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Guest Post: The Trick To Suppressing Revolution: Keeping Debt/Tax Serfdom Bearable
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
The 30 million whose labor funds the parasitic status quo don't have to rebel; they simply have to stop going to work, stop starting enterprises, stop being productive.
Parasites must balance their drive to maximize what they extract from their host with the risk of losing everything by killing their host. This is the dilemma of the parasitic partnership of the central state and financial Elites everywhere: to extract the maximum possible in debt payments and taxes without sparking rebellion and revolution.
I have often commented on the current class structure, which paradoxically unites the interests of the top 1/5% of 1% and their political-class toadies and the bottom 50% who are drawing transfer payments/benefits from the state: both support the status quo because both receive direct benefits from it.
The 20% who pay most of the tax and service much of the debt are in the middle, a political minority of debt/tax serfs who finance the status quo, i.e. cartel-crony capitalism owned and operated by the financial and political Elites:
The Three-and-a-Half Class Society (October 22, 2012)
Entitlements, Taxes, Inequality and Three-Way Class Warfare (September 20, 2010)
Tyranny of the Majority, Corporate Welfare and Complicity (April 9, 2010)
Two Americas: The Gap Between the Top 5% and the Bottom 95% Widens (August 18, 2010)
The numbers of Americans drawing benefits from the state are astounding: almost 11 million people drawing lifetime disability from Social Security (The Number Of US Citizens On Disability Is Now Larger Than The Population Of Greece); Social Security (SSA) has 61 million beneficiaries as of March 2012; Medicare had 49.4 million beneficiaries in 2012, and Medicaid has over 50 million beneficiaries (another source puts the current number at 58 million, but the Kaiser Family Foundation says roughly 7 million "dual-eligibles" receive both Medicaid and Medicare, so let's use the data point of 50 million Medicaid-only recipients.)
This aligns fairly well with the 48 million drawing SNAP (food stamp) benefits: Food stamp Recipients Hit Record (Zero Hedge). Those qualifying for one program likely qualify for the other.
This means roughly 110 million people are drawing significant direct benefits from the Federal government (central state) while the number of full-time workers is 116 million--about a 1-to-1 worker-beneficiary ratio.
The problem is two-fold: the entitlement programs are running massive deficits even though the Baby Boom has barely started to enter the programs, and the number of workers earning enough to pay significant income taxes is remarkably limited.
As I detailed in The Fraud at the Heart of Social Security (January 17, 2011), the program paid out $707 billion in 2010 and collected $631 billion in taxes, a $76 billion shortfall for 2010. The current program (2012) cost is $817 billion, a leap of $100 billion in a few short years as Baby Boomers flood into the program.
Of the roughly 142 million workers in the U.S., 38 million earn less than $10,000 per year, 50 million earn less that $15,000 a year and 61 million earn less than $20,000 annually. All these numbers are drawn directly from Social Security Administration payroll data.
100 million wage earners, or 2/3 the entire workforce, earn less than $40,000 per year.
Most of the heavy-lifting in terms of paying income taxes falls to about 30 million people, the top 20% of wage earners.
As for debt-serfdom, the status quo has widely distributed huge debt loads via home mortgages and student loans. A trillion here and a trillion there and pretty soon you're talking real money:
The banks have written off some defaults but the debt load on the serfs hasn't declined much:
Meanwhile, real wages have been declining, meaning there is less money left to service debt:
This presents the partnership of the financial kleptocracy and the state with an insoluble problem: their parasitic skimming of rentier debt payments and taxes has reduced the income of 95% of the workers, leaving them less able to service more debt and pay more taxes.
The parasitic financial class is not about to accept lower wealth accumulation, so the state must protect the cartel-rentier arrangements of the Elites at all costs. But the state must also buy the complicity of 110 million (going on 150 million as the Baby Boom retires) potentially restive citizens, an open-ended spending commitment that is only sustainable if the economy and those employed full-time expand smartly.
Alas, financialization (debt-serfdom) and higher taxes (the transformation of the middle class into tax donkeys) have gutted the real economy, driving real income lower for 95% of the workforce that still has earned income.
Hmm, what's a parasitic kleptocracy to do? The ever-resourceful Elites have hit on a solution: 1) print money via central banks and 2) borrow trillions of dollars, euros, yen, yuan, etc. to fund the status quo.
These adaptations have enabled the parasites of the financial Elites and the state to maintain their exploitation of their primary host, i.e. the dwindling middle-class of tax donkeys and debt-serfs. But is this rentier arrangement sustainable in the long term?
In Nature, parasites weaken the resiliency of the host; when crisis strikes, the weakened host, though superficially stable and strong, suddenly collapses in a heap. The financial parasitism of the state and financial Elites is weakening the real economy everywhere: Japan, China, the European Union and the U.S. Massive money creation and state borrowing are keeping the host-parasite relationship stable for the time being, but the fragility of the host is increasing.
