If we ever again issued money with real Constitutional value, what would we do about the fact we are $11T in FRN debt to a private bank with global power? We smartly say, "Tell them to write it off," but can we actually do that? Can any debtor "repeal" the bank to which he is indebted? What would we tell the world when they come to cash in the trillions of FRNs they are holding as oil reserve accounts, bonds, investments in US corporations, and other such instruments of the arcane world of global finance? What would the Treasury tell them, and what would the Fed say?
What about all of us non-corporate non-capitalized just regular ol' peckerwoods? Apart from a few coin-collection curiosities worth many times more FRNs than their face value, who among us has any real Constitutional dollars? Nobody. Mostly, we don't even have FRNs, we only have numbers in some bank's computerized account somewhere, and most of us are upside-down mortgaged, credit-card maxed, and have no real property of any value whatsoever. If we take our digital FRNs to the new treasury, how many will we need to buy one real gold dollar? 2000/1? 20,000? How many Euros will it take to buy one gold dollar, when a million old FRNs won't buy one Euro?
Just who actually owns America's gold now, the Treasury?... or the Fed which issued trillions more in FRNs than the Constitutional value of the "reserves" on which our gold-certificate money was first printed, and replaced by fiat trade paper? Can the Fed "repossess" that gold collateral for non-payment of FRN debt... or has it done that already?
Would we spend our new real money to buy the rare-earth metals and other non-US natural resources we need to defend ourselves if we shook our pretty high-tech sabres (using Japanese chips made in China) and told the rest of the world to eat their losses?
Do you suppose at some point the world-ignorant, provincial-minded, isolationist, bigoted, consumer-obese, doctor-addicted, mortgaged, and nationally indebted American people will have to be taught that our country, like all the rest, is simply a big self-defined club with rules and dues, in legal fact just a corporation with a bank account and an (overdue) credit line, and not the uniquely-blessed, exceptional, and immeasurably-superior ordained and entitled National Creation of Abraham's God Himself we have let the teachers, preachers, politicians, and pundits tell us it is?
Friday, July 29, 2011
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Self-Evident Tax Facts?
I am no economist. I have always been a low-income person, unsuccessfully self-employed, and have never had savings or owned a share of stock. I did have credit cards once, and I learned some things that seem obvious, but which appear to elude the economists and most Americans.
#1. It is not possible to reduce debt merely by reducing the rate at which one goes deeper into debt. That is what “reducing the deficit” means. To reduce the debt, at some point someone must actually pay it.
#2. Unlike business, government sells neither product nor service, and earns no profits. Government has only two sources of revenue: borrow from the bank on the people’s credit card, or collect taxes. Borrowing does not reduce the debt, it increases it. Only by taxing somebody can government pay down the debt.
#3. Those who have nothing cannot be taxed. There are only two groups of Americans who can be taxed: the capitalists who own the money, and the workers they pay for their labor. If the voters can be persuaded to free the capitalists from taxes, then clearly the only way to pay the debt is to tax the workers.
To propagate the illusion that neither the capitalist nor the worker gets taxed, the Repos claim to ease the debt by taking away the little bit the government gives to those who already have the least, and the Demos “reluctantly” let them. Then the government borrows more money from the banks, gives it to the capitalists who (we hope) employ more workers, who can then be taxed to pay the debt. The capitalist gets the money, and charges interest you must pay, and gets the hours of your life and the fruits of your labor… and you pay for it with tax on your income. Why?
The answer is tragic. The Repubs cater openly to the capitalists, in ideology and action; the Demos to the “middle class” -- that is, the well-employed and well-mortgaged workers. Neither will mention, or even give a name to that huge stratum of us below the middle class. There are two groups of these: the working poor, less-than-$10/hr folks, and those who have no working income at all, and live on government support or petty crime. The Repos get the workers to vote against their own interest by inciting fear that the Demos will tax away their jobs and give the money to that lowest stratum, often as not by pointing out they no speakee English, are not real Christians, and have more children than white people do. It is a shame they do it, and it is a shame that it so often works.
Is it true that if government provides a service to all of its people, that is “socialism” and should be avoided? If democratic government does not actually provide some real and tangible service to the people, all the people, then of what good is it? Do we really believe the best government should be a propaganda machine of power and law enforcement by which the capitalists are enabled to control, indebt, and exploit the people as a worker- soldier- consumer- taxpayer mass? If enough of the anthro-livestock are living fat, dumb, and happy lives, and the rest of us varmints are kept under tight enough control, is that really the American dream come true?
