Tax Slaves in the Town of Olive

The American Association of Retired People reports that there will be no social security increase next year for the first time since 1975. The reason is lack of inflation or deflation. I was previously wrong about this, predicting continued inflation. The reason for the deflation has been credit contraction. The new reserves that the Federal Reserve printed have not yet been lent. When they are, inflation will resume.

Nevertheless, for deflation we see remarkable phenomena. The price of food has been rising. Gasoline now sells in the high two dollars or low three dollars per gallon. The New York City subway recently raised its price. That is a curious set of events for a "deflation". Of course, New York State and local taxes are on the rise. I guess state and local governments have not been reading the propaganda of the New York Times, which incidentally, raised its prices too.

Here in the Town of Olive in the Socialist State of the Empire school taxes were raised about 5 percent and the school budget was raised by a similar amount. It is remarkable that in a deflation the cost of education has been increasing. Berndt Leifeld, the Town supervisor, has not provided data about education results in Olive. I would think that if school costs are rising, educational outcomes are rising too. I'm sure the high school students are reading Cicero these days rather than playing Nintendo or Mafia Wars. The extra 5% in the school budget has unquestionably been well spent. Mr. Leifeld seems to have forgotten to ask the school board to publish statistics on education outcomes. There seems to be a transparency problem in Town government.

One of the local residents has seen his taxes rise 5%, but he lives on social security which has not increased. Therefore, he can no longer afford to live in his house. It seems that the Town of Olive does not follow the inflation principles of the Social Security administration.

The American system of government is one of gradual enslavement. The masters of the slaves are vested special interests who manipulate government: incompetent government employees; educational institutions that do not educate but demand higher wages; and, of course, ever worse management and ever higher taxes. But who puts the masters in place? The slaves themselves.

Let it be said that Americans are the first people who have willingly, as a society, enslaved themselves, appointing their own masters and depriving themselves of property by democratic vote in order to subsidize their masters. We live in a nation of slaves, with slave minds and slave attitudes. This is no longer a free country.