The following post is a copy and paste of an article written by David Limbaugh.  Read it carefully.  Even though it may sound hopelessly depressing, the final sentence is worth holding onto.

The Orwellian American Left

As I heard Barack Obama and his propaganda minister, Jay Carney, endorsing tax cuts as a vehicle for economic growth, I was reminded, again, of George Orwell’s “1984″ and the striking similarities between his Oceania and the American left’s vision for America.

Oceania’s Big Brother regime had “four Ministries between which the entire apparatus of government was divided,” the Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of Peace, the Ministry of Love and the Ministry of Plenty. Each department was dedicated to the opposite principle suggested by its title.

“Truth” disseminated lies. “Peace” promoted war. “Love” enforced uniformity of thought. And “Plenty” manipulated the economy to impoverish the people while enriching the ruling class. God was expelled and absolute truth abolished, while “doublespeak” was promoted.

Oceania’s Thought Police was the Ministry of Love’s enforcement arm, while the Ministry of Truth undertook the task of rewriting history in service to the Party slogan, “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

Today the left has a Ministry of Truth, because it knows that twice as many Americans identify themselves as conservatives than as liberals and so has to disguise its policies to deceive the majority.

Its Ministry of Peace would be better-named the Ministry of Bipartisanship, which, in the name of reaching across the aisle with a friendly hand, slices it off with a partisan dagger.

Its Ministry of Love is more aptly named the Ministry of Tolerance, which dictates one way of thinking and demonizes dissenters. The Ministry of Plenty is alive and well in the Obama administration’s cadre of economic advisers.

The liberal establishment’s Ministry of Truth extends throughout our culture, having taken over our educational institutions, the arts and the sciences. How slavishly our academics hew to the Party slogan. They have planted themselves in positions of cultural influence to “control the present,” in order to rewrite the past (to conform to their dogma), for purposes of “controlling the future.”

Our professors of history, economics, political science, sociology, psychology, philosophy, journalism, law, the hard sciences and other fields deride Western civilization and characterize our founders as Christian-mocking deists devoted to enlightenment principles of the philosophers. They speciously tie our unique freedoms to our “secular” founding to argue that we must banish God from the public square, lest we lose our liberties. In the name of academic inquiry, these academic and cultural “Thought Police” indoctrinate and intimidate students who dare deviate from their thought mandates.

Their textbooks tell us that Franklin D. Roosevelt not only was not a domestic liberal but also saved capitalism through socialism. (Talk about “doublespeak.”) They say his New Deal spent us out of the Great Depression, while current historians not housed in the Ministry of Truth tell us it exacerbated our economic woes. Based on the ministry’s revisionism, Keynesian economists were empowered to reflect those myths in their textbooks for a half-century.

Armed with their revised lessons from history, Obama’s Ministry of Plenty advocated passage of the “stimulus” bill, which was doublespeak for “rampant redistribution to its allies, sucking the oxygen out of the private sector and suppressing the economy.”

The left’s Ministry of Truth, with the full-throated support of the “unbiased” mainstream media, has given us such Orwellian originals as “pro-choice” while suing an 80-year-old prayer-warrior for standing outside Planned Parenthood’s abortion factory to share important information with pregnant mothers to help them make a fully informed choice. The ministry seeks to shut down conservative talk radio, with the “Fairness Doctrine.”

It forbids private ballots for employees to vote anonymously on union membership for the purpose of intimidating them to join — in the name of the “Employee Free Choice Act.” It boasts of “budget cuts” when it slightly reduces the rate of increases in spending. It calls the budget-busting Obamacare legislation the “Affordable Care Act.” It calls a bill that would further expand unemployment a “jobs bill.” It fabricates and manipulates a consensus on “climate change” and ostracizes dissenters as science-averse. (In Oceania, science had “almost ceased to exist.”) It conspires with its Ministry of Tolerance to describe political dissent from its effort to legalize homosexual marriage as “hate” and to brand political conservatism as “racism.”

While the rapacious Obama administration recklessly squanders our national wealth in its lust for power, its ministries of Plenty and Bipartisanship vilify the wealthy — who are paying a disproportionate share of taxes — for not paying their fair share. The Ministry of Plenty, while presiding over the destruction of the private sector, castigates job creators for hoarding all the wealth.

2012 won’t be so much about two competing visions as it will be a contest of truth. Without the left’s Orwellian ministers and their deputies in the press and academia, it would be a historic blowout and rejection of their vision.

I’m betting it will be anyway.

Okay, normally I am all about debt.  Specifically, getting out of it!  However, I have to post the following article.  If for no other reason than to have it at my disposal should I forget it or lose it.  After all, global warming is all about redistribution of wealth on an unprecedented scale, affecting the debt issue for untold millions.  So, there.  It is in line with my position after all!

Antarctic ice formed at CO2 levels much higher than today’s

New research has shown that the mighty ice sheet covering the Antarctic froze into being when the world had a much higher level of carbon dioxide in its atmosphere than it does today.

By analysing ancient algae found in deep-sea core samples, Professor Matthew Huber and his colleagues determined that the mile-thick ice which now covers the south polar continent formed around 34 million years ago. At that stage the atmosphere held much more CO₂than it does now, some 600 parts per million (ppm) as opposed to today’s level of 390 ppm.

