What is Labor day really about?

I thought Labor day was a good day to contrast the unrealistic Marxist redistributive Socialist utopian dream against the simple well proven truth of American Conservatism.

The first Labor Day was founded by the Central Labor Union in New York city on September 5, 1882.

Leftists wanted May 1st but president Grover Cleveland and Congress opted to choose the date of the original Labor Day parade organized by the CLU, September 5, 1884, rather than May 1, as a national holiday. Thus, the first Monday of September became Labor Day and was officially written into law as a national holiday on June 28, 1894.
" But the last holiday of summer is more than a day off work: It's also one of the most controversial of American holidays, a celebration of the laborers -- and more specifically, the unionized laborers"
a quote from Bruce Watson

So it is obvious that the Left uses Labor Day as another day to promote their Marxist redistributive agenda. The rest of us need to counter this false unsustainable utopian dream that has been proven time and time again to be a complete failure that ends up making many suffer worse then before.

"What is being challenged is nothing less than the most basic premise of the politics of the centre ground: that you can have free market economics and a democratic socialist welfare system at the same time. The magic formula in which the wealth produced by the market economy is redistributed by the state – from those who produce it to those whom the government believes deserve it – has gone bust. The crash of 2008 exposed a devastating truth that went much deeper than the discovery of a generation of delinquent bankers, or a transitory property bubble. It has become apparent to anyone with a grip on economic reality that free markets simply cannot produce enough wealth to support the sort of universal entitlement programmes which the populations of democratic countries have been led to expect. The fantasy may be sustained for a while by the relentless production of phoney money to fund benefits and job-creation projects, until the economy is turned into a meaningless internal recycling mechanism in the style of the old Soviet Union."
a quote from Janet Daley

"We own this country politicians are employees of ours and when somebody does not do the job, we’ve got to let them go!" Clint Eastwood

On the Internet, there is a cry for replacing this year’s Labor Day – as in American workers’ day – with “Empty Chair Day” inspired by Clint Eastwood’s ‘empty chair’ symbolizing the current employment - or should it be said, unemployment - situation in the country.
I feel Labor Day should now be celebrated as Empty Chair Day! Please do join me in celebrating "National Empty Chair Day" on Labor Day!.

Below is another excellent article from
Real Clear Politics

Public Unions & the Socialist Utopia

By Robert Tracinski

The Democratic lawmakers who have gone on the lam in Wisconsin and Indiana-and who knows where else next-are exhibiting a literal fight-or-flight response, the reaction of an animal facing a threat to its very existence.
Why? Because it is a threat to their existence. The battle of Wisconsin is about the viability of the Democratic Party, and more: it is about the viability of the basic social ideal of the left.

It is a matter of survival for Democrats in an immediate, practical sense. As Michael Barone explains, the government employees' unions are a mechanism for siphoning taxpayer dollars into the campaigns of Democratic politicians.
But there is something deeper here than just favor-selling and vote-buying. There is something that almost amounts to a twisted idealism in the Democrats' crusade. They are fighting, not just to preserve their special privileges, but to preserve a social ideal. Or rather, they are fighting to maintain the illusion that their ideal system is benevolent and sustainable.
Unionized public-sector employment is the distilled essence of the left's moral ideal. No one has to worry about making a profit. Generous health-care and retirement benefits are provided to everyone by the government. Comfortable pay is mandated by legislative fiat. The work rules are militantly egalitarian: pay, promotion, and job security are almost totally independent of actual job performance. And because everyone works for the government, they never have to worry that their employer will go out of business.
In short, public employment is an idealized socialist economy in miniature, including its political aspect: the grateful recipients of government largesse provide money and organizational support to re-elect the politicians who shower them with all of these benefits.
Put it all together, and you have the Democrats' version of utopia. In the larger American culture of Tea Parties, bond vigilantes, and rugged individualists, Democrats feel they are constantly on the defensive. But within the little subculture of unionized government employees, all is right with the world, and everything seems to work the way it is supposed to.
This cozy little world has been described as a system that grants special privileges to a few, which is particularly rankling in the current stagnant economy, when private sector workers acutely feel the difference. But I think this misses the point. The point is that this is how the left thinks everyone should live and work. It is their version of a model society.
Every political movement needs models. It needs a real-world example to demonstrate how its ideal works and that it works.
And there's the rub. The left is running low on utopias.
The failure of Communism-and the spectacular success of capitalism, particularly in bringing wealth to what used to be called the "Third World"-deprived the left of one utopia. So they fell back on the European welfare state, smugly assuring Americans that we would be so much better off if we were more like our cousins across the Atlantic. But the Great Recession has triggered a sovereign debt crisis across Europe. It turned out that the continent's welfare states were borrowing money to paper over the fact that they have committed themselves to benefits more generous than they can ever hope to pay for.
In America, the ideological crisis of the left is taking a slightly different form. Here, the left has set up its utopias by carving out, within a wider capitalist culture, little islands where its ideals hold sway. Old age is one of those islands, where everyone has been promised the socialist dreams of a guaranteed income and unlimited free health care. Public employment is another.
Now the left is panicking as these experiments in American socialism implode.
On the national level, it has become clear that the old-age welfare state of Social Security and Medicare is driving the federal government into permanent trillion-dollar deficits and a ruinous debt load. Even President Obama acknowledged, in his State of the Union address, that these programs are the real drivers of runaway debt-just before he refused to consider any changes to them. You see how hard it is for the Democrats to give up on their utopias.
On the state level, public employment promises the full socialist ideal to a small minority-paid for with tax money looted from a larger, productive private economy. But the socialist utopia of public employment has crossed the Thatcher Line: the point at which, as the Iron Lady used to warn, you run out of other people's money.
The current crisis exposes more than just the financial unsustainability of these programs. It exposes their moral unsustainability. It exposes the fact that the generosity of these welfare-state enclaves can only be sustained by forcing everyone else to perform forced labor to pay for the benefits of a privileged few.
This is why the left is treating any attempt to fundamentally reform the public workers' paradise as an existential crisis. This is why they are reacting with the most extreme measures short of outright insurrection. When Democratic lawmakers flee the state in order to deprive their legislatures of the quorum necessary to vote, they are declaring that they would rather have no legislature than allow voting on any bill that would break the power of the unions.
National Review's Jim Geraghty describes these legislative walk-outs as "small-scale, temporary secessions." The analogy is exact. One hundred and fifty years ago, Southern slaveholders realized that the political balance of the nation had tipped against them, that they could no longer hope to win the political argument for their system. Faced with a federal government in which they were out-voted, they decided that they would rather have no federal government at all. The Democrats' current cause may not be as repugnant-holding human beings as chattel is a unique evil-but it has something of the same character of irrational, belligerent denial. More than two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the left is still trying to pretend that socialism is plausible as an economic system.
The Democrats are fleeing from a lot more than their jobs as state legislators. They are fleeing from the cold, hard reality of the financial and moral unsustainability of their ideal.

