Consider.......The Dime

The smallest American coin, it's not worth much anymore. Without changing its size, the federal government, in its members' ongoing attempts to debase US money to enrich themselves, has debased the hapless coin from about a tenth of a troy ounce of 90% silver to 90% copper and 10% nickel. At this time, the rape of the American Dollar has gotten so severe that this current composition of the dime, along with the cost of minting it, is much more than a dime.

You can't buy much of anything for a single dime anymore, but in my youth, a single silver dime could buy a Coke. You'd get three pennies change. If you returned the bottle, you'd get two pennies more. You could buy two regular candy bars, each of which was noticeably larger than today's candy bars. A cup of coffee was a dime, most places. "Hey, buddy! Can you spare a dime?" was an oft-heard refrain down near the train yard by hobos, eager to get a cup of coffee or to but three or four of them together for a hamburger, fries and a cup. Or a bottle of cheap wine.

A local call on a pay phone (for those who remember pay phones) was a dime. The price of a newspaper went from seven pennies to a dime during the few year I was selling and delivering them. Even the politicians of the late 1950's were stealing value from the dollar.

A brand new dime was artfully designed and very pretty before the Mint decided to put the likeness of the evil Franklin Roosevelt on one side. Kind of ruined dimes for me. Even today, in my coin collection, I shy away from Roosevelt dimes.

Times change, and with an increasingly dictatorial government, they change for the worse. It won't be long before the quarter will be worth about the same as the 1990 Mexican Peso and will bear the likeness of the equally evil B Hussein Obama (or maybe Michelle).

Drop a dime on the criminal federal government regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

The Hidden Bonus In This Election

This past weekend, John & Ken, a pair of local talkers on KFI-AM radio in El Pueblo de Los Angeles, held a party/protest out at Tom's Farms, a sort of farmer's market complex outside of Corona, Calif. It was a protest against Guber Schwarzengroper's tax & spend referenda 'pon which some of us voted yesterday. The set of referenda were sniggeringly sold as a way to help balance Stalag California's budget, but would really have served to hand billions more dollars to the Stalag's administrators to wantonly spend on wasteful things the embattled residents of the state neither want nor need.

Reports from The Wine Commonsewer and others indicated that it was a good-natured (if angry) group of protesters as much making fun of the Guber's (and the state legislators') actions as being critical. It seems to have worked, since the event got a fair amount of media coverage and helped point much of the voting portion of the Stalag's population toward fiscal good sense (for a change). The worst five of the six referenda were defeated resoundingly.

Guber Schwarzengroper just happened to be in Washington DC, home of the slickest and most accomplished thieves and murderers our nation can manage to produce, hat in hand, begging for Mr. Thompson President Obama to loot the other forty-nine states and give him the money. The trip had the added bonus of placing the Guber farther from the humiliation of having lost again.

We're all, those of us with even the least regard for our personal well-being and some small amount of pride in our ability to produce and our desire to live independently, are pleased that more and more people are beginning to understand that the looters will take all of your money if they aren't stopped. These insatiable parasites will never be satisfied until they've starved their hosts to death and then will go looking for more.

Michael Chrichton once observed, within the pages of his marvelous novel, Andromeda Strain, that a successful parasite never takes so much from his host that the host's life is endangered. An unsuccessful parasite kills its host by his greed, finally endangering the parasite himself, which must then quickly find another host before he, himself, starves.

Boys and girls, the state is rapidly becoming an unsuccessful parasite.

My congratulations and thanks go out to all who fought, voted against, and ultimately defeated this round of foolishness.

And thanks to John and Ken for making a lot of noise, saying the right things at the right time.

People should not be afraid of their governments; governments should be afraid of the people.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

The Emancipation Proclamation, Disassembled

I've seen this strip before, but today my pal KC reminded me of it. It's a graphic version of Friedrich A Hayek's book, The Road to Serfdom. It was originally published in Look Magazine not long after the end of WWII.

It looks like not too many people read that issue......

