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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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Looks like George Soros is winning.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/162512/satisfaction-drops-may.aspx
The Boston Marathon bombings -- which occurred after the April measure of U.S. satisfaction -- and their aftermath, the ongoing Benghazi investigation, and other recent events may have contributed to a slight decline in U.S. satisfaction in May. Still, from a broad perspective, the yearly average to date of 25% is on par with the 2012 yearly average of 26%.
Over the past three decades, Americans have been most satisfied during the mid-1980s, and in the late 1990s and early 2000s -- when the economy was strong. The low points in Americans' satisfaction came in the early 1990s and over the past five years, when the nation was in recession or coming out of one. The last five years represent the longest sustained period of low satisfaction since Gallup began to measure satisfaction on a regular basis in 1981.
You're doing great, America!
The low point in the early 90s was due to grunge killing rock n roll. The high point in the early 2000s was when grunge died.
If music is tied to our sentiment, it is no wonder why we are so low right now due to the faggoty music being thrusted upon us. I could tell you no band names of current "rockers" and I play music in two bands. I'm in my 30s too.
and all those old rock bands are on reunion tours right now, the last of a dying breed. Too bad they don't put out new music, of course the medium has changed and restricted it. When they kill over there will be nothing left.
A lot of that shit deserved to die- and I'll take Nirvana over Ratt any day.
You mean you boys are not jamming to "Imagine Dragons"?
http://www.myspace.com/imaginedragons/music (yes I had to research this band)
Me personally? I'd throw in Pork Soda or Seas of Cheese by Primus.
Pink FLoyd AND Primus? Quality. Well, if you are still in your 30's IR you are not older than me but damned close to it.
Late 30s but I don't act a day I over 17.
Touche'. But I'll take this over any grunge band (or hair power ballot band)
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=pink+floyd+sheep&view=detail&mid=0741AD07072C871702490741AD07072C87170249&first=0&FORM=NVPFVR
My first band did Pink Floyd "Pigs" quite well. I love Animals. Pink Floyd was my favorite band in HS.
"If music is tied to our sentiment, it is no wonder why we are so low right now due to the faggoty music being thrusted upon us."
Strange comment coming from a musician.
I'm pretty sure the music doesn't drive the sentiment, but rather the other way around.
I play 70's style metal and Civil War Country. I think everything sucks after the 70's with some exceptions like Primus and share a love for Nirvana like Otto. Sentiment does drive the music and we are knee deep in hipster pussies.
I'm a bit older than you and spent nearly half my life in music (and I do miss it, very much).
Carry on, and don't ever give it up.
It sounds like you won't.
When my wife and I were dating she came to a show. Afterwards she asked if I'd always play music. I paused and answered yes. She said good. I knew she was a keeper. Drummer in one band has a wife who barely lets him out of the house. He is in hell. Poor guy. I love music.
Art is imagination. Sometimes (mostly I guess) it's reactive. Sometimes it's proactive.
IR, I can help you out a bit. Because I must travel an enormous amount of miles through desolate territories, I am forced to change the dial quite often to find anything to listen to. I give everything a shot the first time I hear it because why not? I will have to be honest, synthetic music permeates the FM airwaves. There's this Taylor Swift bopper out there who makes way more $ than she is worth. I do like the beat of the Feeling 22 production. I was looking for a track without the words and found this smartass. I especially like the after comment where someone states that the age should have 42.
There was some type of bombing in Boston? No shit! I hope they didn't let some Saudi fly home like after 9-11!
We must ask the question: Why are we letting Evil George Soros count the votes in our elections? How did he deceive the state elections commissioners to use his counters?
Demoncrap Corruption! Demoncrap Corruption! Demoncrap Corruption!
We are doomed! We don't even have the instincts to survive!
Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
STARVE THE BEAST!!!
TD's: you are slipping the Comrade Ingram IRS head of stop TEA express news is out and no new thread..get moving.
Unintended consequence is the creation of a huge underground economy. YeeeeeeHaaaaa.
The only thing missing is a good tab of acid.
Just bought a dresser on Craigslist today. I love the smell of savings in the morning.
smells like.......no taxes.
