How Much Money

Mourn For America: Whenever A Tragedy Happens They Take Even More Freedom From Us

April 21, 2013 by Michael

What in the world is happening to America? Over the past couple of decades, the federal government has used just about every major national tragedy as an excuse to take even more liberty and freedom away from us. And without a doubt, the Boston Marathon bombing was a great national tragedy. I don’t think that any of us will forget the images that we have seen over the past week. All of those responsible for this attack should be exposed, hunted down, tried and punished. Unfortunately, what always seems to happen is that it is the American people that seem to get punished the most for these tragedies. Over the past couple of decades we have been told again and again that if we will just give up a little bit more freedom that the authorities will be able to keep us safe. But you know what? It is IMPOSSIBLE for them to keep us safe. There is no way in the world that the federal government can protect us from all of the bad guys in the world. We are a country that is absolutely teeming with “soft targets” – malls, churches, schools, concerts, sporting events, etc. No matter how much money we spend, there is no way that the federal government will ever be able to provide enough security for all of those soft targets. Even if our society morphed into something that resembled George Orwell’s “1984”, the government would still never be able to guarantee our safety. Unfortunately, in the aftermath of this attack there will inevitably be calls for “increased security” and “more anti-terror legislation”. The answer always seems to be to expand the emerging police state. But it is getting to the point where all of this “security” is becoming absolutely suffocating, and yet it doesn’t seem to be keeping us any safer. So where does all of this end? Are we going to completely throw out the entire U.S. Constitution in a desperate attempt to feel a little bit safer? Or are we going to choose to live our lives without fear no matter what others may try to do to us?

Benjamin Franklin once made the following statement…

“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

Sadly, the way that the American people have responded to national tragedies over the past couple of decades would have made our founding fathers greatly ashamed. The American people have been way too willing to give up liberty in exchange for the promise of safety.

We have been told that the terrorists hate us because of our liberties and freedoms. But we have also been told that in order to be “safe” from those terrorists we have got to give up those liberties and freedoms.

So who is really winning?

We seem to have forgotten some of the most basic lessons in life.

If you cower in fear when a bully comes after you, what is the bully going to do?

The bully is just going to keep coming after you because his actions are being rewarded.

Those that are trying to create fear love it when you become fearful. It is exactly what they want.

The appropriate response to a great national tragedy is to reject fear and to continue to boldly live our lives as if nobody could ever shake us.

But instead, the atmosphere of fear in America continues to grow.

And yes, there are common sense things that our government should be doing to keep bad guys away from us.

For example, the number one thing that the federal government should be doing is to secure the border. Every single day, thousands upon thousands of people that we don’t know anything about pour into this country. And yet the federal government has absolutely refused to secure our borders for decades.

Until the federal government secures our borders, they should not ask any of us to sacrifice a single ounce of liberty or freedom in the name of “national security”.

But even as the Obama administration treats our border security like a joke and continues to import huge numbers of people from radical areas of the Middle East, they continue to tell us that “domestic terror” is the next great threat that we are facing.

Many of our other politicians are buying into this philosophy as well. Senator Lindsey Graham says that the attack in Boston is a perfect example of “why the homeland is the battlefield“.

So if “the homeland is the battlefield”, then who is the enemy?

Well, a U.S. Army Reserve training presentation recently identified evangelical Christians as “religious extremists“, and since Barack Obama entered the White House there have been numerous government reports that have identified Christians, “constitutionalists”, patriots, anti-abortion activists, conspiracy theorists and gun owners as “potential terrorists”.

So where does all of this end?

Are the American people rapidly becoming the enemy?

Will we be constantly scared to death of one another?

Will the entire nation exist in a never ending environment of fear?

Will we eventually have the TSA and the Department of Homeland Security patrolling every mall, every church, every school, every concert and every sporting event?

Unfortunately, the bad guys will always be able to find a soft target, and there will be more terror attacks in the future no matter how much security we pour on. Once upon a time this nation was greatly blessed with peace and security, but now that hedge of protection is gone. The federal government could give the Department of Homeland Security trillions of dollars a year and it would not make much of a difference. We live in a world that is becoming increasingly unstable, and bad guys are going to do bad things.

