Questions every American should be asking themselves:

Questions every American should be asking themselves:

What would you do if, say, over a period of years, your personal tax rate went up to 50% or higher? And you really get nothing much more in return? And your yearly tax refund disappeared? And jobs were still scarce, and food prices were on the rise? At what point would you scream "ENOUGH!" and grab a torch and a rake and march on the capital?

At some point in the future, taxes *MUST* be raised. Debts must be repaid. If not, something will be taken from you. You might even have to fight for your life.

Now, what if you could put this reckoning off until after you're gone from this world? Just let your kids deal with it? Would you just keep on borrowing and spending?

There can be only two outcomes of this: War or slavery. Which one of those would you choose for your children? They will either refuse to pay increased taxes and go to war with their government, or they will give up their freedom in exchange. Also, if they lose the war, they will be slaves anyway. They will have one chance in three of being free like our forefathers, and God, intended... except for the ones who died in the war, of course. It comes to this: Slavery, war and slavery, or war and victory, but at great cost.

Is this what we want for our children? And it has certainly come to this. There is no doubt about it. We are probably at the point already, where our future holds only war or slavery. All we are doing is putting it off. Maybe a year, maybe 10 years. Hell, if we are smart, maybe we can put it off until after we die, living fat and happy while borrowing our children into being the ones that have to make the choice! That was sarcasm. But that is exactly what we are doing.

Here's what's happening now: The government, since 1913, has been borrowing money. Sometimes, they just print it. But they have learned that just printing money has long-term negative consequences that we, here and now, must bear. So, the preferred method has been selling bonds and such, and straight up borrowing from other nations. The way they play the game, they can continue to do this as long as the people will pay the interest, or they can hide it. Everything that has happened since then has been attempts to put off the consequences and keep the ball rolling, like taking the dollar off the gold standard, wage/price controls, raising the debt ceiling, outlawing private possession of gold, capital gains taxes, estate taxes, tacitly encouraging illegal immigration, not to mention the countless accounting tricks employed to make things look better than they are. At some point, the interest payment per year will exceed the total taxes the people are willing to pay. Make no mistake, THERE WILL BE A RECKONING! And then what?

The people that are doing this, our Congressmen and Senators, fall into two camps: The weak, and the insidious. The weak just want everything to be groovy, and can be talked into falling for even more schemes to put off the reckoning. The insidious KNOW what is coming. They welcome it. They have been planning it. They think the people are sheep and it is their destiny to rule us. They might be right.

I propose we, you and I, have this out. Here and now. It is our only chance to give our children something better than what was given to us. And, when we demand this of our government, it must accompany a threat of war. We'd better mean it, or we will be slaves sooner than we thought.

Our only hope of salvation for our nation, and the world, is to rein in government spending. Reduce the size and scope of it. Stop expecting it to help you at every turn. Stop treating it like the candyman. The only money it has to spend is money it has taken from you, or that it WILL take from you.

Plans of action:

• Read your History books. And read Economics. And especially Economic History. Only by knowing how this happened will you be able to undo it and prevent it from happening to your kids. "The Creature From Jekyll Island" is a good start.
• Educate yourselves. We can no longer trust that our hallowed institutions of higher learning are teaching anything worthwhile. In fact, most often, students come out of universities befuddled and confused and blaming everything on capitalism and with a VERY DIFFERENT definition of freedom. Their Diplomas aren't worth the paper they're written on and the odds are we taxpayers paid for the whole fiasco, too.
  
• Vote EVERYONE out of office! Every chance you get. The culture of corruption is pervasive and entrenched. There are only two on my list of for-sure good-guys in congress, Ron Paul and his son Rand. There may be others, but take no chances... send them all home.
• Only vote for strong candidates, tea-party types. Ones that can make the tough choices.Make sure they answer plenty of questions about economics and history and don't worry too much about if they cheated on their spouse or hired illegal immigrants. And then vote them back home after one term. No more career politicians!
  
• Kill the Federal Reserve and the 16th amendment. It is the mechanism by which they will own us.
• Kill Social Security. It is a Ponzi scheme whereby one generation obliges subsequent ones to take care of them, while also getting everyone used to suckling at the teat of the government.
  
• End collective bargaining. Unions enable some to escape the consequences everyone else must bear. They are corrupt, Socialist in nature, and a tool by which people are conditioned to obey.
  
