A Third of Americans Delinquent on Debt

A third of Americans delinquent on debt:

Now this is news that is not really news! Naturally like all statistics, some of these folks have some bills that "got lost" and went into collections and may be able to pay. It however doesn't include such things as the infamous "payroll loans", so it may be even worse, who knows?

I also ran into this little gem of job switch from '90 to '13 . Essentially, most of the people still working are working in healthcare. Not a lot of news there either from a town where in '90 something like 7K were working at IBM and maybe 10K at Mayo. Today less than 2K are at IBM and slipping fast, while Mayo is 35K and rising.

We are a nation something like 17T in debt with something like 60T in unfunded liabilities for FICA, Medicare and now BOcare coming due over the next 20-30 years.

On top of that, our people are largely operating on debt because they have an extreme belief that they are entitled -- not surprisingly since that is what our schools teach and is pounded into their heads every day by the MSM and The Party (Democrat). Something less than 25% of age 50 people even have a positive net worth, let alone being on any path to anything but being a ward of the state when they can't work.

The "whys" here are pretty obvious, but we will cover them again:

EVERYaction that government takes as MANY at least supposedly unintended (or at least hidden) effects.

• FICA leads people to believe that they need to do less for their retirement -- so they work less,  save less, etc. 
• Medicare put a huge amount of guaranteed money into healthcare for the elderly -- so the medical industry is incented to come up with ways to get that money. The results are similar to throwing an ever increasing amount of gasoline on a fire. 
• BOcare will do the same thing as medicare for the general population as it gets moving. 
• BOcare will also do what the combination of welfare and high tax rates do. It is mostly a transfer of wealth from those that make more than the subsidy values to those that make less ... so people will increasingly target making less money in order to get the subsidy. (and the government will borrow an increasing amount to pay the subsidy) 

This is of course only the very tip of the iceberg, and ONLY the extremely limited effects that can be discerned by destruction of the natural desire of people to compete, succeed, be responsible, etc.

The US has the highest corporate taxes in the world, PLUS, we are the ONLY nation that taxes profits made in other nations! Other than our historical stability relative to social unrest and out and out nationalization of business, we have become the worst place to do business on the planet!

Unsurprisingly, we have a LOT less business -- but we DO have a TON of "healthcare" ... funded largely by government debt.

Environmentalists have been telling us about all sorts of things being "unsustainable" since Malthus -- we have been "out of trees", "out of oil", "out of water", "out of cropland", etc, etc for 100's of years according to their calculations -- who knows, they may eventually be right.  Currently the big deal is "Global Warming" (or climate change, or climate disruption -- depending on how cold it is).

They say that "in a hundred years", the temp will be "something between a few tenths of a degree to maybe as much as a couple degrees" warmer ... and that is a catastrophe. Maybe so.

My prediction is that in 5, 10, or maybe if you are a REAL optimist, 20 years, the "Government bubble" will burst, because fewer and fewer people working at all, those that are working being mostly in healthcare, and paying for those few working with ever larger piles of debt is not "sustainable".

I'm just a curmudgeon I guess.

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Rich People Vote Their Self Interest, The Making of a Dependent

I was poor, but a GOP die-hard: How I finally left the politics of shame - Salon.com:

This column does a good job of covering many of the official mottos of "progressivism"

1. You have a RIGHT to free stuff -- income, education, healthcare, home, food, recreation, cell phone, you name it! 
2. Nothing bad that happens is your fault, nor the fault of "The Party" (Democrat) ... all bad stuff is due to "rich people", "Republicans", "Big Business", etc ... there is no such thing as "responsibility" for TP or TP members in good standing! 
3. Your "responsibility" begins and ends with voting TP! It shows you are "good, smart, correct, popular, etc" ... all the good stuff. All you need to know is VOTE TP! 

 They crash companies, loot pensions and destroy banks, and when they hit a snag, they scream to be rescued by government largess.  By contrast, I continued to pay my oversize mortgage for years, even as my home lost more than half its value.  I viewed my bad investment as yet another moral failure.  When it comes to voting and investing, rich people make calculated decisions, while regular people make “emotional” and “moral” ones.  Despite growing self-awareness, I pushed away reality for another election cycle.