The strip takes on additional meaning in the light of our new charismatic empty suit. B Hussein Obama seems to have won the hearts (they certainly don't use their brains) of the airhead entertainers, surfer bums and welfare queens with his promise of a free home in every garage, and free money to buy their pot.

Chickens tend to come home to roost, though, and so do unpaid debts. When it's realized that Caesar can't run the printing presses forever, and eventually, we'll need a better Plan. If the plan turns off the money spigot, the welfare queens won't like it. And, well, the rest of the story won't be fun to experience.

Better to stop this drift into cannibalism now, while there's still a memory of the America that once was. Find the graphic The Road to Serfdom here.

People shouldn't be afraid of their governments; governments should be afraid of their people.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Addendum: TWC reminds me that the graphic strip was first published as a booklet as a part of General Motors' Thought Starter Series, then was published in Look Magazine.

Lies, Damned Lies And Filthy Lies

Yesterday, Guber Schwarzengroper was heard to say, "The budget problems plaguing Colliefornia are caused by the worldwide monetary crisis." (May not be a precise quote, but it's close.)

That, Ahnold, is a filthy lie. Colliefornia's budget problems go back for decades, and are exacerbated by each guber in his turn. Ahnold, your predecessor was recalled for overspending, and you've spent much, much more than he.

I don't want to leave out the State Legislature, as irrational a gang of thieves as can be seen this side of Washington DC.

The Stalag's War on Productivity is the real cause of most of Our fiscal woes. If the state would deregulate and cut taxes, entrepreneurial money would flow into the state in a flood, and the state would not only need less money, but would have more.

Much of this is not addressed by Michael Kaminski in his editorial comment in WSJ.com yesterday. While he recognizes that der Guber had a rare opportunity to bring some bit of responsibility to the Colliefornia tax-and-spend system, he cuts Ahnold quite a bit of line by suggesting that he was stopped at his first attempt--the ill fated popular referendum which would've imposed a "hard state spending cap, limit the unions' political buying power, tighten requirements for teacher tenure, and overhaul a gerrymandered state political map."

An ambitious first step, perhaps too sweeping for most of Colliefornia's short-attention-span entertainers, surfer bums and welfare queens, but it would've been better than worse. Perhaps one issue at a time might've been better.

After this single beating by the very large Colliefornia airhead caucus, macho man Ahnold spontaneously transformed himself into girlie-man Ahnold and slinked off to hide behind Maria's skirts. He metamorphosed into Algore while no one was looking.

While I'll freely admit that Ahnold wasn't wholly at fault--really, most of the blame goes deservedly to the Colliefornia State Legislature--he was the one, as Kaminski states, with the political capital who, with a tiny bit of clever posturing with the public and a small amount of ability to roll with the punch and emerge on his feet, could've succeeded in bringing the state budget back into a surplus situation.

He simply gave up the capital and decided he wanted to be liked. And like every other conservative or semi0-conservative in recent decades, he's still not liked by the left.

And Colliefornia is becoming France. As my pal The Wine Commonsewer might say, "we even have the top quality wine!"

There will be a number of ballot measures that, if passed, will seal our fates as wards of the state. They will be on ballot in a special election in May. Of course, those of us into self preservation will vote against them all. The only question will be whether there are more airhead entertainers, surfer bums and welfare queens--who actually vote--to lift another 10% or so of our earnings and transfer them into their pockets.

The Colliefornia Children's Prison System against those of us who think.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Spoiled Brat in the White House

We all might have heard it it on Friday. It was on many tv stations--more than his predecessor typically got. I watched/listened to part of it, but who can actually listen to a thievin' politician's blather for more than a minute or two? A fairly good AP article can be found on Yahoo news here.

Seems the new Messiah has decided to combat the ill effects of nearly a century of deficit spending by doubling the spending(!). We "little people" know (even if we don't always follow the knowledge) that, if you run short of cash, you curtail spending until a more financially favorable equilibrium is reached. Obviously one of the qualifications for the job of President of the United States is that you be unaware of this fact.