The financial-political Elites are confident that they have found a way to maintain their parasitic rentier arrangements--print money, keep all the phantom assets on the books, and keep interest rates low enough that the debt-serfs can still service their debts.
But the financial-political Elites' calculus cannot calculate the breaking point of the dwindling minority propping up the entire status quo: When Belief in the System Fades(March 12, 2008):
In a way, a belief in the value, transparency, trust and reciprocity of the System is like a religious belief. The converts, the true believers, are the ones who work like crazy for the company or the service. And when the veil of illusion is tugged from their eyes, then the Believer does a reversal, and becomes a devout non-believer in the System. He or she drops out, moves to a lower position, or "retires" to some lower level of employment.
At what point do people choose to opt out of debt/tax-serfdom? What triggers their decision to renounce debt, go off the financial grid, and escape serfdom by fashioning a low-cost lifestyle in the cash economy? At what point do productive people tire of supporting parasitic financial and political Elites and millions of people who aren't working themselves to the bone to pay taxes and service debt?
The more the state pays in benefits and the higher it pushes taxes, the more appealing opting out becomes. The more The Reverse Robin Hoods of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke and his Merry Band of Thieves prints money to fund the parasitic financiers, the more they weaken the real economy and fuel a recognition that the Federal Reserve is the enemy of free enterprise and democracy. Bernanke's Neofeudal Rentier Economy (May 7, 2013).
The 30 million whose labor funds the parasitic status quo don't have to rebel; they simply have to stop going to work, stop starting enterprises, stop being productive. They just have to tire of being the host, tire of being debt-serfs, tire of being tax donkeys. And when they lay down their burden, there won't be anyone to pick it up: the parasitic financial and political Elites are incapable of being productive, and the working poor don't generate enough surplus to fund open-ended benefits for 110 million non-workers.
The trick to suppressing revolution is to keep debt-tax serfdom bearable. The parasitic Elites are keeping the host going, but at a high cost in resiliency. Let's see how long the host lasts once a crisis hits.
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"The 30 million whose labor funds the parasitic status quo don't have to rebel; they simply have to stop going to work, stop starting enterprises, stop being productive."
Or just take back what the parasitic bankers took from us. But that would be "Marxist" and it would interfere with inheritance rights.
It's the banks.
It's the banks.
It's the banks.
It's the bankers. There are real live human beings fucking us. Their drones will fuck us next. Then it will be
the drones
the drones
the drones.
Simple solution:
Pack a gun & pay no tax.
Obamacare will crush this theory...
The bankers took more last year than Obamacare will take in 20. Get angry at that and then fix health insurance/access to medical care.
Absolutely agree, just saying that Obamacare is the icing on the cake that will push this shit past bearable for the Idol watching masses.
I agree it's the icing, but I think the Idol watchers will like it. They will eat cake.
The lynch pin of the whole rotten edifice is baseless fiat.
There is no cake. Let them eat letthemeatrand.
Eat me. I like the sound of that.
Go Galt!!!
Go Douche!
Ayn Rand was part of the problem. She gave us Greenspan. She gave a veneer of legitimacy to a rotten system. One of her heroes was a banker, FFS. (Perhaps she was manipulated into this by her lover, Phillippe de Rothschild?) Like most utopians, she ignored fundamental aspects of human nature- mainly how the inevitable corruption of power, and the desire to live well at the expense of others, would doom Galt's Gulch to oligarchy in the end.
But going Galt is still a good idea. Starve the Beast!
Ayn Rand was on social security and medicare. She was a hypocrite.
Was she not forced to pay for it in advance just like the rest of us? Are you going to turn it down when its your turn (if it exists)? We are all hypocrits. You own any Chinese shit that eliminated an American job? Do you hate what your government is doing yet still pay your taxes dutifully?
If you want to argue against Ayn Rand's ideas, please do so. But this "Ayn Rand was a hypocrite" - we've all heard it before. Really. Not kidding.
Heard it so many times before.
This is not news. It's not a clever argument.
And before you get started, I'm not interested in other ugly details of Rand's life. Heard that before too. Many times.
From people, like you, who are just too lazy to engage her ideas.
I'll engage her ideas. Her and other "libertarian individualists" completely discount the fact that their success is based on the collective works of society. Without public works like transportation, public sanitation, medical care and research, law enforcement and the judicial system entrepreneurs would have little chance at being successful. "Going Galt" is a childish fantasy that every man is an island unto himself.
For what it's worth, LTER, Charles Hugh Smith is essentially calling for the same thing Ayn Rand did: for the productive class to go on strike. So say what you will about her (admitting that she was a statist through and through), she at least knew that you can only milk the producers so much for so long.
I expect we'll have the answer a few years from now.
The state can kiss my ass.
" At what point do productive people tire of supporting parasitic financial and political Elites and millions of people who aren't working themselves to the bone to pay taxes and service debt? "
Answer: I think it has been happening since at least 2008 and it is accelerating. Most Producers, excluding faux producers like Buffet, instinctively know the load is/ is becoming unbearable. That Producers are opting out of the Fascist/Criminal system is obviated by the need for the self-appointed Financial/political elite to print "wealth".