• Learn a trade. Most government workers will necessarily be out of a job, and if all you know how to do is fill out forms you will be at a serious disadvantage and someone else will have to take care of you.
• Get involved locally. School boards, planning commissions, city councils, etc.
• And everywhere demand accountability, fiscal and fiducial responsibility, and ACTION!
• Learn how to grow your own food. The coming hard times will disrupt normal modes of transportation. There will be no grocery stores.
• You will need a source of water. So will millions of others if you live in a city. Think about that now... not later.
• Get to know your neighbors. There is strength in numbers. And we will need strength. The cities, which, not co-incidentally, have been guilty of voting in higher numbers for more largess from the government (blue spots on the map), will be VERY BAD places to be if there is a disruption in transportation. Food will become scarce and you and your family will start to look real tasty in only a few weeks time. Really. Think about that: We city-dwelling Americans will resort to cannibalism in a mere one-months time if the trucks stop coming. But people in Eastern Oregon, among other places, will hardly notice. Think long and hard about it.
• If it becomes time to water the Tree of Liberty, make sure it is your blood and mine intermingled with theirs. I will not go quietly in the night, and neither should you.

Dirty Rotten Bastards

In an effort to engage people in more substantive debate about our current American economic situation, its causes and its repercussions, I have over the years tried to come up with analogies to better explain the issues. This one is for those who have owned homes; more specifically, those who have signed loan documents chaining them to a monthly payment for the next 30 years, or so. Those who have not may think they get it, but they really don't. They have not stayed awake at night thinking about all of the wonderful, and dreadful, things that could come of this gamble, the implications for the future of their children, the fact that it could all be taken away in an instant due to bad decisions; The attention one suddenly pays to goings-on in the neighborhood; The fact that, over the term of the loan, you will actually pay about THREE TIMES the amount of the loan in interest! You really just don’t get it unless you have signed those loan docs. Buying a car is similar but infinitely simpler.

So, what if you needed to paint your house, but didn't have the money? Well, you could borrow money, using the current equity of your property or expected future increase in the value of your property as collateral. This is called a second mortgage and it is a GAMBLE, every time. Don't think otherwise. Now, if you are gambling with your own money or your own expectation of increases in future earnings, then that's ok with me. I'm a Libertarian after all, and while I will tell you that it's unhealthy and unwise, I will make no law against it. BUT, the minute you are doing it with someone else's money you will have a big problem with people like me. And even worse, what if you were doing it with your own children’s money? What if you did it with the knowledge that if things went wrong, your kids will have to work harder in the future to pick up the tab? And what if you were so stupid that you made a bet that meant that even your GRANDCHILDREN would have to pay with their blood, sweat and tears? Ok, here's the clincher: What if it wasn't even a bet? What if you KNEW, in advance, that you were borrowing money, to spend now, that generations of your children will have to repay? And maybe it all started with necessary things, like a new roof or windows, but it degenerated to an orgy of spending on crap like new drapes and some Jet Ski's. And you told yourselves at the time, “Well, we'll make more money next year to pay it off" and "we'll all be better off in the long run." And, “we need this now so the kids will be better off later."

This is what's happening here in America. It's called Keynesian Economics and it's based on the notion that a man with money in his pocket is unpredictable and selfish, but a man with a payment to make is stable and can be used as a base for a monetary system that is more useful to social manipulators than a gold standard. The basic flaw in this is that Keynesians believe people are pawns to be used to further the lofty goals of enlightened intellectuals like him. A man working hard to keep a roof over his wife and kids' head is something durable to them and they will ride him like a bunch of ticks on a dog.

Are you, everything you are, your wants and desires, dreams, ambitions, talents, and abilities just some "asset" for someone else to use as they see fit? And are your children and grandchildren to be used as such and are their lives something to be collateralized by people who want to spend their future prosperity on the equivalent of drapes and Jet Skis? No, they are not! And yet they try to make us feel guilty because if we don't want to keep paying it, our grandparents will lose their Social Security and Medicare. But those programs were faulty from the start and it was known (but only Conservatives were alarmed by it) that the programs would have to rely on future generations to pay for it. This is inter-generational SLAVERY!

