The work-to-reward ratio has been in steady decline for decades, but may have shifted decisively and perhaps irreversibly since the bottom fell out in 2008. It’s bad enough (but still tolerable) when they take 35 percent of your income, but the remainder is sufficient to provide for the necessities plus some extras. When you can still comfortably indulge occasionally. But what happens when your income drops by a third or more – and they’re still taking 35 percent? Or more? And when the cost of necessities – gas, for example – has doubled during the same time?
All of a sudden, you find you’re working harder and longer for less. You notice there’s not time for much outside of work. Mainly, you’d just like to get some sleep – and now sweat the cost of groceries. Indulgences are a memory. Your stuff has become a burden(rant on that here).
I added it up recently.
I own two trucks (both older, the newest a 2002 model) and five motorcycles (the newest a 2003 model). Even so, I am still paying about $60 a year each to maintain “registration.” That’s $420 annually. Add in yearly state “safety” inspections ($15 each) plus the rancid “personal property” tax my state levies (ranges from $70 per on the low end to $150 on the high end) and I’m easily hemorrhaging $1,000 a year just to maintain the fiction that I “own” my vehicles.
Mind that this does not include insurance – which (legally) I am just as obliged to pay, though my money is filched for the benefit of a private mafia as opposed to the public one. If you include the cost to maintain insurance – and my costs are relatively low because I’m a married, middle-aged guy with a “clean” driving record, who owns older, paid-for vehicles and thus I can still choose a minimum-coverage/liability-only policy – the “cost to own” figure easily doubles.
Now, factor in the cost of gasoline – which has doubled. And motor oil and so on.
Owning – that is, being allowed temporary and conditional use of – a vehicle has become a pricey proposition.
And more than just that – it’s a hassle.
Is it any wonder more and more people – especially young people – are beginning to abandon ship? In researching my pending book about the end of America’s love affair with the car, I found a very interesting statistic: An all-time record high percentage of people in the 18-35 bracket have never had a driver’s license. Many of them, when asked, state that they have no desire to ever get one. They’d rather walk, or bicycle or use public (government) transportation.
Kids approaching 16 in prior times pined for the day when they could get their driver’s license – and their first car – almost as much as they ached to lose their virginity. It was a rite of passage – and much more importantly, it was about fun.
And freedom.
Not anymore.
And the reason why is obvious.
They – TPTB – have systematically sucked the fun out of driving with their ridiculous laws and over-the-top punishments (see for example my recent piece about “reckless” driving). Their fees and taxes and mandates and so on have imposed stultifying costs that have made owning a car a 3,200 pound albatross of debt and expense that smarter people are beginning to realize just ain’t worth it.
And that is exactly what was intended.
You’ve probably heard about Agenda 21 – the U.N. blueprint for consolidating the proletariat (that’s us) into urban “cores” where we can be more easily handled. The first critical step toward that end is getting us out of our cars and the best way to do that is to get us to loathe our cars. To make us sick and tired of driving, period. This method is infinitely more effective than passing laws directly forbidding us to to drive. The subtler route is to pass laws telling us that driving at reasonable velocities is “speeding” – and subject us to constant harassment by cops and endless mulcting by insurance mafiosi. Tell us we must wear seatbelts – and that we have to spend 5-10 minutes before every trip (even if it’s just a 5 minute trip to the store down the road) strapping not just our infants but our five-year-olds into Hannibal Lecter-esque “safety” seats . . . that we’ll be taxed by mile, with government (and insurance bed buddies) tracking us all the way… it begins to grind.
Acquiring a license has become torturous – a Byzantine ordeal that, of course, has very little to do with learning how to control a car and a lot to do with learning that one must obey, obey, obey. Teens may not drive after dark, or with other teens in the car. Which pretty much makes driving pointless.
Or rather, not much fun.
Which is exactly the point.
A week ago I wrote about a fellow car journalist who got jail time for the High Crime of driving 93 MPH in a new Camaro ZL1 (see here). What the hell is the point of owning a car like the Camaro ZL1 if you are not allowed to drive it faster than 80 MPH anywhere (in my state) without incurring a possible jail sentence? It’s like being a young, good-looking guy who’s allowed to go to a party with lots of good-looking young girls around… but told he risks huge fines and even a stay at Hotel Graybar if he does more than talk with any of them.
“Frustrating” doesn’t begin to cover it.
It’s brilliant, this indirect death by a thousand cuts. What people like the infamous Cass Sunstein, one of Obama’s string-pullers, call nudging (see here). That is, using negative incentives – offers you can’t refuse – to push the cattle (that’s us) in the desired direction. To get us out of our cars, for instance – and into “public” (government) transportation.
Not by illegalizing cars or driving, per se.
But but making it miserable and exorbitantly expensive to own a car and to drive. After a certain point, most of us will give up our keys voluntarily . . . eagerly.
Mission Accomplished.
Throw it in the Woods?
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I’ve owned my own small software business for many years. The government “cut” has been so high in recent years that I am beginning to wonder what the point is. Especially when I see the takers I’m supporting living lifestyles nearly as good as mine but with a whole lot more free time. But the thing I wonder is this: as the number of producers like me decreases, and the number of takers increases – how are they expecting the whole thing to be funded?
That’s the beauty of it, Robert, the system will implode, just because it is unsustainable. We’re starting to see the cracks already! First they chase all of our industry away and make it so that only a lunatic would start a business here today…..then they just keep taking more and more…and using more strong-arm tactics, as the people start to wake up, so that few can resist.
If you’ve read it, read Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”- written 60 years ago by a woman who grew up in Soviet Russia, and whose family was forced out of their business there…..it paints exactly what is taking place here today- you see themes from the book in the news headlines every day. It’s amazing- and it’s like the pols are following a script from the book!
Dear Robert, Moleman,
“That’s the beauty of it, Robert, the system will implode, just because it is unsustainable. ”
Indeed.
Stein was the formulator of “Herbert Stein’s Law,” which he expressed as “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop,” by which he meant that if a trend (balance of payments deficits in his example) cannot go on forever, there is no need for action or a program to make it stop, much less to make it stop immediately; it will stop of its own accord.[2] It is often rephrased as: “Trends that can’t continue, won’t.”
Fire can’t help but burn.
Economic man can’t stop himself from swindling. It’s in his blood, part of his DNA.
Wonder if that’s the descendants of Caine or Able? Which is economic, which is true human?
Robert,
What I believe in my darker moments, and no one even here wants to consider, is that “THEY” (who control the takers) will FORCE you to “Pay Your Fair Share.” It will be a “life-debt” you owe the Government Collective for the privilege of being born. You’ll be put to work somewhere, somehow, and WHEN (not if) you fail to make the “correct decisions” with “your” resources (I.E., pay off the assigned “life debt”), you’ll be chipped and turned into an organic robot, an assebly-line worker, destroying the very society you were duped into wanting to support. Think “Continuum” as an example. That Life Debt will be a bill like any other, you’ll be forced to pay it FIRST, eating will be secondary. It’ll be (pulling a number out) $1 million. Chelsea Clinton could’ve paid that off by now; I might be halfway, IF I ignored everything else, like friends, family, food, car. The average income? Would pass debt on to their children. Upper Middle class? Maybe a chance to pay off their own debt, like me. Someone who really WORKS for a living? Not a prayer.