We are experiencing the last Hurrah. Many Producers have been pulling in their horns for quite a few years and most know the "wealth effect" as the "illusion effect". And the criminal hand of Gov't (the recently revealed IRS "audits" are but a small piece of the crimes committed by Government employees and deceitful politicians against their "enemies".
Parasites, even those wrapped in human skin, are blind to their host. They engorge themselves until they, too, die; blissfully ignorant.
Lt
With all the junks u get I just want to say goodbye , I'll miss u when u've gone
I love the smell of junks in the morning.
Bring back the junk button!
Mozilo took the junk button, gave it to BOA for a few hundred billion, then BOA gave it to us for a few trillion. I think Holder has it in his office.
Aw man ur getting greens because folks know it won't b long before the email from legal arrives in ur inbox
I'm fucking next man
Aw fuck I said fuck
Sorry sorry
Fuc bernanke , is that better?
You know one day this war is gonna to end.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPXVGQnJm0w
No mail from legal required Duke...
I got the kick without notice of any kind ...formalities are for 'constitutitionalist nutters' and other 'terrorist' types...on the 'all new ZH'.... they just send in the drones(we'll get the warrant later!)
You can swear all you wish... complain about the 'elites' ... the 'oligarchs' ... or the 'financial parasites'
\just don't ever talk about the dual-citiiZened masters. /// btw/// looks like TSP's been realeased from ZH-itmo on a day pass too!
Whether he bothers to come back and comment again remains to be seen...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsskd9LCp_Y&list=PL3A49752D5E956F36
got the screen shot shorty///You not foolin anybody!
I've started a 'Hall of Fame' collection on screenshots just for the lulz...
~~~
At the end of the day, a bunch of us all get together for a few beers, toss 'em on the ground & make bets on which ones are going to get the FREEEDOM letter from the CheesePopes...
Haven't had this much fun since Kissinger was runnin things at State...
soooooooooo....
you're sayin that Kissinger isn't still running things at State?@???@?
Jus kiddin big fella.... during my 30 minute wild Dorner run here the other day with my backup ID (hedgey)... fore the thought police shot up my AMC Rebel two door(no rust!) and hung me out to dry ...I sent you a big shout out... bout how my attack dog defense of your right to talk whatever shit you want... turned out to have been a defense of my own right... and all of ours.
And then it all went poof.. into the night. Oh... and I also tacked on this... just to give all the dipstick raciss pukes a shot to the nose! http://youtu.be/2WHe5fxS3dA .... only ONE variety of racial hegemonists on this planet what needs be taken down!
it has indeed been fun watching this all go down... kind of a microcosm of Merika itself right now... huddling masses jus milling around waitin for the new masters to officially announce their ascendancy.... so very very few of us mad dog resistors... FIGHT THE POWER FRANCIS! Looks like nobody else gonna bother get offa their knees!
I'm just tryin' to have fun with it [while it still lasts]...
~~~
Yesterday I made a comment to SMG [about 'THIS 'ERS & 'THAT'ERS ~ as in, it's NOT this, it's THAT]...
Seems to me I remember him always going on about 'Luciferians'... OK ~ Let's take that one out for a spin...
I'm no legal genius, but I'm seriously doubting that there's anything in Swiss Law that can get you sued for talking about 'Luciferians'... I mean, WTF?... Is 'discrimination' against 'Luciferians' a crime in Switzerland?... Are they actually a 'race'... 'Religion' I'll leave aside, & besides, I've always said IT.HAS.NOTHING.TO.DO.WITH.RELIGION.
Anyway ~ The only logical thing to conclude in this matter is that 'some entity' is being protected... Following that path... If 'Luciferians' aren't the ones being protected [unless of course there are 'anti-discrimination' laws on the books, in Switzerland, protecting 'Luciferians], or, just for shits & grins, say, "Syrians", [& I'll just bundle up the 'Syrians' with that, because, if anything, it's always 24/7 open season on 'Syrians' who, it seems, nobody gives a FF about 'cept which bombs to drop on them]...
So, if SMG's efforts to shine the spotlight on "Luciferian's" is flawed... Then there are only two possible conclusions:
1. He's FOS
2. He's 'correct'... But if he is, how do you skate around the unlikelihood that nobody would ever win a court case that accused someone of 'discriminating' against 'Luciferians'? [there would be no need to post 'anti-discrimination' clauses on your webpage]... So while the 'Luciferian' ANGLE may still hold water, it can only mean that, if indeed, it's the 'Luciferians' who lodged a complaint, & that complaint wasn't focused on themselves, then they did it on behalf of another 'special entity' near & dear to their hearts [& which evidently wasn't the 'Syrians']... Say what you may, but I'd tend to believe that this is a more frightful proposition than the more simple idea of directing attention to special entities... Now ~ the only thing left to do would be to identify this so called "special entity"... Of that I don't have the foggiest clue [notwithstanding my efforts to apply sound reasoning]...