Yes, there are some common sense things that we can do to make our nation more secure. At this point, the federal government is not doing most of those things.

But no matter how hard we try, bad things are going to happen. When those bad things happen, what we can control is how we respond to them.

That is why what just happened in Boston is so alarming. The entire city was put into a complete lockdown for nearly two days. It was a preview of what could happen nationwide if martial law was declared. It was an over the top display of force that clearly demonstrated to the rest of the world how incredibly frightened we are.

Some of the things we saw in Boston were absolutely disgraceful. For example, you can see video of an innocent Watertown family being ripped out of their home at gunpoint right here.

Do you know what this tells the rest of the world?

It tells them that terrorism works.

It tells them that one small incident is enough to send the entire nation into a full-blown panic attack.

You can see some more photos of martial law in Boston right here. Instead of making things better, this is just going to make the atmosphere of fear in this nation even worse.

And you know what? None of those heavily armed men even found the second suspect. He was actually found by a neighbor that had gone out to take a smoke.

Like most Americans, I absolutely hate terrorism in all the forms that it takes.

But we are not going to prevent future terrorism by treating the U.S. Constitution like a piece of trash. We have now shown the world that we are willing to throw out our most important constitutional rights the moment that a “threat” arises, and this is just going to encourage even more terrorism.

You see, those that engage in terrorism want attention and they want to create fear. When we give them attention and we allow them to create fear we give them exactly what they want.

Is there anyone out there that can defend what we just saw in Boston? I can’t imagine any American that still loves the Constitution being proud of what just happened. I think that Karl Denninger put it quite eloquently the other day…

By effectively occupying a part of the Boston metro area they made an utter mockery of the 4th Amendment. There was no “hot pursuit” and thus no argument available to them allowing searches of private property without consent or a warrant. Not only did they search without a warrant there were multiple reports through the day of seizure of firearms, among other things.

Sadly, most Americans seem to be more than willing to disregard the U.S. Constitution these days. Most of them are incredibly scared and they just want someone in a position of authority to assure them that they will be safe.

So I am sure that in the months ahead we will see “security” get even tighter in this country. With each subsequent tragedy, it will just get tighter and tighter until we can barely even breathe.

This is not the answer to any of our problems. In fact, it is just going to make many of the problems that we are facing as a nation far worse.

3.6 Million Taxpayer Dollars Being Used To Support The Lavish Lifestyles Of Former Presidents Such As Bush And Clinton

May 10, 2012 by Michael

You are not going to believe how much money is being spent on our former presidents. At a time when U.S. government spending is wildly out of control, a total of 3.6 million dollars is being used to support the lavish lifestyles of former presidents such as George W. Bush and Bill Clinton in 2012. For 2013, the plan is to increase that amount to 3.7 million dollars. But do any of them really need this kind of welfare? The truth is that all of them are very wealthy. So what justification is there for giving them so much money? You can see the GSA budget proposal for former presidents for 2013 right here. The 3.7 million dollars for 2013 does not even include the cost of Secret Service protection. Rather, it only covers expenses such as office rentals, travel, phone bills, postage, printing and pension benefits. Certainly it is not unreasonable to grant former presidents a small pension, but should we be showering them with millions of dollars each year? At a time when the federal government is drowning in so much debt, the fact that these former presidents are willing to take such huge amounts of taxpayer money really does make them look like parasites.

So why are these former presidents getting this money?

Congress passed The Former Presidents Act of 1958 because they didn’t want other presidents to end up as poor as Harry Truman did.

Well, these days former presidents are definitely not in danger of ending up poor. But this law does enable former presidents to stick the U.S. taxpayer with some absolutely outrageous bills.

For example, George W. Bush is scheduled to get $1,356,000 from U.S. taxpayers in 2013.

$85,000 of that will be for phone expenses.

He must have a really, really bad calling plan.