But those with Pull? Those who earn millions every year? NO PROBLEM!!! They’ll buy a small island, too…. Maybe Cuba. Or the STATE of Hawaii.
You see, those who legislate, those who Decide, those who Plan – THEY are the producers. Those of us who make something with our hands, or using keyboards, even? WE are the worthless eaters. We could be replaced by machines… But machines still have too high a TCO, organics – ie, humans – are cheaper to create (we do it for free.) And then we “take care of” ourselves, whereas slaves had to be housed, fed, clothed, and cared for… But the organic robot, being a worthless eater, can be told he is in control of his own life… and if he fails to be the next Charles Barclay, Ray Rice, or even Warren Buffet, it’s because HE isn’t good enough. (Some of which is true, but Buffet doesn’t make most people’s top 10, and many people want the WEALTH without the discipline to make it or keep or, and without the WORK of making it or keepign it. They want to buy Stock X for 5 cents a chare, and sell it tomorrow at $500 dollars a share… and they’d be broke again by the following month.
So, ultimately, the answer to your question is, they expect YOU to pay for it, and will FORCE you to pay for it eventually…
but they’ll make you think it was YOUR idea. The Rich must pay their fair share. It’s SO EASY to pay my bills online. SO CONVENIENT to have a GPS built into my phone…. Etc.
Like how it’s so convenient to have the cop able to “smell marijuana” from across the highway, going the other direction…. Or “see the seatbelt was not in use” from oncoming traffic, at night, on a suspension bridge… (Happened to a friend of mine, I shit you not, and this was 10 years ago! The judge said the cop couldn’t be wrong, basically.)
The same basic techniques are always in play, human greed and pride, and the animalistic need for deference to authority, whether it be Sky god or FSM or “science!” is irrelevant. “The Rich” were the original target of income tax. 2%. Now, the Rich is defined to be anyone who EARNS (via paycheck) over $75,000 / year, GROSS. And it’s 33%, off the top, before the money makes it to you. At all levels. That’s ONLY the federal…. And we STILL scream that the “rich” don’t pay their fair share. (and that’s even somewhat true, but since we don’t control the words, those making the laws exempt themselves from said law, and continue to screw everyone else, whom they have defined as “the rich.”)
If the Clintons were “Broke” earning only $1 million their first year out of office….? how is someone earning $25K/year supposed to live? That’s BEFORE you add in planned obsolescence.
Everyone looks around and says, “Well, I’m only one man, what can _I_ do?”
There are only so many bureaucrats, only so many SS agents, only so much protection possible. Hold the offenders responsible. Donate time and money to subversive causes (from their opposition, to the ALF and such.) Live off-grid as much as possible. And understand THEY won’t change unless it’s in their best interest. Survival’s a great motivator, but – as with the Kamikaze pilot – it CAN be overcome.
And they can be burned, poisoned, etc, or you can obtain other leverage – I.E., pull of the PRACTICAL kind. Set backfires, basically, to contain their damage, using the courts to tie them up. Using random “kids” (“Disaffected youths”?) to destroy the construction equipment… Karo syrup is cheap, insert it into the corporate machines, don’t touch any rigs… they may be private… The kids get “street cred”, they won’t serve time for childish pranks, if you’re involved in the gov’t you can also mess with zoning, or send corrupt inspectors to check carefully… And they ALWAYS find something wrong, which then drains the corporate coffers….
Be aware, that works both ways – you’ll pay higher prices for everything, too. For example, they’re VERY good about ticketing people here in Boston. You see the UPS truck with three parking tickets on the windshield… the Postal Service truck has one…. the HVAC, contractor, NStar (Utilities), etc, EVERYONE has a ticket or three. It all goes into “Cost of Doing Business.” Which means higher prices for all of us.
But if you can’t bankrupt or dissuade them, ASSIST them on their path to hell. As Clan Wolf Khan Ulrich Kerensky (Battletech) put it, when he – as a Warden, a “protect the inner spehere of humanity” type – was forced to take point and lead the charge to conquer the inner sphere (the Crusaders’ faction of the clans) – “We out-Crusade the Crusaders.” IE, we don’t beat them at their own game, we make them MISERABLE in their failures, show them we are superior in EVERY way, and we do that by better planning, better logistics, better treatment of those we conquer, faster movement, and more careful combat.
Long story short, he’d have ships pop in-system, dump supplies, for a few months of operations, and then move on – while leaving minimal forces for military occupation, but leaving the worlds “conquered”, allowing the soldiers to trade with the locals for what they needed with “chits” redeemable for equal-or-greater-value merchandise which was inbound, but not yet present – and then honoring the chits, of course. Strategy left local politicians in place, and the rules essentially unchanged – to the people, only the flag changed.
So the people enjoyed their bread and circuses, while the clan leap-frogged the minor worlds, taking a handful of major posts.
the wolves were the best clan for (a) conquering worlds, (b) minimizing death and destruction, and (c) keeping the peace even after the combat was done. All the Crusader clans had to leave garrisons of troops; Wolves just had a company or so, enough to blunt any offensive and buy time, and since the populace had their home and their “bread and ciruses” and were treated like PEOPLE instead of dogs, that one company was adequate. The Police and Elected Officials were locals… Insurrection against your fellow “Americans” was mostly unthinkable.
About where we are now, actually, only we have to think as the OCCUPIED PEOPLES and realize, THEY have perverted the words: “AMERIKAN” is not the same as “American.” USSA is more like USSR than USA.
And you gotta pay for it either way.
So be a nice house nigga, bow and step and fetchit, and piss in massa’s coffee any chance you get.
You’re not the first, won’t be the last, and BTW, THEY expect/suspect you of it anyway.
Friend of mine, his father was a nuclear engineer. He found out he could earn more running a trucking company than by working in his field. His trucking company is doing well, but the nuclear field needs people.
Makes you wonder, why won’t THEY pay what we’re worth?
H1Bs, maybe?
Illegals?
Or are they done conquering the country, fifth-columned it from within – and now they’re working to control our minds and souls, too?
Dear skunkbear et. al.
Check out this atomic wedgie to the statist buttcracks article by John Taylor Gatto.
Set your irony detector to the on position. If you find yourself inclined to dismiss the below as paranoid, you should know that the design behind the current American school system is very well-documented historically, in published writings of dizzying cynicism by such well-known figures as Horace Mann and Andrew Carnegie…
The Six Lessons Schoolteacher’s Teach
http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html
The first lesson I teach is: “Stay in the class where you belong.” I don’t know who decides that my kids belong there but that’s not my business.
The children are numbered so that if any get away they can be returned to the right class. Over the years it’s become hard to see the human being under the burden of the numbers each carries.
Numbering children is a big and very profitable business, but in any case, again, that’s not my business. My job is to make the kids like it — being locked in together, I mean.
