Don't Let Wisconsin Divide Us ... Conservatives and Liberals AGREE About the Important Things

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Don't let Wisconsin divide us.

Conservatives and liberals actually agree about the most important things.

In fact, most Americans - conservatives and liberals - are fed up with both of the mainstream republican and democratic parties, because it has become obvious that both parties serve Wall Street and the military-industrial complex at the expense of most Americans.

In reality, all Americans - conservatives and liberals:

• Want to break up the unholy alliance between big government and big banks

• Want to break up the giant banks (and see this)

• Agree that the Wall Street criminals who committed fraud should be thrown in jail

• Agree that the Federal Reserve should be audited

• Are against corporate socialism

• Are against rampant inequality

• Want to stand up to the ruling class

• And are against unnecessary imperial wars

The powers-that-be try to divide us and demonize the "other side" so that we won't realize how much we all agree on. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.

Don't let them.

Debunking Myths

Before we can honestly look at what's going on in Wisconsin, we need to dispel some commonly-accepted myths.

People who think that debts and deficits don't matter are wrong. As two top American economists - Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff - demonstrated in December 2009 :

The relationship between government debt and real GDP growth is weak for debt/GDP ratios below a threshold of 90 percent of GDP. Above 90 percent, median growth rates fall by one percent, and average growth falls considerably more. We find that the threshold for public debt is similar in advanced and emerging economies...

As I wrote in January 2010:

Al Martin - former contributor to the Presidential Council of Economic Advisors and retired naval intelligence officer - observed in an April 2005 newsletter that the ratio of total U.S. debt to gross domestic product (GDP) rose from 78 percent in 2000 to 308 percent in April 2005. The International Monetary Fund considers a nation-state with a total debt-to-GDP ratio of 200 percent or more to be a "de-constructed Third World nation-state."

Martin explained:

What "de-constructed" actually means is that a political regime in that country, or series of political regimes, have, through a long period of fraud, abuse, graft, corruption and mismanagement, effectively collapsed the economy of that country.

Forbes noted in December:

Add the unfunded portion of entitlement programs and we're at 840% of GDP.

Boston University economics professor and former Senior Economist for the President’s Council of Economic Advisers Laurence Kotlikoff says that the real federal debt is $202 trillion dollars, and that the U.S. is bankrupt.

And see this, this, this, this and this.

So we have to reduce our debt.

And yet the government has been spending like a drunken sailor ... while slashing taxes.

Not Liberal or Conservative ... But Redistribution of Wealth Up to the Ultra-Rich

As I noted last December:

Ronald Reagan gave big tax cuts to the wealthy.

So it is dramatic that Reagan's director of Office of Management and Budget - David

Stockman - calls the Bush tax cuts "the biggest fiscal mistake in history".

Specifically, Stockman told Dylan Ratigan that Bush's advisers forecast a $5 trillion surplus over 10 years. But "two unfunded wars and a Fed engineered housing bubble later", we're in a $ 5 trillion cumulative deficit. So Bush made a $10 trillion mistake.

Stockman said extending the Bush tax cuts won't stimulate the economy, the fact that the tax cut extensions will expire on the eve of the 2012 elections will panic politicians and force them to renew them yet again, and that "we're destroying the economy on Uncle Sam's credit card.

Indeed, Moody's and other rating services are threatening to downgrade America's credit rating due to the extension of the tax cuts for the wealthy:

The rating agency said in a report Monday that last week's agreement between the White House and congressional Republicans should bolster economic growth in the next two years – but at the expense of the nation's already perilous budget position down the road.

The agreement to extend the Bush tax cuts for two years and trim workers' payroll tax contributions for one could raise the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio at 2012 to 72-73% from around 62% now, Moody's said. It said that without the tax package, that number might have been around 68% in 2012. [These numbers are low, as discussed above.]

***

"Unless there are offsetting measures, the package will be credit negative for the US and increase the likelihood of a negative outlook on the US government's Aaa rating during the next two years," Moody's said.

