Click on Image to Enlarge ItSaturday, February 28, 2009
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Does Anyone Seriously Believe the "Spread It Around" Guy Is Smarter Than Jefferson Was?
"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."
. . . Thomas Jefferson
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Let's Keep Our Arms at Hand and Our Powder Dry
"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States."
. . . Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, 10 October 1787
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Stay Alert and Ready
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined."
. . . Patrick Henry, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 5 June 1778
Current Market Conditions
New Stock Market Terms:
CEO – Chief Embezzlement Officer
CFO - Corporate Fraud Officer
BULL MARKET – A random market movement causing an investor to mistake himself for a financial genius
BEAR MARKET – a 6 to 18 month period when the kids get no allowance, the wife gets no jewelry, and the husband gets no sex.
VALUE INVESTING – The art of buying low and selling lower.
P/E RATIO – The percentage of investors wetting their pants as the market keeps crashing.
BROKER – What my financial planner has made me.
STANDARD & POOR – Your life in a nutshell.
STOCK ANALYST – Idiot who just downgraded your stock.
STOCK SPLIT – When your ex-wife and her lawyer split your assets equally between themselves.
MARKET CORRECTION – The day after you buy stocks.
CASH FLOW – The movement your money makes as it disappears down the toilet.
YAHOO – What you yell after selling it to some poor sucker for $240 per share.
WINDOWS – What you jump out of when you're the sucker who bought Yahoo at $240 per share.
INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR – Past year investor who's now locked up in a nuthouse.
PROFIT – an archaic word no longer in use.
CFO - Corporate Fraud Officer
BULL MARKET – A random market movement causing an investor to mistake himself for a financial genius
BEAR MARKET – a 6 to 18 month period when the kids get no allowance, the wife gets no jewelry, and the husband gets no sex.
VALUE INVESTING – The art of buying low and selling lower.
P/E RATIO – The percentage of investors wetting their pants as the market keeps crashing.
BROKER – What my financial planner has made me.
STANDARD & POOR – Your life in a nutshell.
STOCK ANALYST – Idiot who just downgraded your stock.
STOCK SPLIT – When your ex-wife and her lawyer split your assets equally between themselves.
MARKET CORRECTION – The day after you buy stocks.
CASH FLOW – The movement your money makes as it disappears down the toilet.
YAHOO – What you yell after selling it to some poor sucker for $240 per share.
WINDOWS – What you jump out of when you're the sucker who bought Yahoo at $240 per share.
INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR – Past year investor who's now locked up in a nuthouse.
PROFIT – an archaic word no longer in use.
* * * * *
If you had purchased $1,000 in shares in Delta Airlines
one year ago, you will have $49.00 today.
If you had purchased $1,000 in shares in AIG
one year ago, you will have $33.00 today.
If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Lehman Brothers
one year ago, you will have $0.00 today.
But---- if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer
one year ago, drank all the beer,
then turned in the aluminum cans for recycling refund,
you will have received $214.00.
Based on the above, the best current investment plan
is to drink heavily & recycle.
It's called the 401-Keg.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Disarming Future Slaves
"[W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, - who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia."
. . . George Mason, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 14 June 1778
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Worth Remembering
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
. . . Cesare Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishment, quoted by Thomas Jefferson in Commonplace Book, 1774-1776
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
National Socialism's Beneficiaries
Our National Socialist government in development is buying the allegiance of the nation's major financial institutions and industrial concerns.
The auto makers and General Electric are lining up behind the financial institutions for the second round of distributions from the public treasury. Here's an account of what some of these fat cats got in the first go around from the tax dollars that we paid and that we, our children, and our great grandchildren will pay:
The Geithner-Reid-Pelosi troika rules the Washington roost. And they're on a roll. But, we have tens of millions of hardworking Americans who aren't too crazy about being told to hand over their meager wages to a bunch of coiffured guys in Gucci shoes and tailored suits who wine and dine the politicians and stick the taxpayer with the tab.”
And how much, exactly is that tab – a tab about to be presented to the average Joe and Jane making $32,000 a year and fearing for their jobs 24/7/365? Well, it's anyone's guess what the troika will try to hand their well-healed friends in the financial industry in the upcoming Battle of the Banking Bailout – but here's what the politicians' paly-walies got in the last TARP go-around:
Bank of America Corporation: $15,000,000,000
Bank of New York Mellon Corporation: $3,000,000,000
Citigroup Inc.: $25,000,000,000
JPMorgan Chase & Co.: $25,000,000,000
Morgan Stanley: $10,000,000,000
State Street Corporation: $2,000,000,000
The Goldman Sachs Group,Inc.: $10,000,000,000
Wells Fargo & Company: $25,000,000,000
Total: $115,000,000,000
Those figures are from the GAO's January, 2009. Report to Congressional Committees. You can look it up for yourself if you want – it's at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09296.pdf. But, let me warn you to hold your nose. It stinks. Especially when you consider that most of those Big Bank boffos then refused to say what they did with the money. And told the average guy to take a hike.