It's all so confusing [to some]...
Being junked is a backhanded compliment. If everyone agrees with you, you weren't making them think very hard. Worse stlll, no up or down arrows.
And my thanks in advance to those who junk this comment.
Page Boy: "That Thessalonian is the biggest man I've ever seen ~ I wouldn't want to fight him"
Achilles: "That's why nobody will ever remember your name"
Zero income equals zero tax.
I think someone with zero income gets a redistribution payout from the government.
"Zero income equals zero tax"
Or if you are GE, a few billion equals zero tax.
How do you purpose that the people institute a tax on a global fascist empire?
Please elucidate, I'm sure there are many, many people who would like to know.
Probly quite a few in china, if not every nation.
First, end the Fed. Then the IRS. And let the People govern themselves and not pay complete douchebags to post ridiculous shit on the internet. But that would cost you your paycheck I'm guessing.
Again, private message, you can see my face, and what i do.
Easiest way outside of here is knowless on Reddit.
What the fuck does that mean? Oh right. You are a fucking SPOOK. Fuck you.
Are you fucking drunk? I am asking you as a person to contact me, and we can talk, why do you think i espouse the ideals that i do?
Take it or leave it, sadly, i am a real person
I prefer to speak in a public forum. My Rand friends would enjoy our conversation.
About what then? Or continue to dodge? And call me a spook?
Yes.
Nice, as it is then, thanks, glad to hear you don't want to debate someone of my stature because you are intimidated(good to hear your friends have no want or will for an honest contest either).
Make sure to go fuck yourself. I'll be here in the real world, waiting.
Keep calling me a spook, and I'll keep working this bullshit until you fiat rich bastards get off my neck.
Cool.
Machiavellian classic principle not to overtax the people as it will discourage commerce. However, the Bolsheviks see it differently since they monopolize agriculture and industry. Look to the past to predict the future.
do you post on prison planet with the rest of the nascar crowd too
Do I qualify for SS disability? I suffer crippling alcoholism which prevents me from working.
Absolutely! Headaches are good too as is bi-polar disorder.
A more cutting edge version of disability which I expect more ZHers to pursue is chronic sinking syndrome. This is the unfortunate tendency to sink boats containing valuable cargoes. A real career stopper for those who are seeking employment in the maritime trade.
But ZHers would have to go to admiralty courts to prove that disability. All my stuff keeps falling down a deep hole in the side of a mountain. You'd need a Hobbit and a couple dwarves to retrieve it.
On another note, maybe Holder is aiming for an alzheimers disability?
Can I get my three year old diagnosed with ADD so I can get some disability and the bonus of drugging him. That kid;s a pain in the ass, always into something. I can't watch Jerrry with that little fucker running around
LTER! You quoted almost the exact same snippet I did (see below).
We can compare notes in camp!
Who is John Galt?
Jamie Dimon.
P.S. Edit -- who is a mindless sheep that is either a freshman in college or stuck in that mindset. You!
Lol, pulling off my writing now? Weird. What's my mindset? Wanna talk about communism? Or labor?
No.
Actually yes, I'll give you the last word if desired.
Thank you.
WTF happened to this place? LTER gets all ups while noless gets all downs? Guess I need a drink, and maybe a divorce.
The gang will all be there, starting in about, uh wait guys a sec, someone's knocking at t
I hope you don't own a pressure cooker, gun, knife, angry facebook page, etc.
My background check took months, i was told it set precedent.
Longer than your time on ZH. What agency do you work for?
My old account is knowless, which i use across all sites, i was banned for something inexplicable, i assume this post will garner me the same as well. My old comments are searchable, but the account is locked.
Right. I love what you guys did with the AP. You are supposed to be public servants. Asshole.
I'll make 7k this year if I'm lucky, I'm currently sitting on my back porch drinking a beer, filthy, wondering how many welds I'm going to have to resurface tomorrow, if you want to talk, then pm me, and I'll send you a shell email to talk about my life, I'll even send you pictures from the dilapidated "factory" I'm temping at. I'm serious.
Thanks. No.
His original reply before edit was "thank you", but he's solid people, don't worry.
Blatant classism.
Fuck you noless Spook. Fuck you. Fuck you.
Burn one you trolling whore, contact me. Dipshit.
No, thanks.
As it is.
I'm used to it.
the funny part is that the background check thing was 100% serious. the argument i had to cast was that if my constitutional rights were infringed then i was no longer a citizen. as in, if you deny me my right to a firearm then you are invaldating my right to remain within this country as a voting member..
lol
you want to make me a refugee over that right now? under what pretense do you deny me?
but yeah, good times lter, just waiting for your rational rebuttal, hows the wife?
Never said it before but...
LOL.
And go fuck yourself.
Looks like you're picked up yourself a stalker. The most disconcerting thing is a psychopath with a hard on!