Social Security was invented in 1935 as a basic insurance scheme where people would pay “premiums,” deducted out of each paycheck, into a fund where it would collect interest and by the time you were ready to retire, there would be a sizable chunk of money waiting for you. Sounds great, right? Kinda like a forced savings account. The rationale at the time was that if people were forced to save, they wouldn’t have to be taken care of by their kids or the government when they got too old to care for themselves. But this divorces the charitable from the recipient of charity (the topic of my next manifesto. Coming Soon to a mobile Internet device near you!). My problem is that the voting public at the time didn’t read the fine print, or read between the lines, because they should have known that the government is not to be trusted with that much money… EVER! They almost immediately began “borrowing” it to pay for pet projects, stimulus projects (another topic to be discussed, soon) during the depression, welfare and other forms of wealth re-distribution, etc. Pretty soon, the fund was full of IOU’s and the whole system was dependent on the contributions of current workers to pay for the retired ones. And once the retired people outnumber the workers, what then? See, what they did was DOOM their children and grandchildren to a world where they must either pay much more in taxes or their grandparents will starve. Nice, eh? And by “much more” I mean, like TWO OR THREE TIMES as much! Right now, I pay $600 a month in taxes. When Social Security crashes, and it will happen soon, I will have to pay $1200 or more in taxes per month. I can’t do that… I just can’t. Neither can you. So what will we do? They have us by the short-and-curlies. And they will be laughing about it, too! “Better get a second job or grandma will starve! HAHAHAHAH!” All the while collecting fat bonuses and getting bailed out when they mismanage. So the only thing to do will be to REVOLT! First at the ballot box, and when (not if) that doesn’t work, with guns and Molotov cocktails. It will truly be time to water the tree of Liberty with the blood of Patriots and Tyrants!

This is the message of the Tea Party: Watch out! We are coming! And Hell is coming with us!

Steve Casas

Sept 9, 2010

Points to ponder and remember:

• Any time someone else is able to do something to you “for your own good,” they own you. Now think about seat-belt and helmet laws and laws forcing you to buy insurance and tell me if anyone owns you.
• Whenever Congress passes laws that they, themselves, are exempt from, you should KNOW it’s a rotten deal. They exempted themselves from Social Security from day one, until Reagan changed it in 1984. They tried to exempt themselves from ObamaCare. What does that tell you?
• Insurance is ALWAYS a bad bet. It is a scheme where some bunch of bastards created a need for it, then were able to bribe the government to force everyone to buy into it so now we can’t live without it. Then, when its inherent flaws are unable to be contained any longer, the government must bail them out with our kids’ money. If it wasn’t for insurance, we wouldn’t need insurance and that is EXACTLY how they intended it to be.
• If you can’t pay for it in your lifetime, you don’t need it. Even better: if you can’t pay for it in 10 years, you don’t need it!
• Why does government only grow? How many of us have had to cut back in this recession? Not just the small things, like taking the family to Jamba Juice whenever you drive by it, but on things like cable TV and Christmas gifts and vacations? What about those of us that have had to cut EVERYTHING and shop at the MaxiFoods instead of Albertsons and stay home for 4 days waiting for a check because you only have enough gas to get to the bank? Well, the Government NEVER has to do that. In fact, during times like these, they get to spend even more money than usual. Look it up. Obama is on track to spend more money in his first term than EVERY PRESIDENT from Washington to Reagan combined! Why do they never have to cut back? Because we have never forced them to.
• Interesting Amish Social Security history lesson: http://www.amishnews.com/amisharticles/amishss.htm

"All-in" politics...

The psycological aspects of the game of Poker are what really makes the difference between pro's and amateurs. It stems from the fact that, when you place or call a bet, you are putting a piece of your life on the line. You will never understand Poker until you play with chips that represent a significant ability to impact your future. This is why Tournament Poker has become so popular: the chips represent everyone's tournament life equally. If I played against a millionaire in a cash game, my $500 bet would mean something different to me than his equal bet: a trifle to him but LIFE AND DEATH to me. I would have to be able to bet $100,000 to get his hands shaking. A tournament where every all-in bet means someone could be eliminated is the only way we could play and have our bets be considered equal.

In the same way, Income Taxes is the only way we now have to ensure that when people vote on economic issues, they have a stake in the outcome... life and death. If everyone is paying taxes, and a tax increase appears on the ballot, every vote will reflect the concern each individual feels for his own economic well-being. If only half of the people are paying taxes, and the monies generated by the increased taxes have been promised to be spent on making the lives of those not paing taxes better, but everyone gets an equal vote, what do you think will happen?

