There is a beast out there. It has been prowling the planet for hundreds of years. It is more fearsome than any creature that stalked the nightmares of Bram Stoker, Steven King, or Hollywood’s kings of horror. In its teeth are the entrails of crushed lives, broken dreams, and the deaths of millions. It has destroyed entire cities. It has turned millions into wide-eyed stumbling zombies wandering about life in a never-ending search for something to consume. As horrifying as it is today, the carnage will get worse if it is not slain. Like a shark, it never stops moving and not just to feed. The feeding merely fuels its search for new ways to debilitate and destroy. Every day it adds new tentacles, new teeth, and macabre new abilities to become a more efficient machine of destruction and to grow ever larger. By far, its greatest survival adaptation is its ability to camouflage itself.  Were it ever recognized for its true nature, the beast would not survive yet it continues to walk among us. Amazingly, it is invisible to millions thanks to its incredible power to deceive. The beast is liberalism. You may call it progressivism, collectivism or socialism. They are all just different names for the same beast. A system in which the productive have the fruits of their labors confiscated to pay for the unproductive at the same time funding regulation of everything at the whim of the ruling class elites. While they live their lives safely outside of the “systems” they build, they know what is best for you. Just trust them. It is the great destroyer of spirit, of freedom, and of life itself. All of this a bit over the top, you say? Let’s take a look.

Let’s start with the deaths of millions. Looking back, the beast was still fairly small in the fall of 1962. It was, however, about to sprout a major tentacle and begin one of its earliest and most deadly acts of destruction. It was then that the book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson was published. The book drew a connection between the misuse of the pesticide DDT and the size and composition of the eggs of some raptors. DDT was and is the most (and maybe the only) effective way to combat the spread of malaria. Prior to the use of DDT, malaria afflicted roughly 7 million Americans each year, killing thousands. One estimate makes the claim that half the people who have ever lived on Earth have died of malaria. But never mind all that; some raptor eggs had thinner shells. Using the peacock feathers of NBC to attract attention, the unblinking eye of CBS to hypnotize, and speaking in the captivating voice of the Grey Lady of New York the beast convinced us that we were “destroying the environment.” Government must act on our behalf. The use of pesticides, DDT in particular, must be banned they said.   After much liberal science-bending and media manipulation, DDT was finally banned in 1972. Since that September day 50 million people have died of malaria. Fifty. Million. Most of those were in poor undeveloped countries and most were children. 2700 people will die today of malaria, 2700 tomorrow, and 2700 every day for the foreseeable future. Most of those will be children and all of them would have the ability to avoid malaria with 90% efficiency were it not for the unavailability of DDT. In retrospect, it is clear that Ms. Carson’s claims were hysteria, not science. There are numerous books and articles in which her book is totally debunked but the beast still has many under its spell 50 years later. Even if her claims were true, on the scales of relative worth, should more weight be given to 50 million human lives or to a slightly reduced reproductive rate of raptors?

This particular tentacle of the beast has continued to grow over the years and is now one of its most powerful weapons. In 2005, again in the name of the environment, it was mandated that all U.S. gasolines be supplemented with ethanol. Not suggested. Not incentivized. Mandated. Ethanol is based on corn which is one of the most basic and pervasive food sources on the planet.The mad scramble for the corn-based alcohol product sent food prices soaring worldwide leading to massive increases in the number of those who could not afford or even grow food. Food riots struck the third world. There were tortilla riots in Mexico. Children were starving in Guatemala and tens of thousands Ugandans were burned out of their homes so that land could be dedicated to the god of “green.” The spread of starvation and the worldwide land grab continues to this day. In a cruel ironic twist it now turns out that the production of ethanol is actually worse for the environment than fossil fuels. The beast had again destroyed or ended thousands of lives in the name of a non-existent global warming crisis fed to the masses with the hypnotic powers of the media and once again the science was phony. Tens of thousands of green zombies now roam the U.S. and Europe with blank stares droning buzz words like “climate change” and “carbon footprint” over and over again, not having any idea what they are talking about. The phony science model has now been totally wrong for longer (16 years) than it was ever right. But no matter. It’s what the beast’s hypnosis has them believing. Meanwhile people starve and die.