Even once the process begins there won’t be any need for our great-grandchildren to panic, according to Huber.

“If we continue on our current path of warming we will eventually reach that tipping point,” he says. “Of course after we cross that threshold it will still take many thousands of years to melt an ice sheet.”

As anyone who stumbles across this blog knows, I am all about getting out of debt.  Not only because it is the right thing to do, but because a financial Tsunami is coming.  And soon!

Here is a link that contains an eight minute video featuring Robert Kiyosaki advocating not new ways of getting rich, but ways of preparing for the next economic collapse.

If someone who has been all about getting rich is now encouraging his listeners to stock up on food, guns, etc., it just might be wise to do so!

In today’s post, I place the ninth chapter of Daniel, verses 4 through 19, found in the Old Testament Bible, to underscore what is wrong with our nation and where it is going if we don’t heed this prayer echoed down through the ages.  As it states in the title, you can read it as a prayer addressing this nation’s relationship with God, and His reaction to it.  If we don’t see some modern-day Daniels rise up soon, as what happened to ancient Israel for their disobedience to the tried and true guiding Hand of God, will also be our just desserts: 

Captivity…..

Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.

And I prayed to the LORD my God, and made confession, and said, “O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments.

We have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments.

Neither have we heeded Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings and our princes, to our fathers and all the people of the land.

O Lord, righteousness belongs to You, but to us shame of face, as it is this day—to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, those near and those far off in all the countries to which You have driven them, because of the unfaithfulness which they have committed against You.

“O Lord, to us belongs shame of face, to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, because we have sinned against You.

To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him.

We have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God, to walk in His laws, which He set before us by His servants the prophets.

Yes, all Israel has transgressed Your law, and has departed so as not to obey Your voice; therefore the curse and the oath written in the Law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out on us, because we have sinned against Him.

And He has confirmed His words, which He spoke against us and against our judges who judged us, by bringing upon us a great disaster; for under the whole heaven such has never been done as what has been done to Jerusalem.

“As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us; yet we have not made our prayer before the LORD our God, that we might turn from our iniquities and understand Your truth.

Therefore the LORD has kept the disaster in mind, and brought it upon us; for the LORD our God is righteous in all the works which He does, though we have not obeyed His voice.

And now, O Lord our God, who brought Your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and made Yourself a name, as it is this day—we have sinned, we have done wickedly!

“O Lord, according to all Your righteousness, I pray, let Your anger and Your fury be turned away from Your city Jerusalem, Your holy mountain; because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people are a reproach to all those around us.

Now therefore, our God, hear the prayer of Your servant, and his supplications, and for the Lord’s sake cause Your face to shine on Your sanctuary, which is desolate.

O my God, incline Your ear and hear; open Your eyes and see our desolations, and the city which is called by Your name; for we do not present our supplications before You because of our righteous deeds, but because of Your great mercies.

O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and act! Do not delay for Your own sake, my God, for Your city and Your people are called by Your name.”

When sifting through this whole OWS scenario, the one thing that keeps coming out over and over is their position that all of their economic woes are the fault of the one per centers.  Those evil rich.

However, here is an article by Walter E. Williams that brings this whole ordeal into a new light.  

And, to all of those who have joined forces with the ‘hate-the-rich’ crowd that are spreading the word through those electronic devices by means of the big bad Internet:

Maybe you should stop lining the wealthy’s pockets with your dollars to purchase and then use those electronic marvels to trumpet how evil those who worked hard and were willing to pay the price to make those modern conveniences so attainable are for the common folk (such as yourself).

Benefiting from a hint from an article titled “Is Harry Potter Making You Poorer?”, written by my colleague Dr. John Goodman, president of the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis, I’ve come up with an explanation and a way to end income inequality in America, possibly around the world. Joanne Rowling was a welfare mother in Edinburgh, Scotland. All that has changed. As the writer of the “Harry Potter” novels, having a net worth of $1 billion, she is the world’s wealthiest author. More importantly, she’s one of those dastardly 1-percenters condemned by the Occupy Wall Streeters and other leftists.

How did Rowling become so wealthy and unequal to the rest of us? The entire blame for this social injustice lies at the feet of the world’s children and their enabling parents. Rowling’s wealth is a direct result of more than 500 million “Harry Potter” book sales and movie receipts grossing more than $5 billion. In other words, the millions of “99-percenters” who individually plunk down $8 or $9 to attend a “Harry Potter” movie, $15 to buy a “Harry Potter” novel or $30 to buy a “Harry Potter” Blu-ray Disc are directly responsible for contributing to income inequality and wealth concentration that economist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman says “is incompatible with real democracy.” In other words, Rowling is not responsible for income inequality; it’s the people who purchase her works.

We just can’t blame the children for the unfairness of income inequality. Look at how Wal-Mart Stores generated wealth for the Walton family of Christy ($25 billion), Jim ($21 billion), Alice ($21 billion) and Robson ($21 billion). The Walton family’s wealth is not a result of ill-gotten gains, but the result of Wal-Mart’s revenue, $422 billion in 2010. The blame for this unjust concentration of wealth rests with those hundreds of millions of shoppers worldwide who voluntarily enter Wal-Mart premises and leave dollars, pounds and pesos.