Every President (rhetoric aside) in the past hundred years, with the willing collaboration of Congress, has engaged in, and touted the benefits of, deficit spending. The national debt climbs every year (with very few exceptions) and has been climbing like the fallacious global warming "hockey stick" in recent years. B Hussein promises to bring the handle of the hockey stick to near-vertical.

Obama has decided, after reading the Keynes book, How to Destroy a National Economy, to throw away a trillion dollars on wasteful bailouts of failed corporations and pork barrel spending on projects no sane entrepreneur would touch.

Pools are starting up all over the world as to when the bailed out corporations (corpses) will need to be bailed out again. Several of the pools were started up too late. Several failed financial institutions are about to receive further infusions of phantom federal money, having spent the first gift of billions on parties, retreats and bonuses.

The Republicans in the House (many of them) followed the Democrats like sheep. The Republicans in the Senate balked. No one has challenged the Keynes book, or the new Caesar's nonsensical assertions that this will be of benefit to Americans.

It will not.

But the Republicans in the Senate did, at least, vote against this preposterous construct.

Hence Caesar's foot stomping tantrum Friday, during the speech that followed his violin lesson. He screamed that "we don't want to let them (the Republicans) define us." Sorry, Your Majesty, but you've already defined yourselves--as economic morons and petulant thieves. I thought the Boomers were the spoiled brats of the 21st Century, but you children of the Flower Children have learned your "world owes us a living" lessons well.

We know from fifty years of recent history that the thing Republican office holders do best is fold under pressure, and I'm expecting that this will be no exception. The only question here becomes: Were republicans born spineless, or was the spine part of the payment for achieving office?

Unlike many, I don't think our children and grandchildren will have to pay these debts. I don't think they'll have the money. Well, check that: the ultimate repudiation of the national debt will likely be accompanied by another world war at which our descendants will pay the debt in blood and lives.

With states following very similar fiscal paths, I seriously expect that the face of the once-free country in which we live will be radically altered in our own lifetimes.

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Atlas Is Shrugging?

One of my Facebook friends, Maggie Willow Stine, posted the following on her page. I thought it appropriate to repost it here, for those who haven't yet seen it. It's very timely.

To All My Valued Employees,

There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn't pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country.
However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interests.

First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a Back Story. This back story is often neglected and overshadowed by what you see and hear. Sure, you see me park my Mercedes outside. You've seen my big home at last years Christmas party. I'm sure; all these flashy icons of luxury conjure up some idealized thoughts about my life.

However, what you don't see is the BACK STORY :

I started this company 28 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 300 square foot studio apartment for 3 years. My entire living apartment was converted into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you.

My diet consisted of Ramen Pride noodles because every dollar I spent went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a defective transmission. I didn't have time to date. Often times, I stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and partying. In fact, I was married to my business -- hard work, discipline, and sacrifice.

Meanwhile, my friends went to their jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a modest $50K a year and spent every dime they earned. They drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes. Instead of hitting the Nordstrom's for the latest hot fashion item, I was trolling through the discount store extracting any clothing item that didn't look like it was birthed in the 70's. My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into a business with a vision that eventually, some day, I too, will be able to afford these luxuries my friends supposedly had.

So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9am, mentally check in at about noon, and then leave at 5pm, I don't. There is no "off" button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have the freedom. I eat, and breathe this company every minute of the day. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. Every day this business is attached to my hip like a 1 year old special-needs child. You, of course, only see the fruits of that garden -- the nice house, the Mercedes, the vacations... you never realize the Back Story and the sacrifices I've made.

Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the right decisions and saved his money, have to bail-out all the people who didn't. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of my life for.

Yes, business ownership has is benefits but the price I've paid is steep and not without wounds.