Below is another excellent article from
The failure of unions and socialism
from Braincrave Second Life staff
Mar 02, 2011

Someone once made a comment that he was 100% supportive of a tyrannical, socialist government as long as he was the only citizen of his country (paraphrased). Throughout the world, and especially in America, many are still trying their best to pretend that socialism is a plausible economic system and ideology by attaching it to capitalism. No matter how often socialism has proved to be morally and economically destructive, there continues to be those who desperately want to believe that "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is a sustainable model.

Currently, there are multiple US states (e.g., Wisconsin, Ohio, Tennessee, Indiana, Nevada, New Jersey, Florida) that are attempting to "break" public unions. This struggle appears to be bringing those on the left together. Why are public unions such a particularly big deal for Democrats? Is unionized, public employment representative of the socialist utopia? Given what we are seeing with government's income statement - and specifically the cost of entitlement programs which is primary to liberal ideology - is it hubris to suggest that breaking the public unions would effectively destroy the fundamental premises of the Democratic party and, thus, the party itself? Given that Republicans are just as guilty for supporting collectivism, how destructive could this be to RINOs?

FTA: "The Democratic lawmakers who have gone on the lam in Wisconsin and Indiana-and who knows where else next-are exhibiting a literal fight-or-flight response, the reaction of an animal facing a threat to its very existence. Why? Because it is a threat to their existence. The battle of Wisconsin is about the viability of the Democratic Party, and more: it is about the viability of the basic social ideal of the left... They are fighting, not just to preserve their special privileges, but to preserve a social ideal. Or rather, they are fighting to maintain the illusion that their ideal system is benevolent and sustainable. Unionized public-sector employment is the distilled essence of the left's moral ideal. No one has to worry about making a profit. Generous health-care and retirement benefits are provided to everyone by the government. Comfortable pay is mandated by legislative fiat. The work rules are militantly egalitarian: pay, promotion, and job security are almost totally independent of actual job performance. And because everyone works for the government, they never have to worry that their employer will go out of business...

The point is that this is how the left thinks everyone should live and work. It is their version of a model society. Every political movement needs models. It needs a real-world example to demonstrate how its ideal works and that it works. And there's the rub. The left is running low on utopias. The failure of Communism-and the spectacular success of capitalism, particularly in bringing wealth to what used to be called the "Third World"-deprived the left of one utopia. So they fell back on the European welfare state, smugly assuring Americans that we would be so much better off if we were more like our cousins across the Atlantic. But the Great Recession has triggered a sovereign debt crisis across Europe. It turned out that the continent's welfare states were borrowing money to paper over the fact that they have committed themselves to benefits more generous than they can ever hope to pay for.

In America, the ideological crisis of the left is taking a slightly different form. Here, the left has set up its utopias by carving out, within a wider capitalist culture, little islands where its ideals hold sway. Old age is one of those islands, where everyone has been promised the socialist dreams of a guaranteed income and unlimited free health care. Public employment is another. Now the left is panicking as these experiments in American socialism implode... The current crisis exposes more than just the financial unsustainability of these programs. It exposes their moral unsustainability. It exposes the fact that the generosity of these welfare-state enclaves can only be sustained by forcing everyone else to perform forced labor to pay for the benefits of a privileged few."

Phony Democratic Talking Points And Their Real Meanings!

 The Leftist agenda being espoused by the Socialists (AKA Communists, Marxists, Liberals or Progressives) is all so predictable and easily dismissed with a few common sense simple facts.

1. We need to raise taxes on the rich and not cut spending.
2. The so called war on women.
3. All who oppose Obama or voter ID are racists.

 

Myth 1 - We need to raise taxes.

 This has been proven repeatedly to not work as every time it has been done any where that it has been tried that when you reach a tipping point revenue actually goes down (see the Laffer curve below)

Even if the government took 100% of everything the "rich" earned, effectively destroying the economy, it wouldn't even fund their out of control spending for 5 months. The only logical choice left is to cut spending and reduce the size of government.

Myth 2 - The so called war on women.

 

What the left and their minions in the main stream media did to Sara Palin and Michelle Bachmann was a real war on women. If anything like that was done to Hillery Clinton or Nancy Palosi by those on the right there would be outrage and calls for immediate dismissals of the perpetrators of that type of hateful rhetoric.