If things go well, the kids can’t imagine themselves anywhere else; they envy and fear the better classes and have contempt for the dumber classes.
The class mostly keeps itself in good marching order. That’s the real lesson of any rigged competition like school. You come to know your place.
– I would love to see a version this about the auto industry “achievements”, safety agency “achievements” and other areas of Eric’s expertise. As well as the many other experts here in attendance.
The six services govt provides
The six benefits of the automotive oligarchy mergers
The six achievements of auto regulators
The six benefits of the GM bailout
The six benefits to keeping us safe
The six accomplishments of american world leadership
TOR, I have been a big fan of John Taylor Gatto for quite some time.
Nothing occurs by chance…
That JTG six lessons link has everything one needs to begin to ameliorate ones own weaknesses and mental mutilations.
The solutions now under discussion are a great irrelevancy.
None of this neoprussianism is inevitable, you know. None of it is impregnable to change. We do have a choice in how we bring up young people; there is no right way. There is no “international competition” that compels our existence, difficult as it is to even think about in the face of a constant media barrage of myth to the contrary.
In every important material respect our nation is self-sufficient. If we gained a non-material philosophy that found meaning where it is genuinely located — in families, friends, the passage of seasons, in nature, in simple ceremonies and rituals, in curiosity, generosity, compassion, and service to others, in a decent independence and privacy – then we would be truly self-sufficient.
– what’s sadly ironic, is JTG doesn’t quite walk his own talk. He’s prole-blind. He’s the gateway. He’s identified the palliative drug. But he’s not synthesizing and distributing this new miracle drug. Why does he advocate changing the nation. Who cares if its self-sufficient or not. It’s already gravely wounded and injured us all, as he’s pointed out quite convincingly.
To restate JTG more proscriptively:
We do have a choice in how we bring up the young people we encounter; there is no right way. There is no “international competition” that compels the existence of the statist quo, so stop trying to repair and propagate the current statist quo. Difficult as it is to even think individually in the face of a constant economic and media barrage of myth to the contrary.
The American machine is broken. The American machine still functions. One of these statements is true. But it doesn’t matter which. You needn’t be a part of the American machine. Or any machine for that matter. JTG is your medicine man. He has seen the cure.
In every important material respect, in every geographic locale of the unitedState. There is an easily assembled remnant of men who can learn to cooperate with each other and become self-sufficient.
If each of these new social groups invent and tramsmit a shared non-material philosophy that finds meaning where it might genuinely be located. In this new community’s families, friends, in the passage of seasons, in nature and industry, in simple gatherings and diversions, in curiosity, generosity, compassion, and providing and exchanging value with others, in a decent independence and privacy — then many of these new social groups can become truly self-sufficient.
There is no one to ask for permission for this. Like being a prepper, it’s just something you must do. Being a successful prepper is not nearly enough, however. As you prep to survive without authoritarians. And gain in independence from them. Why wait for any manner of Shit to hit any currently existing Fan.
Why not start your own shit. Why not build your own fan. Make friends and acquaintenances. And together develop an ad hoc prepper economy just like primitive men once did naturally. That way you can all be your own shit. Be your fans.
Yes, here here for JTG.
Here in the “Free State” of Maryland, the state comptroller is suggesting that the legislature consider delaying the start of the school year in the future. He thinks waiting until after Labor Day (when no one works?) will benefit the tourist portion of the economy.
I have a better idea, delay the start of the school year until after Christmas, and end it before New Years. Then declare that week a holiday.
i likes it. its bix good.
yeeeesh. when my family insisted we move to vegas enn vee, the other option I was given was baltimore emm dee.
safe routes to school via jumbo painted sidewalk footprints
http://www.abc2news.com/news/region/baltimore-city/safe-routes-to-school-program-announced-in-baltimore
whack whitey newscaster be telepromptin with sharpton sing songy speak
0:03 – 0:08
@-yund now a noo effert in Baltamoor sity is ment 2 in shewer yore kidst arr saif everuh single DAAAAYuhhhh! …
jes follow da big footprints keeyids til yas bees gets 2 da skewull
http://www.abc2news.com/news/region/baltimore-city/safe-routes-to-school-program-announced-in-baltimore
holy hip hopping sharptonian ebonenglish bat man!
The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.”
“What a chimaera then is man, what a novelty, what a monster, what chaos, what a subject of contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, yet an imbecile earthworm; depository of truth, yet a sewer of uncertainty and error; pride and refuse of the universe. Who shall resolve this tangle?”
“We run carelessly over the precipice after having put something in front of us to prevent us seeing it.”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées 1670
Dear skunkbear, Larry,
I mean to mirror back what you’re saying, and what we’re almost all saying, and then to refute us all and negate nearly everything we’ve been holding onto out of habit.
Insanity means attacking statists in the same way. This hasn’t worked yet, why will it ever? Some new way is needed. Certainly not my way in particular. But something new. Maybe something we’re already thinking but haven’t yet articulated.
My idea is to use Nassim Taleb’s barbell approach*. Instead of a gradation of bad to worse social evils. Let’s agree there is only one supreme super-evil which must be dealt with to the exclusion of all else. Let’s cultivate a rabid hatred and vitriolic intolerance for statist control-freakism.
And let everything else alone. Let lesser evils fester. Let the other shit slide on down the slippery slopes, let others attack the obvious and agreed upon targets. Let’s deal instead only with the root of the problem exclusively.
Maybe learn to think/exist the way plants do. They don’t even have brains, but they use chemical signals and learn to grow where the light and nutrients are. Sounds like what we need. We can’t grow and survive anywhere near the statists. So we let those parts of us die and wither away. We instead send out new shoots and grow somewhere else away from the state.
This means skanks, mindless TV watching zombies, soda guzzling swine, and all other lumpen proles not part of the state are to be well-treated and thought of as equals and even best friend brethren who as long as they don’t turn statist, we keep with us always.
Lumpen Prole Life: Youthful rejection of the left, and an embracement of egoist anarchism
http://lumpenprolelife.blogspot.com/
*Antifragile Heuristic 34 (Barbell, Jensen’s Inequality): Underreact most of the time, overreact mercilessly on the occasion, going for the jugular, and people will will leave you alone. Fughetabout “measured” reactions. Be unpredictable.
***
From FBR (2001). This point has applications in evolutionary biology, evolutionary game theory, and conflict situations. A mild degree of unpredictability in your behavior can help you to protect yourself in situations of conflict.
Say you always have the same threshold of reactions. You take a set level of abuse before getting into a rage and punching the offender in the nose. Such predictability will allow people to take advantage of you up to that well-known trigger point and stop there.
But if you randomize your trigger point, sometimes overreacting at the slightest joke, people will not know in advance how far they can push you. The same applies to governments in conflicts: They need to convince their adversaries that they are crazy enough to sometimes overreact to a small peccadillo. Even the magnitude of their reaction should be hard to foretell. Unpredictability is a strong deterrent.