The comment comes as the bond market seems to have reached very much the same conclusion. The yield on the 10-year Treasury has soared to 3.32% from around 2.4% two months ago, as investors bet on a stronger recovery and rising inflation.

At the same time, our leaders are spending like they just won the lottery.

As I wrote last March:

Why aren't our government "leaders" talking about slashing the military-industrial complex, which is ruining our economy with unnecessary imperial adventures?

And why aren't any of our leaders talking about stopping the permanent bailouts for the financial giants who got us into this mess? And see this.

And why aren't they taking away the power to create credit from the private banking giants - which is costing our economy trillions of dollars (and is leading to a decrease in loans to the little guy) - and give it back to the states?

If we did these things, we wouldn't have to raise taxes or cut core services.

And see this short video from England.

The same thing is playing out on the state level.

For example, if the Wisconsin governor was proposing cutting pensions because everyone needed to share in the sacrifice, that would be understandable. But as the Washington Post's Ezra Klein points out:

The Badger State was actually in pretty good shape. It was supposed to end this budget cycle with about $120 million in the bank. Instead, it's facing a deficit. Why? I'll let the state's official fiscal scorekeeper explain (pdf):

More than half of the lower estimate ($117.2 million) is due to the impact of Special Session Senate Bill 2 (health savings accounts), Assembly Bill 3 (tax deductions/credits for relocated businesses), and Assembly Bill 7 (tax exclusion for new employees).

In English: The governor called a special session of the legislature and signed two business tax breaks and a conservative health-care policy experiment that lowers overall tax revenues (among other things). The new legislation was not offset, and it helped turn a surplus into a deficit [see update at end of post]. As Brian Beutler writes, "public workers are being asked to pick up the tab for this agenda."

***

Update ... The $130 million deficit now projected for 2011 isn't the fault of the tax breaks passed during Walker's special session, though his special session created about $120 million in deficit spending between 2011 and 2013 -- and perhaps more than that, if his policies are extended. That is to say, the deficit spending he created in his special session is about equal to the deficit Wisconsin faces this year, but it's not technically correct to say that Walker created 2011's deficit. Rather, he added $120 million to the 2011-2013 deficits, and perhaps more in the years after that.

And according to Madison's Capitol Times:

To the extent that there is an imbalance -- Walker claims there is a $137 million deficit -- it is not because of a drop in revenues or increases in the cost of state employee contracts, benefits or pensions. It is because Walker and his allies pushed through $140 million in new spending for special-interest groups in January. If the Legislature were simply to rescind Walker’s new spending schemes -- or delay their implementation until they are offset by fresh revenues -- the “crisis” would not exist.

The Fiscal Bureau memo -- which readers can access at http://legis.wisconsin.gov/lfb/Misc/2011_01_31Vos&Darling.pdf -- makes it clear that Walker did not inherit a budget that required a repair bill.

The facts are not debatable.

Because of the painful choices made by the previous Legislature, Wisconsin is in better shape fiscally than most states.

***

[Walker] has proposed a $137 million budget “repair” bill that he intends to use as a vehicle to ...

Pay for schemes that redirect state tax dollars to wealthy individuals and corporate interests that have been sources of campaign funding for Walker’s fellow Republicans and special-interest campaigns on their behalf. As Madison’s Democratic state Rep. Brett Hulsey notes, the governor and legislators aligned with him have over the past month given away special-interest favors to every lobby group that came asking, creating zero jobs in the process “but increasing the deficit by more than $100 million.”

Actually, Hulsey’s being conservative in his estimate of how much money Walker and his allies have misappropriated for political purposes.

***

“Since his inauguration in early January, Walker has approved $140 million in new special-interest spending that includes:

“• $25 million for an economic development fund for job creation that still has $73 million due to a lack of job creation. Walker is creating a $25 million hole which will not create or retain jobs.

