Archive for the 'Constitution' Category
“…by claiming that the dollars exchange rate has no effect on domestic prices, Mr. Bernanke demonstrates that he probably lacks the competence to be a bank teller, let alone Chairman of the Federal Reserve. A weaker dollar means Americans have to pay more for imported goods. But it also means domestic producers have to pay more for raw materials and imported components, which raises domestic production costs as well. It also means that more domestically produced goods are exported, reducing the supply and raising the price of what is left for Americans to consume. This is Econ 101.”
“I most emphatically do not hate America. I was not born in some foreign despotism, but in a domestic one known as Oklahoma, which I understand to be the very heart and soul of this country so far as culture and refinement are concerned. Moreover, for what it is worth, some of my ancestors had been living in North America for centuries before a handful of ragged, starving white men washed ashore on this continent, planted their flag, and claimed all the land they could see and a great deal they could not see on behalf of some sorry-ass European monarch. What chutzpah! I yield to no one in my affection for the Statue of Liberty, the Rocky Mountains, and the amber waves of grain, not to mention the celebrated jumping frog of Calaveras County. So when I am invited to get out of the country, I feel like someone living in a town taken over by the James Gang who has been told that if he doesn’t like being robbed and bullied by uninvited thugs, he should move to another town. To me, it seems much more fitting that the criminals get out.”
Standing Around While Rome Burns
Last October I spent a week in Rome. The tax police (Guardia di Finanza) were EVERYWHERE, and NO ONE was paying any tax…and the Communists were decrying government “austerity” measures;
Italy Is Not Greece
If it does turn out that Italy needs a bailout, it is going to change the entire game in Europe.
What is going on in Italy right now is potentially far more serious than what has been going on in Greece. Italy is the fourth largest economy in the European Union. If Italy requires a bailout, the rest of Europe might not be able to handle it.
An anonymous European Central Bank source told one German newspaper the following on Sunday….
“The existing rescue fund in Europe is not sufficient to provide a credible defensive wall for Italy”
The source also added that the current bailout fund “was never designed for that”.
Whenever I hear a proposal to “tax the rich”, they are talking about a couple making over $250,000 in EARNED (salary) income (or ‘S’ corporation business). I point out that in a high-cost area like New York City or Los Angeles, this would include a hypothetical couple consisting of a cop and a nurse, making a good bit of overtime, which is already drained away by high living expenses and local taxation. Peter Schiff explains why these “rich” are already being taxed at historically high levels;
“Today a married couple with a combined income of $250,000 (assuming each spouse earns 125,000) will pay about 40% of their combined incomes in Social Security, Medicare, and federal taxes, if they take the standard deduction. (I have included as part of their incomes and taxes the Social Security and Medicare taxes paid on their behalf by their employers – which in reality are borne by the employee anyway. I then added that figure to their incomes, and divided the total tax paid by that higher income. I did not factor in this year’s one time 2% payroll tax holiday.)
Compare that to a household in 1950 that earned $25,000 per year (the approximate equivalent to $250,000 today). Assuming all the income was earned by the husband, which was the norm at the time, the total tax take using the standard deduction and including both the employee and employer social security taxes, would have been just below 22%. In other words, despite claims that taxes are at their lowest levels in 50 years, today’s high earning couple pays over 80% more in federal taxes than their 1950 counterpart!”
via Don’t be Fooled by Political Posturing | Euro Pacific Capital.
This guy couldn’t reason his way out of a wet paper bag. And his subhead quote, intended of course to frighten principled anti-war people away from Dr. Paul, is dead-on;
“Welcome to Dr. Ron Paul’s (R.-Tx) prescription for America. If he ever becomes President, you won’t recognize the place.”
via Andrew Reinbach: President Ron Paul? Ron Paul and the John Birch Society.
“…libertarians have the reputation of being hardhearted. It’s not true, and Ron Paul–in so many ways–shows that. He is the Compassionate Libertarian.” – Lew Rockwell
via Lew Rockwell’s Political Theatre | The Comedy and Tragedy of the Political World.
“…the one potential Presidential candidate (Ron Paul) who wishes to stop killing innocent people in foreign wars and stop transferring the wealth of poor and working Americans to the corporate elites happens to be — this time around — a Republican.”
via Robin Koerner: If You Love Peace, Become a “Blue Republican” (Just for a Year).
You have a right to your life, you have a right to your liberty, and you have a right to your justly-acquired property. All three rights are aspects of a right to property. There is no way to derive a right to force others to pay for a service for you, whether it be healthcare or anything else. Moreover, the entire “healthcare” meme is a kind of fraud. Medical treatment has some moral sanction in society and has always been recognized as, while not a “right”, an obligation or duty placed upon the community. “Healthcare” as coined by modern statists contains a whole raft of things never dreamed of in four or more millenia of historical medicine. So even if there were some kind of vague “right” to medical treatment, appropriate to certain civilizational norms, a “right” to “healthcare” is simply a front for a particularly gross kind of corporatism, as illustrated by the ObamaCare Plan’s action of handing over 40 million new unwilling customers to the insurance companies at the point of a gun.
Ron Paul: The Only One We Can Trust – YouTube
Ron Paul: The Only One We Can Trust – YouTube.