Dear Tor,
“But if you randomize your trigger point, sometimes overreacting at the slightest joke, people will not know in advance how far they can push you. ”
The “North Korean Strategy.” It works!
ha. I wonder what real north korean individual’s and social group strategies are. Says a lot about the skewed anglospherical worldview that all that is known of these 25 million is Warmongering Accusations regarding their nation plantation guards.
One Free Korea Blog
http://freekorea.us/
whoever this guy is, if something isn’t connected to nationstatery, it doesn’t exist. I doubt the modern day Goguryeons are nearly that statist.
3 Kingdoms of Korea
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Kingdoms_of_Korea
On August 22, 1910, the Korean Empire was annexed by Japan with the forced Japan–Korea Annexation Treaty, beginning a 35-year period of Japanese colonial rule which stripped Korea’s sovereignty.
Prior to the Korean Empire, several dynastic rulers of Gojoseon, Buyeo, Goguryeo, Silla, Baekje, Balhae, and Goryeo claimed the right to imperial status and used imperial titles at one time or another.
State prostitution – Kippumjo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_North_Korea#State_prostitution
The North Korean government engages in forced prostitution. Its prostitutes are known as manjokcho (“satisfaction team(s)”) and are organised as a part of the kippŭmjo, who are drafted from among 14 to 20 year old virgins, trained for about 20 months, and often “ordered to marry guards of [Kim Jong-il] or national heroes” when they are 25 years old.
For a girl selected to serve in the kippŭmjo, it is impossible to refuse, even if she is the daughter of a party official. Manjokcho must have sex with male high-ranking party officials. Their services are not available to most North Korean men. Not all kippŭmjo work as prostitutes—other kippŭmjo activities are massaging and half-naked singing and dancing.
Enter PyongYang
http://vimeo.com/102051605
city-branding pioneer JT Singh and flow-motion videographer Rob Whitworth. Blend time-lapse photography, acceleration and slow motion, HD and digital animation, producing a cutting‐edge panorama of a city hardly known.
TOR, as usual you offer much to ponder upon and I shall.
Overall I can certainly agree with you especially on the point that it is a waste of time trying to engage in the usual attempts of reason with any statist, left or right.
“Let’s agree there is only one supreme super-evil which must be dealt with to the exclusion of all else. Let’s cultivate a rabid hatred and vitriolic intolerance for statist control-freakism.”
Fully agree. I suggest that in order to stop evil we must first identify exactly what is evil.
I argue that evil is nothing more than the opposite of practicing “The Golden Rule” (I am an atheist, TGR was around way before JC showed up).
And on this simple argument I propose to wage the fight because statism is based on the exact opposite of TGR. This is the lynchpin that must be pulled IMHO.
I agree too that some of the youth are indeed encouraging. While I do not agree with nihilism (it’s too exhausting) I do like the basic attitude many young people have about refusing to be raised as the next generation of US amerikan consumption monkeys.
(One can only imagine what will happen when these youths will inevitably be drafted to feed the US amerikan war machine in the next war – planned and coming soon!)
And FTR in my original post I was not trying to disparage the skanks but rather those who over invest their lives into the trivial.
Indeed, I often wonder if these skanks are not just savvy entrepreneurs seeing their opportunities and taking the rubes for everything they can. Act like a fool to take the real fools’ money. As Dillinger responded when asked why he robbed banks – “Because that is where the money is”.
Cher Monsieur Skunkbear,
Sorry I cherrypicked and didn’t address your response fully. I still won’t Because I’m Crappy But I think y’all’ve gathered that and made peace with it.
I embrace your more fully realized idea completely. What to call the opposite of TGR??
Perhaps it should be called “The Fool’s Golden Rule”?
Absolutely, we must lynch/pin the statists, but ASAPUZAP. as soon as possible under zero aggression.
Skank prays to not be chosen
– I tried to be a nihilist – but hey! – squirrels!
TOR, loved all the links! Thanks.
I am willing to bet that somewhere out there in US amerika there is some college with a course on “The Original Looney Tunes and Sexism, Racism, Speech Impediment Intolerance, Acme’s Secret Corporate War against Native American Coyotes, and LGBTVTG Bigotry 101”
I think it may be ironic but being crappy while also being happy about it seems to be a benefit of getting older.
And I do not know if I ever apologized about it before or not but when I first came to this website I thought you were tripping on some great shrooms. I realize I was wrong and that you have great insight albeit not easily understandable.
Note to newbies to EPA: relax your thinking, do not chase TOR. Let his thoughts come to you.
Respect.
Rank-State Population-PerSqMile
14-Virginia 8,260,405-209
42-New Hampshire 1,323,459-148
43-Rhode Island 1,051,511-1017
44-Montana 1,015,165-7
45-Delaware 925,749-475
46-South Dakota 844,877-11
47-Alaska 735,132-1.3
48-North Dakota 723,393-11
49-Vermont 626,630-68
50-Wyoming 582,658-6
Keene – New Hampshire °F
__________________ Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun
Average high in °F: 31 35 44 58 70 78
Average low in °F: 9 12 20 32 42 52
Average snow inch: 16 12 10 2 _________
__________________ Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Average high in °F: 83 81 73 61 48 36
Average low in °F: 57 55 47 35 27 17
Average snow inch:___________________ 3 12
Roanoke – Virginia °F
__________________ Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun
Average high in °F: 46 49 58 68 76 83
Average low in °F: 28 30 37 45 53 62
Average snow inch: 6 6 2 1 _________
__________________ Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Average high in °F: 87 86 78 69 59 48
Average low in °F: 66 65 58 47 38 30
Average snow inch: ___________________ 1 4
Free State Project in Grafton, NH
http://www.dailypaul.com/315086/free-state-project-gets-bad-rap-in-new-hampshire
NH – BOWW
http://www.concordmonitor.com/home/9644894-95/nhs-brotherhood-of-white-warriors-part-1-origins
August 2 2014 FSP Board Meeting Minutes
http://freestateproject.org/blogs/board-minutes/august-2-2014-board-meeting-minutes
Newly Neutered FSP Mission Statement
The Free State Project is an agreement among 20,000 pro-liberty activists to move to New Hampshire, where they will exert the fullest practical effort toward the creation of a society in which the maximum role of government is the protection of life, liberty, and property.
The success of the Project would likely entail reductions in taxation and regulation, reforms at all levels of government to expand individual rights and free markets, and a restoration of constitutional federalism, demonstrating the benefits of liberty to the rest of the nation and the world.Once the three bold golliwogs, Golly, Woggie, and Nigger, decided to go for a walk to Bumble-Bee Common.
Golly wasn’t quite ready so Woggie and Nigger said they would start off without him, and Golly would catch them up as soon as he could. So off went Woogie and Nigger, arm-in-arm, singing merrily their favourite song — which, as you may guess, was Ten Little Nigger Boys.(p. 51)
10 Little Nigger Boys – Old Racist Nursery Rhymes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3ghsO5Avcs
The Golli-Wog Caricature – Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia
http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/golliwog/
AmeriWogs vs. AussieFags
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQDVmpoKmJA
The myth of authority – We are all pieces of shit existing on a fucking rock floating around in fucking space – Chuck Marx
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNnQbGKlb7k
Wogs vs Aussies Rap Battle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Cv2LqZwQUs
What Welshmen do when they’re bored
The Story of Robbie Burns
Oz Festival Celebration of Celtic Culture and Friendship
The Celtic Corridor
Billy Connolly on Scottish independence
Break all the chains and gates. Bid farewell to nation states. Stow all the games and hate. Your true life and fate awaits. Apart from their lies. Farewell to arms. To nation States. To Scotland the Brave. Dropkick Murphys.
