BIG brother

Wow... Though this Executive Order has been around since Truman (no big surprise there), I did not realize what our government is prepared to do at any time they decide it is necessary.

I mean, I'm not really surprised, but after reading the Executive Order in its entirety (do I know how to celebrate my Friday nights, or what?!) I'm quite ill at ease about seeing the ways our government plans to implement martial law "during peacetime, graduated mobilization, and national emergency."

Here is a paragraph derived mostly from a Snopes article describing it in an alarmist way. They say it is a false claim in that the government doesn't actually have the power, but they do have plans on the books to make it so:

• The National Defense Resources Preparedness Executive Order [defines the need for plans that] allows the nationalization of pretty much the entire USA, even in peace time, if the President desires.
• They can, under this order, restrict civilian travel by any mode. They can close our roads, highways and interstates, they can set up check points anywhere.
• They can ration food, gasoline and electricity.
• They can restrict water usage, even from private wells.
• They can ration health care, including any and all drugs, including OTC and vitamins.
• They can collectivize farms and the food processing/distribution system.
• They can take over all energy production, including home solar units.
• They can take over our factories and command what they should produce.
• They can take charge of the resources (natural or otherwise) needed to keep the nationalized factories churning.
• They can draft civilians into the military.
• If they have need of your skills, they can compel you to work for no compensation.

I am pretty sure this isn't what our founding fathers had in mind when discussing and framing our liberties and freedoms... And just because they're planning it without having executed it doesn't really make it much better, in spite of what the press would have you believe.

And that they can implement these plans at any time by declaring a "National Emergency" is just plain old messed up. Technically, they don't even have to do that!

This is why I keep saying: We need more options. We need a party that would see this and say "WOAH! I AIN'T SIGNING THAT SHIT!" Every president, republican and democrat for over 50 years has put their name at the bottom of revisions of this Executive Order. I think we deserve a president that wouldn't dare sign off on such an un-American travesty of everything we supposedly stand for.

Meanwhile, the media keeps us busy arguing about who is gonna pay for condoms, whether or not we'll be forced to buy health insurance, and how each state is going to vote for Romnetorum...

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

read the EO yourself:Executive Order -- National Defense Resources Preparedness(whitehouse.gov)

NDAA - Natural Disposition to Apprehend Americans

Meh... Bad title... This whole post is just an excuse to re-post of a Facebook rant I wrote tonight. It has everything to do with this blog, in that our tax dollar supported government is doing shit that is most-certainly not in our best interest... This is far more political than I like to go with this blog, but at least I show that my intent is non-partisan (even though the hate is directed at the current president).

Straight to the rant:

A post and some responses led me to write an Obama is better than Bush comment on a friends wall. In it, I referred to wars and Bin Laden - easy pickin's for a Obama vs. Bush thread. However, with my bent on moderation and the necessity for more political parties and less polarization, I couldn't go out like that. So, I took a minute to articulate my main hate on Obama too. Having finally put words to a thought that has been bugging me for a few weeks, I thought I'd cut'n'paste 'n' share:
---
Why Obama should indeed be shown the door:

1.) He is the first president in the history of our great nation that signed a bill into law allowing the federal government to apprehend and detain any one of us as long as they want. The only requirement is that they claim the detention is based on suspicion of "terrorism or supporting terrorists." That he signed it 'reluctantly' is irrelevant. That the current administration may never use this power is irrelevant. That our government can abduct us and make us disappear is unacceptable.
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/317046

2.) The federal government has equated cannabis use as terrorism in the past. In an ad ran by the Office of National Drug Control Policy during the Bush years, "Sharing a joint in your friend's back yard" was described as support of terrorism.
http://www.cannabis-marijuana.com/drugterrorist.html

Put 1 and 2 together and we are not that far away from the government rounding up pot heads and detaining them indefinitely, without charges, without the ability to defend themselves in the courts. While this is extreme and highly unlikely, Obama's signature on that bill make this a possibility. That some future administration, in even more polarized times may take up the mantle of ending the war on drugs once and for all, is a possibility that seems unimaginable today.