Basketball great LeBron James plays forward for the Miami Heat and earns $43 million for doing so. That puts him with those 1-percenters denounced by Wall Street occupiers. But who made LeBron a 1-percenter? It’s those children again, enabled by their fathers or some other significant male. Instead of children doing their homework and their fathers helping their wives with housework, they get into their cars, drive to a downtown arena and voluntarily plunk down $100 for tickets. The millions of people who watch LeBron play are the direct cause of LeBron’s earning $43 million and are thereby responsible for “undermining the foundations of our democracy.”

Krugman laments in his Nov. 3 New York Times column “Oligarchy, American Style,” “We have a society in which money is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few people, and in which that concentration of income and wealth threatens to make us a democracy in name only.” I’d ask Krugman this question: Who’s putting all the money in the hands of the few, and what do you think ought to be done to stop millions, perhaps billions, of people from using their money in ways that lead to high income and wealth concentration? In other words, I’d like Krugman to tell us what should be done to stop the millions of children who make Joanne Rowling rich, the millions who fork over their money to the benefit of LeBron James, and the hundreds of millions of people who shop at Wal-Mart.

I’d like to end this discussion with a bit of a personal note. The readers of this column know that I never make charges of racism. Rowling is an author, and so am I. In my opinion, my recently published book “Race and Economics: How Much Can Be Blamed on Discrimination?” is far more important to society than any “Harry Potter” novel. I’d like to know what it is about me that explains why millions upon millions have not purchased my book and made me a billionaire author. Maybe Krugman and the Wall Street occupiers have the answer.

I came across this quote from Milton Friedman that pretty much sums up not entrusting the government to get us out of debt:

 ”If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.”

‘Nuff said?

As I have often stated, if we are wondering what has happened to our country, look no further than the home.  In fact, two of our Presidents, borne of my generation (the boomers), are from broken homes.  That would be Bill Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama.  As a result, it is no surprise that their view of the United States is a fractured one, based on a less than sterling example of what a true stable home consists of.  To wit:

A father and a mother, each doing their part to contribute to their children a sense of purpose, from both the male and female perspective.  For those who have not had that opportunity, that void will always, ALWAYS, be filled by something to fulfill that need.

Regardless, it appears from my perspective of being both a part of that same generation and still recognizing the need to pass on to my children how to live freely under the law, that we as a nation continues to forsake what has worked for so long, and increasingly embraced another path.  That being a recognition of the need to have a set of laws, but deciding that those laws need to be changed to fit the current belief system.

Bottom line: They continue to cast off the founding principles established by our ancestors, drawn from the Ten Commandments in the biblical book of Exodus provided by God through Moses, along with the Christian perspective established from the Sermon on the Mount given by Jesus Christ, and turning to a new god: government.

No one states this better than Bill Whittle.  I now post his latest video, titled “Character“.  It is worth listening to more than once.

If we don’t turn back to what has benefited our nation for over 200 years by turning back to God, we will most certainly find ourselves going the same direction of every nation that started out as ours did and then, in the name of political correctness, multiculturalism, diversity, alternative lifestyles, et al, discover us becoming a law unto ourselves.

The real end of this does nothing but taking leadership away from those who desire to hold to the old path and giving it to those who espouse the old saying: “From those according to their abilities to those according to their needs”.  Or, as the current occupant of the White House believes: Those who have need to give to those who don’t in the guise of “spreading the wealth around”.

Unlike every President before him, Barack Hussein Obama issued a proclamation from the White House today and did not mention God, the Almighty, or even Providence even once!  Here is the transcript in its entirety:

Remarks of President Barack Obama

Weekly Address

Thursday, November 24, 2011

The White House

 From my family to yours, I’d like to wish you a happy Thanksgiving. Like millions of Americans, Michelle, Malia, Sasha and I will spend the day eating great food, watching a little football, and reflecting on how truly lucky we truly are.

As Americans, each of us has our own list of things and people to be thankful for.  But there are some blessings we all share.

We’re especially grateful for the men and women who defend our country overseas. To all the service members eating Thanksgiving dinner far from your families: the American people are thinking of you today.  And when you come home, we intend to make sure that we serve you as well as you’re serving America.

We’re also grateful for the Americans who are taking time out of their holiday to serve in soup kitchens and shelters, making sure their neighbors have a hot meal and a place to stay. This sense of mutual responsibility – the idea that I am my brother’s keeper; that I am my sister’s keeper – has always been a part of what makes our country special. And it’s one of the reasons the Thanksgiving tradition has endured.

The very first Thanksgiving was a celebration of community during a time of great hardship, and we have followed that example ever since. Even when the fate of our union was far from certain – during a Civil War, two World Wars, a Great Depression – Americans drew strength from each other. They had faith that tomorrow would be better than today.

We’re grateful that they did. As we gather around the table, we pause to remember the pilgrims, pioneers, and patriots who helped make this country what it is. They faced impossible odds, and yet somehow, they persevered. Today, it’s our turn.

I know that for many of you, this Thanksgiving is more difficult than most. But no matter how tough things are right now, we still give thanks for that most American of blessings, the chance to determine our own destiny. The problems we face didn’t develop overnight, and we won’t solve them overnight. But we will solve them. All it takes is for each of us to do our part.