Unfortunately, the cost of running this business, and employing you, is starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit and let me tell you why:

I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don't pay enough. I have state taxes. Federal taxes. Property taxes. Sales and use taxes. Payroll taxes. Workers compensation taxes. Unemployment taxes. Taxes on taxes. I have to hire a tax man to manage all these taxes and then guess what? I have to pay taxes for employing him. Government mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes with it, now occupy most of my time. On Oct 15th, I wrote a check to the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my "stimulus" check was? Zero. Nada. Zilch.

The fact is, if I deducted (Read: Stole) 50% of your paycheck you'd quit and you wouldn't work here. I mean, why should you? That's nuts. Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree which is why your job is in jeopardy.

Here is what many of you don't understand ... to stimulate the economy you need to stimulate what runs the economy. Had suddenly government mandated to me that I didn't need to pay taxes, guess what? Instead of depositing that $288,000 into the Washington black-hole, I would have spent it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic growth. My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in the form of promotions and better salaries. But you can forget it now.

When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don't defibrillate and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to life, do you? Or, do you defibrillate his heart? Business is at the heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate it, not kill it. Suddenly, the power brokers in Washington believe the poor of America are the essential drivers of the American economic engine. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of change you can keep.

So where am I going with all this?

It's quite simple.

If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be swift and simple. I fire you. I fire your co-workers. You can then plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your child's future. Frankly, it isn't my problem any more.

Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire. You see, I'm done. I'm done with a country that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship.

So, if you lose your job, it won't be at the hands of the economy; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country, steamrolled the constitution, and will have changed its landscape forever. If that happens, you can find me sitting on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about....

Signed,
THE BOSS

We might be seeing more of this in the coming months and years, as the New Boss (same as the Old Boss) continues the War on Productivity. As this Wall Street Journal comment by Stephen Moore suggests, it is for some, just not worth all the trouble any more. Year after year, government increases taxes and regulation, shackling the productive to the point where an industrialist just might decide to take his money and trade it for a villa on a peaceful beach in the south of France.

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Requiem For A Hamburger

My love affair with hamburgers began as soon as I had my own money to spend. At the age of ten, I began selling the Grand Forks Herald on the streets of downtown. Only on rare occasions did I indulge myself with the burger-fries-Coke combination which cost, at the time, about forty-five cents. That, of course, was in the pre McDonald's midwest when a handmade hamburger came with lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle, and the other stuff if you wanted. Cheese was an extra nickle.

During my high school years and my stint in the Navy, I gradually became able to rival Popeye's buddy Wimpy as a hamburger connoisseur. I ate White Castles five at a time and Big Macs two at a time.

When I relocated to Orange County in 1968, I discovered Carl's Jr. That was it. One Superstar with cheese, fries and a Coke was about two bucks and it was a full lunch. You could watch the patties roll off the conveyor and be immediately slapped onto a bun already loaded with goodies. I think I must've eaten something like 300 Superstars a year for a few years.

I sort of upgraded by dining tastes a mite after I moved to San Diego. I was making more money and meeting a better class of feminine accompaniment, and I swerved away from hamburgers for a few years, in favor of steak, seafood, Mexican, Chinese, Cajun, Italian food and even the occasional New York Jewish deli sandwich.

After I came back to OC and LA, I spent more time with onsite field work, and lunches became more fast foody, I naturally returned to Carl's Jr for lunch much of the time.They weren't the same.

Carl Karcher started Carl's Jr in 1946, with a hot dog stand. He made money in an America and a California before the War on Productivity, and was able to reinvest part of his profits and build a hot dog and hamburger diners all over Orange County, and beyond. Some might remember the nice, clown-faced gentleman advertising on tv in the 1980's and 1990's. Carl Karcher.

He was a very conservative Catholic man, part of the old guard Orange County conservative majority that.....sort of lingers there to this day. In a GWB-inspired weakened state.

In the mid 1990's, I think it was, that the Karcher Ent board squeezed Carl out of the chairmanship of the enterprise he created. The quality of the Carl's Jr hamburger has been in decline ever since.