Again, I point out that we need more options because it is starting to feel like 1984 up in here. With republicans we're screwed, with democrats we're shafted. Either way, I'm not loving it, no matter how many times McDonalds tries to tell me otherwise.
---

After reviewing the cut'n'paste, I realized it is a bit centered on cannabis users. While some of the best people I know regularly use cannabis, I'm trying to illustrate the truly profound depth of this law. While it is easy to draw the connection to highlight the contrast between everyone's favorite pot head and people who support terrorists, I'm not just talking about hungry people that don't feel like getting off the couch to find food. The vagueness of the terrorism charges is intense and by being forbidden due process, the government cannot be held accountable. A sitting administration can round up its opposition, claim terrorism, and lock them up. Period. No review. No chance to call bullshit. Nothing. Gone for good with no avenue for recourse.

Not acceptable. We need to be far more pissed off about this than we are. Screw the 99% vs. 1%... The Patriot Act didn't even go this far. This is the kind of thing we expect from China, Russia, or Saudi Arabia. This is not what we expected the founding father's vision of freedom in our country to turn into.

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

Of the people, but not for the people

This is it, folks... We've lost control of our government.

You guys will remember this little thing we liked to call the TARP, right? Everybody got their britches in a bundle over the "unprecedented" amount of $700 BILLION to be loaned to Wall Street to ostensibly avoid worldwide economic collapse.. Nobody liked it, but at that time, Bush was the lamest of ducks with at least one foot out the door and something [supposedly] HAD to be done.

That the economy eventually collapsed in every realistic and measurable way is irrelevant, but I certainly had to bring it up.

Notice my use of the quotes around "unprecedented" in the paragraph above. I use these quotes because there was plenty of precedence. In fact, the very same banks we bailed out were already into us for a LOT more than $700 BILLION at that time!

Prior to the TARP, the Fed had already made loans to the banks at a total cost that amounted to $7.77 TRILLION! In your face, puny little $700 BILLION.

Bullet points. Too frustrated to make paragraphs:

Magnitude

• $7.7 TRILLION is more than half the value of everything our country produced that year
• Our 6 largest banks turned their share into $13 BILLION in profit
• Morgan Stanley alone borrowed enough ($107 BILLION) to pay off a tenth of nation's delinquent mortgages
• Bank of America took $91.4 BILLION of these secret loans while simultaneously taking $45 BILLION from the TARP funds
• Banks that were declared too big to fail grew even larger
  
• Our largest banks enjoyed more profits in the last 2.5 years than they did in the 8 years preceding the crisis
• All the while, they continue to spend MILLIONS lobbying to derail or weaken laws designed to keep them in check
  

Transparency

• The loans to the banks were undisclosed
  
• The profits earned by the banks were undisclosed
• Shareholders, the "owners" of the banks were not told (Where did the profits go?!?)
  
• Taxpayers, the people that have given the authority to the Fed to watch over our money were not told
• Congress, which was actively writing an overhaul to our financial regulatory system was not told
• These loans were provided with no protections or guarantees for the taxpayers
  

THEY LOANED OUR MONEY VALUED AT MORE THAN HALF OF EVERYTHING OUR COUNTRY CAN MAKE IN A YEAR TO PRIVATE COMPANIES WITHOUT EVER TELLING ANYONE! The Fed knew, the Bank Managers knew. Not even the owners of the banks knew!

THIS is whyipaytaxes.
read more:Wall Street Banks Earned Billions In Profits Off $7.7 Trillion In Secret Fed Loans Made During The Financial Crisis(tp)

Some more good, solid legislatin'

If there is one thing you can count on our congress to do, it is some good solid legislatin' for the good of the people when we need it most... If you doubt me, I have a prime example from this past week.

In a congress where budgets cannot be balanced and the worldwide embarrassment of ignoring self imposed deadlines and slipping credit ratings cannot be avoided, a very important piece of legislation got passed this week:
Pizza is a vegetable. No vegetable toppings needed, the tomato paste counts as a vegetable for our school children. To be fair, they also agreed to keeping french fries on the menu and to delay a requirement to provide a minimum amount of whole grains in school meals, so they really are getting quite a bit done here.