Bill Clinton is scheduled to get $1,019,000 from U.S. taxpayers in 2013.

A whopping $442,000 of that will be for office space.

That breaks down to more than $36,000 a month.

I hope that office space is nice.

Perhaps he needs a lot of office space to hide from Hillary.

George H.W. Bush is scheduled to get $879,000 from U.S. taxpayers in 2013.

$63,000 of that total will be going toward “equipment”.

How many iPads does he really need?

Even the old peanut farmer, Jimmy Carter, will be getting $518,000 from U.S. taxpayers in 2013.

But do they even need this money?

Exactly how wealthy are these former presidents?

Well, it turns out that they are very, very wealthy.

Bill Clinton earned an estimated $41 million in speaking fees during the first six years after he left office. He also received a $12 million advance for for his memoir, “My Life”.

George W. Bush earned an estimated $15 million in speaking fees during just the first two years after he left office.

So why are we spending millions to support these guys?

Perhaps this is yet another question that we don’t have an answer to. We can add it to the list….

-Why do chimps throw poop?

The federal government has spent $592,527 to try to find the answer.

-Do unhappy people spend more time on Twitter or on Facebook?

The federal government has spent $198,000 in an attempt to get an answer.

-How do rats respond to jazz music when they are high on cocaine?

Your tax dollars are being spent to get to the bottom of it.

-Does cocaine cause Japanese quail to engage in sexually risky behavior?

The federal government has spent $175,587 to find out the truth.

Right now there are more than 100 million working age Americans that do not have jobs, and this is the kind of nonsense that the federal government is spending money on.

Shame on these former presidents for taking this money.

If our Congress critters are looking for a place to cut the federal budget, this would be a good place to start.

Class Warfare Is Being Used To Divide America – And It Is Working

April 30, 2012 by Michael

At a time when America desperately needs to come together, we are becoming more divided than ever. The mainstream media and most of our politicians love to pit us against one another in dozens of different ways, and right now class warfare has become one of their favorite tools for getting us to hate one another. If you are struggling in this economy, you are being told that “the wealthy” are the cause of your problems. If you have money, you are being told that the poor hate you and want to tax you into oblivion. Class warfare has already become a dominant theme in the 2012 race for the White House, and there will certainly be endless speeches given along these lines by politicians from both major political parties all the way up to election day. Class warfare will be used by both sides as a way to divide America and get votes. And the frightening thing is that it is clearly working. There is more hatred between the poor and the wealthy in America today than at any other time that I can remember. But hating people because of how much money they have or don’t have is not going to solve anything. Instead, it is just going to cause more problems.

The other day, Yale economics professor Robert Shiller told CNBC that the globe is already in a state of “late Great Depression“. The United States is heading into unprecedented economic and financial problems and we desperately need to pull together as a country and solve these problems.

But instead, our leaders are tapping into the politics of division in a desperate attempt to get elected in the fall.

Rather than focus on real issues and real solutions, our politicians attempt to make “the wealthy” or “welfare recipients” the focus of our debates.

Well, you know what?

Most people that are rich and most people that are poor are not purposely trying to abuse the system. Most of them are hard working people that are trying to do the best that they can in a world that is increasingly going crazy.

These days, the Occupy Wall Street crowd loves to talk about how evil the “1 percent” is. But most of the “1 percent” are people that have worked really hard and that have been fortunate enough to get some really good breaks in life.

Yes, there are some among the “1 percent” that do some really bad things. The too big to fail banks and the big money managers on Wall Street should be held accountable for the crimes that they have committed.

But most wealthy Americans are not trying to oppress the poor. Most of them are just trying to do the best that they can for themselves and their families.

Neither are most poor people trying to abuse the system either.

Yes, without a doubt there are some that do not want to work and that want to live on government benefits indefinitely.

But that is a minority.

Most Americans that are receiving government benefits today would rather be working good jobs that would enable them to provide for their families.

Most Americans understand that government handouts can never provide dignity and hope for a better future.

But if you don’t demonize the poor and you point out the decline of the middle class, many Republicans will call you a “liberal” or a “socialist”.