You don't get patties fresh off the conveyor any more. They sit in a pile and congeal until they are ordered. The meat doesn't smell good any more. The relatively new Six Dollar burgers are a little better--but only if you happen to get one whose patty was recently grilled.

After Mr Karcher's face disappeared from the tv screen, he was replaced by unkempt twenty-something louts who dribbled catsup down their shirts.

Like in Ayn Rand's America, Carl's Jr's motor has been stopped. Its motive power is grinding to a halt. It's really too bad that Carl didn't have a Dagny Karcher to keep the business going and advancing, but it wasn't to be. The heirs are apparently lawyers or marketing types, who care nothing for the product, just the corporate bottom line. If that sounds anti-capitalist on my part--it isn't. Making a "profit" by lowering the quality of the product is a very short-term, suicidal policy.

Sadly, Carl Karcher lived to see his empire enter its death throes. He passed away in January, almost a year ago, and the Carl's Jr burger chain will follow soon--unless somebody wakes up over there.

I had a hamburger for lunch today. It was not at Carl's Jr.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

I Guess I Can Fix Up the Old One

I drive an old 1957 Chevy. It's a hot rod, but it's reaching a need for some reconstructive work, and it can be made to get much better gas mileage with a few updates.

The plan was to buy a new car, put the ol' Chevy in the back yard and start wrenchin'. I'm not quite as enthusiastic about diving under the car as I used to be, but with the ability to take my time and do it right, it might be fun!

The Chevy needs transmission work, so my plan is to replace the three speed with a newer four speed overdrive transmission. The differential is wearing out, plus it has station wagon gears (similar to pickup gearing) and I can replace it with a newer one with sedan gearing. More gas mileage savings! New rear springs and new shocks.

I'll need to redo the windshield wipers and fix a few minor things in the dash. The power steering needs work. I could go on, but that's most of it.

So, I've been researching new and late model used cars that I can afford and that can carry my work tools. I'd settled on a Chevy HHR, with a second choice of a Dodge Magnum, if I can find a nice used one. Well, maybe the Dodge is my first choice. They're pretty cool.

Well, thanks to the whims of government parasites and the clutching hands of the non-productive of Stalag California, America's network of carmakers and dealerships will have to do without my money.

The non-productive of the Stalag have voted to saddle the productive with an additional 1/2% sales tax. Herr Schwarzengroper, Guber of the Stalag, seriously threatens to add yet another 1%, as well. That puts us on the high side of 10% sales tax on top of a 11% (more or less) state income tax.

The buck stops here. I can't quite angle my way to move out of the Stalag right now--though it's not for want of desire, but I can refuse to pay an extra $80 to to $240 for sales tax on it to pay for Sacramento's insane excesses.

I'd rather spend those thousands of dollars on the above-listed repairs to the ol' hot rod. I'll still have to pay sales tax on the parts--unless I buy them on the I-net, but labor and service work isn't subject to sales tax--yet.

I'll have the hot rod shop do the work--it'll cost more but get done much more quickly, and I'll still pay less than $100 a year for tags.

Mommas, don't let your babies grow up to be politicians!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

The Brain Drain Tax

Back in the 1960's, I recall #1 all time Hall O' Fame Science Fiction Writer Robert A Heinlein saying that as the United States drifts toward socialism, and as USSR is gradually forced to accept degrees of capitalism, USSR would surpass the US in the degree of freedom by, I think it was, approximately 1980. While part of sci-fi writers jobs is to suggest possible futures, this area is fraught with danger. While Heinlein came very close to being right, after President Reagan drove them broke trying to keep up with us in the arms race Russian President Vladimir Putin (Modern Russia's near-equivalent to Germany's Adolf Hitler), is now saying "we'll have no more of this freedom crap" or words of similar meaning.

Putin appears to be restarting the Cold War. That's a big danger now, because recent weak-kneed US Administrations have no will, nor do they really have enough extorted cash, to engage in such a battle. President-elect Obama gives indications that he'd rather switch than fight. Or, the masochist's version: he'd rather be switched than fight.