Last month, a study was published that showed that nearly half of U.S. households will pay no federal income taxes for 2009. According to Walter Williams, "(t)hese Americans pay no federal income tax either because their incomes are too low or they have higher income but credits, deductions and exemptions that relieve them of tax liability." How do you think these people generally vote? The answer is, for more property and income taxes because they pay little or none of it. For whom do you think these people vote? The answer is, for those that promise them more from the public purse to which they contribute very little. And politicians wishing to remain in office need only cater to this population, feed it, promote it, increase it, and they need not fear elections. And now we have nearly HALF of the people voting this way. What will happen when it becomes more than half?

Put another way, could the Income Tax system be a weapon by which America is being divided into have's and have-nots? And could increasing the number of have-nots (by means of engineered recession, subjugation by bureaucracy, and psycological enslavement by nurturing the victimhood mentality) to more than half be a way of ensuring the demise of Capitalism (and the philosophy that each individual owns him/herself and the products of his/her labor) by the self-imploding nature of Democracy?

Is Democracy itself to blame for the current state of the democratic Republic of the United States of America?

Democracy is like walking up to a $500 buy-in table and demanding that your $20 buy the same chips that everyone else has.

Voting for more taxes when you pay none is like playing poker with someone elses money; your bets are meaningless to you and make it less of a game and more of an excercise in futility. Only when everyone involved has his or her life at stake will voting become meaningful again.

Flashback to 1996!

Here's my response to a bill sponsored by house democrats to put an end to the so-called Threat of Anti-Government Extremists in 1996. The Blue text is the original text of the bill. Red text is my version. I started with my tongue in my cheek, but after I got going I almost bit it off.

To put it in context, Clinton was just re-elected and the Senate was just taken back by the Democrats. The Feds had already barbecued the men, women, and children at Waco, murdered Randy Weavers' wife and kids, and Militia groups were on the rise as a REACTION to the ever-expanding and far-reaching influence of the Government. And so the Democrats in the House tried to pass this resolution condemning the rise of Militias and vowing even greater resources toward killing the movement.

I had just bought my first gun (Glock 9mm, first of many) and had discovered internet newsgroups (alt.conspiracy) and was in my most fiery, idealistic phase of my life (so far). So this is me taking on the U.S House Of Representatives in a one-sided, point-for-point debate that I totally won (in my own head). Heheheh

(Side note: I actually found this after googling myself and discovered this guy, Nizkor, who is compiling a list of people he thinks are anti-Semites. I had made a few posts questioning the prudence of Clinton giving Steven Speilberg a few million taxpayer dollars for him to build the National Holocaust Museum. I was promptly called a racist anti-Semite by about a hundred people and ended up on Nizkors list. So thanks, Nizkor! Without you I would have forgotten that I wrote this!)

(just skip to where it says "Whereas...")

FILE hc206.ih HCON 206 IH 104th CONGRESS 2d Session H. CON. RES. 206
Expressing the sense of Congress with respect to the threat to the
security of American citizens and the United States Government posed by
armed militia and other paramilitary groups and organizations.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES August 1, 1996

 Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas (for herself, Mr. CONYERS, Ms. NORTON, Mr.
 FRAZER, Mr. FLAKE, Mrs. LOWEY, Mr. RANGEL, Mr. HASTINGS of Florida, Ms.
 MILLENDER-MCDONALD, Ms. DELAURO, Mr. CLYBURN, Mr. HILLIARD, Mr. WYNN, Mr.
 LEWIS of Georgia, Mr. PAYNE of New Jersey, Mrs. CLAYTON, Mr. OWENS, Mr.
 FIELDS of Louisiana, Mr. CUMMINGS, Miss COLLINS of Michigan, Mr. SCHUMER,
 Mr. SCOTT, Mr.PASTOR, Mrs. MEEK of Florida, Ms. BROWN of Florida, Ms.
 MCKINNEY, Mr. FOGLIETTA, Mr. RICHARDSON, Mr. COLEMAN, Ms. EDDIE BERNICE
 JOHNSON of Texas, Mr. JACKSON of Illinois, Mrs. COLLINS of Illinois, Mr.
 ENGEL, Mrs. SCHROEDER, Mrs. MALONEY, Ms. VELAZQUEZ, Mr. GUTIERREZ, Mr.
 CARDIN, Mr. SERRANO, Mr. BECERRA, Mr. GIBBONS, Mr. NADLER, Mr. KENNEDY of
 Rhode Island, Mr. CLAY, and Ms. LOFGREN) submitted the following
 concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the
 Judiciary CONCURRENT RESOLUTION expressing the sense of Congress with
 respect to the threat to the security of American citizens and the United
 States Government posed by armed militia and other paramilitary groups
 and organizations.
(here)