One of the tough parts of the world is "de-referencing" the "they" ... in programming or internet activities, you need to do something like take "www.cnn.com" and convert it to something like 157.166.226.25 (DNS does this) ... in programming it is usually converting some "name" or "object" into an actual 32 or 64-bit memory location. 

So who are "they"? The writer wants to convince you that "they" are "Republicans" or "big business", but the whole "TARP" was engineered by a total control Democrat ( THE Party ) congress and BO! W was the lamest of lame ducks at that point -- so in fact, THE PARTY was the central power in buying out all the bad paper that the financial organizations had. 

Basically, "rich people" ARE "The Party" -- the smoke screen is that they are willing to give those willing to kiss the ring of lefty power a "basic living" ... maybe say 1K sq ft of living space, a smart phone, internet and a flat screen of say "50 inches" plus US Postal Health Care + mass quantities of mac and cheese to munch on and stay "comfortable".

Just how much is "guilt" worth? What is being given up is the idea that you are an independent and capable person that refuses to live in the "liberal" box.  But the author of the article finds the guilt of having to take responsibility for your actions to ultimately be too much, and is willing to become a docile and guiltless ward of "The Party". 

I'm sure they will treat him "fairly". 
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Is Pot Legal Nationally, Is Colorado Stupid, Or Is Joni Earnst?

Exclusive: GOP Senate Candidate Caught Saying States Can Nullify Laws - The Daily Beast:

We could have a good long discussion of the 10th amendment, States Rights and the Constitution in general ... or we could just look at the case of Pot.

Is Pot still illegal Federally? I think the answer to that is pretty simple.

So what did Colorado and now Washington do? They effectively nullified a Federal law in their state.

The writers of this column are just fine with that I'm sure -- let Feds like BO look the other way as Federal Laws that they they are sworn to protect but happen to not like much are nullified. They get to pick and choose -- which is completely unconstitutional, but they get to pick that too!

Joni Earnst is "stupid" because she doesn't understand that following the Constitution is completely optional for the left, but completely NOT optional for the right!

There we have it ... completely simple!







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We Demand A Single Choiceless World Government!

Inversion Therapy for Liberals | Power Line:

Good column, the punchline is very old though. The USSR understood that as long as there were alternatives to their system in the world, their system was in grave danger. Eventually you have to build walls to keep your people IN!

"Liberals" abhor actual choice -- because if people are allowed to choose, those that are productive and make money will avoid the system that the "liberals" think is "just". Their idea of "justice" can only ultimately be enforced by a gun -- so they want to make certain that they have them and nobody else does. People that actually practice and are able to operate independently are a very nasty obstacle to the "liberal" agenda that demands that the sheep bleat approvingly at any nostrum that the leftist shepherds trumpet.

"We need the revenue" indeed!

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Gun Control In Action, The Chicago Way

How Gun Control Works In Chicago – 22 Shot In 12 Hours:



22 shot in 12 hours, 60 shot over the 4th weekend. Chicago has one of the strictest gun laws in the nation -- and it works exactly like one would expect! The criminals have a lot of guns and use them with impunity and those that follow the law and do not have guns bleed and die.



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45 Years Ago, The Pinnacle and The Premonition

Forty five years ago I was a 12 year old with only one thing on my mind. THE MOON! America was the nation that took on the USSR, and even though no US politician had really had the guts to say it yet, we knew in our hearts it was indeed an "Evil Empire" and eventually it would be "them or us".

Politics were FAR from my mind while in giddy excitement and a good deal of anxiety I listened to the crackly voices from Eagle as it descended to the lunar surface. We were still a Christian Nation -- there were a lot of prayers going up from the USA for a successful mission that evening. I'd felt and heard nothing but joy the previous Christmas while Jim Lovell and the crew of Apollo 8 had read from Genesis 1 while circling the moon. We knew our place in the universe -- America was great, but God was greater.