Gaudete, Gaudete, Christus est natus. Ex Maria Virgine, Gaudete! Tempus adest gratiae. Hoc quod optabamus, Carmina laetitiae. Devote reddamus.
Deus homo factus est, Natura mirante, Mundus renovatus est, A Christo regnante. Ergo nostra contio. Psallat jam in lustro, Benedicat domino, Salus Regi nostro.
Meth Nats limit their scientific research to the study of natural causes, any attempts to define causal relationships with the supernatural are unproductive and terminate in a scientific dead end
Don’t Want Me to Recline My Airline Seat? You Can Pay Me
Meth Indivs believe sociological theory must be based upon a model of human action. This interpretation imposes the constraint of a model of rational human action. Meth Indivs treat all irrational, affectually determined elements of behavior as factors of deviation from a conceptually pure type of rational action rational action theory at the core of social-scientific inquiry.
Social theorists seek to bring about the methodological unification of the social sciences by producing a – general theory of action – one that broadens the economic model of action in such a way as to incorporate the central action-theoretic insights of sociologists, anthropologists, and psychologists.
Doctor Who Season 7 Episode 1 Asylum of the Daleks
Darla: I have a daughter. She’s in a Dalek prison camp. They say you can help.
The Doctor: If your daughter’s in a Dalek prison camp, tell me, why aren’t you?
Darla: I escaped.
The Doctor laughing: No. Nobody escapes the Dalek camps. You’re very cold. {he feels her face}
Darla: What’s wrong?
The Doctor: It’s a trap.
Darla: What is?
The Doctor: You are. And you don’t even know it. {she partially transforms into a Dalek and shoots him}
Driving fast cars. Shopping in bountiful stores. Imagining new technologies and how things are getting better. Watching and surfing real life on screens. Manipulating machinery and technology and calling it work. Pointing remotes and typing commands and comments about my imagined real life to each of you here on keyboards. I see my family and most everyone I know living in delusional dreams because the truth of their existence is too terrible to admit.
Embracing my loved ones skin amalgam metal exoskeletons and imagining they’re still free beings made of flesh is only a cold comfort. Sometimes they flicker and revert back to their former selves, but then it fades. Cold fact is my family is mostly a bunch of Daleks. Almost everyone I know has been converted to a Dalek. Only those new acquaintances when first met, for at least a short while seem human and real. This too soon fades.
Soon you notice the patterns, the glitches, the repetitions. The harsh treble staccato rote intonations. The illusion is broken. The lie is laid bare. We were all once young, supple, and real humans full of life, but growing civilized and mature has meant becoming compliant and reliable. Meant becoming Daleks in disguise. As the Human/Dalek ratio devolves, the disguises grow thinner and sometimes non-existent. Mutants in Shells Who Demand: Stay. Where. You. Are. You. Are. Our. Assigned. Provider. Give. Pay. Comply. Obey.
The truth is you are a Dalek, Oswin! – Doctor Who – Asylum of the Daleks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epc-Z974eiQ
Asylum of the Daleks – Script
DOCTOR [on screen]: It’s a dream, Oswin. You dreamed it for yourself because the truth was too terrible.
OSWIN: Where am I?
(A Dalek has chains draped over it.)
DALEK: Where am I? Where am I?
DOCTOR: Because the truth is you are a Dalek.
OSWIN: I am not a
DALEK: Dalek. I am not a Dalek!
OSWIN: I’m human.
DOCTOR: You were human when you crashed here. It was you who climbed out of the pod. That was your ladder.
OSWIN [memory]: Where am I? Where am I? Where am I?
OSWIN: You mean?
DALEK: Human.
DOCTOR: Not any more. Because you’re right. You’re a genius. And the Daleks need genius. They didn’t just make you a puppet, they did a full conversion.
DOCTOR [on screen]: Oswin, I am so sorry, but you are a Dalek. The milk, Oswin. The milk and the eggs for the soufflés. Where, where did it all come from?
OSWIN [memory]: Eggs. I’m human. I am not a Dalek, I am human. I am not Dalek, I am human!
DALEK: Eggs.
DOCTOR: It wasn’t real. It was never real.
OSWIN [memory]: I am a Dalek. I am a Dalek.
OSWIN + DALEK: Eggs.
DOCTOR: Oswin. No, no, no, Oswin. Oswin.
DALEK: Exterminate!
DOCTOR: Listen. Oswin, you don’t have to do this.
DALEK: Exterminate!
DOCTOR [on screen]: Oswin!
(Oswin is crying.)
OSWIN: Why do they hate you
DALEK: So much? They hate you so much. Why?
DOCTOR: I fought them many, many times.
DALEK: We have grown stronger in fear of you.
DOCTOR: I know. I tried to stop.
OSWIN: Then run.
DOCTOR [on screen]: What did you say?
OSWIN: I’ve taken down the forcefield.
DOCTOR [on screen]: Oswin, are you
OSWIN: I am Oswin Oswald. I fought the Daleks and I am
DALEK: Human! Remember me.
DOCTOR: Thank you.
DALEK: Run!
OSWIN: Run, you clever boy. And remember.
http://www.chakoteya.net/doctorwho/33-1.htm
Tor,
That is why I’ve long been a loner. It seems everyone you meet- even those who speak against tyranny- are participating in/desirous of participating in some gov’t program/scheme – i.e. a Tea Partier wants to start a business…is playing with the SBA; A guy who fancies himself a real estate tycoon signs up for HUD subsidies; the farmer signs his land up for CRP; the guy with the kooky daughter gets a crazy-check for her, and 1000 other gov’t services…then has the cops/social workers at his house every other day/and can’t leave the state, because he can’t the daughter away from their “help”…. it goes on and on! -And thyese are the people who seem like allies of freedom- can you imagine the liberals and out-right socialists?!
And then everyone has a cell phone/tracking device/GPS/Facebook glued to their hands. Totally disgusting!
This is why even a total collapse of the system will not result in the freedom which some are expecting- because it is the people who have fostered and supported the tyranny we see; and those people have learned nothing from the past; and they will not be educated/changed by the present or future.
That new law in TN that Helot mentioned…you can sure that 99% of the residents of TN will think that it is good; and the rest of the country will quickly follow suit. They truly love Big Brother.
VASTRA: Truth is singular. Lies are words, words, words. You met the Doctor, didn’t you?
CLARA: Yes.
VASTRA: The Doctor doesn’t help people. Not anyone, not ever. He stands above this world and doesn’t interfere in the affairs of its inhabitants. He is not your salvation, nor your protector. Do you understand what I am saying to you?