You know you've made the big time when you get your first stalker.
Look, a discussion of how a pure form of communism would function is nearly irrelevant, union bosses all the way up, turtles all the way down.
I appreciate your additions to the discussion, but why even double blind on the marxist issue, you know this forum leans right(disputably, once the threshold of actual solutions is crossed) so why play trigger words so hard?
The problem that i see is that you refuse to acknowledge that the political class is captured across spectrum, and that that is infact nearly uninhibitable, or maybe you have, but it doesn't suit your talking points, i have no idea.
You won't be able to capture the global elite through national taxation at this point, and an international(global) structure will be thoroughly abused.
So what option is there in your scheme besides protectionism and massive reallocation/revaluations of fiat wealth?
How are you gonna stump for the little man?
Locked with no reply.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCmUhYSr-e4
I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks, I do I do!
What the author says is indeed correct, but what he fails to mention is the machinations behind the Curtain, where only the monetary High Priest is permitted to discourse with his Boss in the 'Holy of Holies'.
There, the plan and schedule toward a Monarchical Feudalism is progressing. But not to worry, no doubt this will occur to him and be published in a future article, when this 'thesis' has been fully developed by his literary flair.
No, it would perpetuate this idiotic banker-serving fully retarded myth that they can take what you don't give, excepting the case of a shooting war, which hasn't happened here in uh, let's see, 160 years.
I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're smarter than the average Tea-Party (or red, or blue team) bear, and realize that the "money" "they" supposedly "took" was actually debt which they created, a "claim" on future wealth/productivity, "the money" didn't exist, and neither did most of the wealth. The taking occurred 100 years ago. The people who did it, and the people who were stolen-from, are dead. Talk about inheritance rights.
No, the problem is that CHS's productive class is really the lackey-class, the 15% or so of people who actually run the system, on behalf of their (far less numerous) paymasters. They keep the state machine running. They are the co-opted middle and upper- middle class, and their labor is only as well-compensated as it is because it performs a very useful function ... for the elite. They form the barrier between the real productive masses, and the apex-parasites, the latter of which wields them like a club against the former.
At least that's what Marxists believe...
...You can't have it both ways CHS, your beloved "productive" class is as much a part of the problem as the parasites that enable their existence.
Charles you are such a downer......
What happened to yesterdays plan to attack the baby boomers? I just spent $10 on a pitchfork!
All you need is the torch and you'll be set!
no shit fonzannoon....i just can't continue to read this nonsense any more. at some point he has us living off the grid....sounds alot like the fools at a certain college in pasadena calif. they want us to all go back to wandering the earth picking nuts and berries. hope you kept your reciept for a full refund. i now know why it has "two-minds".
Greyghost we have hit the wall on here mentally. We can spend all our time on here contemplating our fate and laying blame and convincing each other we are enlightened. Just do what you have to do for you and yours. Everything else will take care of itself.
agreed fonzannoon. everytime i bring up a possible solution to a problem all one gets is crap...crap and yet they bring nothing to the table. have to laugh about the last time i brought of federal reserve, some poster said i had a vendetta against the federal reserve. maybe...and yet no attempt to counter my points was given. hit and run.
I have often said the danger is not that they quit. The danger is that they learn they like to kayak, fish, watch tv, play with their kids. The danger is that they will not come back.
I have often said the danger is not that they quit. The danger is that they learn they like to kayak, fish, watch tv, play with their kids. The danger is that they will not come back.
I have often said the danger is not that they quit. The danger is that they learn they like to kayak, fish, watch tv, play with their kids. The danger is that they will not come back.
I have often said the danger is not that they quit. The danger is that they learn they like to kayak, fish, watch tv, play with their kids. The danger is that they will not come back. - yea. My first post.
you are redundant
SMOKEDOG.......IF WE HAVE TOLD YOU ONCE ,WE HAVE TOLD YOU A THOUSAND TIMES........"PUT DOWN THE DOOBIE BRO"
CH-S writes:
"...they simply have to stop going to work, stop starting enterprises, stop being productive..."
Well, yes. If it gets bad enough, I'll write you all from Peru (stop being productive here). Other than that, I did not see him write much about what we, as individuals, can do about our out-of-control Tax & Spend Monster.
correct DoChen. by the way, everytime i see your name, i think of early 1942 and the fact the u.s. had a critical shortage of ball bearing to make things.....like aircraft and tanks. seems the two largest ball bearing manufaturers in the u.s. were owned by a swedish company, and well, the swedes had these contracts with germany for ball bearings and were shipping 90% of their u.s. production to sweden and then on to germany. didn't take long for the u.s. to catch on and we stopped the export of ball bearings.
This is why the real revolution will not be violent, it will consist simply of those of us who understand the system refusing to play along any longer. If enough people are willing to live a simple life, work as little as possible in the controlled economy and as much as possible 'under the table', and take thier money out of the banks and the fiat system and convert to gold or other real assets, the statist system will collapse.