If Julia had a job she could afford her birth control! The BLS data also show that the unemployment rate for women in June was 8.0 percent, up from 7.9 percent in May.  That’s also up from 7.0 percent in January 2009 when Obama became president.  Under President Obama, the number of women living in poverty has skyrocketed. 92 percent of job losses have come among women. Democrats know that today women face really no restrictions getting contraception.
"They know that Republicans aren't going to stop women from getting contraception. They know that nine in 10 employer-based health care plans already cover contraception. Of course the Democrats want to change the subject to a wholly contrived “War on Women” narrative. If there is a war on women, it's on women's pocketbooks and it's being waged by President Obama." Laura Ingraham

Myth 3 - Oppose Obama/Voter ID your racist.

 If one disliked Obama cause he is half black instead of the fact that he is a redistributing Socialist. Then how could those same so called haters on the right then support Condoleezza Rice, General Colin Powell, Lieutenant Colonel Allen West and Hermon Cain as these are all 100% black African American Conservative Patriots.

 

"So sensing the now very real possibility of significant losses of White voters as compared to 2008, Barack Obama is doing all he can to push the numbers of minority voters as high as possible in 2012 – including voters who may very well not be legal citizens – a number that might include hundreds of thousands or even millions of non-citizen votes.  In a close election that could prove the deciding factor between victory and defeat.
As we reported yesterday, there is great irony to be found in the fact that the Obama campaign requires all who attend an Obama campaign speech to  show proof of identification before being granted admission, and yet the Obama administration is aggressively fighting states that wish to require voters to show that same kind of identification before being allowed to vote.
And if Barack Obama runs out of non citizen voters – he can always count on the dead.
That’s the Chicago way…" Ulsterman on June 24, 2012 with 25 Comments in News

 

 Need I say any more. Anyone

Why Socialism Failed

This is a great article written by Mark J. Perry posted on the Freeman Blog on June 1995. It is so timeless that it still rings true today.