At this point you could be forgiven for thinking that, except for the higher food and gas prices, those are third world effects. True enough, but all you need to do is take a look at Detroit to see how the beast has ravaged an entire city right here in the U.S..  Detroit was, in its heyday one of the finest cities in the world. It was home to the U.S auto industry which was the envy of the world and was a flourishing, vibrant place to live. Today it’s a war zone. In many places it could be mistaken for a bombed out post World War II European city. The number of murders last year (386) was the same as in 2000 even though 200,000 people have fled. The violent crime rate is 2123 for every 100,000 residents. People “joke” that you can get a pizza delivered quicker than you can get a police car. Some joke. Over 40% of the citizens of Detroit cannot read. There are serious discussions about bulldozing large areas of the city so that water, sewer, police, and fire services can be withdrawn to save money. The city is bankrupt, broken, and lawless. So, how did this happen? It’s really not a mystery. Today’s Detroit is the ultimate natural outcome of decades spent under the control of the beast.

The once flourishing auto industry was slowly done in by the million paper cuts of union wage extortion made possible by the self-serving circle of the union-Democrat alliance. The tax and spend philosophy worked as a double-edged sword of destruction. In order for the government to “take care” of literally everyone they had to create more and more government programs. These required more and more taxes which created the incentive for businesses to leave.
They did in large numbers. It also created incentives for those of a certain mindset to game the system rather than work. They did, again, in large numbers. Each of these fed off the other; more people taking from the system required higher taxes which led to more businesses leaving which led to more people needing assistance which led to….. well you get the idea. The normal insulator to social upheaval, the family, was crushed as fathers were replaced with government checks. All the while government grew like a cancer, slowly consuming more and more of the city’s economic lifeblood. This outcome points out the basic flaw of the beast’s hypnotic message. If ever examined in the bright light, it becomes clear that whatever the state provides is done with money taken from someone else. No matter how you slice it, this is always a net negative for the economy. The money that is taken from the productive is always put back into the economy somewhere else at less than 100% of the original amount as originally discussed here: https://chronicleofchange.com/?p=497. When the scales finally tip to the point where there are more people on the wagon than are pulling the wagon, the producers flee. When there are few enough producers left that most businesses and citizens would not want to live there the “death spiral” begins. Detroit is but the best example of a long list of failures which includes many other cities such as Oakland as well as entire states such as Illinois, New Jersey, and California.

These are but a few examples of the failures of that which is created by the beast. Under close examination almost every single thing done in its name has done harm. Beast controlled zombies may offer up an example such as Social Security as an exception to the rule of big government failure. After all, it takes care of so many of our elderly. It would be cruel for our elderly to not have such a program. Shining a little light on the subject, however, shows us that, if those seniors had been given the opportunity to opt out and invest their money in even something as safe and mundane as T-bills, they would have double the retirement funds they currently get back from the beast. Even as an inefficient lifelong theft program, Social Security is in deep trouble to the point where future retirees may get nothing at all. Medicare, the Post Office, Amtrak, Cash for Clunkers, food stamps, Obamaphones, the Department of Education, and the Department of Energy would all appear on the list of beast programs which have completely failed or had harmful unintended consequences. A complete list would require hours of typing.

This is a critical moment for us in the United States as the harmful effects of the beast become more and more visible by the day. With each episode of the evening news we see the beast attempt to sprout its newest tentacle. This would be the most powerful of all of its weapons. It would have powers over life and death greater than all of its previous metastases. The beast now wants control of your healthcare.

If not stopped now, what was once the greatest country on Earth will be just a “location” for the epic horror movie of all time and we will all have a part.