Long... trailers, portable solar panels, sleeping bags, water filters, gardens, chicken coops, fishing rods and guns & ammo, bicycles, natural food based vit and mineral supplements.
Agree, but what about dentistry?
That's the thing. How do you do your own dentistry? When I think about living off the land, that's where it breaks down.
And other medical stuff. Antibiotics don't have all that long a shelf life. And tetanus shots matter.
Living "off the grid" (and boy, this is going to piss off the purists out there) does NOT have to mean going back to the 1600s.
Very few of us are capable of living off the grid entirely.
Think of it this way, rather than the absolute of disengaging from the grid:
Live simply so that others may simply live.
Disconnecting from the beast-that-must-be-fed requires reducing one's own demand for its benefits.
Read about Weston Price
Don't eat the carbs and your teeth will be ok.
Seriously, they estimate the carb content of ancient folks diets by the amount of cavities found in the average skull
Wonderful website - Thank you
Its so obvious in reading the constitution--Those fellas were sick of the parasitic classes and wrote a law to frame a country of entrepreneurs. They would never have approved of the voting of largesse we are seeing. Ben in a way might end up being the hero by placing the straw that broke the camels back.
And yet Hamilton could not wait to foist a national bank upon us.
llusion of Democracy today.
People sponsored by the rich, make false promises to the masses to get elected. Distribute national wealth amongst themselves and their sponsors (Industrialists) and when that is not enough borrow money from rest of the world and continue the distribution process. The borrowed money has to be paid back by taxing the masses keeping in mind that tax rules are made such that the politicians and their sponsors pay minimum or no taxes.
End of political tenure, rinse and repeat till the whole system breaks down and the world wealth is cornered by a miniscule of the population.
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article35345.html
So darn frue
"Supressing revolution"? Americans can't fight a revolution. The majority are too fat. They can barely walk let alone run. Walmart needs to start charging fat people to shop in those electric carts so they will walk around the store and lose weight.
when the men have big titties there is no risk of revolution
So true. But as time goes by and capitalism is more unfettered, those at the top will do whatever they can to eliminate each other and become king. It is the nature of the beast and the arena of competition. Psychopaths have no second or third place trophies. If revolution does not happen and succeed from below, the vicious competition at the top will eventually destroy the competitors and there will be no rules of succession. How much and how many they destroy in the game is the question for the rest of us.
Actually, a better way instead of not going to work, is to stop using money. There are so many other ways to develop value within a community. We are funding the operation because we are addicted to money as a source of value. This book (mine) will teach you how to stop.
This town created it's own currency in order to escape "National" and "State" over taxation. In effect, taking the town off the grid.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22545400
New currency
In recession people are turning against the euro, globalisation and the import of cheap foreign products.
In Villeneuve they have created their own currency. It is called the Abeille. One Abeille equals one euro. But it can only be spent on local produce and services.
It is 20 euros to be a member, but it is a non-profit initiative and any money raised is ploughed back into helping local businesses.
"We have 150 families who are using it," said Nicolas Queyreau, vice president of the Abeille group.
"And an increasing number of traders. You can pay for your haircut, you can eat in restaurants, and of course you can do your weekly shop. It creates a connection, a relationship between the consumer and their local producers."
The Socialist candidate, Bernard Barrel, who will run in the forthcoming election, is all about supporting local employers.
I can't understand why anyone opens a business these days in the first place. Or produces real goods and sells them for the ridiculously low prices everywhere on offer today. There is lots and lots of cheap junk around - in drinks, 7-11, furniture (none of which is solid wood anymore), DvDs which cost next-to-nothing to produce, Chinese-made clothing, plastic this and that and appliances which break down within months.
This economy is EVIL. Government-protected monopolies extend far, far beyond financial elites: what about union recognition laws, "minimum wages", rigged markets, fake interest rates, government-protected resource industries, the massive public sector...? Why can't I underbid these expensive employees & be hired? Too many people getting paid a fortune (by someone...) in businesses which, absent cheap money and government favoritism, would FAIL.
Where is all the money to buy all the crap coming from???