An exaggeration? Well, check around with your neighbors to see if any of them got a cash – or credit – infusion from the Big 8. In fact, check your own nest egg. See any “With Love from JP or Mr. Sachs” promissory notes in there?
Of course you don't. And you won't. According to the Associated Press, your grand take from the just-passed “stimulus” boondoggle will come to a whopping $8 next year -- out of nearly a trillion dollars in new government spending. And don't expect your share of the bank bailout to even come close to that measly stipend.
The auto makers and General Electric are lining up behind the financial institutions for the second round of distributions from the public treasury. Here's an account of what some of these fat cats got in the first go around from the tax dollars that we paid and that we, our children, and our great grandchildren will pay:
The Geithner-Reid-Pelosi troika rules the Washington roost. And they're on a roll. But, we have tens of millions of hardworking Americans who aren't too crazy about being told to hand over their meager wages to a bunch of coiffured guys in Gucci shoes and tailored suits who wine and dine the politicians and stick the taxpayer with the tab.”
And how much, exactly is that tab – a tab about to be presented to the average Joe and Jane making $32,000 a year and fearing for their jobs 24/7/365? Well, it's anyone's guess what the troika will try to hand their well-healed friends in the financial industry in the upcoming Battle of the Banking Bailout – but here's what the politicians' paly-walies got in the last TARP go-around:
Bank of America Corporation: $15,000,000,000
Bank of New York Mellon Corporation: $3,000,000,000
Citigroup Inc.: $25,000,000,000
JPMorgan Chase & Co.: $25,000,000,000
Morgan Stanley: $10,000,000,000
State Street Corporation: $2,000,000,000
The Goldman Sachs Group,Inc.: $10,000,000,000
Wells Fargo & Company: $25,000,000,000
Total: $115,000,000,000
Those figures are from the GAO's January, 2009. Report to Congressional Committees. You can look it up for yourself if you want – it's at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09296.pdf. But, let me warn you to hold your nose. It stinks. Especially when you consider that most of those Big Bank boffos then refused to say what they did with the money. And told the average guy to take a hike.
An exaggeration? Well, check around with your neighbors to see if any of them got a cash – or credit – infusion from the Big 8. In fact, check your own nest egg. See any “With Love from JP or Mr. Sachs” promissory notes in there?
Of course you don't. And you won't. According to the Associated Press, your grand take from the just-passed “stimulus” boondoggle will come to a whopping $8 next year -- out of nearly a trillion dollars in new government spending. And don't expect your share of the bank bailout to even come close to that measly stipend.
Good Advice . . . Especially for the California Legislature
"The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife."
. . . Thomas Jefferson, letter to Spencer Roane
9 March 1821
9 March 1821
Monday, February 16, 2009
Following a Well Established Pattern
Few seem to have noticed or appear to care but the Obama Administration is consolidating and concentrating power in concert with the nation's major financial institutions and industrial concerns in a manner that clearly parallels what the National Socialists did to make effective dissent impossible and become the sole and absolute authority over everything in the Germany that they thus turned into the Third Reich.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
How They View Us
Sometimes one or another of our rulers slip up and say something that shows how they really view us. Here is an excerpt from a New York Times report on comments that President Obama made yesterday (Tuesday, February 3):
"I've got to own up to my mistake, which is that ultimately it's important for this administration to send a message that there aren't two sets of rules. You know, one for prominent people and one for ordinary folks who have to pay their taxes."
Two Questions -
1. By "ordinary folks" does he mean, as his statement indicates, those of us ". . . who have to pay their taxes"?
2. How does one get to become one of the "prominent people" exempt from having to do so?
Note: See the "Queen of Mean" post below -- Leona had it right.
"I've got to own up to my mistake, which is that ultimately it's important for this administration to send a message that there aren't two sets of rules. You know, one for prominent people and one for ordinary folks who have to pay their taxes."