“• $48 million for private health savings accounts, which primarily benefit the wealthy. A study from the federal Governmental Accountability Office showed the average adjusted gross income of HSA participants was $139,000 and nearly half of HSA participants reported withdrawing nothing from their HSA, evidence that it is serving as a tax shelter for wealthy participants.

“• $67 million for a tax shift plan, so ill-conceived that at best the benefit provided to ‘job creators’ would be less than a dollar a day per new job, and may be as little as 30 cents a day.”

State Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, sums up this scheming accurately when he says: “In one fell swoop, Gov. Walker is trying to institute a sweeping radical and dangerous notion that will return Wisconsin to the days when land barons and railroad tycoons controlled the political elites in Madison.”

State Senator Jon Erpenbach says that the unions have already agreed to cuts:

"The
state employees have talked about the money and giving up the money,
and that's fine. But what they have a problem with - and what a lot of
us have a problem with - is the fact that Governor Walker is taking
decades of union law and throwing it out the window and trying to bust
the unions altogether, and that's just not the right way to go."

***

"The public employees have said you can take the money - the money isn't the issue. The issue is their right to collectively bargain their contracts. And that's where we all have to draw the line."

Economist Menzie Chen argues
that Wisconsin public workers make less than their private
counterparts, even when pensions are included. Pulitzer prize winning
journalist David Cay Johnston says that Wisconsin's governor is really trying to bust unions as a first step in driving down everyone's wages ... both in the public and the private sector.  Mother Jones alleges that the billionaire Koch brothers - the ones who Supreme
Court justices Scalia and Thomas hung out with before deciding to
allow unlimited foreign money to pour into American political races - funded the election of Wisconsin's governor. And Forbes' columnist Rick Ungar claims
that the Kochs are behind the crackdown on Wisconsin unions, as they
have business interests in Wisconsin. Whether or not these claims are
true is beyond the scope of this discussion, and I haven't researched
them enough to weigh in one way or the other.

On the other hand, as James Sherk of the Heritage Foundation argues in the New York Times:

“It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government.”

That
wasn’t Newt Gingrich, or Ron Paul, or Ronald Reagan talking. That was
George Meany -- the former president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O -- in 1955.
Government unions are unremarkable today, but the labor movement once
thought the idea absurd.

***

When government unions strike, they strike against taxpayers. F.D.R. considered this “unthinkable and intolerable.”

***

Government
collective bargaining means voters do not have the final say on public
policy. Instead their elected representatives must negotiate spending
and policy decisions with unions. That is not exactly democratic – a
fact that unions once recognized.

But whether or not you think public union workers are whiners and public
labor unions harmful or beneficial, the fact is that the governor of
Wisconsin is trying to do exactly what the federal government is trying
to do: throw money at their ultra-rich friends, and pay for it by
shafting the little guy. It almost appears as if the federal and state
governments are using "shock doctrine" tactics as an excuse for imposing
"austerity measures" which benefit the wealthy at the expense of the
little guy just like failed third world countries.  (Remember, Reuters claims that republicans are trying to bankrupt states in order to weaken unions.)

Indeed, Governor Walker is a true conservative to the same extent that President Obama is a true liberal ... not very much.

Again, if everyone - giant banks and corporations as well as workers -
were being asked to share in the sacrifice, that would be completely
different. I'm all for shared sacrifice (I work for the private sector,
but I'll sacrifice a little if we can also claw back the ill-gotten
gains from Wall Street CEO's. See this, this and this.)

But that's not what's happening. Instead, federal and state policies are making the rich richer and everyone else poorer.

And if you still think that this is a conservative versus liberal issue, listen to what tried-and-proven conservatives (re-read Stockman's statements above) are saying.

For example, Paul Craig Roberts, whose conservative credentials are impeccable - former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under President Reagan, one of the people who most widely promoted "trickle down" economics, former editor of the Wall Street Journal, listed by Who's Who in America as one of the 1,000 most influential political thinkers in the world, and PhD economist - writes:

Obama’s new budget is a continuation of Wall Street’s class war against the poor and middle class.