Makes you wonder how many people's jobs are really "jobs" (that pay their way & produce a profit) and how many are mere "misallocations of capital"...
"misallocations of capital"...
Great way to put it. See that a lot since I've been temping in the public sector. Not so much the private sector.
I believed. Till I started reading ZH.
I now appreciate the saying "Ignorance is bliss" so much better. It's like having tasted the Forbidden Fruit, and having my eyes opened and knowing the difference between Good and Evil.
It all makes perfect sense, expressed in dollars and cents.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VH5xJpjnxc
It is true that inefficient parasites kill their host. The financial parasites would love to model themselves after the flea or leach. The difference is that the animal kingdom has had millions of years of evolution as a constraint. The greedy money changers have no chance of matching that. One way or another, it'll come crumbling down...again.
Do a country-wide strike till all the fuckers are arrested and hanged.
There was no mentionof the effects of immgration legal and illegal and why they dare not deport 30 million ilegals. They believe they must have workers to pay taxes to keep the game going, but the illegal are at best a break even deal as they consume huge amounts of govt. services and pay little or no taxes. In fact because of the number of children they have, which are a burden on our schools and health care system, they get money back from our govt. in the form of earned income tax credits.
Charles,
NO SHIT, SHERLOCK!!!
AND THANK YOU,
CAPTAIN OBVIOUS! !!
For your next brilliant obsevation may I suggest you tell us all how to implement an amercan revolt on debt slavery that will have enough broad based traction to succeed?
Thanks again...
as a commoner, what can be done? the world is in a state of collapse. i assume an accretion point is upon us, this is the last refuge of human interjection. am i to be satisfied with asimoves laws of robotics as they may pertain to better living through quantitavive analysis? would you be afraid of tabluters of better living in accordance with math and not god?as algos move money in the direction of our actualization. would you make altars smoldering in the superfluidity of your gain?how human are you then? my burning question is where senteince will become, in search or profit? as an athiest, i assume enlightenment an unearthed commodity.responsibility is not enough.and yet it is all you could have. protestants made the elect. do not die before it's cast.
Sophomoric nihilism.
Now go upstairs and get some breakfast. Your brain has ceased to function.
STARVE THE BEAST!!!
one thing all should know, is that all things said, there is no store of labor.i already assume that what i got is what you believe. and i thank every one around me for that reality. and i will do my damndest to affirm that, i feel that is the essential ingredient of capitalism. otherwise everyone would completely fuck me out of it and i'd be left to explain the orgasm. so fuck off and buy chinese condoms while your at it. save harder than jesus and you might get out of the sticks.
The very ancient Indians divided life into 4 quarters or yugas. The first quarter was one's youth, with very few expectations. In the second quarter one had a family and pursued tangible productivity. The third quarter was dedicated to learning ... one went off into the forest and learned about our existence and the fourth quarter of life was dedicated to teaching.
It seems that the the western way of achieving "success" leads to spiritual retardation as people never advance to their third stage of life. Very sad... and better to be in the sticks and have a full life.
Its not just a matter of people unwilling to become teachers. we have a larger problem of those willing to learn. Even without teachers, life teaches those willing to learn. This is the core of moral hazard in that it "teaches" the wrong things and as we know bad behaviors are much easier to pick up than good ones. We have to want to learn positive behaviors otherwise we are destined for failure. This desire to learn must be cultivated by others setting the example, and that just isn't happening. We now live in a world of no accountability or responsibility and it goes all the way to the top. We can see this in our president and all of his cadre. They know nothing and after months and years (and millions of dollars) of investigation find NO ONE, much less themselves, responsible.
As one 'american' on this site put it, the thinkers of tomorrow write articles on this site.
The 'american' tomorrow.
This 'american' author enjoys, as so many 'americans' painting the natural world to support his 'american' claims.
Nature knowns no parasite. Parasite is a human concept which when pushed forward by 'americans', gives 'american' results.
Here, the parasite concept is reworked through the 'american' middle class syndrom: it is all the fault of the upper class and the lower class. 'american' middle class comes clean.