It seems a bit ironic, as the President flounders in the polls following last week’s debate, that the demographic group which may actually put the final nail in his Presidential coffin is the one he has always been able to count on. Until now, that is.

It seems likely that blacks, while still supporting him in huge numbers, will not be supporting him in the same kind of numbers which got him elected in 2008. There are several reasons for a drop off in black support. The novelty of electing the first black President has worn off. The only group hit harder by unemployment than blacks is women and at least some of these folks are realizing that the President’s “War on Business” is actually making it harder for them to find work. The unemployment rate among black youth in some places is near 50%. The President’s stand on gay marriage is also not sitting well with many black church members. And then there is the following blockbuster story broken this week by Thomas Sowell.  Any black voter who is even remotely capable of being open-minded enough to ever vote against any black candidate will have his view of Barack Obama forever altered by this.

I would like to be extremely clear here in the documentation of what occurred so there can be no doubt that what follows is factual. A video was recently released by The Daily Caller showing President Obama, in part, hinting at racial bias in the response to hurricane Katrina . You can see the President’s own words here: http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/02/obama-speech-jeremiah-wright-new-orleans/. A transcript of the June 5, 2007 speech at Hampton University is also available from the Federal News Service. The other relevant piece of information you might want to verify for yourself is page S6823 of the Congressional Record for May 24, 2007.

As you begin to watch the video it quickly becomes obvious that then-Senator Obama is not speaking in his usual tone of voice. He has put on his “local dialect” for this speech in an attempt to have a greater appeal to his audience. Slightly phony, but fair enough. Around the 1:15 mark he begins a discussion of the response to hurricane Katrina and the Stafford Act. The Stafford Act normally requires local governments to put up $1.00 for every ten (10%) they get in federal relief. Senator Obama points out that the government waived the 10% requirement for the NY response to 9/11 and for hurricane Andrew because of the “devastation.” He goes on to complain that it was not waived for hurricane Katrina saying, “What’s happenin’ down in New Orleans? Where’s yo’ dolla’? (his fake dialect, not mine) Where’s yo’ Stafford Act money? Makes no sense. Tells me the bullet hasn’t been taken out. Tells me that the people down in New Orleans they don’t care about as much.”

This is where the Congressional Record comes in. Less than two weeks earlier, Congress had waived the Stafford Act requirements for Katrina hurricane relief. It’s in the record. Senator Barack Obama voted on it. It’s in the record. He voted against it. That’s right, against it. It’s in the record.

For any black person willing to take a good, hard look at this it means that Barack Obama was willing to stand before you, put on a fake dialect to appeal to you, and lie to your face. It means he was willing to act as if some evil racists in Washington were denying the people of New Orleans help in a time of great need when he, himself, was one of only fourteen people who voted to deny that help only 12 days earlier. “Where’s yo’ Stafford Act money? Makes no sense,” he said. It apparently made sense to him. “Tells me the bullet hasn’t been taken out,” he said. It seems he is willing to leave that bullet right where it is. “Tells me that the people down in New Orleans they don’t care about as much,” he shouted. Mr. Obama cares about those people…. as a voting block. If enough black voters are made aware of this story (you’ll never see it on the networks) I believe you will see a further loss of support for the President. Nobody likes being lied to and nobody likes being taken for granted. That’s especially true if it comes from a messianic leader you previously thought would be the one to finally stand up for you in Washington.

You can find the original Thomas Sowell story here: http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2012/10/09/phony_in_chief/page/full/

If you haven’t experienced “the moment” you have almost certainly known someone who has. The moment when you know the relationship has just ended, when you instantly realize that no matter what you do it cannot be saved. Relationships can survive many things. Addictions, money, and sexual issues can all put great stresses on relationships. The death-blow, however, usually comes from a lie. Once someone truly realizes (not just suspects) they can no longer trust in what the other person is saying, that relationship is over. Period. “The moment” may have arrived for Barack Obama last week and independent voters on, of all days, September 11th.

