"The only way this will change, is when we simply run out of money."
Rebar on December 29, 2012 at 1:00 PM
And people.
Baroness Thatcher was only partially correct when she said 'The problem with socialism is that, eventually, you run out of other people's money." She overlooked two other very critical of things about socialism. The first is self-evident. The second, less so but ever so obvious when one considers the history of human behaviour throughout civilisation.
THE FIRST:
In order to get money from other people, you must first HAVE other people.
Socialism doesn’t just require other
people’s money. It requires OTHER PEOPLE. By the 1970s, the welfare hammock in
Europe had become so luxurious that people just stopped having children. There
isn’t a country in the 27 members of the EU that has a fertility rate of
2.2, which is considered the replacement rate or the number of children
per woman necessary to keep the population steady. NOT ONE. In Spain
and Greece, the FR is so low that each successive generation will halve
the population. Croatia is down to 1.1 and the Slavian countries are
nearly as bad. Germany has offered to PAY women to have children.
So, what do you do when you can’t be bothered to give birth to the
children to pay the taxes to keep you in the style to which you’ve grown
accustomed? Why, you import your "children," silly! Of course, you are
SOOL when your “children” arrive and find out that they actually don’t
feel like working to pay the exorbitant taxes to keep old, white people
in the styles to which they think they are entitled. Besides, that
luxury, welfare hammock looks pretty good. When in Rome, do as the Romans and let 'the evil rich' eat cake and the bill! La dolce vita and all that!
In the US, not only has our FR fallen below the replacement rate for
the first time in modern history, we currently don’t have enough people pulling
the cart. Look at the worker-to-benefit-recipient ratio for Social Security:
Fact: There were 159.4 workers for each Social Security recipient in 1940.
Fact: There were 16.5 workers for each Social Security recipient in 1950.
Fact: There were 5.1 workers for each Social Security recipient in 1960.
Fact: There were 3.7 workers for each Social Security recipient in 1970.
Fact: There were 3.2 workers for each Social Security recipient in 1980.
Fact: There were 3.4 workers for each Social Security recipient in 1990.
Fact: There were 3.4 workers for each Social Security recipient in 2000.
Fact: There were 3.3 workers for each Social Security recipient in 2005.
Fact: There were only 1.75 workers for each Social Security recipient in 2010.
THE SECOND:
Homogeneous societies are more apt to share with one another than heterogeneous ones.
Marx and Engels wrote about this. I think it probably explains why
Scandinavian-style welfare states have succeeded so far while the Soviet
Union failed. (There are, of course, other issues, too. The
Scandinavian countries have small populations and are wealthy due to
natural resources that they have wisely exploited. On the other hand,
they are now beginning to face problems because of decades of lax
immigration that has allowed alien cultures and religions to make
demands on them that are taxing the society and the welfare state).
As European countries became more “multi-kulti,” the native
populations became more conservative, in the European sense, and less
socialist. In other words, they supported denationalisation, freer
markets, less government regulation, etc, because they realised that
more socialism meant they would have to share with people with whom they
had little in common. Call it bigotry, racism, xenophobia or whatever.
I don't care and it doesn't matter. Go to China, either Korea, Japan, Cuba or a kindergarten class and you will
likely see the same phenomenon.
For this reason, I doubt that a European-style socialist state would
last for very long in the US. It would have to be more totalitarian and
even that failed in the USSR because math and economics do not bend to
the diktats of dicKtators or politburos. The Chinese Communist Party
has been smart enough to realise this. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been
wise enough to understand that people will not settle for economic
freedom.
A Few Thatcherisms:
“Socialists cry "Power to
the people", and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what
they really mean—power over people, power to the State.”
- Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, speech to
Conservative Central Council, 15 March 1986
“I came to office with one
deliberate intent: to change Britain from a dependent to a self-reliant society
— from a give-it-to-me, to a do-it-yourself nation. A get-up-and-go, instead of
a sit-back-and-wait-for-it Britain.”
- Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, speech to
Small Business Bureau Conference, 8 February 1984
“The choice facing the nation is
between two totally different ways of life. And what a prize we have to fight
for: no less than the chance to banish from our land the dark, divisive clouds
of Marxist socialism and bring together men and women from all walks of life
who share a belief in freedom.”
- Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, speech in
Perth, Scotland,
13 May 1983
“No one would remember the Good
Samaritan if he only had good intentions. He had money as well.”
- Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, London Weekend Television Weekend World, 6 January 1980
“Pennies don’t fall from Heaven,
they have to be earned here on earth.”
- Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Speech at Lord
Mayor’s Banquet,
12 November 1979
“Imagine a Labour canvasser
talking on the doorstep to those East German families when they settle in, on
freedom’s side of the wall. “You want to keep more of the money you earn? I’m
afraid that’s very selfish. We shall want to tax that away. You want to own
shares in your firm? We can’t have that. The state has to own your firm. You
want to choose where to send your children to school? That’s very divisive.
You’ll send your child where we tell you.”
- Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, speech to Conservative
Party Conference, 13 October 1989
“Socialist governments
traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's
money. It's quite a characteristic of them.”
- Margaret Thatcher, Thames TV This Week, 5 February 1976
“If a Tory does not believe that
private property is one of the main bulwarks of individual freedom, then he had
better become a socialist and have done with it.”
- Margaret Thatcher, "My Kind of Tory Party," Daily Telegraph,
30 January 1975
“And I will go on criticising
Socialism, and opposing Socialism because it is bad for Britain — and Britain
and Socialism is not the same thing. (...) It’s the Labour Government that has
brought us record peace-time taxation. They’ve got the usual Socialist disease
— they’ve run out of other people’s money.”
- Margaret Thatcher, speech to the Conservative
Party Conference,
10 October 1975
“No theory of government was ever
given a fairer test or a more prolonged experiment in a democratic country than
democratic socialism received in Britain. Yet it was a miserable failure in
every respect. Far from reversing the slow relative decline of Britain
vis-à-vis its main industrial competitors, it accelerated it. We fell further
behind them, until by 1979 we were widely dismissed as 'the sick man of
Europe'...To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure
leukaemia with leeches.”
- Baroness Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years, 1993
“They're casting their problem on
society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual
men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except
through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look
after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the
entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations, because there is no
such thing as an entitlement unless someone has first met an obligation."
- Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, interview with
Douglas Keay on 23 September 1987, Woman's
Own, published 31 October 1987, pp. 8–10.
“My policies are based not on
some economics theory, but on things I and millions like me were brought up
with: an honest day's work for an honest day's pay; live within your means; put
by a nest egg for a rainy day; pay your bills on time; support the police.”
- Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, The News of the World,
20 September 1981
“Economics are the method; the object is to
change the heart and soul.”
- Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, interview for The Sunday Times,
1 May 1981
“I think, in a way, the fact that
we went through that winter was a rather shattering experience for many many
people and particularly the trade unions. Because the whole of public opinion
was massively against them and I think they'll think twice before they go
through that again. Those particularly in the part of the public sector dealing
with the social services. Yes we do have to get across to them that every penny
we provide to the public sector, the non-marketing public sector, has to be
earned for us by the marketing sector, whether it's public or private. All of
those in the public sector, who are not in the business side of the public
sector, depend upon the success of business enterprise. And what is in danger
of happening is that so much seems to be going into public sector pay, that the
private sector is being drained of resources that it needs. That's another
reason why we simply have to stick and say I'm sorry there's only so much
money, there isn't any more. And we just do have to stand and say no. But
equally, I think we have a duty to explain. Some people then say to me, ah,
you've got a pay policy. Of course I have. My pay policy is for the public
sector to live within what the nation earns. It was called good housekeeping
and living within your means long before it was called a pay policy. There really is no alternative.”
- Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Press
Conference for American correspondents in London, 25 June 1980
“I hope a tax will be preferred [to a loan which
threatens to saddle us with a perpetual debt], because it will awaken
the attention of the people and make reformation and economy the
principle of the next election. The frequent recurrence of this
chastening operation can alone restrain the propensity of governments to
enlarge expense beyond income.”
- Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1820
"I place economy among the first and most important
virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To
preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with
perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat
and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labor and in
our amusements. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor
of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be
happy."
- Thomas Jefferson
“The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity,
under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”
- Thomas Jefferson
"I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious."
- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to William Ludlow, 6 September 1824
“To take from one, because it is thought that his own
industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to
spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry
and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of
association, “the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his
industry, & the fruits acquired by it.’”
- Thomas Jefferson
That said.
DOUBLE ALL TAX RATES and start taxing social security (regardless of additional income), medicare, medicaid, food stamps, Obamaphones, you name it.
The country voted for a European-style welfare state. Fine. It’s time that it got European-style tax rates to pay for it. Here are some examples of what they pay:
* Denmark has the highest tax rate in the world with a 48.9% tax-to-GDP ratio. In contrast, the US's ratio is 28.2%. If Sandra Fluke decided to practise in Copenhagen, her marginal tax rate (based on Georgetown Law's average salaries after graduation) would be about 59.2%, in addition to a 1.5% church tax and a 25% VAT.