CLARA: Words.
VASTRA: He was different once, a long time ago. Kind, yes. A hero, even. A saver of worlds. But he suffered losses which hurt him. Now he prefers isolation to the possibility of pain’s return. Kindly choose a word to indicate your understanding of this.
CLARA: Man.
VASTRA: We are the Doctor’s friends. We assist him in his isolation but that does not mean we approve of it. So, a test for you. Give me a message for the Doctor. But do it in one word. You’re thinking it is impossible that such a word exists, or that you could even find it. Let’s see if the gods are with you.
Moleman, you got it alright. We have one of the worst CPS’s in Tx. and what they want in Tn is already here. I know a girl(20 or so)who had a baby a year and a half ago. She is really small and skinny but things went ok except they said she had traces of pot in her system. Somehow she slid by on this since there is some level they need to screw you over.
She doesn’t have her tubes tied but later(at taxpayer expense…..but I’m glad to pay for it)wants the procedure. The doctor who performed it didn’t know shit and screwed her up to the point she almost died…..for many months. She couldn’t nurse since she was clinging to life herself and the hospital and doctor can’t be sued due to recent legislative laws passed by that crazy Republican bunch who controls this state. We still don’t know if she’ll live and things don’t look good for her having any decent life from now on. All this, simply because doc wanted to make big bucks doing something he had no skills to do. He was and is, totally incompetent, but protected by the state. Meanwhile, not only does this little girl and her little girl have the state to fear but both have the medical establishment to fear also. This is inexcusable but it happens countless times every day. The tipping point is when it finally becomes so obvious the rest of the sheeple can’t stand it. It’s going to get much worse before it ever gets better. The media is controlled completely by the state and so, few bother researching anything beyond what horseface or “Brian the reassuring” tell them on tv. For what it’s worth, I’d like to point out that all 5 or 6 depending on how you rank them, major media networks are owned by Zionist Jews, those who support anything Israel does. Hmm, seems to be a pattern. And then there are those banksters……..
The masses won’t research it. They won’t look. And they get angry at people who do, summarize it for them, and give them the cliff notes all free of charge. They’d rather hold on to the government created illusion.
Dear Brent,
“The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see.”
— Ayn Rand
I know. I’ve repeated it a few times. But it bears repeating.
What happens when you send a Dalek to cosmetology school?
Exfoliate! Exfoliate!
Phillip the Bruce ,
Excellent. 🙂
For that joke you get a gold star. Apologies fir the used condition.
I wonder about the, “Tipping Point?”
Seems like things need to go Over The Edge before People wake up?
The spooky thing to me is, what if this is Only the beginning?:
“Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam (R) has approved a measure that will allow Tennessee to bring criminal charges against pregnant women who use drugs for potentially harming their fetuses, even though there isn’t conclusive scientific evidence that being exposed to illicit drugs in the womb causes long-term harm to children.”
And, How the fuck do they prove that?
The gunvernment has decided, it owns Everyone.
Helot, they’ll employ their favourite costumed goons to do cavity (womb) searches roadside.
Helot, they don’t have to prove it. Most cases never even go to trial. They just lob a bunch of charges against someone, and then plea bargain. The poor sap that these elected criminals lob the charges against usually take the plea- right or wrong; innocent or guilty, ’cause they don’t know how/can’t afford to defend themselves; and faced with some draconian sentence for having committed a non-crime….well, you know how it goes.
If it does go to trial- good luck. A jury of their peers would happily convict them for smoking a joint, even if the penalty were death by firing squad. Just prove that they used drugs…and they’re toast in front of most juries.
Which brings me to my point about the “tipping point”: Even when the system collapses, which it will- don’t hold your breath, because the population will still be made-up of the same people who voted for all this crap, and who took paychecks to be gov’t goons. Thdy’ll just errect a similar or worse thing- only this time without even the benefit of a Bill Of Rights. Their response to the anarchy which may briefly ensue after the crash, -will be tyranny.
Ever see little kids playing after-the-nuclear-war type games? What’s the first thing they do? “I call mayor!” I call governor!” “I’m the president!”…. 🙁
The crash will be just the beginning. Not of a free society of people who have learned from the past- but rather, as history has proven over and over…of more tyranny by those who are willing to be ruthless and use power to their benefit and their neighbor’s detriment. It’s human nature. The crash will not change human nature- especially in places like the Western World today, where human nature is at it’s worst- having cast off the restraints of morality/tradition/common sense.
re: “…as history has proven over and over…of more tyranny by those who are willing to be ruthless and use power to their benefit and their neighbor’s detriment. It’s human nature. ”
I would like to think that is subhuman nature, problem is there a a lot of subhuman psychos running around out there. That’s the lesson we all need to learn, spot the psycho and neutralize it so it can’t do any more harm.
Dear DBB,
“subhuman nature”
I like that! I’m going to steal it!
steal away 😉
“The property which you think you own (and this includes your body) already belongs to the International Monetary Fund and soon they will make this known by asking for proof of title which you cannot evidence. Birth Certificates are
only evidence that the Title of Origin (legal title – strawman) rests elsewhere. You do NOT have legal title to your body, unless you have claimed it. This is why you are not permitted to put particular substances into it. When the feds become desperate enough they will come for all your property, including your body. They will demand all collateral ‘now’. Its nothing personal; its just business.
This is the reason that more people every day are in (debtor’s) prison. All crime is commercial in nature. This is the reason for more and more traffic citations: the police are no longer peace officers; their role now is ‘revenue / tax collector’. This is their job. Don’t let them kid you about why they want you to wear your seatbelt. It has nothing to do with saving your life – it has to do with protecting the potential revenue / tax which you will earn / pay over your lifetime, not to mention save the insurance companies (also corporate / non-existent entities) the cost of claims.
Don’t kill the goose which lays the golden egg. I’m not making this
up.” – Mary Croft (http://www.spiritualeconomicsnow.net/solutions/How_I_08.pdf)
Indeed! Here in the state of Misery we are required to bring in our birth certificates every time we renew our operators license!
That’s just insane Brian (I mean them, not you). Considering that to get your original operator’s licence the grabbermint got all the details from you in the first place. Their policy dictates they’re only ensuring your old licence isn’t counterfeit, but I’m sure that’s as difficult as counterfeiting money. The policy was obviously designed not to make sense.
Unless you need it for commercial activity, namely “driving”, where every law dictionary on the planet defines it as a paid occupation where “travelling” isn’t, chuck the damn thing and travel under your common law rights instead.
What Common Law rights? We have no common law or Constitutional rights, as no one with power upholds those rights any longer; and we have no power. Those who have the power are the only ones with “rights”. First illegal checkpoint you get stopped at; or first time a bulb goes out and Mr. Intimidator pulls you over…it’s: off to the pokey. People who think that they can get these traitors and criminals to acknowledge/uphold the common law, spend a lot of time in the pokey.
Only if you contract with them Moleman. No contract, no case. Look it up.
The US Government is the skank reality show. Not the Kardashians. The skanks are the low creatures who are spouses and children of murderers who hold political power.