Previous statements by the President and his administration have been characterized by the right as “lies” and, while some were on the verge of being indisputable, many were at least debatable if you allowed for Clintonian parsing of words (“it depends on what the meaning of “is” is”). Informed voters may have had suspicions that their President was not telling them the truth but he is smooth and they didn’t really want to believe anything bad about him. The events in Libya, however, are absolute proof that this President is willing to lie to us. This one cannot be debated or parsed. This was not a “stretch” of the truth. He lied and we have to face it.

On September 11th, a hundred heavily armed men with AK-47’s and RPG’s attacked our scandalously unprotected consulate in Benghazi, killing our ambassador and three Navy Seals. We were told it was in reaction to a movie trailer when it was actually a pre-planned terrorist attack designed as a September 11th anniversary present. The movie story was not a one-time misstatement which was quickly corrected. This was a four-day campaign to get us to believe this attack was caused by spontaneous Muslim outrage over a trailer which was released in July. Our U.N. Ambassador, Susan Rice, went on five different Sunday talk shows and repeated the lie. The White House and the President’s press secretary, Jay Carney, stood by this story for four days. And, still, this week, during his recent speech to the U.N., the President himself said, “There are no words that excuse the killing of innocents. There is no video that justifies an attack on an embassy.”  

Even ABC (All Barack Cheerleaders) News is now reporting that the White House knew immediately this was terrorism and not in reaction to the movie. The Libyan President said it was not in reaction to the movie. Several intelligence operatives are now telling us it was Al Quaeda. Really? How smart do you have to be to immediately draw a link between a heavily armed attack on a U.S. facility on September 11th and Al Quaeda? Only five days ago, the President himself was still telling us it was that darn movie. We have to face it. Whatever his reasons, whatever the political implications, whatever nuance you want to attach, and no matter how much of a likeable guy you might think the President is, he saw fit to lie to us. This is “the moment.”

Why is it that moral people place such a premium on telling the truth? Why do we make such a big deal out of teaching our kids to tell the truth? What is it about a lie that is just so toxic? It’s really simple. Thousands of years of experience have taught humanity that, once trust is broken, it is almost impossible to get it back as all kinds of thoughts flood in. “What else has he been lying about?” “Do I really know this person anymore?” And most importantly for the remainder of this election season, “Can I ever really believe him again?”

As in any election, the voters sit as a sort of jury and decide whose “testimony” they believe. Both campaigns will present their version of several critical issues and, with facts being twisted into almost unrecognizable shapes, it can become difficult for the voter to know who to believe. Voters now have one fact to file away to help them make their decision. They know for sure one of the candidates has lied to them before.

The Libya cover up will not be carried in any meaningful way by the mainstream media. That might be harmful to their chosen one. The only way this story will get to those who need to hear it is if we spread it in through the new media. Please share this with anyone you think may be remotely on the fence so that they may properly consider the believability of future claims coming from the White House. The moment has come.

As we head for the debates and the home stretch of the 2012 elections, here’s a quick look at my top ten lies you are likely to hear most often.

1. The auto bailouts saved GM, Chrysler, and the entire auto industry.

“Chrysler” no longer exists except as a nameplate for Fiat. Whatever valuable assets they had (which weren’t many) were just sold, name included. GM is still on a path of failure and their bailout is likely to cost taxpayers $35 billion. Ford did not take one dime and is just fine. Likewise for BMW, Volvo, Hyundai, Toyota, Honda and all other auto makers who build in the U.S. A conventional bankruptcy would have accomplished the same thing, just without handing over ownership of GM to the unions while seizing the assets of private investors. Oh, wait a minute….. maybe that was the point.

2. There is an economic “recovery” under way; just a slow one.

There is $2 trillion in corporate cash sitting on the sidelines. No one is investing, no one is hiring, and no one is going to make a move with the Obamacare booby trap ready to activate in 2014 on top of the already venomous anti-business climate created by Washington.