Meanwhile, the wheels of the bus go round and round, and the bus has long since turned left. We can thank every Administration since Reagan's for that. By the end of Obama's term, the argument may not be about who will win, but how the spoils will be divided, and whether it'll be Putin or Obama who'll be selected World Dictator for Life. These, of course, are merely pessimistic musings on my part. I hope I'm wrong.

The world's productive individuals, those of them who are not scrambling over each other's backs for government bailout cash, are wondering where they stand.

There's been a lot of banter on the net and probably in other venues about "going John Galt." Since entrepreneurs who earn $250k and over have been declared the enemy by Obama, it's no surprise that small business owners in that category, or are working toward that category, are concerned.

Some, according to this entry on the Instapundit blogsite, are planning to "relax." That is, simply lay off employees and work only hard enough to stay below that threshold.

Others speak of liquidating their assets and leaving the country. There are many parts of the world, while perhaps even more socialistic than the US, offer pleasant country areas in which an individual or family can live in peace, tinkering, painting or writing with out much interference from that government.

Well, it's going to be tougher to outsmart the Reich than it used to be. According to a New York Post story, Americans who want to leave America and to retire to Italy (for example) will have to pay a hefty tax.

Thanks can be given to a bill that passed Congress recently and was quietly signed by President Bush two weeks ago.

Called the Heroes Earnings Assistance and Relief Act of 2008 (the HEART bill, for short), the main part of the new law deservedly gives benefits to soldiers. But the last part of the bill, under "revenue provisions," sticks it to anyone who no longer wants to live the American dream.

Now, one has to be very crafty about getting his assets liquidated and removed from the country. Even British rock stars and Canadian actors will have to pay the tax to return to their own countries.

This, of course, is patterned directly after the taxes that needed to be paid by citizens of the USSR who wanted to expatriate during the Cold War. Which brings me back to Heinlein's prediction. Pay attention to science fiction writers. Sometimes they're right.

Tip of the old gray fedora to Noodle Food and Instapundit for

People should not be afraid of their governments; governments should be afraid of their people.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

A Lesson In Obamanomics

Doug Powers, writing in World Net Daily, explains redistribution of wealth from Joe the Plumber's point of view. As for me, I'll just sit back and let you enjoy the column.

Tip of the battered gray fedora to Kent C for tipping me off and yet again for the photo.

Remember, VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENT!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan

We Have To Do Something.....Anything....Even If It's Wrong!

Listening to the pundits on radio and tv, these past few day's, both before and after the already infamous vote to (further) socialize America's financial system, a number of things became painfully clear.

First and foremost, the overwhelming image scampering out of Washington DC is of "the blind leading the blind." The vast majority of those elected into national office, including the President, have no bloody idea what they're doing.

The conspiracy theorists among us would say that they're mere puppets, their strings being pulled by shadowy characters in ancient European castles or in hyper-exclusive upstate New York and New England country clubs. I have no way of knowing whether this is true, but the level of economic incompetence leads me to prefer the notion that they're just stupid.

It started with talking points: "It's not a bailout of Wall Street, it's a rescue of Main Street." This sentence, word for word, has been repeated by virtually every scatterbrained congressman and Senator; every media reporter and talking head for several days now. After the House rejected the measure the other day, the chorus that something must be done, NOW! became so intense that it could be heard with the radio and tv off.

The utterly irrelevant George Bush appeared on the air in a state of panic that far surpassed his stridency when trying to justify his screeching, skidding left turn into Iraq in the middle of his supposed search for the evil Osama bin Llama.

The Senate passed the bill, led by the very individuals who were most instrumental in the causing of the problem, and those who have embarrassing videos locked in the safety deposit boxes of other Senators.

The Siren song of doing something before the election--just to say something was done--proved to be too strong for many of the Congressfools who voted "nay" the first time, their fear of being turned out of office exceeding their desire to do something effective.