* A senior level nurse in a London hospital earns approximately $49,000. She will pay around $10,500 in income taxes, $6,039 in National Insurance taxes, a 20% VAT, council taxes, and other assorted taxes…in an area where it is more expensive to live than in Manhattan or San Francisco.
* In Sweden, ALL income over $76,586.78 is taxed at 25%, but the average marginal tax rate is 57.77% due to the additional municipal, church and funeral taxes. That doesn't include the 25% VAT. On the bright side, Sweden is a cool place to die. There are NO inheritance or estate taxes. Also, if you live off of dividends/capital gains, you pay a 30% tax rate, but you don't have to pay municipal, funeral, or church taxes. Warren Buffett's secretaries would pay a MUCH higher marginal tax rate in "Socialist Sweden" than she does in the allegedly "plutocrat-ruled" United States.
The “We can have all of this and get the ‘evil rich’ to pay for it” BS that Obama the Medicine Man sold to the country needs to be exposed for the cr@p that it is. Time to belly up to the bar and pay the tab. From now on, pay first, drink later.
It’s time that EVERYONE put some skin in the game… including Peggy Joseph and the Obamaphone woman.
If Americans want a big government, make them pay for it. We’ll see just how big of a government they really want. I suspect that we will find that they want a much smaller government once they are on the hook for the taxes needed to support it. Right now, they believe that they can have a free lunch and stick the “evil rich” with the tab. Unfortunately for the clueless, there aren’t enough “evil rich” people to pay for the lunch to which the moochers believe they are entitled.
The country voted for a European-style welfare state. Fine. It’s time that it got European-style tax rates to pay for it. Here are some examples of what they pay:
* Denmark has the highest tax rate in the world with a 48.9% tax-to-GDP ratio. In contrast, the US's ratio is 28.2%. If Sandra Fluke decided to practise in Copenhagen, her marginal tax rate (based on Georgetown Law's average salaries after graduation) would be about 59.2%, in addition to a 1.5% church tax and a 25% VAT.
* A senior level nurse in a London hospital earns approximately $49,000. She will pay around $10,500 in income taxes, $6,039 in National Insurance taxes, a 20% VAT, council taxes, and other assorted taxes…in an area where it is more expensive to live than in Manhattan or San Francisco.
* In Sweden, ALL income over $76,586.78 is taxed at 25%, but the average marginal tax rate is 57.77% due to the additional municipal, church and funeral taxes. That doesn't include the 25% VAT. On the bright side, Sweden is a cool place to die. There are NO inheritance or estate taxes. Also, if you live off of dividends/capital gains, you pay a 30% tax rate, but you don't have to pay municipal, funeral, or church taxes. Warren Buffett's secretaries would pay a MUCH higher marginal tax rate in "Socialist Sweden" than she does in the allegedly "plutocrat-ruled" United States.
ELIMINATING THE BUSH TAX RATES ON THE TOP 2% WILL RAISE ABOUT $80
BILLION PER YEAR. THAT'S IT!!! FURTHER, EVEN IF THE RATES STAYED THE
SAME, THE TOP MARGINAL RATE WOULD **STILL** RISE BY 3.8%.
The “We can have all of this and get the ‘evil rich’ to pay for it” BS that Obama the Medicine Man sold to the country needs to be exposed for the cr@p that it is. Time to belly up to the bar and pay the tab. From now on, pay first, drink later.
It’s time that EVERYONE put some skin in the game… including Peggy Joseph and the Obamaphone woman.
If Americans want a big government, make them pay for it. We’ll see just how big of a government they really want. I suspect that we will find that they want a much smaller government once they are on the hook for the taxes needed to support it. Right now, they believe that they can have a free lunch and stick the “evil rich” with the tab. Unfortunately for the clueless, there aren’t enough “evil rich” people to pay for the lunch to which the moochers believe they are entitled.
The Bush tax cuts took 3 million low income Americans off of the tax rolls. How did they repay Republicans? By voting for Barack Obama and other Democrats. Make them start paying for that "Obama stash" and make 'em pay until it hurts.
For FY2012, the government spent $3.7956 trillion. Eliminating the Bush tax rates on the top 2% is estimated to bring in $80 billion, ceterus paribus. Ending the Bush tax rates on the top 2% will pay for 7.69* days of Federal government spending.