James Post
Mr. President, Have You Lied To Get My Money?
#1. It is not possible to reduce debt merely by reducing the rate at which one goes deeper into debt. That is what “reducing the deficit” means. To reduce the debt, at some point someone must actually pay it.
#2. Unlike business, government sells neither product nor service, and earns no profits. Government has only two sources of revenue: borrow from the bank on the people’s credit card, or collect taxes. Borrowing does not reduce the debt, it increases it. Only by taxing somebody can government pay down the debt.
#3. Those who have nothing cannot be taxed. There are only two groups of Americans who can be taxed: the capitalists who own the money, and the workers they pay for their labor. If the voters can be persuaded to free the capitalists from taxes, then clearly the only way to pay the debt is to tax the workers.
To propagate the illusion that neither the capitalist nor the worker gets taxed, the Repos claim to ease the debt by taking away the little bit the government gives to those who already have the least, and the Demos “reluctantly” let them. Then the government borrows more money from the banks, gives it to the capitalists who (we hope) employ more workers, who can then be taxed to pay the debt. The capitalist gets the money, and charges interest you must pay, and gets the hours of your life and the fruits of your labor… and you pay for it with tax on your income. Why?
The answer is tragic. The Repubs cater openly to the capitalists, in ideology and action; the Demos to the “middle class” -- that is, the well-employed and well-mortgaged workers. Neither will mention, or even give a name to that huge stratum of us below the middle class. There are two groups of these: the working poor, less-than-$10/hr folks, and those who have no working income at all, and live on government support or petty crime. The Repos get the workers to vote against their own interest by inciting fear that the Demos will tax away their jobs and give the money to that lowest stratum, often as not by pointing out they no speakee English, are not real Christians, and have more children than white people do. It is a shame they do it, and it is a shame that it so often works.
Is it true that if government provides a service to all of its people, that is “socialism” and should be avoided? If democratic government does not actually provide some real and tangible service to the people, all the people, then of what good is it? Do we really believe the best government should be a propaganda machine of power and law enforcement by which the capitalists are enabled to control, indebt, and exploit the people as a worker- soldier- consumer- taxpayer mass? If enough of the anthro-livestock are living fat, dumb, and happy lives, and the rest of us varmints are kept under tight enough control, is that really the American dream come true?
James Post
Mr. President, Have You Lied To Get My Money?
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Who Do You Expect To Have To Shoot?
For the problem of deciding just what “arms” we ought to take steps to obtain for ourselves, whether covered by the 2nd Amendment or not, I’d say the answer depends on first getting a clear picture of just whom you expect to have to shoot.
1. Government troops. Fuggittaboutit! When we talk about our legal right to "arms" we are at the level of a semi-automatic rifle and a sidearm. As a gunship jock in the days before the stand-off satellite-aimed stuff, I have some sense of how small groups of men armed with rifles stand up against US military tech, even if they are well organized, and indomitably motivated to resist the power of Washington. As we proved in a few days in Iraq, even 100,000 men marching with rifles or dug in with 1000 tanks are only an inconvenience to modern US warfare and law enforcement. Resisting a Federal badge with your AR-15 is at best a suicidal gesture in which you might kill a few good American heroes in uniform, and do some collateral damage too. You'll make the News, and Tommy Lee Jones will play you in the movie.
As for discussing arms technology that might effectively resist US SEALs or SWATs (which discussion could arguably be considered an act of terrorist conspiracy), you should ask an Afghan vet... I mean, you know, one of them. Given a credit card at Home Depot and the weekend to do it, could you build an IED that will stop a tank... or even a Subaru?
2. Gangs. This one is tough too. When bourgeois order breaks down, especially under a militant security regime, the structure which survives best is gangism. Mexico is a perfect example. The pot-smuggling industry on which northern Mexico's sub-middle-class economy depended was well ordered, large old families with acreage, connections, a living for the peasant farmer, etc. We armed the Mexican DEA and turned them against that structure. Now the only structure ruthless enough to deal with the armed DEA and still serve the market is the gangs. They dropped most of the pot, abandoned the farmers, and switched to meth and guns. We pack them into prison and turn them into tightly organized utterly ruthless cadres of homicidal raiders... who hate you a lot more than you think you hate Borax Obonga or the Bible Nazis. Belonging to a tougher gang is your only hope, and you'd better have access to black market arms a LOT more powerful than the sports plinkers Massa Washington will give you permission to own, whether you vote Red Hat or Blue Hat.
