Back to the old shell game
And so another election has come and gone. Nearly every concerned voter can be expected to emerge from the tumult in a state of adrenaline depletion: exuberance mixed with a few lingering doubts (still too early for REAL “buyer’s remorse”) over the victory of a favored candidate, puzzlement if not something closer to bereavement over the triumph of some crooked, mobbed-up potentate over a well-meaning soul.
And thus we are successfully diverted, again, from thinking about the really important stuff on which we got to cast no meaningful ballot, again.
Which vote which you either cast or could have cast last Tuesday would have had the effect of closing the Federal Reserve — a cabal of private bankers allowed to manipulate the nation’s currency and economy, in ways which cannot work out well?
Which vote would have compelled the federal Congress to go back to setting the value of the paper dollar as a fixed weight of gold or silver or both, easily redeemable on demand — as instructed to do by the Constitution which they swear to “protect and defend”?
Such an act, of course, would immediately demonstrate the 2010 “dollar” is now worth something between a penny and four cents, compared to the 1930 dollar, while having the enormously beneficial effect of preventing the government — or the “Fed,” actually — from ginning up hundreds of millions of new paper or electronic “dollars” out of thin air and using them to buy its own debt, an “eating my own foot to keep from starving” scheme which will have the effect of devaluing the dollars in our savings and investment accounts till they pour through our hands like water through a sieve.
What, that’s a far-fetched prediction? The Federal Reserve Board announced Wednesday they’re going to do just that.
Which vote you cast Tuesday could have had the likely result of slashing the budget of the Department of War (If it’s really the Department of “Defense,” why do we need a separate “Department of Homeland Security”?) by at least 80 percent, bringing our troops home from all the ongoing foreign wars and occupations of our tax-fattened Military-Industrial Complex?
In theory, a few of the Libertarian and Independent American candidates on the ballot Tuesday — the ones who drew about 1 percent of the vote, each — might at least have broached these subjects, as we whistle our merry way down the road to a worthless currency and blood in the streets. But of course a vote for any such candidate would not be “serious,” since they “can’t be elected.”
Why “can’t they be elected”? Because they get no media coverage because they have no funds, and no one will fund them because they get no media coverage because they aren’t “serious candidates,” which is determined by the fact they haven’t been able to raise, in advance, bribes amounting to at least ten times the annual salary of the office they seek.
But at least Republicans — the “new,” Tea Party Republicans, not the bad old “go-along” Republicans — gained a lot of seats, so now they’ll really really cut taxes and downsize government, right?
Um … no. Look at Nevada, where a majority of voters bought the endless, droning, $100 million refrain that Sharron Angle, whose early (and quickly withdrawn) proposals to trim back a few federal agencies were really pathetically modest, was “radical, scary, dangerous, pathological. …”
A majority of Nevadans instead voted for 70-year-old incumbent Harry Reid, facilitator of the Obama-Pelosi-Schumer agenda, the tired old fixer who promised to keep their government-union paychecks or pension checks or various forms of welfare checks flowing, even if they’re now denominated in “dollars” that more closely resemble French revolutionary “assignats” — shares in the estates and 401(k)s and pension funds of the “greedy landed classes” which the current regime promises to seize and divvy up as soon as it proves necessary and convenient.
In the face of such a rebuff, to the mere proposal that we get rid of or partially privatize a few of the silliest and most counterproductive federal departments (Education and Energy, perhaps the EPA), you expect Republicans to now commit electoral suicide by slashing actual spending ANYWHERE?
Besides, while the hatred of the capitalism, profit and the productive class cradled in the bosoms of Beltway bureaucrats should not be underestimated, the Northern Virginia-based Institute for Justice revealed in a series of eight new reports released Oct. 26 that one of the principal obstacles to creating new jobs and entrepreneurial activity is the complex maze of regulations imposed on small businesses not by the federals, but by our city and state bureaucrats.
In fact, such bureaucrats are parasites on private job growth in two ways: first simply by drawing sustenance from taxes on the businesses they regulate, eating funds that could otherwise be used to hire a private worker, but second by actively harming the very host businesses on which they feed.