I'm all for non-violence, but let's take back what they took first. Through the Courts of this Constitutional Republic.
Through the courts? Get real!
Third branch.
Thru the courts, no. More like thru the wall...
Cannes Jewel Heist: Inside Job Suspected.
Cannes police told THR that the value of the stolen jewelry was about $1.4 million, and that the whole safe was taken out of the wall in the hotel room.
Source: Drudge Report Headline 10 minutes ago.
Fighting low pay for HRM graduates.
I try to get my wife to quit work but she says that spending every waking second w/ me will lead to her murdering me.
Get her first.
I couldn't deal with raising my boys w/o her-better it was me
@Vidar
I agree. This was the common sense known by our grandparents' generation. They lived in rural America for the most part, planted their gardens during the Depression, mended their clothes, bartered with neighbors, and even got loans from prominent business professionals in the neighborhood. Today we have kick-start and getting off the grid.
Another part of this game is to see through the illusion of debt and taxes. At a risk of repeating myself on this blog over the last two years, I will say that I embarked on a self-study quest to learn the laws of this land. I went first to the sovereign citizen's websites, then migrated to Cornell Law and specifically the Uniform Commercial Code.
What I discovered was quite shocking. We are indentured by our birth certificates, we have been distanced from the real economic history of the United States, and we are ignorant of the real laws governing fiat currency, commercial contracts, and the discharge of debt. There is no debt: it is an illusion if you learn to discharge debt and follow the law of the UCC.
So, I resolved to terminate the indenture and noticed the government that I would no longer participate in any rights or privileges. I would only assume the duties and responsibilities of a reasonable man. I rewrote my contract with the US government, and they in turn honor our mutual agreement--Accepted for Value and Returned for Value. Taxes are not a problem, since I discharge them in a timely manner with the presentments that they send to me.
If people were not gullible and remained steadfast to first principles, if they learned the laws of this land, we would not be in these circumstances today. But I admit it is inconceivable that a vast majority would be able to comprehend and use wisely the laws at their disposal that free them from debt and taxes. There is a saying that in life two things are certain- death and taxes. Well as regards taxes that is only true for the indentured serfs who do not take the trouble of knowing the law. As for immortality, the elites are working on it.
I guess you haven't learned a damned thing, because you don't understand the Uniform Commercial Code. Try going to a local law library and pick up a basic book on contract law. Then get the stupid admiralty law sovereign citizen bullshit out of your head.
You, Sir, are quite mistaken. The Sovereign Citizen materials are indeed a bastardization of the US Code, the Uniform Commercial Code, and maritime law. That is why they provide an excellent tool in a comparative analysis with the real laws of the land. In these last 6 years I've concluded a comparative analysis of the UCC and Business Contract Law from years 1975, 1998, and 2006. One can read the lines, read between the lines, and see a marked deterioration or deliberate obfuscation of the business laws and changes in the UCC during that 30 year period.
For example, it is not coincidental that the definition of ownership/title to property was modified during the 90s to favor the bank who was in control of the account rather than the person who controlled the object of ownership (ie the house). This change hollowed out the meaning of an old adage--Possession is 9/10th of the law. This UCC modification paved the way for MERS and robosigning in the years following.
And now we see model UCC code displayed at Cornell Law that favors a totally digital fiat monetary system, where the Payer is a pawn at the mercy of any Payee who performs a drive-by theft of funds.
That and we're all sissies now.
No revolution during the great depression and men's average testosterone level estimated 30% higher. Est as it was studied in the 70s and recently and has fallen by 30% in that time. Most of us are familiar with what that hormone does for our thinking and propensity for violence.
Plus, the average american is 47 years old. 47 yo folks don't revolt. They hide in the basement and hope the authorities get things under control quickly. They bend right over to try to save what they have accumulated.
It's also why there won't be any mass die off. When the serfs are starving all bets to their behavior are off. If you're a gov official the last thing you want is the serfs starving. They do really bad shit to their leaders when they're starving. Keep em filled up with cheeze doodles, fat, estrogenic, distracted and entitled.
It's that easy to solve the problem of social security. When the soviet union collapsed there was no mass starvation, just 7 years off the average man's lifespan due to suicide, alcohol abuse etx. if you have the average guy die at 67 instead of 75 social security becomes solvent again.
The only revenge is living well. Remember, the sociopaths in control spend a lot of time worrying about other people trying to do to them what they're doing to others. Their own private hell.
I'm just gonna tell the wife and kids everything's all hunky dory. No need to worry them for nothing.
Interesting observations.
"Revenge is a dish best served cold." --- or not served at all ? ;)
Helping others live well would leverage your efforts, no?
Vidar
You, sir, understand what's going on. While those in the paper trading business think they are smart by following Bernanke's flute, the chance of Hank Paulson #2 going to congess for a $700 trillion bailout, once the flows stop, is approaching zero.
It's $85 billion a month until it's not. No Central Banker is larger than the nation it resides in.