I like to feel this pride in my government. I'm positively beaming and smitten with our fine congresspeople. But to be honest, this quality legislatin' didn't write itself. Oh, no. It was requested by the companies that provide pizza and french fries to schools. And without batting an eye, our congress came together in a moment of true harmony to put the hopes and dreams [prof-it mahr-jin] of these companies ahead of the health and well being of our nation's children.
(I realize that this 'change' is to avoid changing the rules from what has served us so well over the past decades. Wait... Did someone say something about an obesity epidemic?)

So remember fellow countrymen and women, if you want your children to grow up with strong bones and superior health - pizza with every meal! ...

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

Watch Jon Stewart put it into perspective: Superbad(tds)
My 2 favorite lines in his clip:
"Clearly you are in the pocket of Big Hot Pocket"
"It's not democracy, it's digiorno"

TO BE FAIR: It appears to be some kind of a superpower thing: The Russians recently did some of their own solid legislatin' and decided that beer isn't food.

Its been a good few weeks!: In money we trust(wipt)

Morbid Security

You'll remember my post (yeah, right) about a trend in Japan of folks keeping the corpses of their parents around so they can forge and cash their social security checks. At the bottom of my post I mentioned that it won't be too long before this becomes a trend in the U.S. Well... The trend is certainly moving westward.

Hazel 'Don't forget the Glade' Maddock and her daughter Jasmine 'Just put a blanket over her' Maddock lived with Jasmine's grandmother Olive. When Olive passed away, they simply locked the bedroom door and Hazel told Jasmine that "the death should not be reported until the pension was secured."

After 6 months of not seeing a favorite neighbor, a local resident reported that something fishy was going on at the Maddock's. When an officer first gained entry to the home he immediately smelled a rancid odor and noticed that the house was infested with mice and swarms of flies. After using a crowbar on Olive's bedroom door, it was discovered that the body had already decomposed to a skeleton while lying on the bed.

Upon arrest, Hazel's response was "I'm no expert I didn't know if she was dead."

Pretty sure it doesn't take a doctor to realize that if you haven't seen a person come out of her room for 6 months and your house is filled with swarms of flies and the smell of decomposing flesh that maybe you ought to knock on the door and ask if everything is alright.

I guess I'm no expert either...

THIS is whyBRITSpaytaxes.
read more:Grandmother corpse: Benefit fraud daughter jailed(bbc)

And you thought WE knew a thing or 2 about Medicare fraud

In a case of finding cures for diseases that don't exist that would make Big Pharma envious, 83 unnecessary operations were carried out in a private clinic in Milan, Italy. And I'm not talking a nip here, a tuck there... Oh no.

I'm talking unnecessary mastectomy on an 18 year old girl, 3 lung surgeries on an 88 year old woman when one would have done the trick, at least one unnecessary lung removal, and so many surgeries that 5 elderly patients died.

In the end, about $3.4 MILLION was charged to the Italian version of Medicare for surgeries that had no medical purpose.

In all, 14 people were arrested. The apparent ringleader, Brega 'Chop Shop' Massone said of his 15.5 year sentence: Its unfair, I was the scapegoat!
Imagine. 15.5 years in exchange for playing a part in forever scarring a young woman, scamming the citizens of Italy for millions of dollars, and killing off several elderly patients. And he thinks the sentence is unfair.

THIS is whyITALIANSpaytaxes.

read more: Italy doctors jailed for 'clinic of horrors' operations(bbc)

I miss mom... But I don't miss her social security!

This has been going on for awhile, and I'm sure its far from over....

Japan has over 40,000 folks that are over 100 years old. Or so their social security rolls would have you believe.

As it turns out, moving back in with your dead parents can turn into a healthy living in Japan.