Indeed, when one applies the parasite concept rigourously, outside the 'american' urge for fantasy, the financial world is not a parasite, on the contrary, it is parasited by the 'american' middle class.
At the moment, the 'american' middle class is the parasite, they are the ones leeching right,left, front and center with the goal of extending its life expectancy.
The 'american' upper class owns much more resource than they can consume in their life time.
The poor, 'american' or not, are more and more constrained in their consumption. Nothing new for them.
The one class that looks around for resources to sustain itself is the 'american' middle class. It is that one class that desesperately needs fallacies like producing more than consuming. As again, reported by this 'american' article.
Who are these 'Americans' to whom you are incessantly referring (and who are evidently Satan incarnate), and how do they differ from Americans (no quotes)?
PS: I do not, of course, expect any logical, rational, honest or sensible answer from you, as all of those traits are clearly the antithesis of your hysterical and bigoted anti-American rants in this forum.
AnAnonymists, redefining meanings of words every day, when slavery is freedom and never is already. So fine.
If you are fishing the bait that the type of blobbing up promoted by the US government and Wall Street is a thing Americans of the most part are embraced on, you are the blind man.
It is quite easy to made a failure: give an objective that it is not supposed to be carried out.
'AnAnonymist' philosophy has always aimed at blaming Americans for all human evils and all problems faced by humanity, from prehistory into the future and beyond. Exportion of blame is the heart of it.
Does it fail to deliver on this objective? Absolutely not, as blame exportion is uniformously a high.
Does it fail on getting AnAnonymists scratch less their bottom? Absolutely yes.
The Chinese citizenism citizen nature is eternal.
Want to stop the nightrmare "pull every penny of your worth from the banks".
Excellent article CHS.
Fear keeps people from doing what they KNOW in their hearts is right and good. The simple life is satisfying and allows for lietime learning and development, and yet we have been bombarded throughout our life with THEIR paradigm of what success "must" look like. Buying into their idea of success is what gives them their power and their parasitic existence. Ironically... the vast majority of those who are paraistes have no clue that they are parasites and they too look at greater parasitism as the means to escape THEIR fear. They too are trapped and fearful... probably even moreso than those who they are dependent on. They are at risk of losing everything they have been lead to believe is what makes life worthwhile. You can see their desperate fear in their actions against people who have decided not to play their game.
Those who will not play THEIR game lose nothing but their chains. Those fearful elitists who have no one to play their game have nothing.
The older that I get, the more it seems that the only real thing that I need to do in life to be happy is REJECT FEAR. People can no more make one FEAR if he does not want to than they can make one angry if they do not want to be angry. We have free will. We have choice. They can force us to suffer, but they cannot force us to be afraid. (isn't that the point of places such as Guantanamo?) In the end we can choose to die, rather than FEAR.
I personally have two dilemmas.
1. Family and friends have not yet come to the same conclusion and are fearfully trapped in the paradigm and so they can suffer from their fear and I would like them not to suffer
2. The world can be recylced by overturning/recycling the existing elitist paradigm. But what good does replacing one elitist paradigm with another? Even if I/we wanted to overturn the order, while the elitists have no difficulty infringing themselves on the space and rights of others (they depend on it), including the right to exist in this world, my core values do not allow me to make the same choice, no matter how tempting or capable I am. I will preferntially suffer or leave this world rather than willingly accept fear and become them (quite different from my early life when I believed their B/S). So they win by default ... and if I reject fear, then so do I.
Each person must make their own choice.
Tie them to a chair and make them watch Zeitgeist Moving Forward.
Robot communism, a central bank of world resources for the entire planet under slavery rule from 3% of the population... (1 hour 42 minutes declared this is the goal in "Moving Forward") .... that's a grand idea.
HELP lower the deficit, exterminate a Democrat tick or leech!
If you design the template or basic engine of what a Bank is supposed to do as an integral part of the economy you can see how out of sync it really is and how bloated. If you do the same for Government you see that it is bloated.
The behaviour is parasitical in the same way the biblical Moloch needed children fed to the flames.
The whole system needs Reset and Re-Engineering because the LBO Model has reached the end of the road with the current Government-Banking Cartel.