Not new, but worthwile to read: Panem et Circenses - then serfdom:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2012/05/02/once-a-survivor-always-a-survivor-richard-hatch-speaks-out/
Got to love me some Dick Hatch. The fucking scary part of that is he could have faced 57 YEARS for tax evasion- a violent rape will get you 5.
Atlas Shrugs - The Sanction of the Victim
We the People create the world we live in with every choice we make
It is interesting. If the modern world can run on so little work, then what would a non-parasitic world look like?
Rand -- the sanction of the victimizer.
Yes, we should always surrender our self interests as sacrifice to the collective. Your hatred of all things of Objectivism must surely come from being forced to read Rand a few too many times.
People working 20 hours a week for the life they work 40 hours for now.
I figured this out in the early 70's. I have a comfortable nest egg and pay no income tax. Entrepreneurialism is the road to hell, and Unionism is a yoke. Retired in 1979. On paper, my income has me mired in poverty, and I get some slight subsidies. House paid off, no other loans.
Weep for me.
zenO: Pass on the strategy. What is your system? How do you do this?
How do you do this? You get lucky and combine that with intelligence.
Early 70's by me you could buy a home for 20k. You could get a job paying 10k/yr. The next three decades wages exploded higher, real estate exploded higher, stocks exploded higher. There is your secret. Have a debt driven 30yr boom.
Now we should sit back and just wait for the next one. Should be any minute now.
Live below your means, save, and then unplug from the system when you can make the numbers work.
The smaller your lifestyle, the easier this is to do.
All of the above is legal. Add going off the financial grid while still working (cash jobs) and you can make the numbers work sooner, but it's not entirely risk free or legal. Because of how crazy the system is, the off-grid economy is growing (I wouldn't say booming, but there's definitely a lot more people living this way than there were in 2007.)
>> The smaller your lifestyle, the easier this is to do.
That is the ticket. I used to often say, it's not how much you make but how much you spend. I lived in an upscale neighborhood on a fraction of what my neighbors made. A good frined down the street used to lament about his Christmas bonus. I used to laugh because his bonus was almost as much as I made per year. I disconnected from the system two and a half years ago, he's still back there humping away at a job that's killing him. Yes, he lives a good life, materially, but I wouldn't trade with him.
I paid a pittance (by most standards, $58K) for a dilapidated trailer on five very fertile five acres. As my initial price was cheap my tax base is very low (we have a $50K homestead exemption so my property tax base is $8K). Yes, I dumped $30K into renovations, but that doesn't show on the tax base since I did all the labor myself, and I've got a completely new interior. 40 fruit trees, 30 berry bushes and a 10,000 square foot garden. The produce is just starting to roll in this year and I should be canning beans this afternoon. I'm lucky as I love to garden and preserve the results.
This is my third year of no federal taxes, and very little state and local taxes. I wonder just how many people are actually disconnecting. I've met a few and they are very happy with their decision, but I'd guess the folks that weren't happy with the decision are back in the city humping for the man.
For me it was just something I had to do, I was fed up with the "system" and not willing to take it anymore.
This is a constant question for me and has been for years. I chose to move to a large metro area and pursue a career (such as it is) becoming self employed and ultimately earning a decent if not decadent income. My best friend chose to move to a small town (population 300) because he could buy a house there for $3k. That was 35 years ago. Today my income and business are definitely in regression but my freind, who originally had a good paying job at a coal mine, has been left working at minimum wage for the past 25 years with no way out. I worry that if we choose to go minimalist, we may well minimize being a target, but we may be severly limiting our options if things go bad. Morally I hate the game but from a survival perspective I'm hesitant to walk away. I can live off the land until I get sick and can't afford or get any healthcare. Of course that is what Obamacare is supposed to be about. Like Pelosi commented, people can now afford to abandon their jobs to pursue art or other self fullfilment endevours. Unfortunately, if we are incentivised to pursue nonproductive adventures, who will support this mess? Going small sounds good, maybe too good to be true. My parents grew up in the depression and while they survived, it changed them, and they never reflected on it as the good old days.
There's no doubt, it's not for everybody, and once you cut the ties it's very hard to go back, especially if you've got some grey hair.
My first attempt I went a little too far out into the sticks. It was a wonderful life in a wonderful place, but I felt like the world had forgotten me. I can see now why throughout the eons people clamored to move to the cities. So I moved a bit back towards society, 18 miles outside of a mid sized city, 5 miles outside of a very small town. It's a nice compromise for us.
Yes, it can be a bit scary, but so is a life of endless treadmill trying to keep up with all the responsibilities of being in business in the city. Plus medical expenses can devistate you, living in the sticks, or living in the city. I'm trying to take a much more Zen approach to it all and realize throughout the eons people have faced the facts of our ultimate dimise without the massive health care system we have now. Life is a jourey and every journey has an end.
