on social security disability. He said to her you don't look like you're disabled and unable to work. She said well I'm really not. I could work if I wanted to, but I make more now than I did when I was working and got hurt (non-disabling injury).

She said the gov't sends her $1500.00 a month in one check and she gets $700.00 a month on an EBT card (food stamps), and $800.00 a month for rent. Oh yeah, and 250 minutes free on her phone. That is just south of $3500.00 a month. When she was working, she was taking home about $330.00 per week.

Do the math and then ask yourself, "Why should she go back to work?”

If you multiply that by millions of people, you start to realize the scope of the problem we face as a country. Once the socialists have 51% of the population in that same scenario, we are finished. The question is when do we cross that threshold if we haven't already, and there are not enough people working to pay enough taxes to support the non-working people? Riots?? Be prepared to protect your homes.

She didn't lease the Focus here because the dealer down the road beat our deal by $10.00/month. Glad to know she is so frugal with her hard earned money."

Why I have Given Up The Fight

“Forty-nine percent of young respondents gave a favorable rating to socialism, and while only 24 percent of whites viewed socialism favorably, 55 percent of blacks did and 44 percent of Hispanics did.”  Pew Poll 

Socialism.  

In America.  

Who would have ever thought it possible? 

The only thing that can save us now is severe economic pain.

 

Give Obama everything he wants, and do it as soon as possible, so everyone who voted for him can see what his policies bring.

 

Massive debt, massive unemployment, social strife, hunger, severe inflation, extremely high interest rates, the collapse of the dollar, stock market crash and, finally, economic collapse.

 

Let the games begin!

 

We'll come in after the crash, when we finally have everyone's attention, and clean up the mess by applying the very principles that made us the greatest country in human history.

When Work is Punished

Submitted by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
11/27/2012

Exactly two years ago, some of the more politically biased progressive media outlets (who are quite adept at creating and taking down their own strawmen arguments, if not quite as adept at using an abacus, let alone a calculator) took offense at our article "In Entitlement America, The Head Of A Household Of Four Making Minimum Wage Has More Disposable Income Than A Family Making $60,000 A Year." In it we merely explained what has become the painful reality in America: for increasingly more it is now more lucrative - in the form of actual disposable income - to sit, do nothing, and collect various welfare entitlements, than to work. This is graphically, and very painfully confirmed, in the below chart from Gary Alexander, Secretary of Public Welfare, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (a state best known for its broke capital Harrisburg). As quantitied, and explained by Alexander, "the single mom is better off earnings gross income of $29,000 with $57,327 in net income & benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with net income and benefits of $57,045."



We realize that this is a painful topic in a country in which the issue of welfare benefits, and cutting (or not) the spending side of the fiscal cliff, have become the two most sensitive social topics. Alas, none of that changes the matrix of incentives for most Americans who find themselves in a comparable situation: either being on the left side of minimum US wage, and relying on benefits, or move to the right side at far greater personal investment of work, and energy, and... have the same disposable income at the end of the day.

Naturally, the topic of wealth redistribution is paramount one now that America is entering the terminal phase of its out of control spending, and whose response to hike taxes in a globalized, easily fungible world, will merely force more of the uber-wealthy to find offshore tax jurisdictions, avoid US taxation altogether, and thus result to even lower budget revenues for the US. It explains why the cluelessly incompetent but supposedly impartial Congressional Budget Office just released a key paper titled "Share of Returns Filed by Low- and Moderate-Income Workers, by Marginal Tax Rate, Under 2012 Law" which carries a chart of disposable income by net income comparable to the one above.



But perhaps the scariest chart in the entire presentation is the following summarizing the unsustainable welfare burden on current taxpayers:

• For every 1.65 employed persons in the private sector, 1 person receives welfare assistance
• For every 1.25 employed persons in the private sector, 1 person receives welfare assistance or works for the government.

The punchline: 110 million privately employed workers; 88 million welfare recipients and government workers and rising rapidly.

And since nothing has changed in the past two years, and in fact the situation has gotten progressively (pardon the pun) worse, here is our conclusion on this topic from two years ago:

We have been writing for over a year, how the very top of America's social order steals from the middle class each and every day. Now we finally know that the very bottom of the entitlement food chain also makes out like a bandit compared to that idiot American who actually works and pays their taxes. One can only also hope that in addition to seeing their disposable income be eaten away by a kleptocratic entitlement state, that the disappearing middle class is also selling off its weaponry. Because if it isn't, and if it finally decides it has had enough, the outcome will not be surprising at all: it will be the same old that has occurred in virtually every revolution in the history of the world to date.

