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When we are in the free market, goods and services tend to be paid what they are worth to others, that is, what you can sell something for is determined by what that thing is worth to those who would buy it, and that worth largely depends on the supply and demand law. If you have something that is a one of a kind, but everyone wants one, then the value is high. If you are selling something that is readily available, but almost no one desires one, then the value is low. This is why you can’t sell your lawn clippings for very high amounts of money. Of course, all of this depends on a market that is truly a free market, and not one that is being manipulated.

That is why the Auto makers are being forced into bankruptcy. Manipulation. The union auto workers are asking for wages that are so high as to make their employers unable to compete. I want to get it out right now, I want fair wages and benefits for all workers, and I am a union worker in my own field, so it is not like I am anti-union.

Making cars has become an automated process, and with every process that becomes automated, we assume that quality will go up, and the size of the work force goes down, but the high tech jobs created in maintaining the new technology are more lucrative. That is the advantage to the employer and employee in automating the assembly line. The current UAW contract has a protection clause in it that allows GM to automate the assembly line, but here’s the catch: they still have to pay the worker whose job was automated full pay and benefits. You cannot run a business profitably with contracts like that, and now the Automakers want us, the American taxpayers, to foot the bill for this folly.

Fork lift drivers in the UAW make up to $100,000 a year. If you were to tell me that they made $40,000 plus benefits, and I might not bat an eye, but $100,000? What’s wrong with that picture? In addition, GM’s “non-productive” payroll is creeping up to an unsustainable number and at some point paying people that don’t produce will put you out of business. The free market would not pay an uneducated, unskilled worker that kind of coin. The unions in their greed are forcing their employers out of business, and now they and their employers are expecting the taxpayer to bail them out, all the while trying to scapegoat CEO salaries.

Well, well, well. Proving that our founding fathers were correct when they wrote the Bill of Rights, Great Britain followed a National Gun Ban (passed in 1997) with a national knife ban, and now the British Government has announced that they will begin censoring the press, in order to protect national security.

Australia banned guns in 1996. Since that time, gun crime has skyrocketed by over 45%, thus proving that gun control does not work in reducing crime. Just last month, the Australian government announced that they will begin censoring the internet.

This seems to follow a pattern. Every dictatorship that has ever existed on this planet has counted on a few regulations to enable their governance of the masses (in no particular order):

1 Deny the masses a means to communicate
2 Deny the governed a means of protest or organization
3 Round up the rabble-rousers and toss them in jail (or even kill them)
4 Deny your subjects the means of resistance (weapons)
5 Chill protest by placing government agents in the homes of likely troublemakers

Is it any wonder that each of these points is covered under the Bill of Rights? Can you think of any ways in which governments today are implementing the above policies? Of course, it is always done to protect you from (child porn, drugs, terrorism, crime, etc.) and is purely for your own good.

Weapons are always among the first to go, soon to be followed by speech and press freedoms. First, you take the means to resist, then the ability to complain and protest, and then the ability to resist is severely curtailed.

I have received some emails regarding my last post, accusing me of being an Obama supporter. Far from it, and if you dig into my blog you will see that I despise both of the current political parties. Every year, one party or the other makes promises that they will make our lives better by restricting our freedoms. As a result, we lose freedoms and liberties, while gaining no real improvement. Let me show you:

1 We have been engaged in a “War on Poverty” since 1964. The poverty level has remained near 12% ever since the United States abolished the gold standard in 1973, with the current level being 12.7%. It is important to note that the method the Government is using to calculate the poverty line only takes inflation into account, instead of the more accurate model, which compares the percentage of the cost of living to household income. Using this method, the current cost of living has risen from 30% of individual income in 1965 to 50% of household income in 2003. Where it used to take one income to support a family, it now takes two. This means that the effective poverty rate, when expressed as a real percentage of household income, has more than doubled since the “War on Poverty” began.

The reason this has happened is that a country cannot tax itself into prosperity. The average American spends 40% of his productive life as a slave to the collective, and that is not enough. We as a nation then borrow even more. All of this accomplishes nothing.