The first story I saw was when some city council members thought they'd cash in on a local photo op by congratulating Sogen 'I'm Not Dead Yet' Kato for turning 111. But the family resisted saying that the old fellow had locked himself into a room to be a living Buddha. The councilmen were having none of this and had the police force their way in where they found the mummified remains of Sogen, who had been dead for many years.
The family had collected over $109,000 off of Sogen's pension.

Then there were a few more stories. Like the one about the woman who is still collecting her payments at an address that was turned to a park in 1981.

Now they busted a dude that has been carrying around his mom's remains in a backpack. Because he couldn't afford her funeral, he thought he'd keep her around and collect her checks. He describes how he washed the body for awhile then eventually broke her into pieces and loaded her into the backpack.

In all, there are more than 200 folks over the age of 100 that are collecting checks but otherwise cannot be found.

THIS is whyjapanesepaytaxes.

PS - You know we're gonna have a bunch of this ourselves now that the boomers are aging and the kids are moving back home...

read more:
Almost 200 centenarians 'missing' in Japan(bbc)
Tokyo's 'oldest woman' is missing(bbc)
Tokyo's 'oldest man' was a corpse(bbc)

Peeling back the Band Aid

Get ready to have your stomach turned. But at least yours is full...

You all (30s and older) will remember the 1985 Band Aid and other relief efforts pursued by governments and other organizations around the globe to help alleviate the 1984-85 droughts in Ethiopia that left most Ethiopians malnourished if they weren't one of the 1 MILLION who starved to death. A host of jokes about sandwiches and Ethiopians followed, but many Ethiopians were saved by these individual and government donations.

What you won't remember:
At the direction of the CIA (they deny it, of course) hundreds of MILLIONS of dollars from these efforts were siphoned off into rebel groups who bought weapons to fight the Russian backed Ethiopian government of the time.

Here's some key information that will set your stomach to turning:

In one instance, a member of Christian Aid bought sacks of grain inside of Ethiopia worth $500 MILLION. Underneath the handful of grain sacks that Christian Aid inspected were many more sacks of fine Ethiopian sand. Yum!

The man who swindled Christian Aid into spending all this money on sand, Meles Zenawi, went on to become Ethiopia's prime minister in 1991.

He remains the PM to this very day in spite of having used money intended to help his fellow citizens to kill them with guns instead.

The deputy head of the CIA at the time sought to "impose ever stiffer costs on the Soviet Union for its Third World adventurism." What better way to do this than sell bags of sand to aid groups in order to use the money to buy guns? (I'll bet many of those guns were bought from the U.S.)

The deputy head of the CIA at the time was none other than our very own Secratary of Defense, Robert Gates. He's no Prime Minister of a third world country, but he has certainly been well rewarded for his career choices.

I can't even sum this one up in a quick snide sentence. As an American citizen, I apologize to the world...

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

read more: Ethiopia famine aid 'spent on weapons'(bbc)

Big brother - big poisoner

Its a story from history. You can read it (slate) if you'd like: The Chemist's War

In a sentence:
During prohibition the federal government undertook a campaign to poison and kill citizenry audacious enough to drink thinking they deserved it and send a message to all that drinking is a mistake.

Nice.

THIS is whyourgrandfatherspaytaxes.

Thain to destroy CIT next

If you're anything like me, you'll suddenly discover that a thin layer of slime has covered you while reading this story: Former Merrill Lynch boss appointed CIT chief (bbc)

I'm not going to spend much time explaining why John 'How About Some Bonuses!' Thain costs taxpayer dollars. I already have. (twice)

But I will say this: He's gonna fit right in at CIT. These people know a thing or two about making taxpayer money disappear. Literally.

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

It should be mentioned that they are paying this man $6 MILLION a year. Some of that pay is in delayed stock but I'm not sure that is an appropriate amount to pay someone whose previous position was at the helm of a company he drove into the ground while lying to the shareholders in order to ensure BILLIONS of dollars in bonuses for him and his cronies.

Unencrypted transmissions

I know that most of us Americans think of the terrorists and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan as dirty little men living in caves who only come out to hump camels or blow themselves up.