I certainly don't miss struggling to keep up with the tax man, the insurance man, the building inspectior, the license people, the people on the other end of the specttrum always looking for a vulnerability to take advantage of you. Live is certainly different out here. I appreciate the fact that I'm able to get a taste of small town life and growing as much of my own food as possible. I find the planting, growing, harvesting, preserving and cooking of my food to be a fascinating process.
As far as folks in the depression, desperate to escape the misery, things are much easier and less isolated now. I know they are ties to the system, but a cell phone and internet connection make a huge difference living out here. You are still "connected", but your are much more free.
who will support this mess?
This mess lost it's support at least a couple of decades ago; you have no moral obligation to the Parasites at the top or the bottom.
planting, growing, harvesting, preserving and cooking
In most communties there are alternatives to growing your own food. Most small scale farmers are more than happy to sell/trade for their produce. And once you start eating meat that hasn't been force-fed corn, you will notice flavor; yes flavor does exist.
You are approaching the article from a somewhat rational and reasonable angle
You've obviously overlooked the psychopathic parasites
The ones curently running our planet
We're infested and being bled dry of every ounce of our efforts
We need a good global colonic to survive this infestation
Time for all good men to come the aide of their country or surrender and rezign yourself to being a slave
My company (of 22 years) is going down the crapper. By next year, I probably won't be paying taxes either. Thanks Ben.
Buy equities.
Been there, doing that!
ps
Got gold too.
The most interesting gauge that I've come accross is when the Pledge of Allegiance is recited - a group of formerly staunch patriotic citizens has become a group of composed of more silent and/or mocking reciters than I ever would have imagined.
You might research the source of the pledge of alligence and find it was written by a socialist to teach kids that states rights were subservient to federal law.
the system is telling you poor working stiffs to mooch off the system and work the loopholes. just do it! it is the new status quo. work for cash, sell a little skunk, buy a piece of cheap land, put a used trailer on it and go fishing. that is the life. the modern day rondeau. the way of buddha. less is more. walden pond.
Amen brah!
Can a tick kill an elephant?
Nope - but 300 million can!
Tune out, drop out, sign up for dem goodies!
I think you are confused about the current agenda. Its not about their dependency on us, but our dependency on them. Accelerating the collapse of the system may not be exactly how they would prefer to accomplish it but it is exactly their end goal. Complete and absolute dependency on unaccountable brute force, as our survival will be shown to be reliant on their power to redistribute the wealth into needy hands. Of course the wealth is already in our hands but they will always tell you that taxing the people/businesses that pay your wage is the path to your happiness.
Starve the parasitic beast...don't feed it!
Look folks...this ain't rocket science.... a deleveraging, deflationary Depression is our only real concern...other than that we're fine...
Don't forget war.
No, Mr. Smith.
I know you mean well, but with all your charts and analysis,
you have yet to quantify the endgame of Awareness vs Lies.
Shame on you -- you know better.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/05/irs-official-in-charge-duri...
scroll down to the comments and watch the first one...
if it still works...
That up arrow was rolling over like the price of premium while filling up the Dodge Durango. Just kept going higher. I can't wait to see the fuckheads recent poll numbers.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/05/irs-official-in-charge-duri...
9272 and counting...
10K now. The natives are getting restless.
11666
That paragraph is an amazingly accurate description of a reality that has taken place in the lives of people I know.
Detbt slavery is an evil. I have avoided debt slavery by putting off consumption until I had earned the cash to buy what I wanted. I confess this was not possible as reagrds my house, but I did get 2/3 rds down on it so my mortgage is small. This does not work well for most, especially when a wife is involved. A woman see debt as a happy way to get what she wants. I know, I had a relationship die due to my unwillingness to become a debt slave.
There is a price to pay to avoid debt. Like I joined the military instead of going to college with student loans. I rented for many years before my first beat up old house. I drove beaters till I was 40 years old.
Nope, it ain't easy to avoid paying interest to the bankers, but for the most part I have avoided feeding those pigs.
I am a host though. I am gouged for taxes at a higher rate than any corporation or billionaire hedge funder. A middle class worker is taxed by government authorities until he bleeds! The fuckers clear a cool 50% of my income a year. Federal, State and Local. OUCH!
Do you have any data on males vs. females and debt? I don't doubt your personal experience, but I see couples of every variety. There's a long human tradition of men drinking up their wages, while their wives try to hold things together by spending with care (Africa is really bad that way these days). Most of the thrift books in my thrift book collection were written by women.
Maybe you look for the wrong things in women. Some guys are looking for particular signals (shiny costly grooming items that make women more noticeable), and then they are upset when it turns out they are with someone who costs money to keep that way. My husband knew by my sweatpants and ancient t-shirts that I would be low maintenance. He's the one who occasionally suggests that we replace our functional 1996 Honda Civic, but I like the car.
My brother spends like a drunken sailer; his wife is frugal. Both of my parents overspend in dumb but different ways. Humans vary.
I agree. I think it's case by case. I'm frugal and wife likes to spend, but my best friend and his wife are opposite.