2 We have been engaged in a “War on Drugs” for the better part of 40 years. What has this gotten us? No-knock warrants, property forfeiture, midnight raids, and police seizing property of citizens without trial. We have the highest level of incarceration of any advanced country, yet drugs are cheaper and easier to get than ever before. Odds are that every American reading this is within a 15 minute drive of at least one drug dealer.

3 20,000 Gun laws have resulted in the criminalization of machine guns, the carrying of weapons, mail order weapons, weapons that look scary, and weapons that are accurate over long ranges, yet gun crime still happens. Criminals still get guns. Criminals still break the law. Honest citizens are now left without the most effective tools for self defense-

Politicians do what politicians do. What do they do? Pander to whomever they can to get elected. Some pander to one side, while others pander to the other side, all the while sacrificing your rights on the alter of their careers.

Remain ever vigilant.

I was out of the country for over a week, and I voted by absentee ballot. Upon my return, we had a new President-elect. A few thoughts on the election:

1 Sure, we elected our first black President. This does not prove that we have overcome racism. Voting for a man because he is black while ignoring his stance on the issues is just as racist as NOT voting for a man because he is black while igoring his stance on the issues, yet 95% of blacks in this country did just that.

2 Anyone under the age of 30 who is complaining about Bush being the worst President ever likely has no idea what they are talking about. After all, if you are under 30, you only know 2 Presidents. (You were only 14 when Clinton entered office. What is your frame of reference?)

3 Have you read that Obama wants to have compulsory community service for all junior high, high school, and college students. On his official page (change.gov) he spells out plans for mandatory community service- 50 hours a year for junior high and high school, and 100 hours a year for college students. Since I found it, he has changed the page, but the original can be found on Google cache here.

How long until they get spiffy new uniforms, and are encouraged to inform on their parents?

crazy lesbian Liberals with screwdrivers kill people, and then commit suicide. At least, that is the way things appear to have gone down, according to Palm Beach police. It seems that Carol Anne Burger, a writer for the Liberal Huffington Post, stabbed her estranged wife 22 times before taking her own life by pressing a pistol under her chin, thus proving the Liberal axiom that guns kill.

Perhaps that is why Liberals are for gun control- they project their own violent leanings upon others. Of course, their being dead will not cost Obama any votes- Acorn always finds a way for dead people to vote for Obama. Wouldn’t want to infringe on the rights of the dead, don’tcha know.

There is an old saying that Americans have one thing in common: They all believe they are better than average drivers. There is one other trait that many Americans share- they each think they understand the law, even when they do not. Nowhere is this more true than with tax protesters.

There are numerous fallacies that are held by them that simply drive me crazy. For example:

– Arguments that tax laws only apply to corporate officers and government employees. This belief stems from the following definition from the tax code:

“For purposes of this chapter, the term ‘employee’ includes an officer, employee, or elected official of the United States, a State, or any political subdivision thereof, or the District of Columbia, or any agency or instrumentality of any one or more of the foregoing. The term ‘employee’ also includes an officer of a corporation.” I.R.C. section 3401(c).

This erroneous belief stems from a misunderstanding of the word “includes.” To illustrate, if I said, “My gun collection includes a Colt Combat Commander and a Mossberg 500,” would that mean that my collection did not contain a Kimber Ultra Carry? Of course it wouldn’t. Using the word “includes” does not mean “only includes.”

Similarly, many protesters claim that when section 7701(a)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code states that:

“The term ‘person’ shall be construed to mean and include an individual, a trust, estate, partnership, association, company or corporation.”

That there are no people in the country EXCEPT corporations and trusts. Of course that is ridiculous.

There are tons of tax arguments, and the reasons they are wrong, that can be found here. Read them, and we can discuss them after you have an understanding of the principles involved.

I agree that progressive income taxes are wrong. I agree that taking my money to give to someone else in a socialistic redistribution of wealth is the equivalent of armed robbery. I disagree that the tax code has such ludicrous loopholes.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Those are the words that are enshrined in the Bill of Rights, more specifically the Fourth Amendment. I have been looking really hard, and I cannot seem to find the part where the Government is allowed to use radar to see what you look like naked, that the Government can refuse your entry to trains and subways if you refuse to be searched. (Not just in New York)

Do some homework: Ask yourself where the Bill of Rights has been violated. I think we have hit all ten. The Republic is dead. The fun part is going to be where I get to point out to my Republican friends that the powers being abused by Obama are the same ones they gleefully gave W.