3. Your neighbors. This is the most likely, and the easiest to take care of. You start now with a purse pistol, and classes to know how to use it. Learn. You recognize that it doesn't matter what armament the law says you may own, it only matters what you do own. You tell no one what you own. You keep it clean and out of sight. If you live in a place where you truly expect you are going to need it for self defense, you might consider the wisdom of a pre-emptive cleansing of your neighborhood before waiting to be placed in an untenable defensive position... and get away with it.
[Plug: I get into this idea pretty deep in my book KALISNACHT.
1. Government troops. Fuggittaboutit! When we talk about our legal right to "arms" we are at the level of a semi-automatic rifle and a sidearm. As a gunship jock in the days before the stand-off satellite-aimed stuff, I have some sense of how small groups of men armed with rifles stand up against US military tech, even if they are well organized, and indomitably motivated to resist the power of Washington. As we proved in a few days in Iraq, even 100,000 men marching with rifles or dug in with 1000 tanks are only an inconvenience to modern US warfare and law enforcement. Resisting a Federal badge with your AR-15 is at best a suicidal gesture in which you might kill a few good American heroes in uniform, and do some collateral damage too. You'll make the News, and Tommy Lee Jones will play you in the movie.
As for discussing arms technology that might effectively resist US SEALs or SWATs (which discussion could arguably be considered an act of terrorist conspiracy), you should ask an Afghan vet... I mean, you know, one of them. Given a credit card at Home Depot and the weekend to do it, could you build an IED that will stop a tank... or even a Subaru?
2. Gangs. This one is tough too. When bourgeois order breaks down, especially under a militant security regime, the structure which survives best is gangism. Mexico is a perfect example. The pot-smuggling industry on which northern Mexico's sub-middle-class economy depended was well ordered, large old families with acreage, connections, a living for the peasant farmer, etc. We armed the Mexican DEA and turned them against that structure. Now the only structure ruthless enough to deal with the armed DEA and still serve the market is the gangs. They dropped most of the pot, abandoned the farmers, and switched to meth and guns. We pack them into prison and turn them into tightly organized utterly ruthless cadres of homicidal raiders... who hate you a lot more than you think you hate Borax Obonga or the Bible Nazis. Belonging to a tougher gang is your only hope, and you'd better have access to black market arms a LOT more powerful than the sports plinkers Massa Washington will give you permission to own, whether you vote Red Hat or Blue Hat.
3. Your neighbors. This is the most likely, and the easiest to take care of. You start now with a purse pistol, and classes to know how to use it. Learn. You recognize that it doesn't matter what armament the law says you may own, it only matters what you do own. You tell no one what you own. You keep it clean and out of sight. If you live in a place where you truly expect you are going to need it for self defense, you might consider the wisdom of a pre-emptive cleansing of your neighborhood before waiting to be placed in an untenable defensive position... and get away with it.
[Plug: I get into this idea pretty deep in my book KALISNACHT.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Why Not The FEDMED Hospital System?
CLEAN THE PARASITES OUT OF MEDICARE!
Some things, like national defense, are best done by a disciplined and highly motivated agency of state, that is, by socialism. The correct way to solve Medicare is simple: socialize it, and remove the parasites. I do not mean those who need medical care, I mean the INSURANCE INDUSTRY which profits on every stitch and pill by what is in fact a rigged form of gambling, and for whom actually providing medical care is not the objective. No, providing medical care is on the expense side of their ledger, something they want to minimize. (This is basic MBA duuh stuff, like creating jobs. Companies do not want to create jobs, which are labor costs they don’t want if they don't have to. Given money to expand, they prefer to cut labor and invest in more profitable alternatives, not hire a bunch of pedal-pumpers as some sort of political gesture. “Tax breaks create jobs,” is a pathetic lie to get workers to vote conservative in fear of losing their jobs, and the unemployed to vote red in the hope of being hired.)
As with the care provided to wounded soldiers by the Army Medical Corps, government could pay directly for the actual care, at the lowest possible wholesale cost. ZERO to insurance premiums, and no fat commissions for commissioners and contractors. Should this be the only way then, and replace what we have now? NO. Keep the private sector business exactly as it is, and if you want to buy their insurance and receive their services, you go right ahead. The Federal Medical Corps would operate in coincidental competition with the private sector hospital system, but not as a controlling entity or sub-contracting agency. It would not impose standards on the AMA hospitals and staff, and it would not take its standards from those, but could operate as its Flag Officers and Cabinet Secretary determined best for its mission.