But for now, just stick head in sand, and pretend all is good. Self-deception is now the only thing left for the entire insolvent entitlement-addicted world.

* * *

Friendly Advice

Here's some friendly advice I received from a friend after the Nov 6th election when I asked him what we grassroots Conservatives did wrong...

You didn't go wrong, but perhaps there is a very important place that you didn't go.

Real life, a great deal of which is implemented via economic means, isn't just politics.

Yes, politics can have a horribly destructive effect on real life and the productive economic activities that make it possible.

Your actions, no matter how wise and vigorous, will have a very limited effect on politics.

That is also true in regards to the economy in general but not true with respect to your particular and personal economic activities.

Analyze the economic and social consequences of the Keynesian and collectivistic idiocies in Washington and in the State capital nearer you, and spend at least as much critical thought and effort as you spent on politics trying to figure out how you can be more safe and productive over the coming years as more and more sh*t inevitably hits the fan.

What happens to someone else doesn't necessarily have to happen to you.

Some places will be safer and more free than others.

Some places will offer better economic opportunities than others.

Some types of productive work will fare better than others.

Spend at least as much time and effort thinking about how you personally fit into the economy and society (especially local society). Where do you want to be five, ten, twenty years from now, and what do you want to be doing?

Your choices, decisions, and actions will have a far greater effect on you and your family than they will on national politics. Allocate your thinking and efforts accordingly. When the OPM (Other Peoples' Money) runs low, where do you want to be and what do you want to be doing to earn your living? May you have the wisdom to understand what you can change and what you can't.

I Was Wrong

The following anonymous lament pretty much says it all...

Well, it's official; I don't know anything.

I thought for sure that given such a clear choice, Americans would vote for love of country over revenge.

I was wrong.

I thought, that just as every presidential election in my lifetime, the bad economy would be hung around the incumbent's neck, sinking him.

I was wrong.

I thought that even those few Americans who were fortunate enough to still be fully employed (not counting those leeching off the public system) would be cognizant of how much pain their neighbors were in and elect someone who would at least try to make improvements.

I was wrong.

I thought that now that FINALLY some of the disturbing truths about our first black president had come to light, voters would reject a man so dangerously at odds with the American experience.

I was wrong.

I thought the 2010 elections and the Tea Party meant something.

I thought the enthusiasm on display at Romney/Ryan events, contrasted with the lack of same at Obama/Biden events meant something.

I thought Americans would never sell their liberty for the sake of trinkets like cell phones or even big shiny lies like 'free health care'.

I was wrong.

Never in a million years would I have supposed that America would support a president who left his (our) people to die at the hands of our enemies overseas without lifting a hand to help, then lie about what he watched in real time for over two weeks, then lie about the lie for another month.

I was wrong.

I thought Americans could tell a hawk from a handsaw.

I was wrong.

We were offered the clearest choice we've has since 1980, where we had malaise and a misery index on one hand and a shining city on a hill on the other. Back then, we chose the city on the hill. This time the choice was between a man who says 7.9% unemployment and $4.00 gas is the new normal and a guy whose entire career has been about fixing broken entities.

We chose to stay broken. And Broke.

Maybe I'm wrong about the ramifications of this choice. Maybe windmills will actually turn out to be a viable energy source. Maybe America diminished will be loved overseas. Maybe a nuclear Iran won't be a threat. Maybe Israel is over reacting. Maybe western civilization was always over rated. Maybe life under sharia is fun. Maybe when the rest of the world realizes that we have no intention of ever paying back that $16,000,000,000,000.00 (and counting) that we've borrowed from them, they won't devalue the dollar, causing hyper inflation here at home. Maybe China will just keep on giving us money and not demand our hearts, souls, national monuments and marriageable daughters as payment.

I've watched my candidate lose elections before but I've never felt the way I did when this one was called for Obama.

It wasn't bitterness or sadness or even disappointment. It took me a while to figure out what it was. Then it hit me; it was horror.

Pure, unadulterated horror.

Not because of Obama, but because of what it says about us, the American people, that we chose this.