This article refers to Obama as “Robin Hood,” stating that he will be “confiscating money from the rich to give to the poor.” This is in reference to his statement that he will take the profits of small-business owners and “spread the wealth around” to those with lesser incomes.

That does not mean that he is Robin Hood, because Robin Hood stole from the GOVERNMENT and gave the money back to the taxpayers. See, the reason the people in the Robin Hood tales were in the state they were in was because the Sheriff of Nottingham was confiscating the wealth of the citizens to make himself rich.

I believe that anyone who advocates taxing successful people to give to the poor underclass is rather more like another historical figure- Karl Marx.

In conjunction with McCain’s claims that he wishes to take oil company profits and redistribute them, the differences in this election are of degree only.

Many have been claiming that the bailout is needed to keep the economy from melting down. The problem here is that we are giving money to the investment banks to keep them from failing. This ignores the fact that the money that was “lost” was not lost, but merely changed hands. This money is still circulating in the economy, having been acquired and spent by the people who sold their homes to the now defaulting borrowers.

The amount of cash that will be injected into the US economy is staggering. By some estimates, over $1 trillion dollars will be placed into circulation to bail out the banking industry. That is in addition to the $400 billion that has already been spent since Feb 5. The entire country only produces $14 trillion a year in goods and services, so this amount represents 10% of our annual productivity.

A currency becomes worth less when there is an increase in the amount of money which is not supported by growth in the output of goods and services. This devaluation is called inflation. The amount of goods and services being produced in this country is falling, therefore we should be needing LESS money in circulation, not more. As the demand for cash falls and the supply rises, the law of supply and demand dictates that the value of the cash will fall.

The Federal Reserve’s normal response to inflation is to raise interest rates to constrict the money supply, thus forcing the supply and demand balance to increase the value of the money. This is not happening because it is an election year, and because increasing interest rates will only increase the default rates on the loans already out there. What does this mean for us as citizens? It means that everything you buy just got more expensive. Oil, gas, food, clothing.

Governments often hide true inflation, as I believe the United States is doing now. The methods for hiding inflation are:

• Outright lying in official statistics such as money supply, inflation or reserves. They have been telling us that inflation is lower than it is. What did gas, milk, and clothes cost last year? Gold is $900 an ounce and gasoline is $3.67 at the corner store as I write this. A year ago, an ounce of gold was $734 and a gallon of gasoline was $3.01, two years ago gold was $589. If those numbers are representative, inflation is really hovering around 20%.
• Suppression of publication of money supply statistics, or inflation indices. Maybe this is why the M3 money supply statistics are no longer published, and haven’t been since 2006.
• Price and wage controls. This can be accomplished by Federalizing industries like oil, banking, or health care. This idea is being suggested already. One only has to look at the TSA to see what will happen there- costs will dramatically increase because of government inefficiency. These increased costs will inject even more cash into the system, and will create a black market where the real prices will drive sales.
• Forced savings schemes, designed to suck up excess liquidity. These savings schemes may be described as pensions schemes, emergency funds, war funds, or something similar.
• Adjusting the components of the Consumer price index, to remove those items whose prices are rising the fastest. Like publishing the “core inflation” rate- excluding food and energy from the calculation and trying to convince us that the core rate is more accurate.

Look next for the government to begin price and wage controls.

The cure of a bail out may well be worse than the disease it is supposed to fix.

A court this week blocked a group of hackers from releasing their findings on how to circumvent the payment system used by Boston’s subway system, saying that “It is extremely important to maintain the security and integrity of the Fare Media systems, with an insecure, compromised system, even basic revenue controls, to name one example, become significantly challenging.”

Meaning, of course, that we do not want to interrupt the government’s revenue stream.

Meanwhile, Amazon continues to sell books that are instructions on how to commit pedophilia. Now, I understand that this is a free speech issue, and I agree that the pedophiles have a right under our constitution to say what they want, as long as they do not actually carry through and commit the acts that are talked about.

However, don’t the hackers deserve to have their free speech rights protected as well?