Why Socialism Failed

by Mark J. Perry • June 1995 • Vol. 45/Issue 6

Socialism is the Big Lie of the twentieth century. While it promised prosperity, equality, and security, it delivered poverty, misery, and tyranny. Equality was achieved only in the sense that everyone was equal in his or her misery.
In the same way that a Ponzi scheme or chain letter initially succeeds but eventually collapses, socialism may show early signs of success. But any accomplishments quickly fade as the fundamental deficiencies of central planning emerge. It is the initial illusion of success that gives government intervention its pernicious, seductive appeal. In the long run, socialism has always proven to be a formula for tyranny and misery.
A pyramid scheme is ultimately unsustainable because it is based on faulty principles. Likewise, collectivism is unsustainable in the long run because it is a flawed theory. Socialism does not work because it is not consistent with fundamental principles of human behavior. The failure of socialism in countries around the world can be traced to one critical defect: it is a system that ignores incentives.
In a capitalist economy, incentives are of the utmost importance. Market prices, the profit-and-loss system of accounting, and private property rights provide an efficient, interrelated system of incentives to guide and direct economic behavior. Capitalism is based on the theory that incentives matter!
Under socialism, incentives either play a minimal role or are ignored totally. A centrally planned economy without market prices or profits, where property is owned by the state, is a system without an effective incentive mechanism to direct economic activity. By failing to emphasize incentives, socialism is a theory inconsistent with human nature and is therefore doomed to fail. Socialism is based on the theory that incentives don’t matter!
In a radio debate several months ago with a Marxist professor from the University of Minnesota, I pointed out the obvious failures of socialism around the world in Cuba, Eastern Europe, and China. At the time of our debate, Haitian refugees were risking their lives trying to get to Florida in homemade boats. Why was it, I asked him, that people were fleeing Haiti and traveling almost 500 miles by ocean to get to the “evil capitalist empire” when they were only 50 miles from the “workers’ paradise” of Cuba?
The Marxist admitted that many “socialist” countries around the world were failing. However, according to him, the reason for failure is not that socialism is deficient, but that the socialist economies are not practicing “pure” socialism. The perfect version of socialism would work; it is just the imperfect socialism that doesn’t work. Marxists like to compare a theoretically perfect version of socialism with practical, imperfect capitalism which allows them to claim that socialism is superior to capitalism.
If perfection really were an available option, the choice of economic and political systems would be irrelevant. In a world with perfect beings and infinite abundance, any economic or political system–socialism, capitalism, fascism, or communism–would work perfectly.
However, the choice of economic and political institutions is crucial in an imperfect universe with imperfect beings and limited resources. In a world of scarcity it is essential for an economic system to be based on a clear incentive structure to promote economic efficiency. The real choice we face is between imperfect capitalism and imperfect socialism. Given that choice, the evidence of history overwhelmingly favors capitalism as the greatest wealth-producing economic system available.
The strength of capitalism can be attributed to an incentive structure based upon the three Ps: (1) prices determined by market forces, (2) a profit-and-loss system of accounting and (3) private property rights. The failure of socialism can be traced to its neglect of these three incentive-enhancing components.
Prices
The price system in a market economy guides economic activity so flawlessly that most people don’t appreciate its importance. Market prices transmit information about relative scarcity and then efficiently coordinate economic activity. The economic content of prices provides incentives that promote economic efficiency.
For example, when the OPEC cartel restricted the supply of oil in the 1970s, oil prices rose dramatically. The higher prices for oil and gasoline transmitted valuable information to both buyers and sellers. Consumers received a strong, clear message about the scarcity of oil by the higher prices at the pump and were forced to change their behavior dramatically. People reacted to the scarcity by driving less, carpooling more, taking public transportation, and buying smaller cars. Producers reacted to the higher price by increasing their efforts at exploration for more oil. In addition, higher oil prices gave producers an incentive to explore and develop alternative fuel and energy sources.
The information transmitted by higher oil prices provided the appropriate incentive structure to both buyers and sellers. Buyers increased their effort to conserve a now more precious resource and sellers increased their effort to find more of this now scarcer resource.
The only alternative to a market price is a controlled or fixed price which always transmits misleading information about relative scarcity. Inappropriate behavior results from a controlled price because false information has been transmitted by an artificial, non-market price.
Look at what happened during the 1970s when U.S. gas prices were controlled. Long lines developed at service stations all over the country because the price for gasoline was kept artificially low by government fiat. The full impact of scarcity was not accurately conveyed. As Milton Friedman pointed out at the time, we could have eliminated the lines at the pump in one day by allowing the price to rise to clear the market.
From our experience with price controls on gasoline and the long lines at the pump and general inconvenience, we get an insight into what happens under socialism where every price in the economy is controlled. The collapse of socialism is due in part to the chaos and inefficiency that result from artificial prices. The information content of a controlled price is always distorted. This in turn distorts the incentives mechanism of prices under socialism. Administered prices are always either too high or too low, which then creates constant shortages and surpluses. Market prices are the only way to transmit information that will create the incentives to ensure economic efficiency.
Profits and Losses
Socialism also collapsed because of its failure to operate under a competitive, profit-and-loss system of accounting. A profit system is an effective monitoring mechanism which continually evaluates the economic performance of every business enterprise. The firms that are the most efficient and most successful at serving the public interest are rewarded with profits. Firms that operate inefficiently and fail to serve the public interest are penalized with losses.
By rewarding success and penalizing failure, the profit system provides a strong disciplinary mechanism which continually redirects resources away from weak, failing, and inefficient firms toward those firms which are the most efficient and successful at serving the public. A competitive profit system ensures a constant reoptimization of resources and moves the economy toward greater levels of efficiency. Unsuccessful firms cannot escape the strong discipline of the marketplace under a profit/loss system. Competition forces companies to serve the public interest or suffer the consequences.
Under central planning, there is no profit-and-loss system of accounting to accurately measure the success or failure of various programs. Without profits, there is no way to discipline firms that fail to serve the public interest and no way to reward firms that do. There is no efficient way to determine which programs should be expanded and which ones should be contracted or terminated.
Without competition, centrally planned economies do not have an effective incentive structure to coordinate economic activity. Without incentives the results are a spiraling cycle of poverty and misery. Instead of continually reallocating resources towards greater efficiency, socialism falls into a vortex of inefficiency and failure.
Private Property Rights
A third fatal defect of socialism is its blatant disregard for the role of private property rights in creating incentives that foster economic growth and development. The failure of socialism around the world is a “tragedy of commons” on a global scale.
The “tragedy of the commons” refers to the British experience of the sixteenth century when certain grazing lands were communally owned by villages and were made available for public use. The land was quickly overgrazed and eventually became worthless as villagers exploited the communally owned resource.
When assets are publicly owned, there are no incentives in place to encourage wise stewardship. While private property creates incentives for conservation and the responsible use of property, public property encourages irresponsibility and waste. If everyone owns an asset, people act as if no one owns it. And when no one owns it, no one really takes care of it. Public ownership encourages neglect and mismanagement.
Since socialism, by definition, is a system marked by the “common ownership of the means of production,” the failure of socialism is a “tragedy of the commons” on a national scale. Much of the economic stagnation of socialism can be traced to the failure to establish and promote private property rights.
As Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto remarked, you can travel in rural communities around the world and you will hear dogs barking, because even dogs understand property rights. It is only statist governments that have failed to understand property rights. Socialist countries are just now starting to recognize the importance of private property as they privatize assets and property in Eastern Europe.
Incentives Matter
Without the incentives of market prices, profit-and-loss accounting, and well-defined property rights, socialist economies stagnate and wither. The economic atrophy that occurs under socialism is a direct consequence of its neglect of economic incentives.
No bounty of natural resources can ever compensate a country for its lack of an efficient system of incentives. Russia, for example, is one of the world’s wealthiest countries in terms of natural resources; it has some of the world’s largest reserves of oil, natural gas, diamonds, and gold. Its valuable farm land, lakes, rivers, and streams stretch across a land area that encompasses 11 time zones. Yet Russia remains poor. Natural resources are helpful, but the ultimate resources of any country are the unlimited resources of its people–human resources.
By their failure to foster, promote, and nurture the potential of their people through incentive-enhancing institutions, centrally planned economies deprive the human spirit of full development. Socialism fails because it kills and destroys the human spirit–just ask the people leaving Cuba in homemade rafts and boats.
As the former centrally planned economies move toward free markets, capitalism, and democracy, they look to the United States for guidance and support during the transition. With an unparalleled 250-year tradition of open markets and limited government, the United States is uniquely qualified to be the guiding light in the worldwide transition to freedom and liberty.
We have an obligation to continue to provide a framework of free markets and democracy for the global transition to freedom. Our responsibility to the rest of the world is to continue to fight the seductiveness of statism around the world and here at home. The seductive nature of statism continues to tempt and lure us into the Barmecidal illusion that the government can create wealth.
The temptress of socialism is constantly luring us with the offer: “give up a little of your freedom and I will give you a little more security.” As the experience of this century has demonstrated, the bargain is tempting but never pays off. We end up losing both our freedom and our security.
Programs like socialized medicine, welfare, Social Security, and minimum wage laws will continue to entice us because on the surface they appear to be expedient and beneficial. Those programs, like all socialist programs, will fail in the long run regardless of initial appearances. These programs are part of the Big Lie of socialism because they ignore the important role of incentives.
Socialism will remain a constant temptation. We must be vigilant in our fight against socialism not only around the globe but also here in the United States.
The failure of socialism inspired a worldwide renaissance of freedom and liberty. For the first time in the history of the world, the day is coming very soon when a majority of the people in the world will live in free societies or societies rapidly moving toward freedom.
Capitalism will play a major role in the global revival of liberty and prosperity because it nurtures the human spirit, inspires human creativity, and promotes the spirit of enterprise. By providing a powerful system of incentives that promote thrift, hard work, and efficiency, capitalism creates wealth.
The main difference between capitalism and socialism is this: Capitalism works.