We also like to think of our own military as the most technologically advance fighting force on Earth with all the trinkets and gadgets a smart military could hope for.

If any of this is even remotely true, can someone PLEASE explain to me why our 'enemies' are able to sit back and sip on some chai while enjoying live streaming videos from our unmanned drones? Doesn't it kind of set us back a bit when they can hack into one of the most advanced weapons of the most advanced military to see what we see? Wouldn't you move Bin Laden to a new cave when you can see that the cave he is in now is being watched?

I gotta wonder how long before they can take over control of the drones and use them against us.

BILLIONS of dollars on advanced technology that scared men in caves can hack into with minimal effort...

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

read more: Iraq insurgents 'hack into video feeds from US drones' (bbc)

Taken care of

Its nice to be favored by the government. A government that will one day, allow your biggest competitor go out of business and the next, bailout a firm that owes you money.

For, without our bailouts, without our help, and with the elimination of its competition, how else would it have been possible for Goldman Sachs to pay $6.65 BILLION in pay & bonuses THIS QUARTER (an average of $226,000 per employee FOR ONE 3 MONTH PERIOD!)?

Boasting profits for the quarter of $3.44 BILLION, I can see clearly now that our government was right. These poor poor bastards really needed our help...

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

read more: Goldman Sachs sees bumper profit(bbc)

Bailin' out the lawyers (Part 2)

Ok. For those of you not reading this blog backwards, in the order I've been posting, you'll see that a couple posts ago, I was bitchin' about banks suing each other with and for their bailout funds we gave them. In my apathy towards finding solid examples, I went with the first couple I found after googling the story I had heard on the radio. They were good enough examples to get my point accross, but little did I know: The PERFECT case of banks suing themselves was right under my nose.

Wells Fargo NA has sued itself in a mortgage foreclosure case in Hillsborough County, Florida.

Yes. Go ahead, read that again. Yes. Its true. It has even hired a lawyer to defend itself from itself.

Oh my.


Parsed, Cut, 'n Pasted details: (sweet, sweet apathy) Al Lewis: Wells Fargo Bank Sues Itself(fox)
In this particular case, Wells Fargo holds the first and second mortgages on a condominium. As holder of the first, Wells Fargo is suing all other lien holders, including the holder of the second, which is itself. [Court] documents clearly label "Wells Fargo Bank NA" as the plaintiff and "Wells Fargo Bank NA" as a defendant. Wells Fargo hired Florida Default Law Group., P.L., of Tampa, Fla., to file the lawsuit against itself. And then Wells Fargo hired another Tampa law firm -- Kass, Shuler, Solomon, Spector, Foyle & Singer P.A. -- to defend itself against its own lawsuit.

To be sure: Wells Fargo NA, which is considered by our government as 'Too Big To Fail' was given $25,000,000,000 (as of 2/2009) to ensure they'd have funds left over for the legal fees to sue itself. And what we're not spending in federal subsidies directly to the bank, we're spending on the Judge's salary, the court clerk's salary, building, maintenance, and upkeep fees to make sure all parties involved have a means to sue themselves whenever they see fit.

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

To give true credit where credit is due, this story was discovered at FailBlog.org.

Goldman Sachs

As Matt Taibbi runs through the evidence and coincidence of the apparent fact that Goldman Sachs has been at the forefront to profit from every bubble that has burst since the 20s he writes this paragraph (EA):