And if you don’t demonize the rich and you don’t blame them for all of our economic problems, many Democrats will call you a “pig” or a “fascist”.

Unfortunately, playing the blame game is not going to get us anywhere.

The number of Americans living in poverty increased dramatically under George W. Bush and it also increased dramatically under Barack Obama.

Our country is drowning in debt, millions of our jobs are being shipped overseas, the middle class is shrinking at an astounding pace, and the Federal Reserve continues to destroy our financial system.

Getting angry at the wealthy or the poor is not going to fix those problems.

But it will distract us from the reality that both major political parties have been doing a horrible job.

Sadly, Americans seem to really enjoy blaming one another these days. Just check out some of the slogans that have been seen on various signs at Occupy Wall Street protests….

“They Only Call It Class Warfare When We Fight Back”

“Eat The Rich – Feed The Poor”

“The Rich Are Wrecking The Planet”

So will destroying the lives of the rich solve our problems?

Of course not.

The truth is that we should want millions more Americans to be prosperous. We should be cheering for one another instead of tearing one another down.

But that is heresy to many on the left.

On the right, it is heresy even to mention that our tax system is fundamentally flawed and that it has thousands of loopholes that are being abused by the very wealthy.

In a previous article, I detailed how many of the largest and most profitable corporations in America get away with paying absolutely nothing in taxes.

There is something very wrong with that.

Our income tax system should be abolished altogether, but if we do have to pay income taxes, then it is fundamentally unfair for some people and businesses to be able to pay little or nothing while the rest of us get absolutely obliterated by taxes.

But if you try to say that to many on the right, they will look at you in horror.

The other day, there was a New York Times article that detailed the extreme measures that Apple takes to avoid paying taxes. It turns out that Apple sets up shell offices all over the globe in order to evade taxation….

As it has in Nevada, Apple has created subsidiaries in low-tax places like Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and the British Virgin Islands — some little more than a letterbox or an anonymous office — that help cut the taxes it pays around the world.

That same article talked about how Apple has become a model which hundreds of other companies have followed. To giant corporations such as Apple, tax evasion has become an art form….

Apple, for instance, was among the first tech companies to designate overseas salespeople in high-tax countries in a manner that allowed them to sell on behalf of low-tax subsidiaries on other continents, sidestepping income taxes, according to former executives. Apple was a pioneer of an accounting technique known as the “Double Irish With a Dutch Sandwich,” which reduces taxes by routing profits through Irish subsidiaries and the Netherlands and then to the Caribbean. Today, that tactic is used by hundreds of other corporations — some of which directly imitated Apple’s methods, say accountants at those companies.

So what is the solution to all of this?

Raising income taxes won’t work too well because the tax lawyers are always several steps ahead of our politicians.

The truth is that when taxes get raised it is always the middle class that gets absolutely clobbered and the wealthy always find more ways to reduce their exposure.

Just take a look at Mitt Romney. He made more than 42 million dollars in 2010 and yet Romney had an effective tax rate of only 14 percent.

If I could find a way to have an effective tax rate of only 14 percent I would be jumping up and down for joy, and so would millions of other Americans.

Our tax system is deeply, deeply broken and needs to be thrown into the trash can.

Abandoning the current tax system would not solve all of our problems, but it would be a start.

Unfortunately, neither political party is willing to even consider this.

Instead, the Democrats want to raise taxes a little bit and the Republicans want to lower taxes a little bit.

But neither alternative will do much of anything to solve any of the real problems we are facing.

Our economy is dying and it is not producing nearly enough jobs for all of us. When Barack Obama took office, the number of “long-term unemployed workers” in America was 2.6 million. Today, it is 5.3 million.

At this point, an astounding 53 percent of all college graduates under the age of 25 are either unemployed or underemployed.

So where is all of the “change” that Obama promised?

Things just keep getting worse.

Since Obama has been in the White House, 14 million more Americans have gone on food stamps, and more than 25 percent of all American children are enrolled in the program today.