$80 billion isn't chump change, but it is pretty miniscule when we are talking about trillion dollars deficits. There is one FACT that all but the utter loons recognise:
WE SIMPLY CANNOT RUN TRILLION DOLLAR DEFICITS IN PERPETUITY.
Unlike Greece, there's no Germany to bail us out. We WILL collapse and it will happen sooner than you think.
In 2010, John Kitchen of the U.S. Treasury and Menzie Chinn of the University of Wisconsin published a study entitled "Financing U.S. Debt: Is There Enough Money in the
World—and At What Cost?" According to Kitchen and Chinn, by 2020,
every penny of revenue received by the U.S. Treasury would be consumed
by Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and debt service, which confirms
what has been forecasted by the Congressional Budget Office, the Office
of Management and Budget, and the non-partisan the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform. More
frightening, the duo's research found that it would take 19% of the
rest of the world's GDP to finance the Federal government should it
continue on its present trajectory.
NINETEEN PERCENT OF EVERY DOLLAR EARNED BY EVERY OTHER CITIZEN OF THE WORLD!!!
For
the momentary relief of the residents of "My Progressive Little
Ponyland," Kitchen and Chinn did say that getting the rest of the world
to spend 19% of its GDP buying United States debt was "do-able," BUT
JUST LIKE "MY PROGRESSIVE LITTLE PONYLAND" IS NEVER GOING TO BECOME
REALITY, THE WORLD SO TOTALLY ISN'T EVER GONNA BUY 19% OF OUR WORTHLESS
PAPER EVERY YEAR FOR INFINITY. NEVER.
A future that presumes the rest of the planet will sink a fifth of its GDP into U.S. Treasuries is no future at all. And, isn't it ironic that Progressives would even presume that they would? America isn't so exceptional. Remember? So, why would the rest of the world bank with us and not, say, the BRICS? The hypocrisy is stunning, too. Progs always say that we are 5% of the world's population, but use 25% of its resources, which, according to them, is a very bad, racist, oppressive, selfish, and mean thing to do.
A future that presumes the rest of the planet will sink a fifth of its GDP into U.S. Treasuries is no future at all. And, isn't it ironic that Progressives would even presume that they would? America isn't so exceptional. Remember? So, why would the rest of the world bank with us and not, say, the BRICS? The hypocrisy is stunning, too. Progs always say that we are 5% of the world's population, but use 25% of its resources, which, according to them, is a very bad, racist, oppressive, selfish, and mean thing to do.
Evidently, being 5% of the world's population and expecting the equivalent of the Coolies to build our modern-day railroads, which are known as Obamacare, Social Security, Medicare, free college, subsidised housing, cradle-to-grave welfare, etc., by demanding that the rest of the world spend 19% OF THE GLOBAL GDP EVERY YEAR ON U.S. TREASURIES beginning in 2020 while we sit on our couches eating Krispy Kremes watching American Idol while our solar-panel-generated air conditioners are blasting away because "we are so trying to save the planet, man" is perfectly acceptable.
"Just like we’ve tried [the Republicans'] plan, we’ve tried our plan, and it worked. That’s the difference.”
- President Barack Obama
- President Barack Obama
Obama
is referring to "Clinton's Plan." He wants to return to "our plan"
(Clinton/Democrats) because "it worked;" yet, Obama's plan is NOT
Clinton's Plan. If he wants to truly return to Clinton's plan, fine.
Let's return to the Clinton tax rates for EVERYONE and Clinton's SPENDING levels.
It
seems to me that Obama and his fellow Social Justice, class warriors
only want one part of the Clinton Plan equation and the one that will
have the least impact on the most critical issue facing the country: our
out-of-control spending that has resulted in a staggering national debt
and more than $200 trillion in unfunded liabilities.
In the
end, Obama's Plan isn't serious. It's not about governing. It's not
about economics. It's not about "math." It's about spite, envy and
hatred cloaked in the name of "fairness."
And, if there was any
question about Obama's philosophy, it was answered in the Democratic
debate that was moderated by Charlie Gibson. Gibson asked Obama if he
would raise capital gains rates even though history has shown that
revenue actually falls when CGRs are increased. Obama said that he would
"for the purposes of fairness."
The reason for
taxes is supposed to be to raise the funds to pay for the necessary
functions of government, not to punish people.
I don't think the government should be in the "fairness" business. Obama does...even if it means LESS money for the government to spend.
I don't think the government should be in the "fairness" business. Obama does...even if it means LESS money for the government to spend.
Let's fly this fiscal cliff. It's nothing compared to the coming DEBT WALL.
Me, Thelma. You, Louise.
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