3. The economic “crisis” inherited by President Obama was caused by a lack of regulation.

The housing collapse (and the ensuing crisis) is directly connected to liberal government policies and overregulation which forced banks to give mortgages to people who everyone knew could not pay them back. (Turning point: Bill Clinton’s Attorney General, Janet Reno, threatening banks with legal action if they did not meet “quotas”). On top of that, Democrats knew about the problems, were warned in 2004, and disregarded the warnings for political reasons. You can see that here on C-SPAN:  http://youtu.be/Yga7TlsA-1A

 4. Our massive deficit is due to George Bush’s two “unpaid for wars.”

In 2007, with both wars at their height, George Bush posted a deficit of $161 billion. This year’s deficit is nearly TEN times that! In his first 60 days, President Obama added enough debt to run both wars for seven years and ended his first year with a deficit roughly three times Bush’s worst year. Current deficits include the revenue for Obamacare but not the cost of services provided (that begins next year). The price tag for Obamacare was supposed to be roughly $800 billion. By the government’s own statistics, that price tag has more than tripled since and it hasn’t even gone into effect yet. President Obama will have added more debt in his term than all previous Presidents combined. Our deficit has little to do with funding wars.

5. The “Bush tax cuts” are a major cause of the deficit and must be undone.

First of all, they are not “tax cuts.” They have been the tax rates for nearly 10 years. When instituted in 2003, tax money coming into the government went up to record highs for the next 4 years and every single measurement of economic health went up sharply.

6. “We have created…. “x” million jobs in the last “x” months.”

Whenever you hear this take a minute and do some math. It would have taken 150,000 jobs per month every month just to keep up with population growth and college graduations. Whatever number they’re quoting will be more like drowning than “treading water.” This is also, at the very least, disingenuous in that they are telling you about only the jobs created. At the same time jobs are created, jobs are being lost. The only number that matters is the “net” total and that is a number you will not hear them or the lapdog press ever mention.

7. Raising tax rates by any amount will help address the debt.

If the President gets his way on his current proposal for “taxing the rich” the additional revenue would last a total of three or four days. If he could raise the tax rate to 100% (take it all) for everyone making over $200K it would last a few months. And then what? It’s the spending stupid.

8. It’s not fair that “the wealthy” pay tax rates of 15%.

This one is outrageous. The 15% refers to the capital gains rate which applies to investments. This money has already been taxed once either as personal or corporate income so this is the second time the same money has been taxed! It is also possible that this investment money could go down in value or be lost entirely. A good response to this one is to ask a liberal if he/she would like the same tax rate on their paycheck if it was possible they could lose it all.

9. Each and every announcement of the unemployment rate.

Whatever number you hear on the evening news is calculated with nearly 60 million unemployed not being counted. The labor force participation rate is near an all-time low. The tens of millions who have given up or stopped looking “do not count” according to the current method. When you hear 8.1% as you did at last report, know that, if we were keeping score the same way it was kept for George Bush, the rate is 11.4%.

10. Any opposition to President Obama is racially motivated.

Nonsense. There are a vast number of legitimate policy reasons why more and more Americans want this President gone…. Obamacare, the debt, sidestepping the Constitution, overregulation, a crippled economy, a shrinking dollar, weak foreign policy, demonization of success……… the list could go on. It is highly more likely that most Americans want him gone because he’s red rather than because he’s black.

And just to throw one in for good measure….

11. The attacks on Sept 11th in Libya were caused by Muslim outrage over a film trailer.

Really? How stupid do they think we are?

Apologies if I happened to miss one of your favorites. This list could’ve easily been a “Top 50.”

After last night’s speech by Clint Eastwood at the Republican Convention in which he had a “conversation” with an empty chair representing President Obama, the President shot back with a tweet showing a picture of himself in a chair at the White House. His tweet said “This chair is taken.” This has led to speculation that his twitter account may have been hacked or that he sent the wrong picture by mistake. Here is the corrected picture of the seat he meant was “taken”:

Does anyone hear a phone ringing?

