I know:) I was just attempting to show that his lack of links but utilization of a provable fact is misleading. The timing of the secession had little to do with when he was inaugurated, more to do with his big election platform and his election win.
He called me out on my links, but I reviewed my posts and found them to be valid. I'll start quoting snippets of each link from now on:)
Gold is money to me, not an investment. If you had gold and cash in 1900, you dollar would be depreciated 96%, gold appreciated 1200%. Stable.
Stocks offer far less than investing in small, local businesses. I make 20-60% in private stock as dividends. I see almost zero value in public stocks, they're a scam to me.
I've explained this before, LRC is a site that combines 50+ unique authors in one pool. Many of my favorite researchers have joined LRC recently, killing their own sites off. Plus LRC works on my PDA (my sole browser).
As for States seceding before Lincoln won office, huh?
November 6, 1860: Lincoln wins election December 20, 1860: S. Carolina secedes January 9, 1861: Mississippi secedes January 10, 1861: Florida secedes January 11, 1861: Alabama secedes January 19, 1861: Georgia secedes January 26, 1861: Louisiana secedes February 7, 1861: Choctaw Nation secedes March 2, 1861: Texas secedes March 4, 1861: Lincoln Inaugurated March 16, 1861: Arizona secedes May 6, 1861: Arkansas secedes May 20, 1861: N. Carolina secedes May 23, 1861: Virginia secedes June 8, 1861: Tennessee secedes October 31, 1861: Missouri secedes November 20, 1861: Kentucky secedes
The man who runs on a pro-tariff ticket wins and a month later secession begins.
While the ZAP finds common threads with my belief, I'm neither a libertarian nor an anarchist.
I guess minarchist sort of fits. I believe in a Federal Union of States where the Union exists solely to join State militias in defense.
States set basic guidelines for property crimes (what is murder, contract enforcement, etc). The towns wield the most power (welfare if desired, public services if desired, taxation if desired, education if desired, regulations if desired, etc).
By allowing communities to compete for citizens, we'd see more harmony, IMHO.
I believe some force, but only at the local level. Then the phrase "move if you don't like it" is acceptable.
This country was founded on individual freedom and individual responsibility. You leave, there are a lot of socialist countries you'd love.
s. In the meantime, however, there are other taxpayers dying out there.
Why? Government did them in. Government guaranteed their insurance when no one else would. Government set zoning standards and built highways unable to cope with demand. Government prevented private choppers and boaters from helping. Government mandated that people be allowed to build there and guaranteed loans to do it.
No free market investor or insurer or bank would have done the same.
Heh, did you know that gold has the lowest return of anything except cash?
Yet gold has stayed fairly solid in value for 3000 years (I don't have the link handy but can e-mail it). The only time gold prices have fallen is when government dumped their holdings causing temporary spikes by messing up supply/demand. Gold is an excellent investment to secure against government fiat.
I think inflation is mixed - and might be a better way to hand out the government's bill than taxes.
By devaluing everyone's cash and raising prices? Eek.
- I'm not sure anyone really understands it.Nope! It is exactly what should happen, as this article states:.For short-term rates to exceed long-term rates, there has to be an intense demand for short-term loans. What would cause this? This: fear of falling demand for goods and services - a fear so great that business borrowers want to finish existing capital projects.
Hard money advocates have known for 100+ years what happens when government controls the supply of money: exactly the same thing that happens when they control anything.
Prices and interest rates are affected by the supply and demand in money. Government money intervention creates the boom-bust cycle. If government didn't set rates or counterfeit money (inflation) there'd be no major bubbles or recessions, as seen in our history from 1600 to 1913, minus the Civil War as Lincoln screwed with currency.
When you call your representative, you should be aware of the following:
Congress has made a law that allows a certain increase in budgetary line items per year without calling it an increase. I'm not sure what that allowed percentage is, but if they allow 7% and only raise an item 6%, they can legally say they LOWERED that item's budget!
Our budget includes Social Security receipts but not complete payments. We've never had a truly balanced budget in decades.
Our budget is allowed emergency appropriations that can include money for any pork project as long as "emergency" is in the bill's title.
Our Federal Reserve Board inflates our currency higher than the return on US Bonds returns -- causing certain consumer goods to go up in price.