With all the partisanship and gridlock here in Washington, it’s easy to wonder if such unity is really possible. But think about what’s happening at this very moment: Americans from all walks of life are coming together as one people, grateful for the blessings of family, community, and country.

If we keep that spirit alive, if we support each other, and look out for each other, and remember that we’re all in this together, then I know that we too will overcome the challenges of our time.

So today, I’m thankful to serve as your President and Commander-and-Chief. I’m thankful that my daughters get to grow up in this great country of ours. And I’m thankful for the chance to do my part, as together, we make tomorrow better than today.

Thanks, and have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Not even an “and may God bless the United States of America”?

And we wonder why our nation is in such trouble?!

There is much to say these days on both sides of the aisle regarding wealth.  On the one side, the building of wealth coincided with the improvement of life for the masses.  On the other side, many are not satisfied with their current lot in life and feel that it is because of the greedy one percenters.  Let’s take a closer look at this dilemma via the following post, written by Walter E. Williams, as to why this division is so apparent, and where it potentially may be going, in large part due to our current President advocating “spreading the wealth around” and saying that, “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money”.

Should The Rich Be Condemned?

By Walter E. Williams

Thomas Edison invented the incandescent bulb, the phonograph, the DC motor and other items in everyday use and became wealthy by doing so. Thomas Watson founded IBM and became rich through his company’s contribution to the computation revolution. Lloyd Conover, while in the employ of Pfizer, created the antibiotic tetracycline. Though Edison, Watson, Conover and Pfizer became wealthy, whatever wealth they received pales in comparison with the extraordinary benefits received by ordinary people. Billions of people benefited from safe and efficient lighting. Billions more were the ultimate beneficiaries of the computer, and untold billions benefited from healthier lives gained from access to tetracycline.

President Barack Obama, in stoking up class warfare, said, “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.” This is lunacy. Andrew Carnegie’s steel empire produced the raw materials that built the physical infrastructure of the United States. Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft and produced software products that aided the computer revolution. But Carnegie had amassed quite a fortune long before he built Carnegie Steel Co., and Gates had quite a fortune by 1990. Had they the mind of our president, we would have lost much of their contributions, because they had already “made enough money.”

Class warfare thrives on ignorance about the sources of income. Listening to some of the talk about income differences, one would think that there’s a pile of money meant to be shared equally among Americans. Rich people got to the pile first and greedily took an unfair share. Justice requires that they “give back.” Or, some people talk about unequal income distribution as if there were a dealer of dollars. The reason some people have millions or billions of dollars while others have very few is the dollar dealer is a racist, sexist, a multinationalist or just plain mean. Economic justice requires a re-dealing of the dollars, income redistribution or spreading the wealth, where the ill-gotten gains of the few are returned to their rightful owners.

In a free society, for the most part, people with high incomes have demonstrated extraordinary ability to produce valuable services for — and therefore please — their fellow man. People voluntarily took money out of their pockets to purchase the products of Gates, Pfizer or IBM. High incomes reflect the democracy of the marketplace. The reason Gates is very wealthy is millions upon millions of people voluntarily reached into their pockets and handed over $300 or $400 for a Microsoft product. Those who think he has too much money are really registering disagreement with decisions made by millions of their fellow men.

In a free society, in a significant way income inequality reflects differences in productive capacity, namely one’s ability to please his fellow man. For example, I can play basketball and so can LeBron James, but would the Miami Heat pay me anything close to the $43 million they pay him? If not, why not? I think it has to do with the discriminating tastes of basketball fans who pay $100 or more to watch the game. If the Miami Heat hired me, they would have to pay fans to watch.

Stubborn ignorance sees capitalism as benefiting only the rich, but the evidence refutes that. The rich have always been able to afford entertainment; it was the development and marketing of radio and television that made entertainment accessible to the common man. The rich have never had the drudgery of washing and ironing clothing, beating out carpets or waxing floors. The mass production of washing machines, wash-and-wear clothing, vacuum cleaners and no-wax floors spared the common man this drudgery. At one time, only the rich could afford automobiles, telephones and computers. Now all but a small percentage of Americans enjoy these goods.

The prospects are dim for a society that makes mascots out of the unproductive and condemns the productive.

If you have ever wondered why things are the way they are, especially considering the current crop of government leaders and their support of the OWS crowd, look no further than the family.  I have long held to the belief that, as the family goes, so goes the nation.  In light of that, the following article (posted here in its entirety from IOTW.com) is as good an explanation as any as to what progress has really brought us over the past 54 years.

As anyone who stumbles across this blog knows (or, should know): I am all about getting out of debt.  However, the following link is vital reading if we as a country are going to collectively get out of debt.

Reason being?

Because, as I have posted recently, as our leaders go so goes the nation.  And, the article I am linking exposes a dangerous mindset from the leader currently on top: Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States.

It is titled: Dear Average American, It’s All Your Fault.

http://townhall.com/columnists/jonahgoldberg/2011/11/18/dear_average_american_its_all_your_fault/page/full/

This way of thinking (in my way of thinking) started long before he was elected to the highest office in the land.