Where did everybody go?

In  today’s American Thinker there is an excellent article entitled “Debate Questions That Obama Won’t be Asked” in which the author, Daren Jonescu, comes up with three excellent questions he would like to ask the President. Just click on the link on our blogroll if you would like to read the entire article.

The takeaway quote for me was “Thinking is, to a large extent, a matter of asking questions and of pursuing answers with enthusiasm, and without fear of the truth one might discover.” This set me to thinking about how so many in today’s shallow American society have either not learned or forgotten the art of actually thinking something through. To get to the truth, whatever it may be, you must ask yourself all possible questions until you can reach a conclusion. If new information becomes available you must ask any and all new questions which are raised and repeat this process over and over and over for your entire life.

It occurred to me that, in so many ways, liberals make their arguments on emotion rather than facts or as part of a “my team vs. their team” mentality. This often leads them to a conclusion so early in the process that they never really ask many questions which need to be asked. With that in mind, I’ve come up with “starter list” of a few questions with a bent toward helping those liberals who are stuck in emotional and/or team mode. Please feel free to add, share, or discuss.

1. When government taxes individuals and businesses it takes in “X” dollars. When it spends that money back into the economy, it spends “X” minus whatever it costs for the government to run the program. By taking out more than you put back how is that a positive for the economy?

2. In the entire history of the world there has never been a “collectivist” system (socialist, communist, pick your term) which has not suffered decline and/or financial collapse. All of Europe is currently following that path before our very eyes. What makes you think those policies will work now?

3. Assume you have a card which says you are guaranteed health care “coverage” by the government. If you have to wait 10-15 weeks to see a doctor and lower your odds of survival of the most common cancers by 20% (as in Great Britain’s National Health Service) is this a “coverage” you would actually choose were you given an option?

4. If a woman is allowed to choose a gender-based abortion solely due to the fact that the child is female is this a “pro-woman” position?

5. Is there a difference between the right to have access to something (health care, contraception, a cell phone) and the right to get it for free?

6. If it is contributing to the stripping of the planet, third world starvation, and is also forcing food prices at home to astronomic levels why are we still putting corn (ethanol) in our gas tanks?

7. How, exactly, does it help create jobs to make what is already the most expensive place in the world to do business even more expensive?

8. If you were going to open a business and you had a choice to open it in a location where the tax rate was 50% or one where the rate was 20% where would you set up shop?

9. In the above example, if you had an existing business which was having its tax rate raised from 50% to 52% do you think you might relocate to the 20% location?

10. When taxes are raised on businesses who always winds up paying those dollars?

11. In the case where a woman chooses an abortion which is “botched” should doctors be legally forced to allow the now living, breathing baby to die a slow, painful “death by abandonment” in a closet somewhere?

12. Due to the unpredictable nature of the wind, wind power turbines must be installed with a fossil fuel backup which must be left running. What benefit is gained in an ecological sense?

13. If the President can publicly state that he refuses to enforce a law passed by your representatives in Congress and you agree with that action on his part what will your reaction be when this power is in the hands of a President on the opposite end of the spectrum who refuses to enforce a law you agree with?

14. In a supposed effort to provide health care for millions more people, why does Obamacare hire tens of thousands of IRS agents and drive away doctors?

15. Which is better…. Medicare and Social Security programs with some adjustments now to keep them solvent or programs which go bankrupt and disappear entirely?

16. You have your choice between two retirement programs…. A program which takes roughly $580,000 from you over your lifetime and pays you back $550,000 in benefits when you turn 65 or a program which takes the same $580,000 and pays you back a minimum of $995,000 in benefits when you turn 65. Which would you choose?

17. What is your level of economic expertise or honesty (choose one) when you claim the same $780 billion savings twice in your budget projections?