If you were willing to go into the FEDMED hospital, or a VA hospital, or an Army field hospital and take what you get there.... would that be bad? NO. Our military Medical Corps are the excellent example: they work for the same salaries as other officers and troops, with the same gung-ho attitude that means giving the most medical care (not making the most money) to those they serve (the sick and wounded, not boards of employers), from a sense of pride and true service to America, exactly like the grunts on the line and jet jocks and rotorheads feel. Ask the troops how they feel about trusting their medics to save their lives. What soldiers do every day is heroic, and what their medics do every day is miraculous. I believe such a uniformed domestic US Medical Corps, just like the Coast Guard or the Air Force, would have the same esprit de corps, professionalism and top-only standards as the Marines, and would eagerly strive to best serve every human being who came into the place with the best they have, regardless of that patient’s gender, race, rank, religion, registration, or insurance coverage.
This would provide real medical care (not bullslick insurance coupons) to the deep class of Americans who are below even the working poor stratum, many of whom have never had insurance in their lives, though seniors now. It would really create good living wage jobs for thousands of people with medical skills, and for construction and maintenance jobs too. It would cost bupkis compared to collecting profitable insurance premiums with the IRS and the courts, and paying the profitable medical industry the gluttonously inflated costs of providing that same medical care. The socialist FEDMED system would be much less expensive than what we are paying now, and would provide better day-to-day "old country doctor" type common health care to all of us except the rich, who presumably will still choose to patronize the insurance companies and hospitals they have now, and good for them, as those hospitals are truly awesome and a blessing for those who can afford them. It is a win/win situation for both the best of a socialist system and the best of the free market too. Well, it will be a little rough on big capitalist medbiz and the insurance guys, but hey, a big racket is still a racket, right? If real care and real economy are the objectives, then you either take the rackets down, or you end-run them as I have suggested here.
James Post www.postpubco.com/anticyclops.htm
Some things, like national defense, are best done by a disciplined and highly motivated agency of state, that is, by socialism. The correct way to solve Medicare is simple: socialize it, and remove the parasites. I do not mean those who need medical care, I mean the INSURANCE INDUSTRY which profits on every stitch and pill by what is in fact a rigged form of gambling, and for whom actually providing medical care is not the objective. No, providing medical care is on the expense side of their ledger, something they want to minimize. (This is basic MBA duuh stuff, like creating jobs. Companies do not want to create jobs, which are labor costs they don’t want if they don't have to. Given money to expand, they prefer to cut labor and invest in more profitable alternatives, not hire a bunch of pedal-pumpers as some sort of political gesture. “Tax breaks create jobs,” is a pathetic lie to get workers to vote conservative in fear of losing their jobs, and the unemployed to vote red in the hope of being hired.)
As with the care provided to wounded soldiers by the Army Medical Corps, government could pay directly for the actual care, at the lowest possible wholesale cost. ZERO to insurance premiums, and no fat commissions for commissioners and contractors. Should this be the only way then, and replace what we have now? NO. Keep the private sector business exactly as it is, and if you want to buy their insurance and receive their services, you go right ahead. The Federal Medical Corps would operate in coincidental competition with the private sector hospital system, but not as a controlling entity or sub-contracting agency. It would not impose standards on the AMA hospitals and staff, and it would not take its standards from those, but could operate as its Flag Officers and Cabinet Secretary determined best for its mission.
If you were willing to go into the FEDMED hospital, or a VA hospital, or an Army field hospital and take what you get there.... would that be bad? NO. Our military Medical Corps are the excellent example: they work for the same salaries as other officers and troops, with the same gung-ho attitude that means giving the most medical care (not making the most money) to those they serve (the sick and wounded, not boards of employers), from a sense of pride and true service to America, exactly like the grunts on the line and jet jocks and rotorheads feel. Ask the troops how they feel about trusting their medics to save their lives. What soldiers do every day is heroic, and what their medics do every day is miraculous. I believe such a uniformed domestic US Medical Corps, just like the Coast Guard or the Air Force, would have the same esprit de corps, professionalism and top-only standards as the Marines, and would eagerly strive to best serve every human being who came into the place with the best they have, regardless of that patient’s gender, race, rank, religion, registration, or insurance coverage.
