Intending to do away with Your Property

OK I am TICKED off, so you, Reader, get another Blog posting. I have listened to this JTP, Joe The Plumber, who queried Oblama on his tax plan. I have also listened to Barry O's straight up response to him, which to Barry's credit, clearly states what his intensions are: to take the wealth from Joe, and "spread it around" to others, whose collective (implicit) merit for deserving Joe's wealth is the Sole Characteristic that they do not currently possess it. In other words, Oblama's plan is to take from those whom he deems to "have too much" and because of his own moral superiority and enhanced socially enlightened state, is more worthy than you to choose several important things:

1. He positions himself as able to determine when YOU have earned too much (forget the idea that he has been self-appointed to determine that it's possible that you can earn too much). His focus is not on that you have earned it - that doesn't matter (because Merit doesn't matter and Private Property also doesn't matter to Big O). What does matter is that someone else now doesn't have it (what you earned), and therefore...

2. He also positions himself as more worthy than you to determine who deserves your "excess" wealth (forget the idea that you may not view it as "excess"). Big O will decide How Much is Too Much for you to earn, and he'll take your property, your earnings, and give that to some ones who did nothing to earn it, some ones who added no socially redeeming value to society.

3. He also chooses to Penalize Productivity. In coming out of the closet with this whole notion of "spreading the wealth", he exhibits a fundamental ignorance of the fountainhead of wealth: innovation and creativity undertaken by risk-takers. When you remove incentives from risk-takers, in today's (truly global) economy, you peel off steam and momentum from the Prime Driver of Jobs, Profit, and Growth: innovation.

In short, Oblama's plan is Intending to do away with Your Property (your money is your property, right?). Here's the part that ought to totally creep you out (it ought to creep you out because we have a Historical Record of the abysmal failure of this approach - let me explain...):

The notion of intending to do away with your property (your money) was first served up by one Karl Marx, in the Communist Manifesto, chapter two, Proletarians and Communists, and I quote:

"In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend." (see this link for more details: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/mantwo.asp

You Bet, I reproach you for intending to do away with my property. I reproach anyone who would go after the benefit of my labors, which are for my children, for my household, for my posterity, and for the common good of my world, as I choose to contribute it (I have given hsitorically at least 13% of my income away toward charity, so there's not a contradiction between my speech and my actions). And finally, I reproach anyone who would espouse any tenant of Communist doctrine (the redistribution of wealth is a core doctrine of communism), who would also be President.

If you were on the fence before, I'd think, I'd hope that this clearly stated position, which is impossible to misunderstand ought to seal it for you. Now, it's just an IQ test for you, or perhaps, more objectively, a values test.

One final question: can you think of any example in history, where the taking of marginal income from a high wage earner, and redistributing that money to someone who earns less, is there any historical example of that lower wage earner getting ahead financially because of that action? In other words, has the Government ever helped you become successful financially (I exclude senators and congressmen from this line of questioning)? The answer is no. There is no historical record of somone who is an average or below average wage earner increasing their personal long term wealth, or bettering their circumstances, from a small incremental check. Why? Because those funds are not invested, where they will yield returns for that person. They are consumed (perhaps because of the present economic realities of that person's checkbook). So wow, Big O cannot even be a Smart Communist. A Smart Communist is one who offers to take money from the Rich, and invests it for the rest of us, and gives it to us later, with interest, because he, the Smart One, has more wisely invested your funds than you could ever have done so for yourself (that ought to make you laugh or puke or cry or something; if you nodded on that one, you are too stupid to read my blog - go away and don't come back).

Alright, if I haven't made my point on this whole "spread the wealth" insanity, either I am linguistically inept, or you will never get it. Oh yeah, and VOTE. Even if you vote for Big O, VOTE. It's your civic duty. You do believe in Duty, don't you?

Thanks for playing. :^/

The "Get 'Em All" Economic Policy

OK first off, readers, I wish to offer my apology for failing to stand up a posting for over 3 months. No excuse. I am committed to doing this much more frequently (doesn't sound like a measurable commitment, I know, I know). Seems that if something intrigues me sufficiently, or if something sets me off sufficiently, I put up a posting. Well, the latter has occurred.