Now that the bill is signed (hand of Satan himself holding the pen), everyone starts the new chorus, saying that this bailout will not solve the problem, but will give Washington the financial world some breathing room until reform can be put together.

Say, WHAT?!

Shades of Atlas Shrugged!

.....And we all know that once the election is past, the whole thing will be forgotten and Senators Frank, Dodd, Schumer and all their cronies will still be receiving big campaign arm twistings which will somehow cleverly trickle into their personal bank accounts, and we'll have another big, earth-threatening crisis in a few years.

Nothing that will actually reflect sound economic policy will be considered.

I declare, I wonder where all this cynicism comes from!!

Remember: VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENT!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

The Current Attempted Ripoff Is Nothing New

The current attempt at "The Big Ripoff" of all productive Americans isn't without precedent. We've seen three or four of them in recent years, starting with the Chrysler Motors bailout of 1979.

Here's a particularly timely poem that fits today's situation every bit as well as it did when it was written, in 1936.

The Profits and Loss
By Berton Braley

From New Deal Ditties: or, Running in the Red with Roosevelt, 1936

When "planned economy" first began
It looked like a swell "idea" –
Until we learned it had no plan
And wasn't economee.

For the taxes rise and the budget's shot
And the New Deal costs are met
By spending money we haven't got
For things that we never get.

The Billions roll in mighty stream,
A regular tidal flood,
With the net result that each spending scheme
Bogs down in a sea of mud.

When plans and programs go all to pot
Do the New Deal planners fret?
Why no, they think up a brand new lot
Of schemes to spend what we haven't got
For things we will never get!

FDR managed to turn a banking crisis into a ten-year depression. Today's elected officeholders seem to be determined to repeat the process.

Tip of the old battered fedora to Diane Hseih at NoodleFood.

Remember: VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENT!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Freddie And Fanny Were Lovers.....

Now that the largest, most complex house of cards has collapsed, all of Washington, as well as the mainstream news media, is a) pointing fingers into space trying to avoid blaming those who caused the mess and b) proclaiming that the solution is MS, PhD (more of the same, piled higher and deeper). To protect the guilty, and to avoid having to deal with the real cause of the fiasco, the only proposal all seem to agree 'pon is to force productive Americans to foot the bill.

Thus continues the War on Productivity on the national level.

Nobody is suggesting making a list of all the Congressthieves, politically connected appointees and idle heirs, and, yes, especially the Presidents and Vice Presidents who have been in office and otherwise involved with the creation and corruption of these organizations (and I use the term very loosely), and emptying their bank accounts, pension funds, stock portfolios and selling their homes and other real estate holdings to pay for this mess.

They should be. That's much more nearly just than sticking it to innocent working individuals.

Much of the money in the accounts of the Washington thieving class are the ill-gotten gains from this very scam. Not to mention that the entire con scheme was financed by the taxes of the productive class.

I'm no economist, but I've read a little on the subject. A real economist (not one of the obfuscation economists of Washington DC, Sacramento and other outlaw hideouts), but someone who understands von Mises, Hazlitt, and their contemporaries and heirs can give far better answers than I.

I think, though, that most of them will agree with the following: We need the Federal Reserve abolished. The dollar must be attached with full convertibility to gold, silver, or some other suitable commodity. Senseless regulations must be lifted and individuals must take responsibility for their actions. There must be no involvement of government in banking, entrepreneurship and commerce.

Government must be barred (no pun) from entering areas in which it has no knowledge or expertise, and in which dishonest and unearned money can be skimmed. Government's only proper job is to protect the rights of all individuals and, by insinuating itself into areas in which it can do only harm, it's actually working to damage those rights and indeed, to destroy them.

If Americans don't act to rein the government in very soon, America will soon be over. In the 1930's, America had reserves to help pay for the economic problems government created. Today, we have none. We're borrowing our way out of problems, and the debt is huge. The paper is held by unfriendly governments, and it's just a matter of time before they call in the debt.

Remember: VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENTS!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California