This would provide real medical care (not bullslick insurance coupons) to the deep class of Americans who are below even the working poor stratum, many of whom have never had insurance in their lives, though seniors now. It would really create good living wage jobs for thousands of people with medical skills, and for construction and maintenance jobs too. It would cost bupkis compared to collecting profitable insurance premiums with the IRS and the courts, and paying the profitable medical industry the gluttonously inflated costs of providing that same medical care. The socialist FEDMED system would be much less expensive than what we are paying now, and would provide better day-to-day "old country doctor" type common health care to all of us except the rich, who presumably will still choose to patronize the insurance companies and hospitals they have now, and good for them, as those hospitals are truly awesome and a blessing for those who can afford them. It is a win/win situation for both the best of a socialist system and the best of the free market too. Well, it will be a little rough on big capitalist medbiz and the insurance guys, but hey, a big racket is still a racket, right? If real care and real economy are the objectives, then you either take the rackets down, or you end-run them as I have suggested here.
James Post www.postpubco.com/anticyclops.htm
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Assassins: Inspired Or Insane?
On July 2, 1881, a failed radical political candidate named Charles Guiteau, convinced that President James Garfield would be the ruin of the Republican Party and so bring an end to freedom and prosperity in America ...shot him in the back. As a result of the "health care" available to Americans then, Garfield died a few weeks later of infection he contracted in hospital. Guiteau said God told him removing the traitor from the White House was a "political necessity" -- and then he pled insanity. He was hanged on June 30, 1882, after having made several trial lawyers wealthy arguing on the public dime about the difference between prophecy and psychosis...
The issue is still not resolvable in the American court, every session of which begins with giving respect to The Bible, 1st Amendment or no. If a man crucified his son (or someone else's son) to death because he believes God said he must do so as propitiatary sacrifice, could he be exempted from prosecution because of his faith? Could he instead be declared insane? Is not agreeing to participate (even after the fact) in exactly that sacrifice the most fundamental precept and requirement of being Christian? Without the blood of that crucifixion on your hands, you're still a G-d damned Jew on your way to Adam's hell. Right?
Did God really tell Billy Graham to tell George Bush it was His Holy Will to bomb Iraq? Or was it Osama who received the Divine fatwa he faithfully obeyed on 9/11, thereby revealing the infidel Bush to be the idol-deluded mass-murdering psychopath? Or was Bush proved to be the saint and not the psycho after all because we were blessed by God with more bombs than Allah?
This is not just theological seminary chit-chat. It matters. A President who believes in these religious fantasies and holy wars has the atom bombs, real secular and empirical bombs, and the power to use them. If she were willing to kill us all because she and her ordained Jedi cabinet all believed in the literal truth of Star Wars, wouldn't you say it matters that their belief be exposed as epic fiction, and their faith however sincere has been usurped by a nuclear-armed chimera, a demon out to lead us to bring about our own real Hell on Earth? Hear, oh Israel. Burn the Books, and repent of the Sacrifice.
James Post www.postpubco.com/blasphemy.htm
The issue is still not resolvable in the American court, every session of which begins with giving respect to The Bible, 1st Amendment or no. If a man crucified his son (or someone else's son) to death because he believes God said he must do so as propitiatary sacrifice, could he be exempted from prosecution because of his faith? Could he instead be declared insane? Is not agreeing to participate (even after the fact) in exactly that sacrifice the most fundamental precept and requirement of being Christian? Without the blood of that crucifixion on your hands, you're still a G-d damned Jew on your way to Adam's hell. Right?
Did God really tell Billy Graham to tell George Bush it was His Holy Will to bomb Iraq? Or was it Osama who received the Divine fatwa he faithfully obeyed on 9/11, thereby revealing the infidel Bush to be the idol-deluded mass-murdering psychopath? Or was Bush proved to be the saint and not the psycho after all because we were blessed by God with more bombs than Allah?
This is not just theological seminary chit-chat. It matters. A President who believes in these religious fantasies and holy wars has the atom bombs, real secular and empirical bombs, and the power to use them. If she were willing to kill us all because she and her ordained Jedi cabinet all believed in the literal truth of Star Wars, wouldn't you say it matters that their belief be exposed as epic fiction, and their faith however sincere has been usurped by a nuclear-armed chimera, a demon out to lead us to bring about our own real Hell on Earth? Hear, oh Israel. Burn the Books, and repent of the Sacrifice.
James Post www.postpubco.com/blasphemy.htm
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