 Whereas the Government of the United States and its agencies are
 democratic institutions, created by and for the people of the United
 States;
 Whereas the various agencies of the United States Government derive their
 purpose and their character from the expressed will of the American
 people, and may be altered from time to time by peaceful means;

Whereas the Government of the United States and its agencies have
constantly and consistently subverted the will of the people they purport to
represent and, in a fashion to be expected of lawyers, turned a *simple* and
*clear* statement of purpose (the Constitution ) into a grey and meaningless
napkin.

 Whereas 168 American men, women and children were killed in the terrorist
 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in April 1995;

Whereas, the ends justifying the means, you blew up your own building, in the
spirit of Freidrich Hegel, in order to blame it on the Militias and pass
further Gun Control legislation. ( Ok, maybe not. But many reputable people
smell a fish on this one)
 Whereas Federal law enforcement officials were threatened and held at bay
 for 81 days in a Montana town by a group of so-called `Freemen' while
 trying to exercise their duty to uphold the law, at a cost of millions of
 dollars to American taxpayers;

Whereas the Freemen, indulging in the same questionable financial practices
the Federal Reserve is guilty of and threatening the monopoly the Fed has on
corruption and deceit, broke some laws that protect only the International
Bankers' monopoly on usury, you saw it necessary to spend additional millions
of Taxpayer money to arrest them instead of using the funds for the
*worthless* National Endowment for the Arts or giving it to Steven
Speilberg for his Holocaust project.
 Whereas various spokespersons for self-described militia and paramilitary
 organizations and groups have repeatedly denounced the legitimacy of the
 United States Government;

Whereas the legitimacy of the current United States Government is called into question
by it's own Constitution and Bill of Rights.

 Whereas several members of an Arizona militia group were recently
 arrested in possession of heavy armaments, deadly bombs and explosive
 devices, and charged with conspiring to use explosives to destroy
 buildings housing Federal agencies;

Whereas the several agencies of the Government are in possession of heavy
armaments, deadly bombs and explosive devices, and are charged with conspiring
to use any and all means to put the clampdown on citizens holding the opinion that
the Government has over-stepped its bounds outlined in the constitution.

 Whereas experts have estimated that extremist anti-Government militia
 groups and organizations in the United States may number as many as 800,
 existing in more than 40 States;

Whereas experts have estimated that the government employs MILLIONS
of cops etc. in 50 States and territories who cannot be trusted
to obey the Oath they've taken to protect and serve the American People and
seem to be confused as to *who* the enemy is and instead of looking to the
many and varied accounts of the will of our founding fathers, will instead believe
the opinion their *direct* employers who are interested in their own job rather
than the future of the Children of America.

 Whereas the democratic institutions of the United States and the American
 people are protected from both foreign and domestic enemies by a well
 trained military and multiple layers of legitimate State and local police
 organizations; and

Whereas the foreign enemies are well handled by *OUR* Brothers and Sisters in
the best equipped Military in the world, and our Domestic enemies *ARE* the
State and local police organizations that would deliver the people into the
hands of slavery for a few pieces of silver.

 Whereas the actions of some militia and paramilitary groups and
 organizations specifically promoting violence constitute a grave danger
 to American citizens and the institutions of American democracy, and
 threaten the very foundation of freedom and democracy in America: Now,
 therefore, be it Resolved by the House of Representatives (the
 Senate concurring), that it is the sense of Congress that--

 (1) armed conspiracies against the Government of the United States or any
 of its agencies and personnel should be aggressively identified,
 dissolved, and their perpetrators brought to justice by the federal
 authorities of law enforcement with the greatest dispatch possible;

 (2) the illegal possession of firearms, explosives, or any substances or
 devices of destruction by any individual or group should be prosecuted to
 the full extent of all applicable laws by the Department of Justice; and

  (3) those legally possessing firearms, explosives, or any substance or
 device of destruction, and involved in any conspiracy to harm or destroy
 any agency or property of the United States Government, or any official
 of the United States Government, or any person, should be promptly
 prosecuted to the full extent of all applicable laws by the Department of
 Justice, including those designed to protect the United States Government
 against treason and subversion.