IJ’s “city studies” are filled with real-world examples.
In Chicago, not only is making food for commercial purposes in a home-based kitchen illegal, but an exhaustive review of the layers upon layers of regulations, inspections and ongoing reporting requirements at both the city and state levels for prospective food-service entrepreneurs would take dozens of attorney-hours and cost the would-be entrepreneur as much as $25,000, the IJ estimates.
(Such regulations now even prevent blind newsstand operators from selling their customers plastic-wrapped brownies cooked by their own moms in the pre-dawn hours each morning.)
In Los Angeles, to operate a used bookstore, the government demands that the owner get a permit from the police; record the personal information of everyone who brings in books for exchange or resale, including their names, addresses and book titles; and make this information available to the police. In some cases, the bookstore owner even has to thumbprint patrons who bring in books and file daily reports with the police. To buy and sell books.
In Miami, like many other cities, vending is severely limited. Only 75 total vending permits may be issued each year for the downtown area. (Only 17 have been distributed so far this year.) Miami limits vendors to selling only food or flowers, and the application process is difficult and expensive. Not only that, the applicant must secure all government-issued permits and insurance before applying and then endure a yearly “lottery” to see if he or she will actually receive a permit …. AFTER spending all that time and money.
In Milwaukee, as in many cities, home-based businesses must either comply with a set of needlessly restrictive requirements or operate illegally. Among other government limitations, in residential zones, only 50 percent of the garage can be used for storage.
Chip Mellor, president and general counsel of the Institute for Justice, says “If the nation is looking to the federal government to create jobs in America, it is looking in the wrong place. If we want to grow our economy, we must remove government-imposed barriers to honest enterprise at the city and state levels.”
What a coincidence, then, that most of the jobs saved by the Obama regime’s “stimulus” handouts, to date, have been unionized, Democrat-voting, GOVERNMENT jobs … including those of the dreaded goons in charge of “zoning and regulatory enforcement.”
And YOU got to pay for it.
November 7th, 2010 at 8:52 am
Thank you Vin for exposing the Federal Reserve. Equating the Fed, creating dollars out of thin air and using them to buy its own debt to “eating your own foot to keep from starving is a great comparison. Thanks and I hope everyone who reads your column writes to their representative and demands they audit the Fed.
Your military spending issue is also right on target. I was in the army from 73-76 and stationed in Germany. I wondered at the time why after almost 30 years after the war we were still occupying the country. But now, why do we still after 60K troops in Germany. Why do we have troops in over 140 countires? Makes no sense. And I don’t feel our borders are any safer.
The creation of the Homeland Security dept also doesn’t make sense. If you had polled federal law enforcement agents on tht issue you would have gotten an overwelming % of those who would agree with you. All the Homeland Security Dept did was create another layer of managers and political appointees. And you don’t need more of them in Federal law enforcement. Beleive me I could write a paper on how too many managers are in the Feds and how they operate at such a low efficency.
November 7th, 2010 at 10:07 am
Exceptional (even for you) analysis of the most recent election, Vin!
Demands re-posting everywhere anyone cries “Victory”!
But will anyone listen, or is it too late?
Are we sure it’s still not yet “time to shoot the bastards”?
November 7th, 2010 at 11:42 am
Amerikans will never learn.
We have voted for the dumbocrats all these years … and here we are.
We have voted for the repukocrats all these years … and here we are.
Imagine where we will be.
May the Amerikans wake up one day getting exactly what they deserve good and hard.
November 8th, 2010 at 7:36 am
Glad you brought up the Los Angeles example, Vin. For once the government had its priorities straight: dog-eared copies of Unintended Consequences and Atlas Shrugged are far more dangerous to our rulers than a small armload of “assault weapons”.
November 9th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
Best column of 2010 – by anyone – and best column of the 21st Century. However, don’t hold your breath for a Pulitzer. I believe the selection committee is grooming some lefties for that dubious prize.