At age 12, Chappaquiddick didn't register ... (nor does it STILL register on Google spellcheck!) America was at it's pinnacle, but just like I'm sure Egypt never recognized it when they built the pyramids, Greece when they built the Parthenon, nor Rome when Hadrian reconstructed the Pantheon in like 125 BC, the seeds of our destruction were well planted.

Our nation was at once so just, so capable, so dedicated and so focused that we could go to the moon and back multiple times in that era. We were also so corrupt, venal and disgusting that we could allow a sitting US Senator to effectively murder a young woman on his staff and not report it until the next morning, YET, still continue in what was once  "The Greatest Deliberative Body" for nearly 40 years beyond his crime!

"Justice is mine saith the Lord". People ask "Why are we so divided today"? Look at the Moon and remember what we once were. In those couple days, July 18-20 1969 we see the greatness of America and it's demise, clearly and plainly laid out for any that want to see.

But mostly, we as a nation do NOT want to see, so we are "divided". Unless a people is willing to accept a higher power than themselves and their nation -- even a nation that builds the Pyramids, the Parthenon, the Pantheon, or yes, goes to the Moon, it is doomed.

History shows that nations can be great without Christ being in that position (USSR, China). Although Western civilization and especially the USA did reach the absolute pinnacle of what was possible for human kind -- in technology, power both economic and military, and more importantly vastly superior opportunity, justice and living standards for even the poorest citizens.

Nations require some version of "we hold these truths to be SELF EVIDENT". Human leaders are mortal and often corrupt. Even the good ones die, and the bad ones MUST be replaced and identified as FAILED quickly and surely, or the rot expands and destroys all that was once great.

I'm so thankful to have been alive to experience the landing in '69, and to have been too young to even care about the premonition. To have been alive to see and feel what was and is possible for a great nation with purpose, meaning and FAITH! How sad to see how far we have fallen. The moon? We can't even put a man in orbit 45 years later.

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" -- and losing that fear is the end.

Pond Elation

19 days since "Pond Depression". The rain generally shut off, the weather improved and the Water Feature is at like "85%" ... needs to be integrated better with the yard, path around the house needs to be finished off ... oh, it will be endless.

BUT, it sounds really nice, the water has cleared up, lots of plants have gone in around it (Thanks Marla!) and a few in it. There are low voltage lights around it (and in it).

Probably take the day off tomorrow and get the boat out on the river. As they used to say on the old "A-Team" show, "I love it when a plan comes together"!

Lots of sweat, lots of head scratching, a bit of cursing -- but IT IS ALIVE!

The Bear, The Cub and The Weasel

Funny-Because-It’s-True: Dan Bongino Zings Obama’s Absurd Nickname ‘The Bear’ with the Perfect Tweet:

BO thinks he needs a signature animal to go with his signature namesake stench. He has personally chosen "The Bear". Say what?

Some folks like to hang the "Bear" moniker on me -- school mascot Bear and large, but I'm not nearly aggressive or fearsome enough. Thus "Moose" ... need to shop at special "Moose Store" not for puny humans. Large "antlers" (ears stick out) ... generally docile, unobtrusive, dull witted, exceptionally good looking -- certainly "Moose" is the obvious choice!

"Bear" for BO??? Well, maybe "Cub", but even that seems really wrong. Cubs are nice, cuddly, cute and have the potential to grow into something fearsome -- BO has none of that. BO has a gigantic ego completely outsized for his "accomplishments" (TWO Bios before age 50?) Certifiable narcissism. He is a super sneak and a liar and has that long "whiny slinky look". A weasel is always going to blame someone else and never stand up and be counted. I rest my case!

No doubt in my mind "Weasel" is DEFINITELY the right animal for BO!

It is hard to even imagine how much derision any R president today would get if they tried to identify themselves with an animal!

Not to say it isn't fun sometimes  TR "Teddy" Roosevelt -- the R in name only that was the first major "progressive" was famously the foundation for the "Teddy Bear".

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United 232, Back When We Were the Home of the Brave

United 232 and the Miracle in a Cornfield | RealClearPolitics:



 Nowadays, commercial airliners crash on clear days with everything operating flawlessly because the pilots are unable to execute a straight in approach without instruments.



We have come a long way baby ... well worth the read.