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Article printed from The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty: http://www.thefreemanonline.org
URL to article: http://www.thefreemanonline.org/features/why-socialism-failed/

I enjoyed this article and think you will also. Yet more examples of the Media Bias against Conservatives.

Four Stories You Won’t Hear About Obama

May 25, 2012 By Floyd and Mary Beth Brown 

inShare8

Most Americans judge a President based on his promises and his results. They measure the success of the nation in part by the question Ronald Reagan asked voters in 1980. Reagan simply said, “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?”

For Barack Obama, this question is deadly. Obama promised big results, but he has failed to deliver. For example, look at these four promises and his results.

Obama’s 825 billion dollar stimulus failed to keep unemployment below 8 percent as Obama promised. Since President Obama’s stimulus passed, America has lost 1.1 million jobs. If you count people who have become discouraged and are no longer seeking jobs, some economists believe that real unemployment rate is above twenty percent.

Obama called his health care package one of his major accomplishments. He told CBS’ Steve Kroft he was “putting in place a system in which we’re going to start lowering health care costs.” Yet it has failed to make health insurance more affordable. According to the fact watchdog website FactCheck.org, ObamaCare is actually making health care “less affordable.” Workers paid an average of $132 more for family coverage just this year.

Obama predicted his investments in green energy would create 5 million jobs, but the Wall Street Journal reports: “The green jobs subsidy story gets more embarrassing by the day. Three years ago President Obama promised that by the end of the decade, America would have five million green jobs, but so far, some $90 billion in government spending has delivered very few.”

Obama pledged to cut the deficit in half, saying: “And that’s why today I’m pledging to cut the deficit we inherited by half by the end of my first term in office.” Even if every part of Obama’s deficit reduction proposal was enacted, the deficit at the end of his first term would still be $1.33 trillion, more than twice what he promised.

But don’t expect much reporting on his record. Instead, watch as the media focuses on polls. They like to treat most campaigns like a horse race. Don’t be bedazzled by the speeches and rhetoric, just look at the promises and his results. Judge Barack Obama by his own expectations and you will see he has been a failure.

But the news media is almost as desperate to ignore Obama’s record as he is to hide it.

As a result of his dismal record, he has decided to run a campaign of attacks on Mitt Romney in the vain hope that the subject will be changed. The mainstream media will help him change the agenda.

We will hear stories about how Bain Capital, Romney’s old firm, restructured business and cut jobs, and the media will forget to talk about how Obama restructured General Motors and cut jobs.

We will hear stories about how Mitt Romney bullied someone in school nearly 50 years ago, and we won’t hear about Barack Obama doing drugs 25 or 30 years ago.

We will hear stories about how Mitt Romney is controlled by the far right, and we won’t hear a story about Barack Obama’s associates on the far left.

Expect the media to work as hard to re-elect Barack Obama as they did to elect him. But if Romney stays focused on giving America the facts and forcing the media to report accurately, this election is his to lose.

We are turning a sustainable safety net into a Ponzi scheme hammock!

I am sick and tired of the obvious bias and twisting of the truth by the mainstream media and many professors at our tax funded Universities. What is fair about punishing hard work thru excessive taxation then perpetuating poverty by regulating poor entrepreneurs out of business? We need to allow free mobility of the poor to move up the social-economic ladder instead of locking them into the ghetto with the permanent underclass. I am not advocating the wholesale elimination of our social programs but instead a minimal amount as required to help the unfortunate poorest among us survive while having some programs available providing the needed tools for those willing to work hard thus move up the social economic ladder.

Below is a great article I read published on Canada free Press.

Democrats most often divide Americans along cultural lines then employs class envy

Cultural deconstruction: turning a safety net into a hammock

- David Coughlin  Wednesday, September 7, 2011

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The Democrat political strategy is to segment the American people into constituency classes that can be served separately.  Al Gore made a Freudian slip when he admitted while campaigning that “We can build a collective civic space large enough for all our separate identities, that we can be E Pluribus Unum—out of one, many.”

Democrats most often divide Americans along cultural lines (region, race, ethnicity, religion, and personal values), rather than along economic lines. The party then employs class envy as an explicit strategy for righting perceived wrongs and offering a goal of future class equity. This strategy tends to be very divisive, pitting one class vs. another in a zero sum game, never completely satisfying any constituent class.

Political power is ensured by retaining this underclass as a permanent voting bloc that can be exploited for ongoing political support. Unfortunately nurturing a permanent underclass for political purposes has had unintended cultural consequences, which may eventually