18. What is your level of competence or honesty (choose one) if you are the chief law enforcement office in the country and cannot or will not find the person(s) in your own office responsible for willfully sending guns across an international border to Mexican drug lords which resulted in the deaths of dozens, including U.S. border agents?

19. Somewhere between 50 and 80 million people are not counted in the unemployment statistics you see on TV. This includes those who have “given up” looking for a job and college students who are looking but, since they have never been “employed,” can’t be “un-employed.” Can the numbers you see be anywhere close to accurate?

20. A hypothetical President has total control of government for his first two years and control of two-thirds of the three branches for the second two years. His results include $5 trillion in new debt (more than all previous presidents combined), over 8% unemployment when he projected 5%, an economy on life-support, total paralysis in the business community, and a large transfer of power from the Congress to the Executive Branch. Should this President be re-elected?

These twenty were very easy to begin with. Many more are possible as well as needed but it’s a start.

As of late, taking into account all the moral and practical sides of the issue, I’ve decided it is time to come around to the “pro-choice” position. Morally, it is the only option and practically works out far better as well. Therefore I have decided to make it official and declare myself “pro-choice” …. in regard to Medicare and Social Security, that is. Our future generations deserve a choice and if we don’t give it to them shame on us.

Having been involuntarily enrolled in these two programs since my first job, I have been contributing to them for almost my entire life. Hundreds of thousands of dollars which I earned were taken from my paychecks to fund these programs and were, supposedly, for my future benefit. As with many things in life, I wish I could go back and know what I know now.

I wish I could have known then that there would be no “trust fund account” with my name on it, from which I would be paid my benefits. I wish I could have known then that the money would be raided by an out-of-control federal government to fund their own appetite for spending one and a half times as much as they take in. I wish I could have known then how much better I could have done on my own and, above all, I wish I could have known then that massive federal government is always the absolute worst way to try to accomplish anything.

Medicare, as currently structured, will force me into their program, give me no choice at all as to what kind of coverage I will have, and herd me into the few remaining doctors who still actually accept new Medicare patients. Even with an exponentially growing number of users, Medicare will be providing services from a shrinking pool of quality doctors going forward due to those making the choice to quit rather than deal with Obamacare. Polling shows that a large percentage of doctors are considering quitting (one sets the percentage as high as 85%) and I personally know a couple who will be “out the door” as fast as possible should Obama get re-elected and ensure the survival of Obamacare.

Medicare’s own actuary, a current Obama employee, recently said, “It is important to note that the estimated savings shown in this memorandum for one category of Medicare provisions may be unrealistic.” According to his report, 15% of hospitals and healthcare providers will be forced out of business by the Obamacare cuts in rates of reimbursement. He further states that the Independent Payment Advisory Board (the fifteen government appointees who will decide the rules determining your medical future) will be forced to cut services by another 0.3% to contain costs (you probably haven’t heard a lot about that one). Nearly one-third of all Medicare payments for medical devices are fraudulent totalling tens of billions of dollars. And finally, without structural changes to Medicare the program will go bankrupt. Suffice it to say, Medicare could be renamed “Medisaster.” Someday soon I will have a card which says I have “coverage” but a card for a free meal isn’t all that great if all they are serving is dog food.

After paying in a lifetime of their hard-earned money are today’s seniors entitled to benefits under the “contract” they were forced into accepting? Absolutely. Whatever benefits they have built up should be paid. Unfortunately, there is a great truth which it seems few are willing to face, and even fewer seek to remedy. The “contract” we were all herded into was, and is, the mother of all bad contracts. There is only one moral and logical solution to this mess; honor the contract for those who are stuck in it but give a choice to our younger citizens to opt out. They will be better off with a choice and so will the country. 