How will class warfare help those people?

Will blaming the wealthy make things better for them?

They are already receiving government handouts.

Will increasing those handouts a little bit more fundamentally change their lives for the better?

Of course not.

What those people need are good jobs.

But instead, both the Democrats and the Republicans continue to pursue the same job killing policies that have been destroying American jobs for decades.

Without good jobs, the number of Americans dependent on the government is going to continue to grow.

In a previous article, I detailed the explosive growth of social welfare benefits that we have seen under both Republicans and Democrats….

Back in 1960, social welfare benefits made up approximately 10 percent of all salaries and wages. In the year 2000, social welfare benefits made up approximately 21 percent of all salaries and wages. Today, social welfare benefits make up approximately 35 percent of all salaries and wages.

The goal should not be to rape the rich and give out even more social welfare benefits.

Instead, the goal should be to develop an economy that creates good jobs.

We need have an economy that empowers individuals and small businesses.

Instead, we have an economy dominated by big government and big corporations.

We have an economy that funnels the vast majority of the economic rewards to a tiny elite while most of the rest of us struggle.

Just consider the following statistics….

*Back in the 1970s, the top 1 percent of all income earners in the United States brought in about 8 percent of all income. Today, they bring in about 21 percent of all income.

*The following is how income gains in the U.S. were distributed during 2010….

-37 percent of all income gains went to the top 0.01 percent of all income earners

-56 percent of all income gains went to the rest of the top 1 percent

-7 percent of all income gains went to the bottom 99 percent

*In America today, the wealthiest one percent of all Americans have a greater net worth than the bottom 90 percent combined.

*According to Forbes, the 400 wealthiest Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans combined.

So what is the solution to that problem?

Is it to attack the rich and take away all their money and give more government handouts to the poor?

Of course not.

Rather, we need to change the rules of the game so that individuals and small businesses are empowered to succeed.

We need to decentralize economic power and dramatically reduce the undue influence that big government and giant corporations have over our economic system.

We need to create an environment where almost anyone that has a good idea and that is willing to work hard can succeed.

But instead of focusing on real solutions like shutting down the Federal Reserve, converting to debt-free currency, eliminating the income tax, shutting down the IRS, massively reducing the size of government and getting rid of thousands upon thousands of unneeded regulations, the mainstream media and our politicians are going to continue to try to get Americans to blame one another for our problems.

The efforts to divide America are working, and hatred is growing to unprecedented levels in this country.

Eventually this will lead to mass rioting in our major cities and that will make our problems far worse.

Hatred and division are not going to bring us a better future.

They are only going to destroy us from within.

We don’t need hate.

What we need is more love and more solutions.

Unfortunately, our leaders are leading us down a very dark path, and we are heading for a future that is going to be a complete mess.

Everything Is Going To Be Alright?

March 30, 2012March 30, 2012 by Michael

Is the U.S. economy going to be okay? Well, if the only source you listened to was the mainstream media, you would be left with the distinct impression that the U.S. economy is heading toward a full recovery and that everything is going to be alright. Unfortunately, that is not the case at all. The United States is rapidly becoming poorer as a nation and less competitive in the global marketplace. At the same time, consumer debt levels are rising, corporate debt levels are rising, state and local government debt levels are rising and the U.S. government is indulging in a debt binge unlike anything the world has ever seen. Considering the insane amount of money the U.S. government has been pumping into the economy, we should have seen a much more robust recovery by now. Instead, the employment statistics have barely moved and government dependence is at an all-time high. That is really sad, because this is as good as “the recovery” is going to get. The next major economic downturn is just around the bend, and in future years millions of us will desperately yearn for the “good old days” of 2012.

Below, I have compiled a list of things that I have entitled “Everything Is Going To Be Alright?”

It is composed in the form of a song, but it really isn’t meant to be sung. It is probably actually more of an economic horror poem than it is a song. What I have tried to do is to point out the absurdity of what we are all being told by our politicians and by the media. Hopefully you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it….

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Yahoo is going to be laying off thousands of workers starting next work.