The purpose of welfare is to assist individuals in need and ultimately to help welfare recipients out of poverty and make them self-sufficient.  Medicare was originally designed in 1965 as a Great Society health insurance program for all Americans age 65 and older and for the permanent physically disabled, funded by payroll taxes.  Medicaid is the means tested health program created in 1965 as part of the War on Poverty for people with low incomes and resources, jointly funded by the state and federal governments, and managed by the states.  These social insurance programs have expanded well beyond their original intents, and the unintended consequences has been to grow dependence on government support, instead of a return to self sufficiency. After the Great Society legislation of the 1960s, for the first time a person who was not elderly or disabled could receive a living from the American government.  President Franklin D. Roosevelt said in 1935, “Continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit.”  Social Security and Medicare are rapidly approaching bankruptcy, spending more money each year than is collected.  The destructiveness of welfare goes beyond financial affordability and political dependency. 
The more welfare that families receive from government, the less fathers are necessary for their support, undermining the basic building block of society, the family unit.  Lacking the role model of a responsible father, children grow up to believe that dependency is a natural condition of life.  The children of welfare moms are nurtured in a mentality that perpetuates dependency from generation to generation.  The impact of food stamps, Section 8 housing subsidies, Medicaid, and other support programs has been to create a permanent welfare class who, in terms of skills and attitudes, are poorly equipped to return to work.  The U.S. has spent $16 trillion since LBJ launched his “War on Poverty” in 1964, but the percentage of people in “poverty” remains essentially the same.  Despite the fact that illegal aliens do not contribute to the program funding, many states cover them despite explicitly being excluded.  Our culture has eroded so much now that dependence on the government has become an acceptable lifestyle for the permanent underclass, which has transformed our temporary economic “safety net” into a comfortable “hammock” for long term living.
By design Democrats have deconstructed our American culture into a loose confederation of disparate class cultures on the verge of open class warfare.  Democrats have nurtured an underclass politically dependent with a well developed sense of entitlement, which has taught generations that society owes them a living; that government is responsible for raising their children; working is not necessary; and everyone is entitled to the fruits of other people’s labor.  This policy shows a reckless disregard for the consequences of dependency, which will be terrible. 
Welfare-state paternalism has bred and nurtured immoral, undesirable people because government entitlements create one of two attitudes towards society: either ingratitude or resentment.  If they receive what they’re entitled to, there is nothing to be grateful for because you’re entitled to it.  If they haven’t received an entitlement, then they’re resentful because you haven’t received what you feel you are entitled to.  Evidence of this resentment can be seen in the black “flash mobs” attacking randomly in a number of U.S. cities and the U.K. hoodlum riots attacking random businesses.  We should expect to see more of this violence at the Day of Rage starting on September 17th, since it was originally planned for non-violent protests in three cities, but has already expanded to a week of civil disobedience in at least ten cities.
Nothing less than a culture re-construction is needed to recover from the degradation of our western society.  We must resurrect the culture of personal responsibility.  We must re-teach the cause and effect relationship between hard work and achievement.  Relearning the art of parental discipline, and re-establishing the primacy of the moral code upon which western civilization was built are monumental but necessary tasks.  I hope we are not too late because it will take generations to undo the harm done to our culture.  Ultimately the concept of entitlement must be dismantled from the welfare state.
The Democrats have embraced class warfare as their primary political tactic.  The unintended (or perhaps intended) consequence has been the creation of a permanent underclass totally dependent on the government for their well-being.  Political power is maintained by retaining this dependence in exchange for political support.  Unless you are an unrepentant Marxist praying for a class uprising, this permanent underclass is condemned to a government subsistence existence and an inability to participate in the American Dream.

Move Over Leftists: Real feminists reject subsidies

I really enjoyed this great article from the Daily caller.

Published: 6:23 PM 05/04/2012

By Emily O'Neill

Freelance Writer

Move Over Leftists: Real feminists reject subsidies

The Obama campaign released a new ad on Thursday that should be offensive to all of the women who have ever fought for social and financial independence. The ad, featuring a character named “Julia” who uses government assistance from childhood to retirement, speaks volumes about the latest generation of left feminists.
While the feminist philosophy was supposed to encourage women to be self-reliant, left feminists now demand that taxpayers finance their lifestyle choices. From food stamps to birth control, these women are fighting to hold on to their government assistance. What ever happened to the feminist movement that encouraged women to be independent?
Left feminists would be up in arms if an ad promoted the idea that women needed men to survive financially. There would be new feminist slogans, bumper stickers, and rallies across the country to encourage women to stand on their own two feet. So, what’s the difference?
There is none. Left feminists are simply replacing men with government, and calling it empowerment.
A feminist who wants taxpayers to pay for her lifestyle is about as socially and financially independent of a woman as one who marries a wealthy man to pay her bills — and at least the man in the latter scenario chooses to support a woman by his own free will. Whether a man financially supports a woman, or a woman financially supports a man, there is typically a voluntary personal relationship. Absent any force or coercion, both parties consent to this arrangement.
By contrast, the government forces citizens to pay for government assistance through taxes. Leveraging the force of government to finance lifestyle choices is not liberating for women; it perpetuates the falsehood that women need assistance in order to pursue their goals. With all of this talk about a so-called Republican “war on women,” isn’t it the left that is betraying women by suggesting that they need government assistance to survive?
Women are not helpless, nor are they entitled. Government assistance limits lifestyle options and causes women to surrender their financial and social freedom. For decades, feminists fought for women’s financial independence; so why do feminists on the left support trading that in for dependence on government programs?

If women on the left support a government subsidizing their lives, it follows that they no longer believe in women’s financial independence. Thus, their feminist label is merely a cover for what they really believe in: special treatment.
A new kind of feminist is emerging, however — an independent woman who doesn’t believe in the entitlement culture, but instead believes in taking responsibility for herself and her actions. These women are the real feminists because they believe in achieving their goals based on their own merit. With that said, women on the left need to realize their hypocrisy and consider the idea that instead of making women prosperous, government hand-outs hold women back.

Who are the 1 percent?

I myself hope to become a member of the 1%. At one time I was in the bottom 10% and with no help from the Government or a Union worked my way up to the 80%. Even though I am now in the top 80% after paying a total tax burden of well over 50% (includes federal, state, local and hidden taxes like sales tax and corperate taxes added to all my purchases, fuel, phone ect.) I am forced to live modestly.