Our FRB then lowers interest rates creating easy credit flooding the economy with a high supply of cheap money, creating bubbles as the money goes into investments otherwise not mad at higher interest rates. This repeats causing bigger bubbles, etc.
Our government then backs the loans through VA and FNMA, causing banks to lend to nearly anyone with taxpayers insuring the defaults.
Also, currency inflation leads to artificial wage increases, pushing people into higher tax brackets.
As the London Times of 7 Nov 1861 stated: "The contest is really for empire on the side of the North and for independence on that of the South....".
And...
Adams claims that slavery was never in danger, pointing out that Lincoln pledged to enforce the fugitive slave law, declared he had no right or intention to interfere with slavery, and supported a new irrevocable constitutional amendment to protect slavery forever. The South's proclamation that slavery was in danger was a political ploy full of political cant to stir up secessionist fever.
The South knew people didn't see the harm in tariffs immediately so they used slavery to scare the citizens of the South.
That article ends with my belief -- slavery is wrong. But just as every other wealthy, agricultural Western country ended slavery without war, so would have we.
Particularly, the "right" of a State to institute slavery. And don't forget who fired the first shots of that war. This is incorrect. The War Between States was not a slavery issue but a taxation issue. Slavery was already on the decline worldwide. The US had 4% of the world's slave, yet the other 96% were freed peacefully by the free market -- slaves couldn't work as efficiently as industrial workers. The South was already adjusting to the change. Lincoln the tyrant needed an excuse to keep the South in the volunteer Union, so he could tax their production.
Slavery would have remained more profitable than mechanization for producing cotton and other Incorrect myth again. Lincoln was pro-slavery in every election he ran in.
. That's why so many Southerners went apeshit as soon as he was elected and immediately started the secession process. Wrong. Lincoln was open about running on the Hamilton/Clay platform of corporate mercantilism: tax production to fund cronies in "internal improvements." Read up on your history, the South feared the taxes that mercantilism brings.
And don't forget who fired the first shots of that war. It's been proven time and time again that, just like FDR forced the Japanese to fire first, so did Lincoln force the South. Lincoln's infamous Emancipation Proclamation granted slaves freedom ONLY IN Confederate States, not Northern ones. Imagine that, free people in Iraq, but not in the U.S. Hmmm.
Your debate is long lost. Go pick up a copy of The Real Lincoln. If you don't like it, I'll pay you double the cover price for it.
No, I'm against my money taken by force going to government cronies. The Red Cross, my church and my volunteer fire department are doing a great job with my money I freely donated.
Don't force me to donate to your cause. Do you know if I am starving? If I have a sick child? If I have special needs/
It is you, sir, who is heartless to take from me and give to others against my will.
When a disaster happens, people need to accept full responsibility for their part in the losses. Insurance companies have to be held responsible for their policy coverage. The State (any government) has zero responsibility to the people.
Unfortunately, the Federal flood insurance underwriting allowed people to build where it was unbuildable. Federal levees gave people a sense of security. Federally guaranteed loans allowed developers to build on soft land. No private banks or insurers would have done any of that without Federal guarantees.
Now the Federal branch wants ore of my money to build a bigger welfare development? No thanks. Easy money with no personal responsibility is not the answer.
I live nowhere near a flood plain yet I have flood insurance. I live nowhere near a crime ridden area yet I keep a firearm nearby. I have liability protections that I pay for (and review word for word) to protect me yet keep me responsible.
The poor in Louisiana were given opportunities to stay poor by your government against my consent. The wealthy had their investments backed by your government against my consent.
True, we are less burdened with rights violations, yet the burdens are increasing here. Our Executive Branch (Bush, Clinton, and on) LOVE Lincoln's Mercantile form of government. I fear the day when we return to Lincoln's days when he:
* Jailed 13,000 anti-war protestors * Jailed media owners * Censored hundreds of papers * Censored communications * Deported a Congressman (Clement L. Vallandhigham of Ohio) who spoke against him * Signed into law the first military conscription law * Confiscated firearms * Quartered soldiers on private property
Scary how Lincoln did it illegally. Our new laws slowly legitimize these acts for future powers.
I was Mr. Sony in the 90s (mini dis , vaio, etc) because I loved their technology. Now, slashdot:Microsoft::dada21:Sony.
Sony has to learn that single party closed standards won't exist for long. We won't see an open standard, but at least a consortium of different markets offers multiple profit-oriented groups some debate.