It shouldn't have even been close. Faced with the choice between taking charge of our destiny and tackling our financial problems, we opted to get high and have sex. We re elected a guy who doesn't understand that a growing economy that creates more tax payers will bring in more revenue than higher taxes. A Commander in Chief who doesn't know our military still uses bayonets. A man who wants to control the economy without even knowing the difference between bankruptcy and liquidation. It was one thing to elect an unknown quantity, buying his line of 'Hope and Change'. It's something else to deliberately choose his failed policies over someone who has actually achieved success in life. I never dreamed America would do that.

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, Hello Idiocracy!

Goodbye, recovery.

Goodbye, energy independence.

Goodbye, religious liberty.

Goodbye, liberty and justice for all.

Goodbye, America dream.

It profits a man nothing to lose his soul for the whole world but we threw ours away for cell phones and birth control pills.

In the twentieth century (the American Century), we stepped up to the plate three times and saved the rest of the world from fascism, nazism and communism. We were the cavalry, always riding to the rescue.

Now, we've gotten rid of our horses, spent all our money on windmills, alienated our allies, bowed to our enemies, cut ourselves off from our own natural resources thrown away our children's birthright and spent their inheritance.

And we did it on purpose.

When the wolf is at the door (and he's coming, yelling 'Allahu Akbar') we're going to find out that there is no one out there to come to our rescue.

On the bright side, maybe it'll all turn out great. After all, I don't know anything.

The Moral Imperative: Sandwiches & Wagons

Dinesh DeSouza demolishes the so-called moral superiority of liberalism...

https://www.youtube.com/embed/rEM4NKXK-iA?feature=player_detailpage

We Have Lost

This superb piece was written by an anonymous individual who speaks for all of us who feel betrayed...

The most productive people, the small business owners, the entrepreneurs and the honest wage earners of America are so demoralized right now I am not sure we will recover as a country.  We have lost the most important election of our lifetime and did so after giving our best effort, spent the most money ever and worked the hardest we have ever worked.   

The very people that America needs the most to generate a real recovery now have the least motivation to do so and worse, lack the confidence necessary to even justify the effort.

We opposed a foe that was so obviously incompetent, corrupt and inept in leadership we really expected a landslide victory and a redeeming mandate to return the nation to conservative values. Instead what we got was a harsh slap in the face by an American public telling us it is not like us and it does not any longer believe in what we believe in. As a country we are hopelessly divided by a malignant polarization approaching that similar to the time around the civil war.  
 
Our side will not march in the streets; nevertheless the rebellion, protests and resistance will be just as determined but more subtle.  The American can-do spirit, our optimism, our traditional dependence on our own ingenuity is now mere kindling on the advancing flame of an insidious yet steadily advancing socialism.
Those of us who create real jobs, invest our capital, our fortunes and take the risks to build America, feel betrayed.
   
The fundamentals of honest effort and hard work rendering the rewards associated with capitalism seem now like a cruel joke. We are now a targeted enemy not to be governed but coerced into submission by a lazy, corrupt, vindictive, arrogant government that is out for revenge, redistribution and to add a final insult, one we find too morally bankrupt to lead.  
 
The usual safeguards for a democracy found in a vibrant independent press have lost any semblance of objectivity and instead have joined a side. What used to be principled independent reporters have morphed into dishonest pundits, spewing a disgusting relentless partisan bile that neither informs nor educates. They are shallowly manipulated by the political marketers to the point their words lack meaning. The "fourth branch" of government has become nothing more than an empty cathode ray irradiating a mind-numbed audience like a repetitive Beavus & Butthead rerun.

We have elected a President who not only feels we did not work for what we have but feels we do not deserve it either. Had it gone the other way, Obama supporters would have torched America. Instead they will now legitimately consume it by gnawing at the soft underbelly of what was once her prosperity.   

Our Judeo-Christian culture now having as much meaning as a three-minute YouTube video.  It is, however, as the Bible had forewarned, ours is a world turning over where good is bad, and bad is good.   
                   
God help us all...

-- Anonymous

The Death of Democracy in America

After the election results on Nov 6th, my thoughts turned to Alexis de Tocqueville, who visited America over 200 years ago and wrote the book entitled Democracy in America...

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville

“America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville

Democracy in America, as an idea, died on November 6th, 2012. We are now on the fast track toward tyranny.

You Own It

The election is over, and this is my message to those who voted for Obama… 

Congratulations to the Democrats and all young people, you now own it.  

The next terrorist attack, you own it.  

Can't get a job after graduation, you own it.  

A bleak employment picture for all unemployed and underemployed the next four years, you own it. 

Several part time jobs instead of one good job, you own it.  

A sputtering economy for the next four years, you own it. 