Two Questions -
1. By "ordinary folks" does he mean, as his statement indicates, those of us ". . . who have to pay their taxes"?
2. How does one get to become one of the "prominent people" exempt from having to do so?
Note: See the "Queen of Mean" post below -- Leona had it right.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Wisdom Ignored
"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt."
. . . Thomas Jefferson, letter to Samuel Kercheval, 12 July 1816
Monday, February 2, 2009
The 'Queen of Mean" Knew Whereof She Spoke
Leona Helmsley had it right when she said "only the little people pay taxes."
She was convicted on criminal tax evasion charges because the government succeeded in characterizing her as the "queen of mean" after she had the effrontery to voicing the above-quoted (and now demonstrably correct) observation so blatantly.
Consider that we now have:
* A secretary of the treasury who for years failed to report and pay taxes on his personal income even though he repeatedly was advised of his obligation to do so. He even was reimbursed for the taxes he didn't pay. This is the guy who is going to have oversight authority over the I.R.S. -- the agency responsible for enforcing the nation's tax laws against the "little people." This member of the President's cabinet paid up only after he realized that his conduct would be scrutinized publicly in connection with an examination of his qualifications to head the U.S. Treasury.
* A nominee to serve as secretary of Health and Human Services who, after being named to the cabinet position, finally more than $100,000 in taxes on income that was not reported or taxed in prior years . . . and it appears that this is on just a portion of the income that previously was not taxed or reported.
* A chairman of the committee of the House of Reprehensibles, which is responsible for our tax laws, who for years failed to report and pay taxes on income that he received. When this became public, he claimed that he didn't realize that he was obligated to report and pay taxes on all of his income.
Is this a great country or what?
No wonder our rulers are all for public spending . . . . They leave funding the spending to Leona's "little people." Had we "little people" not been transformed into sheep, we would tell the IRS to go f__k itself and gather around the seat of government, bearing arms as well as pitchforks and torches, and either hang or tar and feather those who hold sway there.
She was convicted on criminal tax evasion charges because the government succeeded in characterizing her as the "queen of mean" after she had the effrontery to voicing the above-quoted (and now demonstrably correct) observation so blatantly.
Consider that we now have:
* A secretary of the treasury who for years failed to report and pay taxes on his personal income even though he repeatedly was advised of his obligation to do so. He even was reimbursed for the taxes he didn't pay. This is the guy who is going to have oversight authority over the I.R.S. -- the agency responsible for enforcing the nation's tax laws against the "little people." This member of the President's cabinet paid up only after he realized that his conduct would be scrutinized publicly in connection with an examination of his qualifications to head the U.S. Treasury.
* A nominee to serve as secretary of Health and Human Services who, after being named to the cabinet position, finally more than $100,000 in taxes on income that was not reported or taxed in prior years . . . and it appears that this is on just a portion of the income that previously was not taxed or reported.
* A chairman of the committee of the House of Reprehensibles, which is responsible for our tax laws, who for years failed to report and pay taxes on income that he received. When this became public, he claimed that he didn't realize that he was obligated to report and pay taxes on all of his income.
Is this a great country or what?
No wonder our rulers are all for public spending . . . . They leave funding the spending to Leona's "little people." Had we "little people" not been transformed into sheep, we would tell the IRS to go f__k itself and gather around the seat of government, bearing arms as well as pitchforks and torches, and either hang or tar and feather those who hold sway there.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
The Wonderous 'Logic' of Washington
Only inside the beltway are people capable of believing that spending increases and more borrowing will solve an economic meltdown caused by excessive spending and excessive leverage.
This is a mindset shared with drunks who believes more alcohol will set everything right and inquisition torturers who believes that tightening the rack an additional notch or two will bring forth a truthful confession.
Our government has come to resemble a one trick pony: spending money is all that it knows how to do; therefore it mindlessly throws good money after bad . . . down every rat hole it sees as an opportunity or a problem. Furthermore, it's always a crisis . . . and there never is any time to spare. The spending and borrowing has to be approved RIGHT NOW . . . before anybody has a chance to think about the insanity of what is being proposed.
This is a mindset shared with drunks who believes more alcohol will set everything right and inquisition torturers who believes that tightening the rack an additional notch or two will bring forth a truthful confession.
Our government has come to resemble a one trick pony: spending money is all that it knows how to do; therefore it mindlessly throws good money after bad . . . down every rat hole it sees as an opportunity or a problem. Furthermore, it's always a crisis . . . and there never is any time to spare. The spending and borrowing has to be approved RIGHT NOW . . . before anybody has a chance to think about the insanity of what is being proposed.
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