Social Security is an even worse contract if that is possible. It is hard to believe that our generation, with the experience of living through this negative-yield, soon-to-be-bankrupt Ponzi scheme, would wish to burden our children and grandchildren with the same failed model. They could easily do much better on their own. Recently, Social Security reached a historic milestone and it was not a good one. AP recently said of the average married couple, “For those who turned 65 in 2010, the amount paid was more than the amount received. Lifetime Social Security benefits come to $555,000, while taxes total $588,000.” This gap will ever widen over time. Over my lifetime, I and millions of my co-baby boomers had hundreds of thousands of dollars of our money locked up by the government at a negative yield! Not only are we not getting our money back with some kind of interest, they actually lost part of it for us! We literally would have done better putting it under the mattress.

If we had only been given one basic choice, just one, imagine where we could be. If only our contract had been just a little bit different. It is easy to calculate how much better off we would be if we were simply allowed to invest our retirement funds (our own money) in something as simple as U.S. Treasury Bills. T-bills are not complicated and are often touted as the safest investment on the planet. Since 1960 the average rate of return on T-bills has been in the neighborhood of 5%. Just assuming that half of our contributions were made half way through a fifty year career, we could have amassed enough by age 45 to guarantee $995,588 in benefits. We could have more than doubled our money on our own by retirement with a totally safe investment. Instead we actually lost money under mandatory government confiscation.

I ask you, should we pass these wonderful government plans on to our children or should we give them a choice? It’s too late to make much of a difference for those of us who have already been scammed but it’s time to fight for our kids so the government can’t do the same to them. We must leave them with more than empty promises, massive debt, third-rate health care, and diminished retirements.

Pro choice. It’s the only moral thing to do.

Shortly after publishing the previous post another question popped into my mind:

What kind of numbers “per day” is the government wasting?

One quick answer: According to a 2010 CBS story, Medicare alone pays $60 billion per year in fraudulent claims.

That is $164,383,561 every day or $6,849,315 every hour.

Their S.O.P. is to “pay first” and then hire contractors to chase fraud. That’s just Medicare.

At a recent speech, President Obama, attempting to evade responsibility for skyrocketing gas prices, said “Exxon pocketed nearly $4.7 million every hour.”

He also said, “The biggest oil companies are raking in record profits — profits that go up every time folks like these pull into a gas station.”

True enough. But what is the rest of the story?

Exxon is a MASSIVE, global company. There are 4716.2 million shares of Exxon stock out there.  That’s four BILLION, seven hundred sixteen MILLION, two hundred thousand shares. That is how many ways the ownership is divided up. If you have a pension fund at work or have mutual funds in an IRA you probably own some and don’t even know it.  Anyone who wants to buy one share today will need to part with roughly $87.

What do you get for your $87? You become a part owner in Exxon with an opportunity to share in their good fortune should the company do well (ya’ know, make those “evil” profits) and the risk of losing your money should they do poorly. You also get $.65 (a dividend) every three months. That’s right; sixty-five cents. Do you think that if you put $87 in the bank you might get roughly the same?

But, but, but….. they make so much money!  Do they really?

Their last quarterly report showed that each of their shares earned $5.22. That’s 6%.

You can verify here: http://research.investors.com/quotes/nyse-exxon-mobil-corp-xom.aspx?fromsearch=1

If your kid had a lemonade stand and invested $20 would you think it was an “outrageous profit” on the $20 if he made $1.20 over three months? That’s 6% too.

When the “Divider-in-Chief” speaks of “record profits” and numbers like “$4.7 million per hour” he is trying to make it appear that this is somehow “unfair” when in reality it is ultimately fair. Each stockholder takes a risk for which he is rewarded with roughly a 6% profit (providing the company is well run) and his small dividend. It just so happens that there are more than 4.7 BILLION shares out there. Of course the numbers are large.

I have just one question Mr. President…… If Exxon is pocketing $4.7 million every hour while making $.06 per gallon how much is the government pocketing when they get their $.46 per gallon in taxes? (If you don’t feel like running the numbers, here’s a hint… it’s north of $36 million per hour).