Because under anarcho-capitalism, it is statists who have the lowest-class status. You are stone cold morons, if you ever fail to keep them at the lowest of low ranks at all times. Any who quote political leaders are also skank-worshippers, and deserve only contempt. Those who see virtue in statist authorities, that want only adjustments to the governing power, are themselves statists.
Any who follow the doings of statists are skank-fluffers. Untouchables really, it makes my skin crawl to read the drivelings of anyone who quotes a holder of political power as being anything but a diseased vermin who needs to be completely run out of society permanently.
Skank is a derogatory term for a (usually younger) female, implying trashiness or tackiness, lower-class status, poor hygiene, flakiness, and a scrawny, pockmarked sort of ugliness. May also imply promiscuity, but not necessarily. Can apply to any race, but most commonly used to describe white trash. ALL SKANKS ARE OF HIGHER VALUE THAN ALL POLITICIANS.
Michelle Obama. Jackie Kennedy. Barbara Bush. Kelley Ashby. Those are the vaginal oozing skanks that should be villified. Not anyone who earns their living in the free market. No matter what market as long as it is money freely and voluntarily spent.
Why waste time telling your fellow freedom lovers that you hate blasphemy, fast food, cell phones, social media, rap music, tattoos, promiscuous women, reality stars. Good for you. The only logical reason for attacking these non-threats I can think of, is you have in mind a different authority. A different right way to live. In other words, you’re just another shitbag statist yourself. You just think the wrong statists are in charge.
Dear Tor,
“ALL SKANKS ARE OF HIGHER VALUE THAN ALL POLITICIANS.”
Well said! Well said indeed.
I’ve been having similar thoughts here on Taiwan. I look at the poor girls who have to work at the 7-11 across the street from my office and think to myself
“These lumpen proles are actually more honorable and admirable than the politicians who parade past my office on Renai Road with motorcycle escorts.”
They work hard for a living, whereas the politicians, who are admired and who call themselves “honorable,” are nothing but parasites.
Our entire world is upside down. We are living in Bizzaro World but and don’t even realize it.
TOR, comparing politicians to skanks is an insult to skanks everywhere. : )
Seriously though, my apologies in advance if I am wrong in presuming your post was directed at me.
Politicians are indeed skanks themselves – skanks with power and that does make them very, very dangerous.
I have long maintained that there is something twisted within the psyche or soul of those who desire to control others. And as such I have nothing but utter contempt for those who claim to have “authoritah” over me and others.
Let me try to explain my position using the “bread and circuses” analogy.
The average US amerikan seems to be too interested in the trivial circuses to notice that the bread is coming in smaller and staler loaves. The loaves will continue to get smaller and less nutritious and as such US amerikans will continue to get more emaciated until they eventually reach the point where they will be too weak to fight back. I am afraid the dolts will then just shrug their shoulders and return to staring at the idiot box. I would love to be wrong but that is not how I think the smart money would bet.
“The only logical reason for attacking these non-threats I can think of, is you have in mind a different authority. A different right way to live. In other words, you’re just another shitbag statist yourself. You just think the wrong statists are in charge.”
I do not know how you reached this conclusion but I can assure you that nothing could be further from the truth.
The idea of wanting to impose any authority over the Natural Law rights of another human being is completely abhorrent to me. Such an evil thought would never enter into my thinking. “Live and let live, to each their own” are pillars of my philosophy. That would indeed be a “A different right way to live.” But with no “authoritah” required.
This was an interesting (and hopefully relevant) point, did you see it?:
“if AnCap theory can’t provide a working solution for the Jews in Israel then it’s kind of bunk, because if it’s supposed to work, then it should also work in those situations where you have neighboring societies which aren’t liberal or rational, and where the AnCap society itself is far from angelic (or does AnCap require white-as-snow citizenry?)”
A Libertarian Israeli on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and Anarcho-Capitalism
Dear helot,
The anacap solution is the ONLY real solution to the problem of Palestine/Israel.
The problem with Palestine/Israel after all, is the same old problem with conventional monopolistic government everywhere from time immemorial. The problem is “territorial monopoly.” The problem then becomes “either Israel, or Palestine.”
Under anacap, there is never only “one government for one territory.” Under anacap, there would be several governments for Palestine/Israel, whose jurisdictions overlap 100%.
Peons must walk. The ruling class will be carried around in palanquins. That seems to be the end game.
Somehow I don’t see this going over very well.
By the way, there is an old “alternative universe” sci-fi book that illustrates this tendency of the ruling class:
http://www.amazon.com/Pavane-S-F-MASTERWORKS-Keith-Roberts-ebook/dp/B00H6SOCSK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1409007989&sr=8-1&keywords=pavane
I cant say for sure how much is the insane agenda 21 and how much is simply short sighted greed and envy, but for the future of cars, just look at what has happened to private pilots.
The fleet is aging, anything under $30k is worn out. My Cessna is 50 years old and the engine is 200 hours over TBO. New stuff is $150k and up. An engine is $45k and up, ane even though I’m a mechanical engineer who worked his way through E school as a mechanic, I’m not qualified to rebuild a 50 year old Continental safely!
Maintenance is required to be done by government certified A&P’s, so that will make the minimum cost of owning a 50 year old timed out Cessna at least $2500/year.
When I first took ground school in 1982 our instructor emphasized that anyone could be a private pilot and commented on her friend who was legally blind and a private pilot. Now there is an elaborate bureaucratic physical where they check everything! And they’ve gotten rid of the old line certifying doctors who knew it was BS and simply winked if you answered no to ever having been drunk or had a dizzy spell (of course- everybody does!)
As everything including breathing is a privilege here in the free ™ country, bureaucrats may accost you at any time and demand your papers. All of them. The states see light planes as a toy of the rich and tax the hell out of them.
I have made the difficult decision to sell the Cessna while I can and buy an ultralight which will fold and fit in an outbuilding. No number, no transponder, no license, no bovine excrement. I think of it as a motorcycle with wings. And no GD traffic pigs!
Good choice in the end there Ernie. My dad used to own a Cessna 150 back in the 70’s. He eventually got rid of it mainly because of the maintenance and parking costs, even in the smallest airport around, called Coldstream.
It’s now at the point where the guy that makes the chair, can’t afford to buy the chair.
I’m originally from NYC (shudder). Spent the first 26 years of my life car-free. It’s ironic, but living then in one of the LEAST-free places on earth, it seemed that that one aspect of life- not having a car/license, made me very free.
Now that I live out in the middle of nowhere, 1000 miles from NYC, I have to keep 2 trucks- and the expense is ridiculous, considering that I only drive 2 or 3 times a month. They’re older, and paid for…but as mentioned in the article, the insurance, and license and reg, etc…ridiculous! (And thankfully, we don’t have inspections in this state- I’d never live in an inspection state again!). And the very idea, that when I do drive, I am subject to interaction with/harassment by armed goons who will treat me no different than if I were a bank robber or rapist, is just SICK!