Wall Street wasn’t through with us when the banksters sold their fraudulent derivatives into our pension funds, wrecked Americans’ job prospects and retirement plans, secured a $700 billion bailout at taxpayers’ expense while foreclosing on the homes of millions of Americans, and loaded up the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet with several trillion dollars of junk financial paper in exchange for newly created money to shore up the banks’ balance sheets.

The effect of the Federal Reserve’s “quantitative easing” on inflation, interest rates, and the dollar’s foreign exchange value are yet to hit. When they do, Americans will get a lesson in poverty.

Now the ruling oligarchies have struck again, this time through the federal budget. The U.S. government has a huge military/security budget. It is as large as the budgets of the rest of the world combined. The Pentagon, CIA, and Homeland Security budgets account for the $1.1 trillion federal deficit that the Obama administration forecasts for fiscal year 2012. This massive deficit spending serves only one purpose--the enrichment of the private companies that serve the military/security complex. These companies, along with those on Wall Street, are who elect the U.S. government.

***

The U.S. is determined to create as many enemies as possible in order to continue its bleeding of the American population to feed the ravenous military/security complex.

***

With a perpetual budget deficit driven by the military/security complex’s desire for profits, the real cause of America’s enormous budget deficit is off-limits for discussion.

***

The U.S. military/security complex is capable of creating any number of... events in order to make these threats seem real to a public whose intelligence is limited to TV, shopping mall experiences, and football games.

So Americans are stuck with enormous budget deficits that the Federal Reserve must finance by printing new money, money that sooner or later will destroy the purchasing power of the dollar and its role as world reserve currency. When the dollar goes, American power goes.

For the ruling oligarchies, the question is: how to save their power.

Their answer is: make the people pay.

And that is what their latest puppet, President Obama, is doing.

***

These goals [of propping up foreign dictators who serve U.S. interests] are far more important to the American elite than Pell Grants that enable poor Americans to obtain an education, or clean water, or community block grants, or the low income energy assistance program (cut by the amount that U.S. taxpayers are forced to give to Israel).

There are also $7,700 million of cuts in Medicaid and other health programs over the next five years.

Given the magnitude of the U.S. budget deficit, these sums are a pittance. The cuts will have no effect on U.S. Treasury financing needs. They will put no breaks on the Federal Reserve’s need to print money in order to keep the U.S. government in operation.

These cuts serve one purpose: to further the Republican Party’s myth that America is in economic trouble because of the poor: The poor are shiftless. They won’t work. The only reason unemployment is high is that the poor had rather be on welfare.

A new addition to the welfare myth is that recent middle class college graduates won’t take the jobs offered them, because their parents have too much money, and the kids like living at home without having to do anything. A spoiled generation, they come out of university refusing any job that doesn’t start out as CEO of a Fortune 500 company. The reason that engineering graduates do not get job interviews is that they do not want them.

What all this leads to is an assault on “entitlements”, which means Social Security and Medicare. The elites have programmed, through their control of the media, a large part of the population, especially those who think of themselves as conservatives, to conflate “entitlements” with welfare. America is going to hell not because of foreign wars that serve no American purpose, but because people, who have paid 15% of their payroll all their lives for old age pensions and medical care, want “handouts” in their retirement years. Why do these selfish people think that working Americans should be forced through payroll taxes to pay for the pensions and medical care of the retirees? Why didn’t the retirees consume less and prepare for their own retirement?

The elite’s line, and that of their hired spokespersons in “think tanks” and universities, is that America is in trouble because of its retirees.

Too many Americans have been brainwashed to believe that America is in trouble because of its poor and its retirees. America is not in trouble because it coerces a dwindling number of taxpayers to support the military/security complex’s enormous profits, American puppet governments abroad, and Israel.