It began in the home.  And, his home was nothing less than splintered.  A father who abandoned him.  A mother who moved him around while pursuing various loves and causes.  Associates who influenced his perception of this country.  Handlers that groomed and promoted him as the next Messiah.  A wife that didn’t like this country until he was elected.  The list goes on and on.

We need to keep this in front of us when voting in November 2012.  Otherwise, that too will be our fault!

I don’t know about you, but I am deeply concerned about the direction our nation is going.  Especially when viewed from my corner of the world while watching the OWS situation unfold.  Anarchy in the streets.  No safety.  Protesting greed while being greedy.  Filth.  Disease. Rapes. Drugs.  Anti-American.  Or, at least the America I believe in.

The following article is so powerful, I am posting it verbatim.  I only changed one word.  The words ‘four years’ was off by one year.  So, I changed it to the word ‘three’.  It probably seems like four.  At the end, I will post the link.  Please, if you value what has made this country so great, take the time to read it.  I suspect that, if we don’t get a handle on this movement before the elections next year, it is likely we will find ourselves greasing the skids that will result in a very different America than even the protesters had envisioned.

To wit:

The squalor and filth in Hoovervilles during the depression were not the way people wanted to live. It was the product of the conditions they were forced into by circumstance. The squalor and filth of Zucotti Park is the preferred way of life for these miserable dirtbags. Many of them are trust fund kids. The iconic “runaway mother” shed the bourgeois to embrace her lice infested dreadlocks in order to “make the world a better place.” Which means we should all have lice infested dreadlocks.

The current Occupy Wall Street movement is the best illustration to date of what President Barack Obama’s America looks like.

It is an America where the lawless, unaccomplished, ignorant and incompetent rule.

It is an America where those who have sacrificed nothing pillage and destroy the lives of those who have sacrificed greatly.

Wow.  Haven’t been here for awhile!

Anyhoo, the basis for this blog is to encourage debt free living.  As a result, that is what I have been busily doing of late.  Just eliminated another $4,000 dollars worth of debt.  Hurray for me!  And, the number one reason why I continue to press forward and deny self in order to accomplish debt free living?

The government continues to do just the opposite!  $15,000,000,000,000 (that’s Trillion) dollars in debt and counting…..

However, inasmuch as the economy does not show signs of recovering any time soon, I enter the fray by offering a solution by way of example, and then expose the problem that just doesn’t seem to be going away.

Once a month, my wife and her brother go grocery shopping.  It is their belief that shopping once a month saves money.  Most likely to the tune of $600.  This is opposed to shopping once a week, including the extra fuel used and time spent.  Now, that is a huge savings, wouldn’t you agree?  Of course, the food she buys is short on heat-and-eat, and long on preparing meals from scratch.  That is another contributing factor when saving money on food purchases.

This is a great example of sacrificing convenience in the name of saving a buck.

Unfortunately, the government doesn’t see it that way!  That leads me to ask: why?

It is my contention that this country has forsaken its moral compass and is whole-heartedly following the current crop of leaders right off the cliff, lemming style.  This is evidenced by the current rag tag group that call themselves OWS, or Occupy Wall Street.

Their main complaint is the rich are getting richer while the poor are, well, getting poorer.  As a result, they refer to the rich as the 1%, while calling themselves the 99%.  It is their position that the top one percent of this country’s wealthy hold way more of the wealth than necessary, and they want the government to redistribute that wealth their way.

As nice as this sounds, it is quite obvious that the real greed they speak out against is as much a part of their mantra as the evil rich they oppose.

Regardless, there is a push by the President to pass a Jobs Bill, purportedly to create jobs and put Americans back to work.  Sadly, this is simply another stimulus package wrapped with a wrapper that says otherwise.  At last report, this Jobs Bill (so-called) was going to cost nearly $450,000,000,000 dollars.  That’s nearly half a trillion on top of the now $15 trillion dollar deficit!

But wait: There’s more!

There is also a movement underfoot to increase the taxes of the rich.  And, to make this even more interesting?  One of the promoters of this just happens to be a multi-billionaire known as Warren Buffett.  In fact, the President has dubbed his push to raise the taxes on the rich “The Buffett Rule”.  Apparently, Mr. Buffett agrees that he hasn’t been paying his ‘fair share’ in additional taxes.  It may also be good to note that, since he came out in favor of paying more taxes, it has been discovered that he is arrears in taxes to the tune of nearly one billion dollars going all the way back to 2002.  But, I digress…..

Here is where it gets quite interesting.

Many have simply asked: “If the rich want to pay more in taxes, why go to all the trouble to pass legislation to make that mandatory?  Why can’t they simply write a check out to the Federal Government?  Why must the IRS mandate this ‘worthy cause’?

Well, here is a great example as to what the rich really think about voluntarily contributing more of their dollars to the government instead of having to do so by law:

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/11/17/video-patriotic-millionaires-insist-on-draft-rather-than-enlistment-or-something/

Really!  Does anyone think that the rich would rather pay more money in taxes voluntarily and not have access to all the loopholes available when they are filling out their tax forms?

If so, I only have one more question:

Since I qualify as one of the 99%, and the government is very interested in helping me and all my ‘brothers and sisters’ financially by taking from the rich and giving to the poor (Robin Hood anyone?), how about you who are rich out there reading this send me a little something extra so I can continue to

GET OUT OF DEBT!!!!!!!!