When members of a consortium debate one another, the debate is "how can I make more money?" But to make money they need not just a cost benefit, but a happy customer in the long run.
Sony alone only sees one customer base, never a good sample of need. Toshiba has two other hard hitters now, offering a larger and more varied customer base to figure out.
One scary thing: software + processor + media format giants can make the worst DRM imaginable. What if Sony pandered to Linux or OS X or just the PS3 market? Plus Sony has clout with the media distributers, whereas MS and Intel bite them in the ass because most "pirates" use MS and Intel products.
From TFA: They said the HD DVD format would make it easier for consumers to copy high-definition movies to computer hard drives. Suuuure.
TFA mentions commitments from media houses, but until I see it, I'm not believing it. If we'll have two formats, my parents will be the deciding factor, not me.
There won't be armed revolution. The Second Vermont Republic and Free State Project are both intriguing ventures.
FYI, the War Between States initially was a bloodless secession over States Rights and taxation, not slavery. Slavery was already dying out internationally due to the Industrial Revolution. Lincoln hated blacks with a passion (he wrote the Illinois law barring blacks), but he wanted to tax the South to build in the North, handing "Lincoln's Haliburton" some tasty contracts.
Check out Thomas DiLorenzo's The Real Lincoln for some shockers.
We're there already. Clay/Hamilton's American System is in full force. All that's le t is revocation of Posse Comitatus (already done, IMHO, with Katrina and Rita) and we've got tyranny without realizing it.
We have an Executive branch without restraint (War Powers Act, no real restrictions on Presidential orders, federal troops policing citizens, federal destruction of currency through inflation and cradle to grave welfare for all). We have a single party political system (look how many Democrats support the war funding, look how many Republicans support social programs). We have government control of media.
Voting is fruitless. The only way out is to mimic the Chinese -- support the black (free) markets and back out of supporting the governments by cutting their funding.
It makes me laugh how this is a very Indian (south-asian) way of looking at things. Funny, my dad is Indian. I was not raised with these values, but I discovered them on my own after making many mistakes.
I agree with most of your paragraph starts but not finishes. I've been to every livable continent more than once, but traveled cheap. I've met responsible people of every sort. I wear very nice clothes, but if you save $5000 in a year, the clothing can be bought on interest and capital gains.
I agree about the will to provide. But that will is easily lost when you get in debt!
This article helps reinforce my constant philosophy that information is now freed of regulation and censorship, and that no law can trump humanity's moral law that makes only offensive crimes truly wrong, legally or morally.
I feel bad for the Chinese, but thankfully the ways around censorship are growing in number. We have to note these gains internationally as we watch our speech get restrained even in the U.S.
No law will prevent the average person from doing what they feel is right, which to me is proof of the inherent rights we're all born with. Every person in this world has the God-given (or inherent) right to speak. It is only government that attempts to restrain it.
Take note, your freedom to speak is declining as we support persons we vote for to further degrade our rights. As the Chinese save up to 40% of their income, they also find ways to save their rights. As we U.S. citizens look to the federal government to educate us, rebuild our mistakes and provide our retirements, we save nothing (1%) and lose rights.
I can't prove this with peer reviewed research, but I've seen happier marriages when finances are in order, debt is zero or very minimal, the family has savings and one spouse is responsible for the finances and spending.
Also, most of us pay 50% of our income in taxes -- a hidden burnout cause.
Re:Burn out at work is not always work related!
on
Pay vs. Happiness
·
· Score: 1
Humbug!
When my wife's web design company failed, she worked fast food starting at $6.50. Within a few months she was up to $9.50, but quit to start another business.
I skipped college. Instead I gained 4 years of real work experience at a tiny company that taught me great skills for less pay. I ran my own business, too. No college loans helped tremendously.
I networked constantly, making connections that help me years later. I followed through with my responsibilities.
Then I loaded up on debt and almost lost it all. It took me 6 years to fix 2 years of "fun."
I sent out 10 letters a week to small businesses looking for extra work. I still do. 1 in 50 call back, most give me referrals after I work for them.
If I didn't throw it away, I'd be wealthy while never earning more than $50k a year, ever. self employment gives you a lot of tax loopholes.
Re:Burn out at work is not always work related!
on
Pay vs. Happiness
·
· Score: 1
Yes^3!