The history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled-dry American empire, reads like a Who's Who of Goldman Sachs graduates. By now, most of us know the major players. As George Bush's last Treasury secretary, former Goldman CEO Henry Paulson was the architect of the bailout, a suspiciously self-serving plan to funnel trillions of Your Dollars to a handful of his old friends on Wall Street. Robert Rubin, Bill Clinton's former Treasury secretary, spent 26 years at Goldman before becoming chairman of Citigroup — which in turn got a $300 billion taxpayer bailout from Paulson. There's John Thain, the asshole chief of Merrill Lynch who bought an $87,000 area rug for his office as his company was imploding; a former Goldman banker, Thain enjoyed a multibillion-dollar handout from Paulson, who used billions in taxpayer funds to help Bank of America rescue Thain's sorry company. And Robert Steel, the former Goldmanite head of Wachovia, scored himself and his fellow executives $225 million in golden-parachute payments as his bank was self-destructing. There's Joshua Bolten, Bush's chief of staff during the bailout, and Mark Patterson, the current Treasury chief of staff, who was a Goldman lobbyist just a year ago, and Ed Liddy, the former Goldman director whom Paulson put in charge of bailed-out insurance giant AIG, which forked over $13 billion to Goldman after Liddy came on board. The heads of the Canadian and Italian national banks are Goldman alums, as is the head of the World Bank, the head of the New York Stock Exchange, the last two heads of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — which, incidentally, is now in charge of overseeing Goldman.

With so many people in positions of financial power having come through the rites of passage known as a job at Goldman Sachs, its hard to believe that its not just a big 'Good Ol' Boys' club. What better way to ensure free government handouts by putting your buddies in charge of the government?

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

read more: Matt Taibbi has long since entered my conscience as a potential Hunter Thompson of our time. Read the excerpted story from Rolling Stone.
The Great American Bubble Machine(rs)

Some more quotes, please read to see more evidence of a required career at Goldman to get a position of any power:

(One thing that has been noticed by just about everyone but the MSM)
Although he had already engineered a rescue of Bear Stearns a few months before and helped bail out quasi-private lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Paulson elected to let Lehman Brothers — one of Goldman's last real competitors — collapse without intervention. [...] The very next day, Paulson greenlighted a massive, $85 billion bailout of AIG, which promptly turned around and repaid $13 billion it owed to Goldman. Thanks to the rescue effort, the bank ended up getting paid in full for its bad bets

a $700 billion plan called the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and put a heretofore unknown 35-year-old Goldman banker named Neel Kashkari in charge of administering the funds
In order to qualify for bailout monies, Goldman announced that it would convert from an investment bank to a bank-holding company, a move that allows it access not only to $10 billion in TARP funds, but to a whole galaxy of less conspicuous, publicly backed funding — most notably, lending from the discount window of the Federal Reserve. By the end of March, the Fed will have lent or guaranteed at least $8.7 trillion under a series of new bailout programs — and thanks to an obscure law allowing the Fed to block most congressional audits, both the amounts and the recipients of the monies remain almost entirely secret.
Converting to a bank-holding company has other benefits as well: Goldman's primary supervisor is now the New York Fed, whose chairman at the time of its announcement was Stephen Friedman, a former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs

the man now in charge of supervising Goldman — New York Fed president William Dudley — is yet another former Goldmanite.

Barack Obama, a popular young politician whose leading private campaign donor was an investment bank called Goldman Sachs

Gone are Hank Paulson and Neel Kashkari; in their place are Treasury chief of staff Mark Patterson and CFTC chief Gary Gensler, both former Goldmanites.

The new carbon-credit market is a virtual repeat of the commodities-market casino that's been kind to Goldman, except it has one delicious new wrinkle: If the plan goes forward as expected, the rise in prices will be government-mandated. Goldman won't even have to rig the game. It will be rigged in advance.

Who Knew? (Part 4)

Peter Schiff, That's who. (wikip.)
I am half-assedly posting about articles I've seen that point out those anointed few who not only saw, to some extent, financial collapse coming, but had the balls to try and fight it publicly, up front. See also, part 1 (Iris Mack), part 2 (Byron Dorgan), part 3 (Elizabeth Warren))Please comment to this or any Who Knew? post when you see one of those who were willing to stake their reputation by pointing out our crash course with economic crisis in times where everyone else let the good times roll.

So, why haven't you heard of this genius yet?
Because, silly, he hasn't made me any money yet!
(aka: Because, silly, he still thinks its going to get worse!)

He saw it coming and took every chance he had to publicly debate the collapse of our credit and housing markets. This includes a book with his prediction in the title: Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse which was released in 2007.
In many of the public forums he used to try to get his message across, he was literally laughed at, or at least smirked at in epic proportions of condescension. (Epic, because he was right and he was right on a big thing (right, Ben Stein?)