Thank You!

There has been a lot of talk lately about the #OWS crowd.

For those of you who have just returned from another planet or just woke up from a coma, #OWS stands for Occupy Wall Street.  It has spread way beyond Wall Street to many cities, both large and small, where individuals have been gathering to protest the rich, identified by them as the 1%.  They have also classified themselves as the 99%.

Their main grievance is that the rich are getting richer while they continue to struggle in today’s economy.  Either they don’t have jobs that equal their debt load, or they have student loans that need paying back.  For some, it is both.  For others, it is neither.

As such, the attention they have received of late is as follows:

Most, if not all, mayors of the cities they have ‘occupied’ have allowed this ‘movement’ to continue.  Even though there are laws against camping out in parks not so designated, the prevailing thought is to let them do so anyway.  When it comes to the media, most main stream outlets echo their complaints.  From the politicians, the Republicans don’t condone it while the Democrats do.

All of this to say:

There have been some valid points made of late that equate this protest as being nothing more than a bunch of spoiled brats whining about the way their life is and expecting, nay demanding, that the government do something about it.  As such, we see unfolding before our very eyes a class envy movement in the making.  And, sadly, the current administration is encouraging it.

During the campaign of Barack Hussein Obama, one of his main claims to fame were that he was a successful community organizer.  His resume purported him to be a uniter.  However, of late it is becoming apparent that he is playing the class envy card in order to pass yet another stimulus that goes by the name of a Jobs Bill.  Thus he sees this movement as an opportunity to further his agenda and, contrary to his credentials trumpeting his ability to unite opposing opinions, he is doing nothing less than just the opposite.

Into this vacuum wades others that are like-minded when it comes to blaming the rich for their problems.  Individuals such as Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Al Sharpton, and the like from the political spectrum.  Others, such as Micheal Moore, Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Whoopi Goldberg (to name a few) are also speaking in support of this protest against the evil rich.

The obvious head scratching point?  They are all RICH!  But, that doesn’t matter if there is a point to be made.  Or, is it more accurately phrased “points to be made”?

Regardless, the whole idea of the top tier wage earners being part of the problem, while the bottom feeders hold all the answers to our financial dilemma is nothing short of laughable.

Thus, I post some links to prove this to be the case:

First up, an article that surveyed the top 1% around the world versus the 99%.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2011/10/28/attention-protestors-youre-probably-part-of-the-1-.aspx

This article goes to great lengths to disprove what those protesting Wall Street are all about.

Next, here is an article by Thomas Sowell that addresses, among other things, the definition of greed by today’s standard:

http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2011/11/02/democracy_versus_mob_rule/page/full/

I will be posting more along this line as time and articles allows.  The salient point I continue to make is this:

We are facing a time in our nation’s history where the gap between the haves and the have-nots has never been wider.  However, that gap needs to measured by the statistical fact that, even though the rich are truly getting richer, the rest of us when compared to the rest of the world, are truly viewed as rich by the rest of the world.

That being the case, I continue to beat the drum that we need to stop grabbing for the brass ring, get off that merry-go-round, pay down our debts, and begin experiencing true freedom that can only come from debt free living.  And, if we want that mansion on the hill and a vacation home in the Bahamas, get out there and work your butt off to then earn it!

Stop thinking the world owes you a living!!  Remember the ant and grasshopper…..

‘The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money’
Margaret Thatcher

There are two types of people who desire socialism: those who think they will be in charge and those who think they will get everything for free.
-Anonymous (not the dumbass anonymous above)

“When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”
– Benjamin Franklin

“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who are not.”
-Thomas Jefferson

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
– Abraham Lincoln

Don’t expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong.
-Calvin Coolidge

“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy (class warfare). Its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”
-Winston Churchill

There are no candy-crapping Unicorns in the real world and balance sheets always balance.
-Karl Denninger

“I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”
-Wimpy

And, here’s some more:

1.  You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the
wealth out of prosperity.

2.  What one person receives without working for, another person must
work for without receiving.

3.  The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government
does not first take from somebody else.

4.  You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.

5.  When half of the people get the idea that they do not have  to work,
because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the  other
half gets the idea that it does no good to work, because somebody else is
going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any
nation!

Hat Tip to iOwnTheWorld.com

There has been a movement underfoot of late.  It has been commonly identified as the #OccupyWallStreet Movement.  Or, simply known as #OWS.

It is comprised mainly of young people, although there is a mix of older folks.  Of those who are among the young, it has been determined that many are recent college graduates carrying college loan debt and unable to find jobs relating to their field of education.

The gist of the whole process boils down to this:

Their main complaint consists of blaming the current economic malaise on the so-called 1%.  In their minds, this segment of society is the uber-rich.  As such, they refer to themselves as the 99%.

However, this is a misnomer.

In all actuality, since most of these protesters have jobs (or some form of income, albeit government related), their claim to being impoverished due to the greed of Wall Street (and, by default, anyone who is successful) is grossly misplaced.

Here is an article that does a magnificent job of spelling this out:

http://oregoncatalyst.com/12233-1.html

In addition:

If hard work, ingenuity, and a willingness to take a chance with the goal being a better life for yourself is a bad thing, what does it mean when someone is willing to forsake common sense and become a useful idiot puppet by the rich?