I just posted a similar comment in the thread.
Don't just live beneath your means but well below. Save smart for 15 years (16-31) and you can be wealthier than 95% of Americans. Then marry, have kids, vacation, buy big toys. Off the interest, not the equity or future possible earnings (debt).
Re:Burn out at work is not always work related!
on
Pay vs. Happiness
·
· Score: 1
I am married. My wife loved the 2000 square foot trailer we found for $22,000 (foreclosure). She prefers it over our 3 bedroom $250k house a mile away. Both are in the same zip, great community.
Re:On "blaming the employer" ....
on
Pay vs. Happiness
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Our lives sound almost identical (I just never had a kid).
Yet how often were you trying to keep up with the Joneses? A $60k a year job should eastily support a family of 4 if you start planning early. I'm 31 and want a kid badly but I can't do it until I'm worth about double of my current value.
IT is dying, you're right. Horse-shoers disappeared, too. IT is a commodity today. I'd recommend moving possibily, or considering starting a business, but both are hard.
I _hate_ that so many mistakes people make are societal. Go to school. Spend 28% of your gross income on a mortgage. Buy a big new car and big new TV. Eat out. Drink $7 martinis. Go on expensive vacations. Have a $50,000 wedding.
Life takes planning, saving, and caution. We used to know this as a society but now its all debt, debt, debt.
16 year olds, listen and learn:
1. Until you're 25, save every penny possible. 2. Never rent or lease. 3. Get one credit card for gas, insurance and groceries. Pay 100% monthly. 4. Never get a college loan. 5. Never buy new cars or clothes. 6. Socialize at private parties with friends who live like you. 7. Work your first jobs at small companies. Trade good pay/benefits for actual positive, marketable experience. 8. Buy a trailer or condo for cash. 9. Marry once you own your family home, debt free. Watch your girlfriend for a dark side. Stability in spending habits and emotions is key.
Slashdot Mirror
I know :) I was just attempting to show that his lack of links but utilization of a provable fact is misleading. The timing of the secession had little to do with when he was inaugurated, more to do with his big election platform and his election win.
:)
He called me out on my links, but I reviewed my posts and found them to be valid. I'll start quoting snippets of each link from now on
Gold is money to me, not an investment. If you had gold and cash in 1900, you dollar would be depreciated 96%, gold appreciated 1200%. Stable.
h e_Business_Cycle
Stocks offer far less than investing in small, local businesses. I make 20-60% in private stock as dividends. I see almost zero value in public stocks, they're a scam to me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_Theory_of_t
Great link explaining boom/bust cycles: currency manipulation. Mises' writings convinced me to become AnCap a decade ago! Good stuff.
I've explained this before, LRC is a site that combines 50+ unique authors in one pool. Many of my favorite researchers have joined LRC recently, killing their own sites off. Plus LRC works on my PDA (my sole browser).
As for States seceding before Lincoln won office, huh?
November 6, 1860: Lincoln wins election
December 20, 1860: S. Carolina secedes
January 9, 1861: Mississippi secedes
January 10, 1861: Florida secedes
January 11, 1861: Alabama secedes
January 19, 1861: Georgia secedes
January 26, 1861: Louisiana secedes
February 7, 1861: Choctaw Nation secedes
March 2, 1861: Texas secedes
March 4, 1861: Lincoln Inaugurated
March 16, 1861: Arizona secedes
May 6, 1861: Arkansas secedes
May 20, 1861: N. Carolina secedes
May 23, 1861: Virginia secedes
June 8, 1861: Tennessee secedes
October 31, 1861: Missouri secedes
November 20, 1861: Kentucky secedes
The man who runs on a pro-tariff ticket wins and a month later secession begins.
While the ZAP finds common threads with my belief, I'm neither a libertarian nor an anarchist.
I guess minarchist sort of fits. I believe in a Federal Union of States where the Union exists solely to join State militias in defense.
States set basic guidelines for property crimes (what is murder, contract enforcement, etc). The towns wield the most power (welfare if desired, public services if desired, taxation if desired, education if desired, regulations if desired, etc).
By allowing communities to compete for citizens, we'd see more harmony, IMHO.
I believe some force, but only at the local level. Then the phrase "move if you don't like it" is acceptable.
Why should I leave? That's ridiculous.