Whereas the actions of Government Agencies and Representatives of
the People practicing revision and subversion of the very *idea* of Freedom
and Liberty and Justice constitute a grave danger
to American citizens and the institutions of American democracy, and
threaten the very foundation of freedom and democracy in America, and the
American people, having a history of stubborn resistance to tyranny to the
point of violence : Now, therefore, in the interest of preventing further
violence, be it Resolved by the People of the United States of
America, (our Represtntatives *better* concur!) That it is the
sense of the People that--

(1) The Constitution of the United States of America and its accompanying
Bill of Rights be hereby RE-INSTITUTED in accordance with the 
well-documented will of it's founders, the constitutionality of the later 
amendments to be debated and re-written if necessary.

(2) The Budget will be balanced NOW, and, in the fashion of a Father who, upon
finding his kids fighting over a toy, takes it away from both, all
entitlements, welfare and other freebies will be dis-continued. Government
spending will be indexed to the GDP, and Income ( taxes) will be determined
accordingly. The poor and needy will be left in the hands of the agency best
suited for their care; the PEOPLE.

(3) The rise of our Brothers and Sisters in the Militia Movement is to be seen
as a wake-up call to the people who unknowingly took part in the perversion,
subversion, diversion, inversion, conversion and aversion of the REAL version
of America. The people who *knowingly* took part better run!

Wouldn't that be nice! I know, it's a dream. It'll probably have to come to
war, and the people are drastically lacking in firepower although superior in
numbers. As long as our purpose in demanding these reforms is clearly stated,
I firmly believe we have friends and allies in the Military and Police and the
Government for that matter that, when the time comes, will know which side of
the line to jump on. I bet this post will piss off many people and get me on
some black list of " dangerous gun freaks". If I come up dead sometime soon
with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in my head ( with the gun still
in my hand, no blood anywhere, in the park with no grass on my shoes ;-) )
then chalk me up as another casualty in the war for the soul of America.
Steve Casas

Hahah! That last sentence was in reference to Vincent Foster, a Clinton advisor
and partner-in-crime in the Whitewater fiasco who was found dead in a park
one hundred yards across the grass from the sidewalk with NO GRASS ON HIS SHOES.
Try to walk 10 feet on grass and see what happens. And shoot yourself in the head
sometime (actually, don't) and see what happens to the gun...it goes flying at
least a few feet. But Clinton's Park Police called it a suicide and the Whitewater
investigation fizzled. Look it up!

Steve Casas

Democracy and Negative Feedback loops

Sorry, but I love electronics, and I often find analogies in Electronics and Physics to other areas of life. So, bear with me, because this applies... I promise.

Guitar amplifiers are made to amplify weak signals from a guitar and make them audible through a speaker. In order to keep them from running away and amplifying the crap out of any other signal they can receive, including television signals, static, magnetic inductance and even cosmic radiation from distant galaxies, as well as amplifying signals that it creates itself, engineers use what they call "feedback loops." A feedback loop is when you basically take some of the end product and add it back at the beginning to stabilize the amp. Negative feedback is when you take some of the end product and invert it so that as the amp tries to go crazy, the load on it becomes heavier and it fixes itself. Genius eh? I thought so.

So this got me thinking about our Democratic Republic, which has mechanisms that allow the people to basically HANG THEMSELVES. Or shoot themselves in the foot, or to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. However you want to put it, that is what voting for more welfare, healthcare, bank bailouts, pork-barrel projects, farm subsidies, artist endowments, etc. is. You are hanging yourselves! An ancient Greek philosopher once said, “A democracy is doomed once the people discover they can vote themselves funds from the public coffers.” Like I said in my other blog: You cannot vote for it to always be Friday!