Stock market crash, you own it. 

Skyrocketing energy prices due to Obama's EPA shutting down the energy producing states, you own it.  

A nuclear Iran, you own it.  

Bowing to Putin in Russia, you own it.  

Another severe recession, you own it.  

A volatile border with Mexico, you own it.  

Out of control illegal immigration, you own it.

Amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants, you own it.

Trouble getting good health care, you own it.

Higher health insurance costs and health care costs, you own it.

No budget, you own it.

Out of control spending, you own it.

Another trillion of debt, you own it.

More “Quantitative Easing”, you own it.

Out of control inflation, you own it.

Our allies mistrust us, you own it.

More Benghazi situations, you own it.

No one willing to join the military, you own it.

Trouble getting a loan to buy a home, you own it.

More dependency on food stamps, you own it.

A World Government, you own it.

The UN governing the United States, you own it.

A House of Representatives that won’t bring any legislation to the table because it’s dead on arrival, you own it.

China controlling our world trade and trampling all over us, you own it.

Loss of our freedoms as we have known them in the past, you own it.

A dictatorship instead of a democracy that follows the Constitution, you own it.

Capitalism shackled by regulations and increased taxes, you own it.

Crony capitalism the new norm, you own it.

Less take home pay and higher living costs, you own it.

Driving a car that looks like a toy, you own it.

More government corruption and lies, you own it.

More toleration of extreme and fanatical Islamists, you own it.

Terrorist attacks called work place incidents, you own it.

Voting for revenge instead of love of country, you own it.

Voting for the guy who promised you free stuff, you own it.

Traditional American values replaced with socialist/Marxist values, you own it. 

Romney has been defeated, George Bush is out of the picture now, and you have nobody left to blame.

Congratulations, you own it. 

Good luck.

There…I feel better, and now I’m done.

Obama's America: The Next Four Years

Coal Industry
"So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It's just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted."
 
Energy Costs
"Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket."

Taxes
"In the long term Obama is going to need to raise taxes on more than just the rich." 
- Len Burman, author of Taxes in America: What Everyone Needs to Know

Gas Prices
“Somehow, we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” ($9-$10/Gal) - Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy

Financial Crisis
"I think what's going to happen is going to be a currency crisis, a sovereign debt crisis. It's going to be the same thing that is happening in Europe, including Greece, but it's going to be a lot worse."  - Peter Schiff, CEO Euro Pacific Capital

Under Obama,  Schiff expects to see a huge buildup of government debt — to $20 trillion in two  years from $16 trillion currently. This crisis will be accompanied by higher unemployment, higher inflation, higher food and energy prices and higher interest rates, Schiff maintains.

The Economy
"We are becoming a nation of economic deadbeats and social parasites. Mr. Obama has forged a new redistributionist order: Tax consumers are devouring the wealth of taxpaying producers. In the process, he is breeding an army — a vast electoral pool — of government dependents. Soon, America will hit the tipping point at which the productive classes are outnumbered — and outvoted — by the nonproductive ones. Our decline will be inexorable and inevitable. The result is a country on the verge of fiscal bankruptcy." - Jeff Kuhner, Washington Times
 
Healthcare
"This new law will reduce some employers' health care costs by as much as 3,000%" - Barack Obama

If Obama gets his way, there will not be alternative private sector health insurance businesses. They'll be out of business.  The only place you'll be able to go is one of these state exchanges where you will put into a giant pool with everybody else that essentially will be run from Washington.  That's what's ahead of us.  And with a $2 trillion cost instead of $940 billion, you can imagine what tax rates will do, given the way Democrats operate. - Rush Limbaugh

Jim Kouri writes that nearly two dozen new tax increases will be levied under Obamacare, many of them hidden from the American people.

And there are 16,000 new IRS agents just waiting to put a hold on your income tax refund until you can prove that you have health insurance. If you don't, they will keep your refund and if it doesn't meet the federal government's minimum requirements they will garnish your wages to cover the difference. Welcome to ObamaCare!

Foreign Policy
"This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.”

The potential cuts would be from a current treaty limit of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads. A level of 300 deployed strategic nuclear weapons would take the U.S. back to levels not seen since 1950 when the nation was ramping up production in an arms race with the Soviet Union. - Newsmax 2/14/12

Yes, He Can and Yes, He Is Going To...
“We are days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America”

Buckle up America, we're about to go over a cliff...

And this may be our last hope: You Have Two Years To Live