After all, any attempt to change the system by knocking those in positions of authority off their  collective pedestal always results in others being elevated to said pedestal.

In other words:

This Utopian pipe dream is doomed to failure if anyone is willing to stop and think for themselves for just one minute, realizing that there will always be both the poor and the rich no matter who is on top.  As a result, this whole idea of redistribution of wealth will collapse under its own weight, as it always has down through history.

Recently, there has been something going on that has captured the news media’s attention.  That would be a movement that first started at Wall Street and has since spread to Main Street.  Known as the OCW, or Occupy Wall Street, it is comprised of mainly young Americans upset with the status quo.  Mainly, it involves a vocal group that refers to itself as ‘the other 99′.

This is in direct reference to them not being the top 1% owners of wealth in this country.  They also see this as a travesty that needs to be corrected, mainly through taxation of the rich and, by default, a fulfilling of Obama’s position regarding the redistribution of wealth as a means of solving the current economic crisis this country currently faces.

Sadly, unlike the Tea Party Movement, that advocates personal responsibility and less government, this current gathering of citizens insists on quite the opposite.  It is their position that all of their financial ills are due to the excessive greed the 1% possess.  It is also their position that government do something to take from those who have and give it to those who don’t.

This should sound familiar.  It is essentially the same position held by Karl Marx in Communist Russia back in 1875!

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”.

Again, Solomon had it right several thousands of years ago when he said that “there is nothing new under the sun”.

Due to this phenomena of not learning from history, thus being doomed to repeat it, let us take a closer pictorial look at some of these well-meaning yet misguided protesters currently occupying Wall Street.

All of this to say:

I desire to not sling mud or disparage another.  What I do desire is to stay on point and encourage anyone who might read this to continue doing what they can to get out of and then stay out of debt.  When viewing the hand-written complaints of these protesters, it is overwhelmingly obvious that they bought the lie that higher education all but guaranteed a higher standard of living.  All it really got them was deeper in debt with no way out.

Thus, the same government that made college loans easy to obtain is now the same government they are petitioning to get them out of their downward spiral of a life.  Kind of the same thing that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did to create the housing bubble that started this whole economic crisis to begin with!  Instead of removing those in charge that started this housing bubble and then overseeing it burst, they were then looked to to solve the problem they created!

This is why I believe the next bubble that will burst will be the college bubble.

The institutions of higher learning (so-called) will do nothing to address this as long as the government backs them up.  And, as is always the case, it is the youth that are so easily stirred up to protest.  And, what better group to protest against than those who ‘have it made’?!  Unfortunately, those behind this ‘movement’ are just as rich, just as well off, as those they are prodding those young impressionable minds to go after!

In fact, one of the leaders behind the protesters is none other than President Michael Mulgrew of the United Federation of Teachers!  He is quoted as saying that he is “proud” to support the Occupy demonstrators.  This is exactly where the problem lies.  He is the president of “the sole bargaining agent for most non-supervisory New York City public teachers with 200,000 members”.  Why wouldn’t he support these protesters that are carrying thousands and thousands of dollars worth of student loans with no jobs waiting for them once they graduate?!  If the truth were to be seen, he and his ilk would be the ones facing the protesters; not the ones on Wall Street!

Just like Barney Frank did with Fannie and Freddie, these same tactics are being foisted on the ignorant masses, all in the name of fairness, by the same like-minded ‘defenders’ of higher education.  Once again, we are in danger of putting the fox in charge of the hen house!

If this mindset holds true, it is likely that the liberals, along with the current administration, will actually celebrate and cheer on those protesters, and thus lock arms with the college union thugs to distract the protesters from knowing the truth.  In fact, it has already begun!  You can see some of it here, here and here.

All of this is nothing short of political posturing to ensure the status quo remains!

Regardless, stay the course and get out of debt.  It is your only hedge against what is surely coming in the not too distant future.

Following is a copy and paste article written by someone else.

I have taken out all direct reference of who this person is, and replaced it with words in italics, in order to remove any stumbling block from anyone reading a very powerful statement addressing the current state of America.

Just read it.

Without needing to be influenced by who said it.

And allow this position to sink in.

At the end of the adapted article, I have linked where you can find who actually said these words.  Please try and read it first before jumping to the link.  (I will give you one hint: It is an article printed in the liberal New York Times).

You will be glad you did.

Let us begin by confessing that, if the one I am referencing surfaced to say something intelligent and wise and fresh about the present American condition, many of us would fail to hear it.

But something curious happened when this individual strode onto the stage last weekend at an event in Indianola, Iowa. Along with familiar and predictable swipes at President Barack Obama and the “far left,” they delivered a devastating indictment of the entire U.S. political establishment — left, right and center — and pointed toward a way of transcending the presently unbridgeable political divide.

The next day, the “lamestream” media, as many call it, played into the fantasy of it by ignoring the ideas unfurled and dwelling almost entirely on the will-they-won’t-they question of their presidential ambitions.

So here is something I never thought I would write: a column about this person’s ideas.

There was plenty of the usual schtick — words that make clear that they are not speaking to everyone but to a particular strain of American: “The working men and women of this country, you got up off your couch, you came down from the deer stand, you came out of the duck blind, you got off the John Deere, and we took to the streets, and we took to the town halls, and we ended up at the ballot box.”