This country was founded on individual freedom and individual responsibility. You leave, there are a lot of socialist countries you'd love.
s. In the meantime, however, there are other taxpayers dying out there.
Why? Government did them in. Government guaranteed their insurance when no one else would. Government set zoning standards and built highways unable to cope with demand. Government prevented private choppers and boaters from helping. Government mandated that people be allowed to build there and guaranteed loans to do it.
No free market investor or insurer or bank would have done the same.
Which is why I constantly say campaign finance reform won't work; we need Congressional Power reform.
You cannot blame a corporation for taking advantage. The people keep voting these offenders in, mandating everyngad law.
Heh, did you know that gold has the lowest return of anything except cash?
.For short-term rates to exceed long-term rates, there has to be an intense demand for short-term loans. What would cause this? This: fear of falling demand for goods and services - a fear so great that business borrowers want to finish existing capital projects.
Yet gold has stayed fairly solid in value for 3000 years (I don't have the link handy but can e-mail it). The only time gold prices have fallen is when government dumped their holdings causing temporary spikes by messing up supply/demand. Gold is an excellent investment to secure against government fiat.
I think inflation is mixed - and might be a better way to hand out the government's bill than taxes.
By devaluing everyone's cash and raising prices? Eek.
- I'm not sure anyone really understands it.Nope! It is exactly what should happen, as this article states:
Hard money advocates have known for 100+ years what happens when government controls the supply of money: exactly the same thing that happens when they control anything.
Prices and interest rates are affected by the supply and demand in money. Government money intervention creates the boom-bust cycle. If government didn't set rates or counterfeit money (inflation) there'd be no major bubbles or recessions, as seen in our history from 1600 to 1913, minus the Civil War as Lincoln screwed with currency.
Interested in more?
When you call your representative, you should be aware of the following:
Congress has made a law that allows a certain increase in budgetary line items per year without calling it an increase. I'm not sure what that allowed percentage is, but if they allow 7% and only raise an item 6%, they can legally say they LOWERED that item's budget!
Our budget includes Social Security receipts but not complete payments. We've never had a truly balanced budget in decades.
Our budget is allowed emergency appropriations that can include money for any pork project as long as "emergency" is in the bill's title.
108th Congress Analysis what a scam!
The problem is worse than that!
:)
Our Federal Reserve Board inflates our currency higher than the return on US Bonds returns -- causing certain consumer goods to go up in price.
Our FRB then lowers interest rates creating easy credit flooding the economy with a high supply of cheap money, creating bubbles as the money goes into investments otherwise not mad at higher interest rates. This repeats causing bigger bubbles, etc.
Our government then backs the loans through VA and FNMA, causing banks to lend to nearly anyone with taxpayers insuring the defaults.
Also, currency inflation leads to artificial wage increases, pushing people into higher tax brackets.
What a racket. Buy gold
The war Between States was about taxation / tariffs. Here's a complete review:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/pearlston1.html
As the London Times of 7 Nov 1861 stated: "The contest is really for empire on the side of the North and for independence on that of the South....".
And...
Adams claims that slavery was never in danger, pointing out that Lincoln pledged to enforce the fugitive slave law, declared he had no right or intention to interfere with slavery, and supported a new irrevocable constitutional amendment to protect slavery forever. The South's proclamation that slavery was in danger was a political ploy full of political cant to stir up secessionist fever.
The South knew people didn't see the harm in tariffs immediately so they used slavery to scare the citizens of the South.
That article ends with my belief -- slavery is wrong. But just as every other wealthy, agricultural Western country ended slavery without war, so would have we.
Particularly, the "right" of a State to institute slavery. And don't forget who fired the first shots of that war. This is incorrect. The War Between States was not a slavery issue but a taxation issue. Slavery was already on the decline worldwide. The US had 4% of the world's slave, yet the other 96% were freed peacefully by the free market -- slaves couldn't work as efficiently as industrial workers. The South was already adjusting to the change. Lincoln the tyrant needed an excuse to keep the South in the volunteer Union, so he could tax their production.
Slavery would have remained more profitable than mechanization for producing cotton and other Incorrect myth again. Lincoln was pro-slavery in every election he ran in.
. That's why so many Southerners went apeshit as soon as he was elected and immediately started the secession process. Wrong. Lincoln was open about running on the Hamilton/Clay platform of corporate mercantilism: tax production to fund cronies in "internal improvements." Read up on your history, the South feared the taxes that mercantilism brings.