The American elite’s solution for America’s problems is not merely to foreclose on the homes of Americans whose jobs were sent offshore, but to add to the numbers of distressed Americans with nothing to lose the sick and the dispossessed retirees, and the university graduates who cannot find jobs that have been sent to China and India.

And Ron Paul - who has very strong conservative credentials, and who won the Presidential straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference two years in a row - recently said in his CPAC speech:

We’re going to continue to bail out, we’re going to continue to spend the money, nobody wants to cut. I am sure that half the people in this room won’t cut one penny on the military, and the military is not equated to defense. Defense spending is one thing, military spending is what Eisenhower called the “military-industrial complex” and we have to go after that.

***

But let’s say government, as you all, I am sure would agree, is out of control, and it’s very hard for us to get a handle on it. So let’s say we even theoretically, and a miracle happens and we balance the budget where we are today, it would be still a disaster because we’re spending too much money. But it wouldn’t change a whole lot. When a crisis comes, guess what happens? Guess who does the bailing out? The Federal Reserve used $4 trillion to pass out without congressional approval and most people say “Oh, well that’s the Federal Reserve’s job to do that.” No, it is our job to check up and find what the Federal Reserve has done, audit them, and find out who their buddies are that they’re taking care of.

***

The Federal Reserve creates money out of thin air, they can loan to banks, central banks of the world, to other governments and international financial institutions and we’re not even allowed to know. They resent the fact that when I ask these questions, that they don’t have to give us information. That’s why the bill to audit the Fed is the first step to ending the Federal Reserve.

***

I think and I believe that we have had way too much bipartisanship for about 60 years. .... It’s the bipartisanship of the welfare system, the warfare system, the monetary system, the challenge to our civil liberties, it all goes through with support from both parties. So there’s way too much bipartisanship. This should be a challenge of the issue of philosophy – good philosophy versus bad philosophy.

***

But where I think we go astray on this exceptionalism is there are some people and sometimes they’re referred as neoconservatives and they’re sort of neo-Jacobins where they believe that we have this moral responsibility to use force to go around the world and say, “You will do it our way or else.” Well force doesn’t work, it never works.

Paul is also against welfare. Given his views on ending the warfare
state, bailouts, and reining in the Fed. I think, on balance, he would
make a much better president than Obama.

Comments

[LowProfile]

Add in severing the connection between unions and government and you've got a deal.

Too bad many on the left will never go for it.

That's why we need to leave the far left & right out, and go for the middle.

[SRV - ES339]

But you're OK with the connection between Big Business and government... an infinitely more nefarious association?

[DiverCity]

I'm not okay with that. Are you copacetic with the symbiosis between monster government and public employee unions?  I doubt GW and I could ever sing off the same song sheet.  I hate them both; want them both to go;  want tiny government.  Do you?

[Bringin It]

You've got a good point there SRV-ES339.  Too bad people can't keep the big picture in mind.  The country was hijacked by the Bankster interests.  They own DC.  Let's get the country back.

[midtowng]

Right on GW. Very well put.

Now if people can just look past the phony labels and partisan rhetoric that they get from the MSM.

[JW n FL]

The anit-gun crowd...

&...

The anti-abortion crowd...

are to stupid to figure out that soon there will be no country to apply these laws too... thats why none of the idiots can get together.

[Al Gorerhythm]

That's too stupid, stupid.

You need laws to apply to, too.

The irony.

[JW n FL]

I hope you can handle a gun the same way you handle the the english language... once again, the girls dont proof my posts.

[Dr. Sandi]

Thanks for reading the article.

[JW n FL]

the point was...

these broke people will blame those broke people and vote each other out of the money... all the while the status quo's coffers continue to be tithed... up, down and / or side ways...

but by all means lets bash each other so all the attention is taken away from the real problems... or better yet let them have thier way, by the way you choose to entertain yourself.