The problem with the argument from the Leftists is that if you take some wealth away from those in the 1% and redistribute it to the poorest among us that it would make the bottom 10% better. The cold hard fact is that forms of this have been repeatedly tried and all end up with the same result. At best as you remove wealth from the 1% with much of it is wasted by the Government, some does actually get to who it was intended. The wealth is soon squandered requiring even more. The wealth of the 1% becomes less and less to a point when enough is not left to sustain the insatiable appetite of the Marxist redistributive system and it collapses upon itself.

The Rights view of letting a hardworking citizen keep a fair share of the efforts through fair taxation induces more of the same hard work and entrepreneurial spirit thus growing the economy. This proven Capitalist formula has provided more wealth for the poor then any variation of the same old tired Marxist Redistribution based ponzi scheme.

Who are the 1 percent?

Below is an Article by Tami Luhby published in CNN Money on October 29, 2011

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Think it takes a million bucks to make it into the Top 1% of American taxpayers?
Think again. In 2009, it took just $343,927 to join that elite group, according to newly released statistics from the Internal Revenue Service.
Occupy Wall Street protesters have been railing against the Top 1%, trying to raise anger and awareness of the growing economic gap between the rich and everybody else in America.
But just who are these fortunate folks at the top of the income ladder?
Well, there were just under 1.4 million households that qualified for entry. They earned nearly 17% of the nation's income and paid roughly 37% of its income tax.
Collectively, their adjusted gross income was $1.3 trillion. And while $343,927 was the minimum AGI to be included, on average, Top 1-percenters made $960,000.
But the income threshold for this exclusive group changes every year, largely with the performance of the stock market, experts said.
In 2007, when times were good on Wall Street, one needed to have an adjusted gross income of more than $424,000 to get into the highest rank. But the stock market decline in recent years has helped lower that bar back to a level not seen since 2002.
"The further up you go, the wider swings you see," said Pete Sepp, spokesman for the National Taxpayers Union. "They have a great deal of wealth sunk into the markets, which can vary quite widely."
While much of the wealthy's income comes from capital gains on investments, bonuses on the job can also give people the needed boost.
Just what jobs are those?
Many workers in the securities industry in New York likely qualify for the Top 1%.
These folks, many of whom work only blocks from where protesters are gathering in Zuccotti Park, made an average salary of just over $311,000 in 2009, according to the state Comptroller's Office. (This figure does not take into account certain income, losses and deductions that make up adjusted gross income.)
A separate study found that financial professionals made up about 14% of the top rank in 2005.
Executives, managers and supervisors working outside of finance accounted for 31%, the largest share, according to an analysis by Jon Bakija of Williams College, Adam Cole of the Treasury Department and Bradley Heim of Indiana University. Medical professionals came in at 15.7%, while lawyers made up 8.4%.
Over time, the Top 1% has claimed a bigger share of the income pie. In 2007, they earned 22.8% of the nation's income, more than double the amount in 1986, according to IRS data. The recession has since brought that slice down to just under 17% for 2009.
While those at the top have seen their incomes soar over time, middle-class incomes have stagnated.
"The higher up the income distribution you go, the more your income rose and the larger the share of total income gains went to your group," said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
But as corporate profits and productivity have increased, workers aren't reaping the benefits, said Edward Wolff, a New York University economics professor who specializes in income inequality. That's helping spark the movement, which has spread across the country.
"There is a lot of anger and it's for a very good reason," Wolff said. "If all of the income gain goes to the top, there's not much left to go to the rest of the people."

55% Say Obama More Liberal Than They Are

55% Say Obama More Liberal Than They Are

According to Rasmussen Reports

Friday, January 13, 2012

Most voters still believe President Obama is to the left of them ideologically.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 27% of Likely U.S. Voters feel that the president has about the same ideological views as they do. Fifty-five percent (55%) say Obama is more liberal than they are, while 11% believe he’s more conservative.  (To see survey question wording, click here.)
The national survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on January 9-10, 2012 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

The Lefts Bush debt is the same as Obama debt lie.

The Lefts Bush debt is the same as Obama debt lie.

The Leftists love to say that Reagan and Bush were as bad as Obama is regarding spending but that is a lie easily disproved. Even though both Reagan and Bush had some deficit spending of which I do not condone. Obama has taken borrowing and spending to unprecedented unsustainable levels. If we do not reverse this immediately we will never recover. With the Democratic policies increasing spending to well over 20% of GDP that alone will crush this exceptional country in it self. Their lefts explenation is that we do not tax rich enough if we taxed them at 22 to 25% of GDP that also will crush this country as this level of taxation has never been sustainable ever in any recorded history. The Laffer curve proves this well as you raise taxes above a certain point revenue always goes down. When will some people get it that the Socialist utopian dream a good idea in theory always collapses on itself and even more suffer then before after its implementation.

The Following article below by Claude Sandroff covers the subject quite well.