And don't forget who fired the first shots of that war. It's been proven time and time again that, just like FDR forced the Japanese to fire first, so did Lincoln force the South. Lincoln's infamous Emancipation Proclamation granted slaves freedom ONLY IN Confederate States, not Northern ones. Imagine that, free people in Iraq, but not in the U.S. Hmmm.
Your debate is long lost. Go pick up a copy of The Real Lincoln. If you don't like it, I'll pay you double the cover price for it.
No, I'm against my money taken by force going to government cronies. The Red Cross, my church and my volunteer fire department are doing a great job with my money I freely donated.
Don't force me to donate to your cause. Do you know if I am starving? If I have a sick child? If I have special needs/
It is you, sir, who is heartless to take from me and give to others against my will.
My parents are cheap. They're not technically savvy. They'll choose a format that is cheap, easy to use, with access to the media they want to see.
When a disaster happens, people need to accept full responsibility for their part in the losses. Insurance companies have to be held responsible for their policy coverage. The State (any government) has zero responsibility to the people.
Unfortunately, the Federal flood insurance underwriting allowed people to build where it was unbuildable. Federal levees gave people a sense of security. Federally guaranteed loans allowed developers to build on soft land. No private banks or insurers would have done any of that without Federal guarantees.
Now the Federal branch wants ore of my money to build a bigger welfare development? No thanks. Easy money with no personal responsibility is not the answer.
I live nowhere near a flood plain yet I have flood insurance. I live nowhere near a crime ridden area yet I keep a firearm nearby. I have liability protections that I pay for (and review word for word) to protect me yet keep me responsible.
The poor in Louisiana were given opportunities to stay poor by your government against my consent. The wealthy had their investments backed by your government against my consent.
A free society is a full liability society.
Accept no substitutes. My money is slowly exiting the equation.
True, we are less burdened with rights violations, yet the burdens are increasing here. Our Executive Branch (Bush, Clinton, and on) LOVE Lincoln's Mercantile form of government. I fear the day when we return to Lincoln's days when he:
* Jailed 13,000 anti-war protestors
* Jailed media owners
* Censored hundreds of papers
* Censored communications
* Deported a Congressman (Clement L. Vallandhigham of Ohio) who spoke against him
* Signed into law the first military conscription law
* Confiscated firearms
* Quartered soldiers on private property
Scary how Lincoln did it illegally. Our new laws slowly legitimize these acts for future powers.
I was Mr. Sony in the 90s (mini dis , vaio, etc) because I loved their technology. Now, slashdot:Microsoft::dada21:Sony.
Sony has to learn that single party closed standards won't exist for long. We won't see an open standard, but at least a consortium of different markets offers multiple profit-oriented groups some debate.
When members of a consortium debate one another, the debate is "how can I make more money?" But to make money they need not just a cost benefit, but a happy customer in the long run.
Sony alone only sees one customer base, never a good sample of need. Toshiba has two other hard hitters now, offering a larger and more varied customer base to figure out.
One scary thing: software + processor + media format giants can make the worst DRM imaginable. What if Sony pandered to Linux or OS X or just the PS3 market? Plus Sony has clout with the media distributers, whereas MS and Intel bite them in the ass because most "pirates" use MS and Intel products.
From TFA: They said the HD DVD format would make it easier for consumers to copy high-definition movies to computer hard drives. Suuuure.
TFA mentions commitments from media houses, but until I see it, I'm not believing it. If we'll have two formats, my parents will be the deciding factor, not me.
There won't be armed revolution. The Second Vermont Republic and Free State Project are both intriguing ventures.
FYI, the War Between States initially was a bloodless secession over States Rights and taxation, not slavery. Slavery was already dying out internationally due to the Industrial Revolution. Lincoln hated blacks with a passion (he wrote the Illinois law barring blacks), but he wanted to tax the South to build in the North, handing "Lincoln's Haliburton" some tasty contracts.
Check out Thomas DiLorenzo's The Real Lincoln for some shockers.
We're there already. Clay/Hamilton's American System is in full force. All that's le t is revocation of Posse Comitatus (already done, IMHO, with Katrina and Rita) and we've got tyranny without realizing it.