A lot has happened in the last 30 days. 3 presidential-type debates have occurred. 2 trillion in losses have been rung up for investors on Wall Street. 700 billion in taxpayer dollars have been committed - with at best loose conditions and governance - to attempt to fix the commercial credit market, lest it send the economy into a nose-dive. I refuse to look at my 401k statement, lest I do something stupid or panicky. And I am ticked off.

I am ticked at several groups of people. First I am ticked at those who sponsored and passed the Community Revitalization Act, and appended it with financial penalties to banking institutions who failed to loan mortgages to individuals and couples who could not afford it. If you can't afford it, you don't get it. How hard is that? Second, I am livid with those who set up Fannie and Freddie, allowing such a fast-and-loose charter and motus operandi. Who lets a financial institution play such shell games with lousy mortgage portfolios, and call them "securities". Does anyone see the irony in that name besides me? How about "insecurities"? How about "high risk trash debt Paper"? How about "Microwaved crap covered in a chocolate sauce, wrapped in Paper?" How about "Rotten fish and cabbage hash served on Paper?" How about "Trade your cash for used toilet Paper". Third, I am seething with anger against those who oversaw the banking and financial committees in Congress, who either failed to take action, or were even so brazen as to block attempts to rope in Freddie and Fannie via regulation. Fourth, I am beside myself with hostility and frustration over those responsible to nail butts to the wall within the SEC, FDIC, SDIC, whoever, who had the power and authority to do something to stop the fraud wrought by Freddie and Fannie, the insurance companies (AIG), and the banking and investment communities, from repackaging this crap, leveraging the living crap out of it, and calling it an investment, scamming and gaming the World for their own profit. Fifth, I am loaded gun pissed at those lenders, mortgage brokers, and all other purveyors of bad lending advise, bad lending practice, dream-selling pushers of these financially irresponsible loans that were based solely on the bet (and that's what it was, a gamble) that the housing market would sufficiently appreciate to allow them to later get into a real loan that they could afford, while having the house they can't afford now. Lastly, I am angry at all those who think or believe that I as a taxpayer am in any way responsible for the financial stupidity, ignorance, or speculation (it's 90% the latter) of people who are now in default or approaching default on their crap mortgage. Sure, it kills my property value when 5 homes on my long block are bank-owned. Sure, it's financially painful. But why add to that pain by making me pay (and trust you me, I will pay, and so will you) to cover the personal bets of people who could not afford a home mortgage. Is that how it is in this country? We reward the Gamblers, the Scammers, the Stupid, the Irresponsible, the Negligent, and we go to the hard working honest responsible tax base to cover their financial bleeding?

Which brings me to the point of my "Get 'Em All" Economic Policy. There's one easy surefire way for either candidate to win this election: have a Get 'Em All Economic Policy. Proclaim to the nation that you will, upon entering into office, Get 'Em All. You'll get the incompetent or otherwise politically sequestered regulators for failing to do their jobs. You'll get the Freddie and Fannie executives who raped those institutions, get the money back and throw their butts in jail for 20 years at a minimum. You'll burn Fannie's and Freddie's charters, and write new ones, which are built upon the foundations of personal responsibility, and not socialist illusions of home ownership as a right for all. You'll get the bank executives who let their institutions run into the ground, and extract your FDIC account guarantee payouts from their accounts, so the taxpayer burden is relieved. You'll get the insurance and banking and securities execs who gamed these lousy mortgage portfolios into leveraged "securities". You'll throw them in jail, and take it out of their financial portfolios to pay back the taxpayer. And lastly, you will get, call out, and publicly shame every Congressman who was party to this whole national raping, and expose them to the most robust corruption and ethics investigation your administration can muster. In short, you will absolutely make it your quest to start your own Global War on Financial Domestic Terrorists. Because that's what they all are, from Congress, to the Administration, to Fannie and Freddie, their own Frankensteins, to the banking and investment communities, and let us not forget, the millions of stupid idiots who took out loans they could not afford. Get 'Em All.

In closing (I am feeling better already, by the way), let's take a moment to address the American Dream. Both parties subscribe to being champions of the American Dream. However, one party thinks that dream is ok all the way up to $250k. At that point, their policy is Get 'Em All! For those of us who aspire to that kind of income some day, who among us is the kind of dipstick that thinks these people really believe in the American Dream. Only the Stupid Among Us believes that. OK, I'm all better now. But I am still fightin' mad.

Thanks for playing. :^/