The political system needs an Exogenous Shock because there will be no Endogenous Change.
Whether it needs defeat in a nuclear war or loss of a US Navy or Army is unclear. The Political-Media Elite will not permit reality to intrude.
Why people keep spelling Elites as such I cannot understand, this is the correct spelling...
banksters and their puppet politicians =
eLeeches of society
"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 agree totally. Excellent analysis of how policy is formulated.
It's often said in Britain that "public revolt is three meals away", so govt policy is formulated to avoid that risk. Anything short of that is possible.
And as we've seen in Cyprus, after having their bank accounts plundered, the people are still *not* on the streets searching for political elites and banksters to hang from lamp posts. This fact will not have been missed by the power elites.
In the U.S. we must consider the importation/legalization of instant taxpayers from latin countries. Notwithstanding the cultural degradation it will bring, it will feed the coffers of the welfare state with a new, massively reproductive, herd of new tax donkeys, temporarily extending the game for the topmost parasites, and eventually strain and cripple all social and physical infrastructure with rapid, unabsorbable, population increases.
We must also not fail to consider the growing domestic rabid muscumery being imported through our open borders and muscum infested State Dept. policies that will soon bring multiple terrorist attacks from domestic centers of Sharia-inspired muscumery.
Liberal morons will soon be disabused of their penchant for offering gun-free schools as soft targets for rabid domestic muscumery. The price will eventually be horrific. A fifth-column of murdering muscumery is currently being set in place by the muscum-in-chief, illegal alien, currently squatting in the White Mosque at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, in Washington, D.C.
American tax donkeys are financing their own destruction.
God help us!
STARVE THE BEAST!!!
I apologize for the double post. I don't know how it happened or how to undue it.
STARVE THE BEAST!!!
In the U.S. we must consider the importation/legalization of instant taxpayers from latin countries. Notwithstanding the cultural degradation it will bring, it will feed the coffers of the welfare state with a new, massively reproductive, herd of new tax donkeys, temporarily extending the game for the topmost parasites, and eventually strain and cripple all social and physical infrastructure with rapid, unabsorbable, population increases.
We must also not fail to consider the growing domestic rabid muscumery being imported through our open borders and muscum infested State Dept. policies that will soon bring multiple terrorist attacks from domestic centers of Sharia-inspired muscumery.
Liberal morons will soon be disabused of their penchant for offering gun-free schools as soft targets for rabid domestic muscumery. The price will eventually be horrific. A fifth-column of murdering muscumery is currently being set in place by the muscum-in-chief, illegal alien, currently squatting in the White Mosque at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, in Washington, D.C.
American tax donkeys are financing their own destruction.
God help us!
STARVE THE BEAST!!!
While I'm no scientist, I know of no parasite that cares one whit if the host dies. It is a battle with the stronger either winning or some balance achieved, but no deliberative thought put into it. Our parasites will grow and consume until the host dies. Our particular host truely believes, based on its economic theories that they can tax at 100% or more if that is possible becasue those of us so greedy as to pursue prosperity are infected with a mental disorder that will drive us to produce through a need to feed our greed.
The farmer experimented with mixing sawdust into his cattle's feed. Seeing no appreciable negative side effects proceeded to gradually increase the sawdust ratio. One day he goes to his feed lot and to his amazement finds all of his cattle dead. He had discovered the breaking point of his feed experiment but unfortunately not in time to save his herd.
All kinds of theories are propogated inorder to rationalise ideologies and actions. While some may be appauled at the results of their programs, many others will be quite pleased. As with the communists they assume that some of the defectives will be converted or "re-educated" and the rest will simply perish. But there has never been a plan for what happens next that has actually worked out. This is our current version of American Exceptionalism. We will do what has been tried time and again with disasterous effects, except this time we will be successfull. Forward...and yes we can!
In my lifetime it's always been the case that the political parasites formulate policy based upon what they believe "can be sold" to the unthinking, braindead electorate, without too much uncontrolled risk of being thrown out of office at the next election.
And many of their policies appear only on their hidden agenda during election campaigns which are then magically produced after they're elected into office.