[flattrader]

As Bob (V for Vendetta avatar) noted much of ZH suffers from Stockholm Syndrome.

These people ask why should anyone get decent pay, pension contributions etc...or anything they don't get, instead of asking why they themsleves don't get them or no longer get them.

It's because your corporate masters said they could no longer afford them, you'd have take the hit and then they outscourced your job anyway...and now they want you to turn on those who still have something and your happy to oblige.

In the giant race to the bottom, they're more than willing to shove the person in front of them right along.

[Trifecta Man]

Bravo!

[Battleaxe]

I live in Madison and I've been to the protests. This article is DEAD ON! This is all about boosting corporate profits and screwing the little guy. Dems and Repubs are all for the corporations. The Tea Party started out to fight this, but was hijacked by the media and made to appear Republican.

This can't end now. This opportunity must be seized and steered in the right direction. I'm going to print copies of this article and pass them out down there!

[flattrader]

Yep.  Walker created a false flag operation.

Tea Baggers are falling for it.

This is a trial run on the playbook for divide and conquer.

[midtowng]

I saw that on Fox News today. They asked some guy why he was supporting the Governor. His response was that he recently had his health insurance and pension slashed, so we needed to do the same to the public employees.

Ignoring the fact that the public workers are actually protesting the law that would gut their union, why doesn't that guy ask the simple question of: "Why can't I get affordable health insurance and some sort of pension for myself?" Instead he says: "If I can't get it, neither should other people."

It's Crabs in a Bucket thinking.

[pvmuse]

Please don't ever admit to watching Fox News, it is very embarrassing to even read there are still people that watch this Neanderthal network. Please stop, because no one will read a word you say after this opening line.

[Bob]

I'm no fan of Fox (see my post at the end of the thread), but I believe it is an important source of contrary views on the actual news and consult it regularly.  O'Reilly, Hannity, and Beck (Hitler dressed as Mr. Rodgers, that one), not so much. 

[midtowng]

I don't watch Fox News but once in a Blue Moon. I just had it on to see how they were reporting the issue.

BTW, it's obvious there are lots of people on ZH that watch Fox.

[TBT or not TBT]

The guy who can't get affordable insurance can blame legislators and regulators who created mandates that made actual insurance...you know, against unlikely but catastrophic events...illegal.    What this guy can afford is illegal for insurance companies to offer.

[djrichard]

Just wait until folks find out that austerity doesn't solve the debt problems (at the Fed, State or personal level).  Then all the playahs who were promoting austerity will claim, "hoocoodanode?"  It would be nice if we could skip this step, but I suspect we won't.   Maybe after that we can finally begin the debt destruction phase and get it out of the way.

[flattrader]

Yep.  They have managed to turn us against each other like dogs.

Walker made sure his fat cat buddies got everything they wanted and is now out to gut taxpayers and state employees.

He created a nearly $140M deficit in one month's time.

And the story behind the so-called $3.6B defict is even more laughable.

>>>Representative Mark Pocan (D- Madison) has looked more closely at the numbers and writes that the $3.6 billion deficit is bogus. The alleged deficit is based on $3.9 billion in new agency requests for the 2011-2013 budget, a 7.2% spending increase. However, these are merely requests, not dollars actually allocated or spent, and Pocan writes that the legislature never votes to grant 100% of agency requests: “I don’t think there is a member in the legislature that would vote for [the requested budget increase]. In fact, I asked [Legislative Fiscal Bureau] Director [Robert] Lang when was the last time we gave agencies exactly what they requested and was told he couldn’t think of one and he’s been here decades.”<<<

So, he created one deficit and is lying about another.

[falak pema]

Agree that Al Gore should be named king of North Pole, permanently exiled there.

Agree that Ben Bernanke should be sent to the hottest spot in the world with his ski anorak on his back and no fresh water...Kalahari, Gobi, Sahara, Rub al-Khali...no lack of choice.