The Obama Legacy: Debt of $50,000 per Second

Barack Obama is three times the man George W. Bush was, at least as measured by the rate at which each was able to pile on to America’s debt.  In the first 945 days of his presidency
Obama has amassed the debt it took Bush his full two terms to accumulate. Behold, the profligate son!
Tripling down on Bush’s legacy was no easy task for the community organizer from Illinois whose predecessor spent with abandon because he was assaulted by foreign attacks on the homeland, opened two theaters of war, created a brand new federal entitlement and never vetoed a spending bill. But Obama has shown that, “Yes we can”, do worse than Bush, through failed Keynesian stimulus, unfettered environment regulation, drilling moratoriums, healthcare takeovers, nationalization of industry and anti-business hatred that suffocates the animal spirits that alone can cure high unemployment by unleashing our legion of risk takers.
No president in history has burdened us so massively, so quickly. Never have so many owed so much to so few creditors. And we have so little to show for it. Unlike the situation in 1945, when we last owed this much, Americans don’t sit solidly astride a numb, defeated world, full of confidence while reigning as the most powerful and benevolent nation in human history. Though their country is still unrivaled as a global military power and force for stability, Americans now are somewhat shaken and insecure given how much they owe.
Americans are deeply despondent, many on the verge of economic surrender, having given up looking for full time employment. Those Americans who remain working are increasing furious at being forced to generously support the untaxed masses yearning to collect unending unemployment checks and food stamps. The most successful Americans, defined by Obama as earning $200,000 per year are subjected to special scorn. They must have come into that money dishonestly, through theft or unearned inheritance, because Obama is insisting that they pay back their fair share of it.
As it is virtually impossible to recall a memorable phrase uttered by our ever blabbering president it is equally difficult to attach a favorable economic statistic or policy to his time in office.
His Keynesian experiment in stimulus cost us roughly $1 trillion and left us with even higher unemployment after its implementation. The rogue gallery of economic incompetents that crafted and defended Obama’s current economic disaster-Christine Romer, Jared Bernstein, Larry Summers and Austin Goolsbee-have skulked away from Obama’s orbit to the previous safety of their sinecures as tenured university professors and think tanks grandees. Only Timothy Geithner remains whose most recent laughable economic pronouncement was his guarantee that America’s credit rating would never suffer a downgrade.
Like their reality-challenged boss most of these left-wing true-believers are convinced that their economic plan actually worked and would have been even more effective if only the politicians had the courage to allow the original 2009 stimulus to be even bigger. The Obama crew resembles the plague of unapologetic socialists who claimed that socialism was never a failure. It was rather its specific, imperfect versions concretized as Russian Leninism, Chinese Maoism and Eastern Bloc communism that were at fault.
Obama and his cadre of committed collectivists apparently dare not look at economic policies that demonstrably and effectively worked to increase economic growth and lower unemployment, year after year with low inflation. Such policies last belonged to Ronald Reagan. It was common in the 1980’s to savage Reagan’s budget deficits of 4-5% of GDP as immorally excessive spending that would bankrupt our children. Those children are now grown up and they voted for Obama in large numbers only to see him double those deficits, not only for today but as far into the future as the Office of Management and Budget can see. The difference is that Reagan’s manageable deficits led to GDP growth as high as 8% while economic growth accompanying Obama’s crippling deficits was only 0.7% for the first six months of 2011. Thus while Obama’s mythmakers create economic statistics out of thin air (“jobs created or saved”) in hopes of salvaging a flailing administration, objective reality paints a very clear picture. Under Reagan’s policies promoting low tax rates, reduced regulation and a strong dollar the American economy grew ten times faster than it does now under Obama. Can Obama fathom that indebting us three times faster than Bush and lauding policies leading to ten times slower economic growth than under Reagan should hint at some kind of a policy change? Even Ben Bernanke, in his recent speech in Jackson Hole, has at least temporarily given up on his policy of endless stimulus, offering the markets no new promise of an extra round of quantitative easing. Bernanke did nothing and the market was relieved and rallied.  Obama, on the other hand, brimming with inexperience and arrogance, and completely divorced from reality simply cannot grasp how valuable his doing nothing would be for all of us.

This Political commentary link below from Andrew Malcolm published August 23, 2011 in the LA Times explains it quite well.

New national debt data: It's growing about $3 million a minute, even during his vacation

Swallow all liquids in your mouth before reading any further.
Updated numbers for the national debt are just out: It's now $14,639,000,000,000.
When Barack Obama took the oath of office twice on Jan. 20, 2009, CBS' amazing number cruncher Mark Knoller reports, the national debt was $10,626,000,000,000.
That means the debt that our federal government owes a whole lot of somebodies including China has increased $4,247,000,000,000 in just 945 days. That's the fastest increase under any president ever.
Remember the day the Democrat promised to close the embarrassing Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility within one year? That day the national debt increased $4,247,000,000. And each day since that the facility hasn't been closed.
Same for the day in 2009 when Obama flew all the way out to Denver to sign the $787 billion stimulus bill that was going to hold national unemployment beneath 8% instead of the 9.1% we got today anyway? Another $4,247,000,000 that day. And every day since, even Obama golfing and vacation days.
Same sum for the day Obama flew Air Force One nearly four hours roundtrip to Columbus, Ohio for a 10-minute speech about how well the stimulus was working in the politically crucial Buckeye state. Ohio's unemployment rate just jumped to 9% from 8.8% anyway.
Or last week's three-day Midwestern tour in the president's new $1.1 million Death Star bus? National debt went up $16,988,000,000 while he rode around speaking and buying ice cream cones.
Numbers with that many digits are hard to grasp, even for a Harvard head. So, let's put it another way:
One billion seconds ago Bill Clinton was nearing the end of his two terms and George W. Bush's baseball collection was still on the shelves in the Austin governor's office.
The nation's debt increased $4.9 trillion under President Bush too, btw. But it took him 2,648 days to do it. Obama will surpass that sum during this term.
Now, how to portray a trillion, or 1,000 billions. One trillion seconds ago much of North America was still covered by ice sheets hundreds of feet thick. And the land was dotted by only a few dozen Starbuck's.
Obama is saying yes, we can get control of the national debt. But ominously every time he says that he adds that trillions of dollars in infrastructure repairs are badly needed across the country. And with interest rates so low, according to the thinking on Obama's planet, now is an excellent time to borrow even more money.
So, it looks like not too long before Americans learn what comes after 1,000 trillions.
It's quadrillion. But for Bernanke's sake, please don't tell anyone in Washington.