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"Take Those S.O.B.s Out!" (Republicans) ... BO Approves this Message

Jimmy Hoffa Threatens GOP At Obama Event: "Let's Take These Son Of Bitches Out" | RealClearPolitics:



Oh the wonderfully civil rhetoric of class war and unions busting heads! Our very civil chief nasty gets up next and is "proud" of the speaker for wanting to "take the GOP out". How nice.



Never, never, never give up the 2nd amendment and arms! Nothing like those being "taken out" to start putting a few thousand high speed rounds in target to reduce the confident smiles!



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Leno, Passion, Cars

Passion and love drive Jay Leno to fill a 130-car garage - LA Times:



Good little read. I love to drive stuff -- a bit wider class of  "stuff" than Jay maybe.



If I had a similar setup it would have cars, trucks, motorcycles, tractors, heavy equipment like Cats and Payloaders, Bobcats, Jeeps, planes, boats ... and I'm sure I could pick out some more.



The Harley vs Honda whets the appetite, it is great to be able to ride both and savor the differences in engineering, style, "feel" ... I'd love to have a CanAm and an adventure bike as well -- plus maybe a trike just to see what they are like. Four or five side by sides ... a 4-place Razer with big HP, a CanAm for comparison, one with tracks ...



I do miss the sleds ... a mountain sled, a touring sled, a high speed ditch banger ...



I grew up with an IH - H ... to me, the essence of red tractors. Gotta have one of them. John Deere 4020, it was THE cool tractor right around High School ... oh, the IH 806 with a cab. Certainly one of the current big IH quadratracks, I would love to spend some time in one of those.



Why? Well, that is a really good question that has no answer at all -- like "why my pond / stream"? I happen to like messing around with it and seeing it come together. Passion? Insanity?



I'm sure there are people that are pretty much the "Wasting away in Margaritaville" speed on a permanent basis. I certainly know that feeling from time to time as well, but at least significant parts of the species have "passions" -- not necessarily "reasonable passions" (is that an oxymoron?). Evolution tells us we have only for drives ... the supposed "four F's" ... Feeding, Fighting, Fleeing and uh, "reproduction".  So which of those is the passion for cars, driving, architecture, music, art, technology, etc?



Oh, I know that the human materialist hard cores have mapped damn near anything to "dominance hierarchies" and thus breeding advantage. It is going to be harder to prove than even "Global Warming" that we are NOT just a bundle of "selfish genes" and nothing else ...



I still like to dream about my own version of the Leno stable -- as BO says, "sue me".



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TP "The Party" (Democrat) Lower Class Nation and Strategy

Why Democrats Need to Take Sides in America's Class War:

This rather long column lays out TP "gains" and strategy. The following chart from the article shows the huge "progress" of BO to date ... since '08 we have gone from a 53/25 middle/lower class identity to a 44/40 split! We are on the verge of realizing a core TP vision, America as a self identified lower class nation! :

The destruction of the "middle class", "bourgeois", "American Family", etc has been the agenda of left world politics since Marx, and solidly entrenched in TP since at least Wilson. Giant gains in increasing the dependency of Americans were made under FDR, but "the plan" was screwed up by WWII ... the war energized the nation and largely returned the Americans sense of "can do, self reliance, individual responsibility, etc".

Vietnam, the Cold War, Watergate, oil shocks, Stagflation and Jimmuh Carter had us on the ropes again in the late '70s, but before Jimmuh could close the deal, Reagan brought back the old virtues and it looked like MAYBE, America might actually figure out the "progressive" trap after all -- ah, the joy of Reagan and OPTIMISM!

But now it is the left that is highly optimistic -- less people IDing as "upper", far less as "middle", and MANY more as "lower"! The ultimate goal of TP! Everyone a dependent! Everyone focused on having the  government tear some little shred of a decaying nation away from someone else! Class warfare and dependency -- the mothers milk of TP!

So the rather long article calls out the needed strategy to double down on ways to force business to pay more -- which naturally moves more off shore and increases dependence. Another WIN!

