Ron Paul on the Dollar

I noticed this on Youtube. I don't totally agree with Paul on everything, but I will not settle for less than him as to the most important issue, America's collapsing currency.

Tea Party Movement Outpolls Democrat and Republican Parties

Larwyn just forwarded a link to Ace of Spades HQ blog which in turn links to AllahPundit:

>"The entire Republican Party...continues to maintain a net-negative favorable/unfavorable rating, 28 percent to 43 percent...But, for the first time in more than two years, the Democratic Party also now holds a net-negative rating, 35 percent to 45 percent...By comparison, the conservative libertarian-leaning Tea Party movement has a net-positive 41 percent to 23 percent score in the poll."

I had previously blogged about a Wall Street Journal article about this poll. Ace of Spades and Allahpundit out that Americans' views on the tea party movement correlate strongly with whether they watch the more left leaning of the Democratic media, CNN and MSNBC, or the mainstream media, Fox, which is the largest cable channel (almost equaling the entire combined viewership of the other cable channels, and apparently larger than any of the Democratic network channels, NBC, ABC and CBS.)

Profit Margin on Slaves versus New York Tax Payers' Burden

I am not expert on economic history but I have a niggling feeling. The net profit margin on American slaves after deductions for their amortized cost and maintenance costs (food, rent, etc.) may have been less than New Yorkers' tax burden. The government gets a bigger percentage of your income than slave holders got as return from their investments in slaves. In New York, to be free from imprisonment and other forms of government violence you must ante up about half and for many more than half of your income in taxes to "the man." These include a large property tax burden that all homeowners regardless of income must pay and so falls hard on retirees; sales tax of about 8-9%; state income tax; city income tax if you live in Big Apple; and of course federal income tax. Did I leave out inflation, which is a wealth transfer device, premium taxes, capital gains taxes and death taxes? Of course, the New York Times owners, the Ochs Sulzbergers, have managed to dodge the last for five generations while advocating them for the middle class. And alas, dear reader, you can probably think of some additional ones, such as gasoline taxes.

Slavery existed from pre-historic times and many historians speculate that it was an economic and incidentally moral improvement over the earlier method of handling conquered tribes, namely, massacring them. Slavery is a horrific institution well beyond economic considerations. Nevertheless, it might be interesting to know whether federal, state and local government exploits its citizens economically to the same degree that slaves were exploited. Naturally, there are some government services that benefit citizens, such as defense, social security, roads and police. But a large share of government budgets is pure waste, pandering to special interests, support of inefficient and failed programs, make work jobs for powerful unions like the Service Employees International Union and pure corruption.

In conclusion, let us recall this 1966 Beatles' song from their Revolver album:



>Let me tell you how it will be;
There's one for you, nineteen for me.
'Cause I'm the taxman,
Yeah, I'm the taxman.

Should five per cent appear too small,
Be thankful I don't take it all.
'Cause I'm the taxman,
Yeah, I'm the taxman.
if you drive a car - I'll tax the street;
if you try to sit - I'll tax your seat;
if you get too cold - I'll tax the heat;
if you take a walk - I'll tax your feet.

Taxman
'Cause I'm the taxman,
Yeah, I'm the taxman.

Republicans Roar While Deficits Soar

Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit (h/t Larwyn) notes that:

"The Democrats increased the national debt to $12 Trillion. And Democrats nearly doubled the unemployment rate since the Bush years with their failed Stimulus Plan. So now their going to give 'Son of Stimulus' a try...

"Not a single GOP Rep voted for the democrat’s historic trilion dollar Stimulus Package. Not a single GOP Rep voted for the democrat’s record budget.
And, once again, not one single Republican House members voted for “Son of Stimulus” the latest Democratic spending bill. Despite what some people say, there is a difference between the two parties."

Here's the picture Jim presents. It is ugly:



The Democrats are a joke. But the performance of the Republicans while out of office has repeatedly failed to match their performance while in office. George W. Bush also increased spending, and if you looked at the magnitudes in 2003-2008 they looked really bad. It is true the above picture is that much worse.

Jim is right that the Democrats are worse, but notice that on the graph the only positive years were during the Clinton administration. The Republicans can do much better. There needs to be a two-pronged strategy of taking responsibility for tax-and-loot white elephants as well as defeating the donkeys.