It would be best if you watched a 'victory lap' video made by a fan: (there are plenty of other videos to watch too!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I0QN-FYkpw

Despite his predictions throughout 2006 and 2007 of the upcoming economic collapse and the fact that he stood his ground because he knew he was right, he is generally not lauded as the economic seer he is. You would expect people to cling to his every word, to make notes of every gesture, to analyze his every thought after being right about the coming crash.

But, as it turns out, all of his short term investment picks since the economic collapse have been wrong. Now, he only gets speaking engagements outside of the U.S. The only press he gets include headlines of his losses since the collapse.What good is seeing the future if you can't make any money off of the predictions?
Additionally, he is still generally lauded with smirks and rolled eyes as he continues to predict a worsening economy, pointing out that we are only bailing out a part of the deck in a house of cards.

After writing that paragraph, I see that he isn't necessarily a genius... He's just unwilling to ignore the evidence and refuses to assume that endless growth is possible. Not exactly groundbreaking news...

Mad props to his father, Irwin Schiff, who decided in the 1970s that federal income tax was unconstitutional and stopped paying them. (He still pays his state taxes...) His belief in this is so strong that he has been in and out of court and jail fighting for his rights ever since. Today, at 90, he sits in jail again.

Ignoring a sage for being a sage...

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

Read more: I found Mr. Schiff in an article painting him out to be an Extremist in the June 1 Time. Go find it yourself if you must, I'm not going to link to it from here...

Who Knew? (Part 3)

Elizabeth Warren, thats who. (tbm)
I am half-assedly posting about articles I've seen that point out those annointed few who not only saw, to some extent, financial collapse coming, but had the balls to try and fight it publicly, up front. See also, part 1 (Iris Mack), part 2 (Byron Dorgan))Please comment to this or any Who Knew? post when you see one of our 'Almost Heroes, if the system wasn't built to keep those in charge, in charge.

Starting in 2003, Elizabeth 'Save the banks heck, Save the people!' Warren was tasked with figuring out why the bankruptcy rates were higher in these 'prosperous' times than they were during the Great Depression. Of course, the banks stonewalled her efforts, so she turned to federal household surveys and determined that in order to be 'successful' the average American family is forced to borrow from the banks. Raising children, taking care of your health, and putting a roof over the heads of your family have become impossible without delving into the unregulated and generally unfriendly whims of the banks.

In 2005, when our government decided that they would rather bail out banks than the citizens, she fought the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005. James Sensenbrenner and a host of other congressmen, whose mission it is to 'represent' the people, decided and announced that the people they 'represent' were gaming the system. Due to our moral flaws, we went out of our ways to run up mountains of debt with the sly plan to file for bankruptcy to avoid paying off their debts.
A year after she was laughed out of the congressional hearings on bankruptcy, she introduced the idea of a 'run on the consumer'. This beautiful phrase describes how one late payment can send any one of us on a downward spiral which destroys our fragile financial eco-system. Miss a payment, your interest rates get hiked. Your credit score drops. Credit becomes more expensive. Banks on a whim can increase your rates further, cut your credit, etc. etc.
(Summary: Yes, bankruptcies have skyrocketed, though not because Americans lack the moral fiber to pay off their debts. Its because we have become so dependent on the banks that when one loses a job that one now goes into default on a home, a car, and all of the other things they needed to take loans out for to enjoy their standard of living. Lose your job in the 1930's you have to sell your car. Lose your job in the 90's and you can't afford to keep paying on your car. With this in mind, our government chose to fix the scenario for the banks while turning their backs on the people. It was easier than reforming a system running out of control...)
(read this wonderful report written in part by Elizabeth Warren, its worth your time to read such gems:
Subprime lenders have learned that when inflation is low, lending out at 18%, 22%, or 34% can be extraordinarily profitable even if a substantial portion of borrowers ultimately default on their loans. The math is nothing short of stunning. At a time when the wholesale cost of money is 4%, for example, a subprime lender who places a $10,000 loan at 26% has by year four earned back everything the debtor borrowed plus more than $7000 in profit, and the borrower still owes more than half of the loan)