Ever increasing taxation on the upper incomes to reduce their ranks further, help increase dependency of those to whom the money is transferred, AND make it less desirable to work toward a high income! A trifecta if winning TP strategy -- punish success, reward failure, reduce a set of voters you have trouble with (the successful), increase a set if voters that always vote for you (the dependent)!

Naturally TP writers are not yet totally direct in stating this, but one doesn't have to look very hard in this column to see the excitement of a "progressive" wolf that sees the US as largely bleating plaintively for his able wolf "assistance".

Expect a lot more celebration from TP.

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Murder of Middle Class

Protecting the American Dream: The murder of the middle class | Fox News:



Written in a very populist style, the column and I imagine the book pulls together a lot of things covered in the blog as well as some new stuff. Too busy to check some of it out today, but he asserts that China passes us as the #1 consumer economy this year, and Canada passes us as the #1 middle class this year as well.



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Even The Left (WAPO) Admits BO is Lying

Obama’s claim that the GOP has ‘blocked every serious idea’ - The Washington Post:

Sure it is obvious, but the lies occasionally get a little outlandish for even the WAPO!

If his lips are a flapping you can be sure that the truth is taking a beating.

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Administrative Law

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/letat-cest-moi

I'm sure that many find me alarmist on the issue of the extreme loss of rights that has already happened to Americans. The root assumption of the Administrative State is that the "general population" isn't capable to make their own decisions. The ideas of the Administrative State are so good, they have to be made mandatory -- your freedom MUST be restricted because you are not smart enough to make decisions on your own.

A few points:

1. Seat belts, car seats for kids. wearing a helmet on a bicycle or fire insurance are all things that most do to try to cover risk of things that we hope will not happen at all.
   
2. There is also a human tendency to work rather hard at denying risk or even known eventual outcomes like death. Seatbelts and car seats were made laws for basically that reason -- some people just DO NOT want to use them, as they DO NOT want to be reminded of the risk! I maintain that the only people that really enjoy riding a motorcycle are those riding without a helmet -- ideally shirtless wearing shorts. They KNOW they are not going to crash!
   
3. We have a hard time picking up slow incremental change, especially when we are being soaked in a media environment intent on us NOT picking up changes. Many will feel a "pang" when say voter ID is defeated even though they have to pull out their ID more and more frequently just to live, or say an old guy loses a basketball team over something he said on what he assumed was a private conversation that was taped -- BUT, the very fact that these things are happening makes the majority of people LESS likely to react (see 1).  

Just to be clear, I'm NOT saying that "everything" or even "most" things the Administrative State mandates are not "good ideas" (eg. I wear a seatbelt). The PROBLEM is that we become accustomed to thinking that the nanny state is always "protecting us". They are convincing us to be followers rather than thinkers, and they are molding us to THEIR world view! We are "outsourcing" or critical thinking!

For example, even though anal sex was certainly a major cause of AIDs, The Administrative State did not make it illegal like they effectively did with cigarette smoking. Their version of "morality" simply would not allow it!

This is why I think this review, although long,  is very worth reading. I may even skip this particular book as too arcane and focused on a single mechanism of tyranny (administrative law), although I'm very aware of the general phenomenon given books like "Liberal Fascism" and "The Forgotten Man", "The Road to Serfdom", etc. BUT WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND WHAT IS HAPPENING TO US!!!!

Here is how the column concludes ... I heartily agree!

But there is something even more fundamental about “necessity” and social “complexity.” The administrative state is a poor way to handle the complexity that has justified its existence all along. The administrative state assumes that it has reached answers to questions that ultimately might not have scientific conclusions. Federal agencies, thus, “have difficulty keeping up to date with science,” because their particularized controls for particularized problems are inflexible and cannot adapt to technological change.  

Administrative law depends on epistemological arrogance, assuming that there is one right answer to a given problem. But our entire society (like all free-market societies) presupposes that there exists a diversity of opinions, objectives, and needs. It is precisely in an “increasingly complex” society that there is no one-size-fits-all answer. 

If the tendency of modernized society is toward freedom or at least social fragmentation, then continual direction by the federal government may actually be inconsistent with modernity. 

Maybe humility—and constitutional government—are better after all.

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