So here is what I propose: we pass a new Constitutional Amendment that says that any time our yearly budget exceeds our yearly tax revenue, voting gets restricted to only those owning their primary residence and paying property taxes. See how this is negative feedback? When we start to exceed our means, the ability to keep voting for more is diminished. Property owners in general are people with a vested interest in the economic health of the country and usually vote economically Conservative out of self-preservation. There are other ways of doing the same thing, such as tying total congressional compensation to GDP. They only get paid if the country is doing good and growing. I would even make it so that their pension gets docked if we go into recession. I also had a great idea where CEO salaries (including perqs, allowances, stock options, etc.) could only be, say, 20 times what the lowest employee in the company makes. So if Bill gates wants to make $1 million/ year, he has to pay the janitor $50 thousand. And we all know he makes way more than a million per year. A great idea, but socialist in nature. I guess you could make it a requirement for a business license? Hmmmm.

Anyway, feedback is how we can get an idea of the consequences of our actions, especially when those consequences mean life-or-death to real people and are sooooo far in the future. And using that feedback to temper our decisions in the present is only rational. And being rational with the future happiness and well-being of our children is our moral duty.

Steve Casas

PS: Incidentally, today I gave a bid of $5/ SqFt to frame a patio cover. That's half price for general framing, and a fair price for my talent and my tools. The guy choked on it and I told him if he wants it done for less he'd better learn to speak Spanish and go pick up some guys down at Home Depot who are getting food stamps and welfare checks and whose families are clogging our emergency rooms to get free health care and are paying no taxes. I told him if he added all that up it would probably be cheaper to hire me. Besides, it would be done right, by a guy with a great reputation. But he'll probably get it done by Julio and Sancho and it will look like Tijuana, right next to a $200,000 pool! But you see... he's shooting himself in the foot and enticing more illegal aliens into the country and he's gonna pay for it anyway, one way or another!

Random thoughts over the years about some of the lies taught to me in college.

It kills me to think about how many people, friends and family of mine included, have been purposefully MIS-EDUCATED by the colleges and universities they have paid, in time and money, to attend. Even worse, that most of them don't even know it...

Government cannot "create" jobs. It can only take money from you (or your children and grandchildren, etc.) and spend it making jobs doing what is in the governments best interest. This is not "creating" jobs, it is re-directing them. Make no mistake: the money the government takes from you now, and your grandchildren in the future, would have created better, healthier, and more productive jobs than anything the government could dream up.

Keynesian Economics is the philosophy of the drug addict who says he will definitely, for sure, no doubt about it, you can take that to the bank, positively quit next week.

The New Deal did not end the Great Depression, it made it last longer.

The Vietnam War was about communist expansion and Russian Imperialism. America has NEVER been an Imperialist nation. If we were, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, etc. would all be American states by now. Who could have stopped us? Certainly not Russia had we bombed them right after the Japanese.

The Nazi's did not emanate from the political "Right." They were Socialists, and all socialism comes from the Left. The political spectrum is, or should be, defined by greater control over individual action(less freedom) on the left end, and less control (more freedom) on the right. Where do you think National Socialism (Nazism) falls on that line?

Inflation is not caused by, and a fault of, the Free Market. It can only be caused by Government printing of money with no backing. Demand-pull Inflation, rising prices due to a shortage of supply, is temporary and a sign of a healthy market. Socialists try to blame all inflation on the Free Market because they hate it.

Recessions and Depressions are not a fault of a Free Market. They are caused by government tinkering and control of a Free Market. A controlled economy is not a Free Market. America hasn't had a Free Market for over 100 years now.

Social Security isn't a retirement plan, it's a Ponzi Scheme, and, like all other forms of Insurance, a bad bet. Why would you bet your car Insurance company that you WILL get in an accident? The only way you can win the bet is if you destroy your property (and that of others) and hurt people.

The only reason Liberals think inflation is bad is because they define it as the Free market adjusting itself to Federal intervention in the capitalist system. Liberals think it is evil for someone to raise the price of the goods they produce as a reaction to the Government watering down the value of the dollars they must accept as payment. They call it inflation when real people react accordingly to the government printing money whenever it needs it. The absurdity is that inflation means artificial inflation of the money supply... that is the only definition that makes sense. It would be too obvious that this is like a car-jacker being outraged that more people are carrying guns, so they have to change the definition of the word "inflation." How *dare* you protect yourself from me!

Steve Casas