But when the throat was cleared at last, this individual had something considerably more substantive to say.

They made three interlocking points. First, that the United States is now governed by a “permanent political class,” drawn from both parties, that is increasingly cut off from the concerns of regular people. Second, that these Republicans and Democrats have allied with big business to mutual advantage to create what they called “corporate crony capitalism.” Third, that the real political divide in the United States may no longer be between friends and foes of Big Government, but between friends and foes of vast, remote, unaccountable institutions (both public and private).

In supporting the first point, about the permanent political class, they attacked both parties’ tendency to talk of spending cuts while spending more and more; to stoke public anxiety about a credit downgrade, but take a vacation anyway; to arrive in Washington of modest means and then somehow ride the gravy train to fabulous wealth. It was observed that 7 of the 10 wealthiest counties in the United States happen to be suburbs of the nation’s capital.

The second point, about money in politics, helped to explain the first. The permanent class stays in power because it positions itself between two deep troughs: the money spent by the government and the money spent by big companies to secure decisions from government that help them make more money.

“Do you want to know why nothing ever really gets done?” they said, referring to politicians. “It’s because there’s nothing in it for them. They’ve got a lot of mouths to feed — a lot of corporate lobbyists and a lot of special interests that are counting on them to keep the good times and the money rolling along.”

Because their party has agitated for the wholesale deregulation of money in politics and the unshackling of lobbyists, these will be heard in some quarters as sacrilegious words.

The third point was more striking still: in contrast to the sweeping paeans to capitalism and the free market delivered by the Republican presidential candidates whose ranks this person has yet to join, they sought to make a distinction between good capitalists and bad ones. The good ones, in this individual’s telling, are those small businesses that take risks and sink and swim in the churning market; the bad ones are well-connected megacorporations that live off bailouts, dodge taxes and profit terrifically while creating no jobs.

Strangely, they were saying things that liberals might like, if not for this person having said them.

“This is not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk,” they said of the crony variety. “It’s the collusion of big government and big business and big finance to the detriment of all the rest — to the little guys. It’s a slap in the face to our small business owners — the true entrepreneurs, the job creators accounting for 70 percent of the jobs in America.”

Is there a hint of a political breakthrough hiding in there?

The political conversation in the United States is paralyzed by a simplistic division of labor. Democrats protect that portion of human flourishing that is threatened by big money and enhanced by government action. Republicans protect that portion of human flourishing that is threatened by big government and enhanced by the free market.

What is seldom said is that human flourishing is a complex and delicate thing, and that we needn’t choose whether government or the market jeopardizes it more, because both can threaten it at the same time.

This individual may be hinting at a new political alignment that would pit a vigorous localism against a kind of national-global institutionalism.

On one side would be those Americans who believe in the power of vast, well-developed institutions like Goldman Sachs, the Teamsters Union, General Electric, Google and the U.S. Department of Education to make the world better. On the other side would be people who believe that power, whether public or private, becomes corrupt and unresponsive the more remote and more anonymous it becomes; they would press to live in self-contained, self-governing enclaves that bear the burden of their own prosperity.

No one knows yet whether this person will actually run for president. But they did just get more interesting.

The other day, I was driving down the road and came upon an intersection.  Having to stop due to the light turning red, I had occasion to witness a cultural phenomena.

On two corners, there were two individuals holding signs designed to entice you to give them money.  They both were willing to stand there for hours at a time.  They both knew that, by holding their respective signs, there would be those who would be willing to part with some money.  However, even though this was true for both of them, there was one huge distinction.

One was willing to do so for a hand up, while the other was willing to do so for a handout.

The one individual was holding a sign that beckoned you to a nearby pizza parlor, while the other sign beckoned you to simply give something to the one holding the sign.

The one sign holder was attempting to get you to drive a bit further and turn loose of some of your hard earned cash in return for a pizza, while the other sign holder was attempting to pull at your heartstrings and turn loose of some of your hard earned cash in return for you feeling better about yourself.

Ironically, it hit me how perfect an example this was when it comes to two basic mindsets in our country today.

Roughly half of us are willing to do what it takes in order to provide for our families, while the other half increasingly turn to the government for assistance.  Thus a nationwide example of the difference between a hand up and a handout.

But, let me return to the example of the two sign holders:

The one person was willing to hold a sign in exchange for a paycheck.

The other person was willing to hold a sign in exchange for some loose change.

They were both willing to hold their respective signs to in turn play on your emotions to turn loose of some money.

At this point, the light turned green.

And I chose to honor the one holding the sign that was willing to do so in order to earn a paycheck.

I drove to the advertised pizza parlor and ordered a pepperoni pizza to go.

Ah capitalism!

As I have recently posted, with the economy literally burning to the ground, the blame game continues.

Today, Ben Bernanke points the finger at political wrangling in Washington D.C. for the economic malaise.

And, our President points the finger at Congress.

Talk about playing the victim card!!

Just posting this in order to keep track of what those in charge are saying is the real problem with our inability to recover from a fundamental transformation of the United States of America.

In the meantime, as I have been saying, we need to be getting our financial affairs in order.  Because, no matter who is to blame, the economic tsunami is still on the horizon, getting ever closer…..