Then in 2008, instead of those gaming the bankruptcy system, now its us 'whiners' who have been gaming the sub prime system. So, once again, we turn to the bankers in charge to fix things by giving billions upon billions upon billions of dollars to the banks to help save them from us evil doers. With former bank heads and employees like Hank Paulson, Timmy Geithner, Larry Summers, etc. etc. in charge, they used vauge threats of worldwide economic collapse to ensure they and their buddies were safe. Much like the christians use hell to make sure there is a steady stream of income from their fearful worshippers. As we all can tell and be thankful for, the economic collapse they warned us of has been averted and everything is smooth sailing. Or was it their ridiculous TARP billions of taxpayer's dollars going straight into the richest of pockets that caused our collapse?

Thanks for seeing it coming and doing your best to keep them honest. Too bad Obama seeks to continue the obviously failed Bush policies of giving wall street whatever they want...
(She is in charge of the TARP now. But Timmy Geithner doesn't return her calls and she is generally ignored. Which is only right, after all, she seeks represent the people, not the banks.)

Bailing out the victims of my excess...

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

Joel Pett

Good riddance to the jaguar menace

I have a hard time putting a sarcastic spin on this one. I find it difficult to even try to be amusing. There is nothing amusing at the unspeakable incompetence that is this story reveals.

SF Gate (One of those online media outlets that will eventually replace newspapers because they hire actual journalists who go out and get stories (unlike us bloggers that read other people's stories and think we know something...)) has looked into the Arizona Department of Game & Fish moves to slaughter the last remaining Jaguar in Arizona.

Summary: (this will seem contrived, almost made up to make it sound worse than it is. However, these are the actions that were taken, and the explanations given by the DGF.)

1.) DGF 'unintentionally' live traps the Jaguar. By unintentionally, they mean that they baited the trap with the poop of a female zoo jaguar who was in heat. But, apparently they were hoping to catch a beaver or a bear, or ANYthing besides the jaguar. They were indeed quite surprised to find that a male stud of a jaguar was interested to find out where that scent of horny jaguar femme fatale was coming from. (This happens 15 days after receiving advice from wildlife veteranarians about how much sedatives it might take to immobilize a wild jaguar...)

2.) They put a tracking collar on the trapped jaguar and release it into the wild. (So far, this is OK. While it seems a bit cruel, this is an effective way to track wildlife movement. (But if this was the goal, why do they continue to claim that they wanted to trap anything besides the jaguar? Are we to believe they just happened to have the right sized tracking collar on them that day?))

3.) The DGF decides the jaguar was not moving as it is supposed to. They were apparently hoping to watch jaguar adventures on a grand scale filled with twists and turns and heart-stopping moments. Because it wasn't moving as it was supposed to, DGF decided there was only one thing to do: Hunt it down with a helicopter and shoot it with tranqs. (By hunt it down, I mean go to the homing beacon strapped to its neck. No actual hunting of any kind took place.)

4.) They then bring the tranq'd jaguar to the nearby [unamed] zoo. The zoo promptly claims that it was suffering from kidney failure. So they killed it. What else could be done?

5.) Local universities run a post mortem on the body and found a pair of what were fabulously functioning kidneys. That is, until the zoo killed the animal.

I wonder if the dumbshits at the zoo got some sort of a false positive on the kidney's because of the tranqulizers running through its system. 'Course, what would I know?

It drives you crazy! These guys got jobs with the government with just 1 mission in mind: Keep the Game & Fish in Arizona SAFE! Instead they go to extravagent lengths with taxpayer money to work on changing an endangered species into an extinct species!!!! WHAT THE HELL???

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

Found it!

They found the mysterious hole that our tax money has been disappearing into. Turns out, its Countrywide! Yay!

Former Countrywide Execs Making Bank From Crisis(slate)

If this one doesn't piss you off, you must be dead inside.

THIS is whyipaytaxes.