Agree that GW of ZH should be nominated as candidate of Contrarian party for 2012 election.

[George Washington]

Ron Paul plus a progressive like Grayson, Kucinich or Nader could win in 2012....

[Bob]

I think you nailed the sort of combination required to make Paul the Second Coming.  Unfortunately, even if he and the electorate were willing to accept such a combo, the VP would  of course be merely the usual hood ornament.  I think the other guys, however, would be fantastic with Paul as VP.

[Rick64]

 The VP for Paul will be the career politician willing to tow the line in case Paul gets out of hand and needs to be replaced.

[Zero Govt]

George Washington,  "Ron Paul plus a progressive like Grayson.."

So you're for progressives (closet Marxists by any other name)? And of course progressives have such a wonderful record as politicians, how many times have they been run our of US Govt because they destroy everything these Commies touch???

As for your article call "we've all got more in common(usim) than not" we may have but you re-arranging the deckchairs on this Titanic called Govt is no fix at all, but a recipe for more disasters. 

It's a systemic problem of that Parasite Club called "democratic Govt". The solution is not more of the same problem, or changing the puppets in the system. The solution is a free society (and free markets). The systemic solution is no Govt.

That delivers freedom, wealth and all people making their own democratic decisions every day of their free lives, rather than your system of progressives deciding for us. Don't you agree that's more democratic, freedom?

[Confused]

Fair statement, however, I fail to see how Ron Paul and Mr. Nader would be "..more of the same problem." 

It would appear to me (and by no means am I an expert), that these two have some integrity. And looking at the length of time they have been advocates OF PEOPLE, without compromise, I'd say they are as good a choice as any. Not saying there isn't a better alternative. How would I know?

Junkies out in full force today. Please have some self respect and own up to it. 

[Zero Govt]

Confused

Presumably you've heard the saying, "Govt is the problem, not the solution"?

So let me explain the problem very simply, it is Govt is a monopoly power structure. The competition mechanism gives you a choice (power) to decide what's best for you. A monopoly structure gives you no choice (power) it hands down a policy from a central committee. Understand so far?

And Govt has 100's of committees and dozens of Depts all deciding they think they know best. Your best buddy Ron Paul has zero chance of altering its course even with the best of intentions.  

So the solution to a problem of a monopoly structure is a competitive one because it distributes power to you to decide for yourself. And 1,000's of people get to make their own unique decisions that suite them which bless him Ron Paul has no chance of achieving in a 1,000 years of trying.

In fact that's what Ron wants himself, a free (competitive) market in money and an end to monopoly central committee money. Ron understands the competitive market supplies people with choice rather than a parasite monopoly system that forces their choice down your throat like it or not.

The solution is like the free market a free society, no Govt intervention or committee in anything in your life. Do you think you can wean yourself off the thought you need Ron Paul and his ilk to make decisions for you? Do you need Govt in your life or like most people will go cradle to grave without any Govt assistance? 

If you can manage your own life, especially better with 100% of your own income left in your pocket with no taxes to The Parasite Club, then you have reached the zero Govt option of a free society.

[born2bmild]

Ron and and Ralph, that would be awesome. I'd love to see the new budget they come up with.

[ArmchairRevolut...]

I would vote for any one of them before the standard rep/dem candidate. Put them together and I might even help the campaign.

[Doomer_Marx]

Coming from the left - Ron Paul, Ralph Nader ticket - I'd vote for that, maybe even campain for them. Those two agree on enough to get things back in the right direction for now - end the wars, jail Wall Street criminals and get the budget under control. After the most important issues are taken care of they wouldn't agree on how to move forward. It'd be a short lived alliance but would serve its purpose and do what neither major party will.

[dick cheneys ghost]

agreed, but what about "nascar and the military"

http://nakedempire.wordpress.com/

[A Nanny Moose]

Gotta keep the circuses funded. The big 3 must get some kind of subsidy as well. Heck, we essentially subsidized Lance Armstrong's first TDF victories via the USPS.