Events today are slightly more serious due to virtual economic collapse and I think we're in the frog-boiling water syndrome whereby they're heating the water slowly but watching it carefully to ensure the frogs don't jump out of the pan and start rioting. But as we see in the US, Dept of Fatherland Security is stocking up on guns & ammo just in case they misjudge the mood of the frogs.
"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?"
Wage slavery has only been with us for the blink of an eye in historical terms. It is a modern invention. Most things that are modern suck.
the art of oligarchy governance :
When you have squeezed the lemon dry, don't try to squeeze it more!
The Oligarchs understand that only too well as here :
http://www.businessinsider.com/greek-debt-rally-2013-5
and here : http://www.businessinsider.com/why-the-euro-could-tank-as-the-eurozone-c...
Visibly the carry trades of easy ZIrped money given to HFs and PDs to butt bash the corrupt "candy from a baby" gullible club med Euro sovereigns, in incandescent financial mayhem, is now being squeezed by the cedit crunch and banksta free lunch verboten jingles in statist circles of CB orchestrated plays.
The times they are a changing as the Statists now go after where the big money really is!
Guess what : when thieves fall out its every man for himself in the Oligarchy world. "Crony capitol hill shill" may not mean the same thing as yesterday in the face of banksta lobbyists.
Sad, sad, sad when you lose your thrills on blue berry hill as one of those "happy few".
"Obammy/Cameron now want my ass!"
"When you have squeezed the lemon dry, don't try to squeeze it more!"
Even in Haiti they say you should just throw away the peel.
I think they already did it.
Don't call it a bailout, call it a loan. Don't call it a "tax", call it QE.
Found out my sister, last year, paid more to the banks in interest than her total income. She said 'there should be a law against that' I said 'what, stupidity?'
On the taxes part, the main defect in government
programs to date has been conforming to monopoly.
Anything conforming to it will mainly benefit it.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5106i1yq5mL._SL500_SY300_.jpg
On the math:
perfect information/perfect ease of entry
yield S/D meeting at no profit, a mathematical
absurdity economically (insofar as commerce goes--there's
someone at techdirt.com dealing with capitalism with
ample or excess supply. But that in itself may be
a non-issue:
http://pages.citebite.com/r1h6b0n7u3bui
The opposite's monopoly,
which, with gatekeeping, risk filtering and pay to play,
figures largely in our lives, of course, though it feels
like somewhere betw Gen's X/Y's when we really went from
category killers to really imitating the famous monopolies.
I don't think it's worth jumping off the terrace over.
I go with "market progressive" rationally informed by the
particulars of a sector, health care being particularly
wealthy with such particulars (epidemiologic factors,
germs/accidents per se really reflect a persistent disinterest
in price motivations; and, you'd be amazed at
the sector specific efficiency derivable from focusing on
patient care and physicians' rationalization rather than
monopolistic architecture.
As to rationally informing of process,
I use the bungee-jumping example, a personal invention.
A Well-Intentioned American Decides
To Imitate The Bunjee-Jumping
Business, Opening Where It Hasn't
Been Marketed. He Hires A Local To
Manage It, As This Will Be Non-Owner-
Operated. After Assuring The Hire As
To Its Safety, The Hire's Told He Has
To Try The Jump Once. Reluctantly,
For His Family's Income, He Jumps.
He Comes Back Up, But His Nose Is A
Little Bloody. The Owner Desparately
Reaches For Him, In Vein, And Yells
"Did You Hit Bottom!?" He Hears Back
"No." The Hire's Back Up A 2d Time,
A Little Bloodier. The Owner Only Gets
Closer To Pulling Him Back In. Finally,
On The Hire's 3rd Return To The Top,
The Owner Manages Pulling Him In,
And Asks "Did You Hit Bottom?!"
The Employee:
"No. But What Does It Mean.
Pinata?"
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Pi%C3%B1ata.jpg
Many American entrepreneurs from California are moving to Mexico. If you start a factory there you are welcomed and honored. If you start a factory in California you become the target of thousands of blood-sucking government agencies, unions, eco-weenies, and politicians.
This is extremely good news. I simply want the US to fail. That's all.