We have an Executive branch without restraint (War Powers Act, no real restrictions on Presidential orders, federal troops policing citizens, federal destruction of currency through inflation and cradle to grave welfare for all). We have a single party political system (look how many Democrats support the war funding, look how many Republicans support social programs). We have government control of media.
Voting is fruitless. The only way out is to mimic the Chinese -- support the black (free) markets and back out of supporting the governments by cutting their funding.
Govern - to restrict
It makes me laugh how this is a very Indian (south-asian) way of looking at things. Funny, my dad is Indian. I was not raised with these values, but I discovered them on my own after making many mistakes.
I agree with most of your paragraph starts but not finishes. I've been to every livable continent more than once, but traveled cheap. I've met responsible people of every sort. I wear very nice clothes, but if you save $5000 in a year, the clothing can be bought on interest and capital gains.
I agree about the will to provide. But that will is easily lost when you get in debt!
This article helps reinforce my constant philosophy that information is now freed of regulation and censorship, and that no law can trump humanity's moral law that makes only offensive crimes truly wrong, legally or morally.
I feel bad for the Chinese, but thankfully the ways around censorship are growing in number. We have to note these gains internationally as we watch our speech get restrained even in the U.S.
No law will prevent the average person from doing what they feel is right, which to me is proof of the inherent rights we're all born with. Every person in this world has the God-given (or inherent) right to speak. It is only government that attempts to restrain it.
Take note, your freedom to speak is declining as we support persons we vote for to further degrade our rights. As the Chinese save up to 40% of their income, they also find ways to save their rights. As we U.S. citizens look to the federal government to educate us, rebuild our mistakes and provide our retirements, we save nothing (1%) and lose rights.
I can't prove this with peer reviewed research, but I've seen happier marriages when finances are in order, debt is zero or very minimal, the family has savings and one spouse is responsible for the finances and spending.
Also, most of us pay 50% of our income in taxes -- a hidden burnout cause.
Humbug!
When my wife's web design company failed, she worked fast food starting at $6.50. Within a few months she was up to $9.50, but quit to start another business.
I skipped college. Instead I gained 4 years of real work experience at a tiny company that taught me great skills for less pay. I ran my own business, too. No college loans helped tremendously.
I networked constantly, making connections that help me years later. I followed through with my responsibilities.
Then I loaded up on debt and almost lost it all. It took me 6 years to fix 2 years of "fun."
I sent out 10 letters a week to small businesses looking for extra work. I still do. 1 in 50 call back, most give me referrals after I work for them.
If I didn't throw it away, I'd be wealthy while never earning more than $50k a year, ever. self employment gives you a lot of tax loopholes.
Yes^3!
I just posted a similar comment in the thread.
Don't just live beneath your means but well below. Save smart for 15 years (16-31) and you can be wealthier than 95% of Americans. Then marry, have kids, vacation, buy big toys. Off the interest, not the equity or future possible earnings (debt).
I am married. My wife loved the 2000 square foot trailer we found for $22,000 (foreclosure). She prefers it over our 3 bedroom $250k house a mile away. Both are in the same zip, great community.
Our lives sound almost identical (I just never had a kid).
Yet how often were you trying to keep up with the Joneses? A $60k a year job should eastily support a family of 4 if you start planning early. I'm 31 and want a kid badly but I can't do it until I'm worth about double of my current value.
IT is dying, you're right. Horse-shoers disappeared, too. IT is a commodity today. I'd recommend moving possibily, or considering starting a business, but both are hard.
I _hate_ that so many mistakes people make are societal. Go to school. Spend 28% of your gross income on a mortgage. Buy a big new car and big new TV. Eat out. Drink $7 martinis. Go on expensive vacations. Have a $50,000 wedding.
Life takes planning, saving, and caution. We used to know this as a society but now its all debt, debt, debt.
16 year olds, listen and learn:
1. Until you're 25, save every penny possible.
2. Never rent or lease.
3. Get one credit card for gas, insurance and groceries. Pay 100% monthly.
4. Never get a college loan.
5. Never buy new cars or clothes.
6. Socialize at private parties with friends who live like you.
7. Work your first jobs at small companies. Trade good pay/benefits for actual positive, marketable experience.
8. Buy a trailer or condo for cash.
9. Marry once you own your family home, debt free. Watch your girlfriend for a dark side. Stability in spending habits and emotions is key.