[LowProfile]

You really think that?  I respectfully disagree.  I think a far left progressive like those three would be poison.

IMO, Ron Paul and Rand Paul could win big in 2012...

[pvmuse]

Rand Paul is a snotty little asshole, he has none of the integrity of his father. Who in their right mind would want this spoilt little brat on the ticket?

[DavidPierre]

"Ronald Reagan gave big tax cuts to the wealthy."

Seems Bonzo was just doing his job... again...

just as he always did.

.....................................................................

1947-53:  The so-called Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) begins its assault on the constitutional rights of American citizens in Hollywood in an attempt to ensure that only "right" thinking individuals work in the most powerful propaganda instrument in the country.  Among the alcoholics, paranoics and general headcases on the HUAC is Nazi war criminal escape facilitator and Mafia cash recipient Richard "Tricky Dick" Nixon. Closeted homosexual gay basher and cross-dresser cum FBI Director J. "Edna" Hoover addresses the Committee and states that communism is being spread by "the diabolic machinations of sinister figures engaged in un-American activities." Old J. Edna sure had a way with words, didn't she? Third-rate actor, Ronald "Bloodbath" Reagan, who, like most avid hawks, has never been anywhere near the warfare he is so eager to inflict on others, shows far more inclination to dive into the great stage-managed battle against the mythical evil of communism as a snitch and stool pigeon. Reagan becomes registered informer T-10 for the FBI. He patriotically delivers the names of colleagues in the Screen Actors Guild who might be harboring impure thoughts. At J. "Edna" Hoover's request, the heroic, freedom-loving Reagan will later reel off the names of "disloyal" actors and actresses at a secret session of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Don't you just love Truth, Justice and the amer-Klan way!

[DavidPierre]

TBT:

Your Bias Slip is showing from under your Humourless Dress. 

Let us explore history!

1947:

Another FBI snitch, fascist cartoon mogul Walt Disney, apparently teetering on the edge of complete mental disintegration, tells the loonies on the Committee that "communists" at his studio are trying to use Mickey Mouse to spread "communist" propaganda.

Gary Cooper and Robert Taylor willingly cooperate with the Committee's smear of their fellow actors.

Ginger Rogers' mother, Lela, a long-time friend of J. "Edna" Hoover, tells the Committee that the movie None but the Lonely Heart is highly suspect because it contains an anti-capitalist line in which a son tells his mother, "You are not going to work here and squeeze pennies from people who are poorer than we are."

The Committee agrees that the line is clearly subversive and un-American and concludes that Rogers is "one of the outstanding experts on Communism in the United States."

{I didn't make make this shit up!}

Hollywood rushes to do the bidding of the ruling class once again.

America's most powerful propaganda instrument turns out an endless stream of movies designed to heighten the American public's terror of the mythical evil ones but very convenient enemy, communism (terrorism).

Audiences across America tremble at the sight of...

-I Married A Communist (Terrorist),

-Red (Terror) Planet Mars,-

-The Red (Terror) Menace,

-The Red (Terror) Danube,

-I Was A Communist (Terrorist) For The FBI and many more.
{Are you still afraid?}

A side-effect of the Truman witch hunt, not unintended, is the reinforcement of the pervasive American "commie (terrorist) under the bed" hysteria which will be used by the American ruling class to intimidate and manipulate the U.S. public, justify massive transfers of wealth to the merchants of death, justify countless invasions and engineered coups around the world and silence government critics for four decades until the tired old commie bogeyman is retired and replaced by the even more frightening Islamic terrorist bogeyman.

None are so hopelelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free. Goethe

[New_Meat]

Codevilla has all over this.  But, dang, sometimes he uses big words, so have another toke and back to work all' y'all.

Country class vs. Ruling class.

http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and-the/p...

nay repub v. demoz

- Ned

[TBT or not TBT]

You meant the Film Actors Guild, surely.