It’s common sense of course. If I’m taxed almost 50% of my income and whatever I have when I die has less than half left after taxes to give to my children it would be stupid to put much effort into anything. Only suckers try to get rich when the rich are not only vilified, but expected to give up the majority of their wealth to others.
Once Obamcare kicks in and unemployment skyrockets I’m not going to pay for insurance and I sure as hell am not going to start any new businesses and hire anyone. I’m going to pay the cheaper fine when I get sick and stick my hand out to the government while the rest of the chumps pay. Doing anything else is just stupid:
Let me preface what I’m about to say with some personal experience. I know several baby boomers who, even today in their while in their 60s, smoke pot and act like teenagers. In NYC I ran into boomers all the time who stubbornly refused to grow up, who spent five or six decades of their life doing drugs, mooching off others and railing against the “system” that oppresses them. That generation was responsible for the excesses of American leftism which led to the sub-prime meltdown, unsustainable urbanization (something the so-called greens are still pushing) and moral decay that are at the root of today’s ills and all the while they planned on the same America their parents made being there to support them in their twilight years.
BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) — Seniors prepared to cut back on everything from food to charitable donations to whiskey as word spread Monday that they will have to wait until at least 2012 to see their Social Security checks increase.
The government is expected to announce this week that more than 58 million Social Security recipients will go through a second straight year without an increase in monthly benefits. This year was the first without an increase since automatic adjustments for inflation started in 1975.
“I think it’s disgusting,” said Paul McNeil, 69, a retired state worker from Warwick, R.I., who said his food and utility costs have gone up, but his income has not. He lamented decisions by lawmakers that he said do not favor seniors.
“They’ve got this idea that they’ve got to save money and basically they want to take it out of the people that will give them the least resistance,” he said.
Rhode Island state workers enjoy lavish pension benefits but still this selfish cretin wants to bleed the rest of us dry so he can buy more Viagra and try to pick up women his granddaughter’s age in his convertible mustang. He literally wants the collapsing, bankrupt government to rob Peter to pay Paul McNeil.
And he’s not alone in this disgusting attitude. I suggest that saying 45-50% of all baby boomers are equally selfish and willing to starve us to maintain their lifestyle is conservative. This is the generation that wants to cut CO2 from the atmosphere – when an increase in CO2 would help produce more foods to feed the rest of us. This is the generation that thinks all Americans should be moved into “green” cities to save the environment, but have no idea how we would feed this population. These are the people who support policies that destroyed Detroit, made NYC and L.A. unlivable and created a drug culture so pervasive there’s actually an argument about whether children who are given drugs by their parents are being abused.
Frankly, I’m glad the boomers will reap what they have sown. The rest of us have to suffer because of the decline started by the radical 60s, so the people involved should suffer as well.
Don’t believe me, did you know boomers were showing up at spring breaks? Here’s one dancing in a contest with a bikini payed for by your tax dollars:
Looks like they’re getting by fine without a cost of living increase.
Home Depot later this year plans to carry a Philips LED bulb designed as a replacement for the common 60-watt incandescent.
The bulb, now called the 12-watt EnduraLED, will be available by the beginning of December and will cost between $40 and $50, representatives from Philips and Home Depot said today.
Home Depot started selling a line of LED bulbs under the EcoSmart label earlier this year, which includes both spotlights and general-lighting LEDs. The Philips bulb will likely be sold under a different name than 12-watt EnduraLED, Philips representative Silvie Casanova said.
[…]
In terms of efficiency, the lumens per watt on the 12 watt EnduraLED comes in at 67. That’s slightly better than EnergyStar-certified CFLs, which put out 800 lumens with 13 watts to 15 watts for an efficacy of between 53 and 61. But, this LED is rated to last 25,000 hours, about three to four times that of CFLs. The EnduraLED is also dimmable.
As commenters on the review point out the bulb uses almost the same amount of energy as CFLs of similar output, and trades off four times the longevity for ten times the cost. The benefit is that these bulbs aren’t filled with dangerous levels of mercury like the CFL bulbs the greens want you to use. So soon consumers can either pay $50 for a light bulb or bring toxic mercury into their house.
I’ll be using oil lamps first. I’ll never bring a CFL in my house or drop $50 on a bulb. Make arraignments for your lighting needs now before it’s too late.
“You know, I have my own gold company and it bothers me what they’re going to do,†Schiff said to CNBC’s “The Kudlow Report†fill-in host Michelle Caruso-Cabrera on the Sept. 24 broadcast. “I think that companies like, you know, like Goldline, you know that are basically marking up their gold coins 67 percent or whatever – it’s outrageous. I mean, most companies mark-up 2 or 3 percent, which is what I do. These type of companies give the whole industry a bad name. What I’m afraid of is we’re going to have a lot of regulation.â€
Caruso-Cabrera asked Schiff in these circumstances if it was a case of buyer beware. However, Schiff suggested it was fraudulent for coin companies to charge these prices for what by any measure of the law would be a legal transaction if a consumer chose to purchase coins from such a company.
“If there’s fraud, it’s not buyer beware,†he continued. “But what I’m afraid of is I don’t want government regulating the coin industry so that people like me have to raise our prices to cover all the extra cost of regulation.â€
But assuming Schiff’s assumption were correct, wouldn’t he has a competitor be able to move in on the market and offer the same product for a lower price? Isn’t that how the free market operates? Schiff conceded that point, but complained he was getting beat because he couldn’t afford the advertising.
“I mean, I think the free market should ferret out these companies that are grossly overcharging people who don’t know any better. You know, that’s the problem. People haven’t bought gold in so long and see how well it’s doing and get conned by these commercials that are all over television. But most gold companies like mine, we can’t afford to run commercials because we’re not charging that much.â€
So Goldline “overcharging” is fraud? In a free market Schiff would simply advertise as a cheaper alternative and his claims that he can’t compete sound odd as he does it from one of the many cable news shows he’s allowed to pimp his company on. Schiff is just attacking the competition using the government. He tries to couch his complaints in a desire to not see more regulation but the reality is he’s saying he doesn’t want to compete with Goldline even though he supposedly has a better product.
I don’t shop with Goldline or Euro-Pacific Capital. There’s only one precious metals company on the web that is rated by the B.B.B. and that’s where I purchase any coins and bullion I want. But I do think that in a free market a corporation has the right to a) charge whatever they want for their services and b) advertise for that service where ever they can. But I’m just a Republican “fascist,” right Libertarians?
Peter Schiff, like many Libertarians, gives excellent economic analysis. And like many Libertarians he’s kind of a douche who will drop their belief in a total free market the minute they can’t compete. This is why they support legalization of drugs rather than decriminalization of drugs – they want the government to ensure that their drugs are safe and reasonably priced, which is of course impossible but that’s another argument.
George W. Bush takes a lot of heat for the bailouts, but in that case he literally thought you would be getting yanked out your car by rioters as the whole country went Katrina. Schiff abandoned the free market to save his bottom line, but I’m betting he won’t get much grief. That should make people think.