F&^% what this country has become! This country has become nothing but a place fit for criminals and fiends. When I move out of here, some other country will have the benefit of having a good self-sufficient conscientious citizen….something which this country is no longer worthy of.
There’s no debate- if you want to live the remainder of your life free from tyranny; be able to make your own decisions and live as your choices and actions dictate, without coercion, violence and robbery….GET OUT…while we still can (Because what totalitarian state has ever not prevented it slaves from leaving, once that state was fully established?)
Get out and go where, exactly?
That’s my question, too!
Now, if one doesn’t mind an itinerant kind of existence (great when you’re 22) then South America would probably be a lot of fun.
But what about the dilemma facing the 42-year-old with stuff – and without another 20 years to rebuild/start over?
And – will the foreign Clovers leave you be? Is it realistic to expect that you’ll be able to sell your house and stuff and safely transfer (and hold onto) your cash? Or will it be “expropriated” by the Clovers of your new homeland? What then? As a gringo/non-citizen you have even less recourse than you would here.
What about earning a living? Unless one is financially independent – has money enough for today and tomorrow – it’ll be necessary to make money. How?
Hi, Eric,
My other post was in response to David- so I thought I’d answer you here. (Snipe!)
I’ve known several people who moved to South America. It may not be perfect, but it is a lot freer than here.
Some of them have started small local businesses; and some just participate in the local economy- i.e. selling produce locally, which they grow; building; etc.
Trouble with us is: We’ve become so regimented in the gov’t-controlled system, that the first thing we do is think of working permits and corporate jobs, and the like, as opposed to living more like the natives of these places do- and their economies are great, because there is no gov’t interference- unless you’re in the biggest cities, or select big industries.
Pick a place where the US has no involvement/no bases, and the locals are not prejudiced against Americans. I mean, yeah…if you’re living in Sal Paulo or Buenas Aries, you’ll be a target for crime; but in some little village out in the sticks….there is no crime- and the people are self-sufficient rural folks, as opposed to poverty-stricken ghetto dwellers (Kind of like the difference between Brooklyn and rural Kentucky where i now live!)
Stuff? Yeah…you’re not going to have the exact same lifestyle there as you are used to here. That’s where we have to choose. Lots of fancy stuff and increasingly little freedom…or greater freedom, and less stuff?
Me? I just want to be free. I welcome the ability to live more “classically”, as the natives do; to buy locally grown fresh food in the markets; to drive or walk or ride a bicycle or horse, and not have some pig breathing down my throat…and not being forced to have a state highway where trucks routinely whiz by at 70 MPH in front of my house. -But then, I live pretty simply already- but I find the more simply I live, the more I enjoy life, and the freer I am.
Bear in mind, that (maybe unfortunately) even very remote places in SA, often have internet access and cell phones now :(.
The tiny town near where my friend moved to in Chile had an internet cafe- something my tiny town here in KY doesn’t even have! 😀
I think the reality is a lot different than what is often portrayed to us. I just want out. It sickens me what this country has become- and what I have to endure just to go to town and buy crappy factory-produced “food” from 3000 miles away, amongst a sea of tattooed obese cretins who don’t seem to know how to practice birth-control…..
There are still many places on other continents (NOT N. America or Europe) where people live as they always have, and where gov’t involvement in their lives ranges from rare to non-existent. Many places in S. America- even though the laws of some countries make them sound not-so-free, in reality, those laws are universally ignored- especially once outside of the cities. Uruguay looks very promising to me. I’ve known people who’ve immigrated to Chile; Panama; and Honduras- not where I’d choose to go, but they are so much freer. Even places in Asia….you just don’t have the day-to-day gov’t involvement in your life; and cops aren’t killing people/shooting their pets/etc. I’m more suited to the wilds….looking into some of the smaller island nations.
What it comes down to though, is that most don’t want to give up the “first world” conveniences they’ve come to know- they can’t live without smooth-paved roads and TV and a McDonald’s 2 blocks away, and all the gov’t services they’ve come to expect/demand…so they’ll never know a free place, because the things they’ve become dependent upon demand servitude and taxation. Once you get away from that mentality, there are lots of places to go.
There are other reasons why interest and desire for driving is down among today’s younger people, and why I think this trend is likely to last:
First, young people no longer need to drive anywhere to hang out. Today’s teens no longer hang out at the diner, drive-in, corner drugstore or mall — they “hang out” on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, to name a few places. They also don’t need to go to the mall to buy music or clothes; they have iTunes and Amazon. The hyper-connected digital Web is today’s source of freedom and fun.
Second, a car, particulary a fast/flashy/expensive car, is no longer a status symbol among today’s youth; in fact, having such a car marks you as “not being green/caring about the environment.” A car is also no longer a way to impress the opposite sex. Among today’s young people, the latest smartphone/tablet/gaming system is the status symbol of choice.
Third, in a society where kids need helmets for everything but picking their noses, and where they need a US Coast Guard-approved flotation device in even the bathtub, letting your teenagers drive is anathema. In fact, many kids cite the safety factor as a reason for not driving.
Fourth, today’s youth has only experienced cars as appliances. Their folks treated their SUVs and minivans like fridges and washer-dryers, from reading Consumer Reports to inform their buying decisions to focusing on things like safety, comfort and cargo capacity as opposed to speed and fun-to-driveness. I mean, do people write songs about their GE side-by-side?
Hmmm….
“I mean, do people write songs about their GE side-by-side?”
I think I could write a country song about that… 😉
It’ s the way you love me
It’s a feeling like this
It’s centrifugal motion
It’s perpetual bliss
It’s that pivotal moment
It’s, ah, impossible
This side – by – side, unstoppable
This ah-pli-ance….
From: Faith Hill – This Kiss Lyrics | MetroLyrics
Hmmm…. Might need to play with that a bit more… Or maybe write a duet, the washer and the dryer, washer is the girl, dryer the boy, about how they’re inseparable…. Until the divorce, when she throws him out for only going in circles and being full of hot air? 😉 Then the new GE rides in on his white horse, er… White handcart…. … …
Bryce – are you sure about not needing a helmet to pick one’s nose? I know some moms who would advocate a full face shield to break their kids of the habit.
Oh, well, as a friend tells his teenagers, “You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can’t eat your friends.
Love it, Philip…I got that one from a George Carlin routine…although he said something far less “family-friendly” than “picking your nose!”
For additional dark laughs, Google “chopping block.”
Butch CAN eat his friends…
I think one thing often overlooked today, too, is that the cars of the last c. 25 years have no character or appeal or uniqueness. They’re all bland and p;retty much the same. Some may be a little more luxurious or go a little faster….but they all look and feel the same. The engines sound like toys (even in the “high-performance ones); you’re surrounded by plastic…. I mean, let’s face it…no one is going to have fond memories about the ’98 Cavalier they rode around in when they were a kid.
Some years ago, just after the no smoking in pubs law was passed in Ireland, I was outside a pub smoking. Still under the illusion that the Irish were feisty bastards, I asked a couple of the natives how they could let that happen. The response was “Oh, I dunno. The law just come in.” Like it was just some GD natural phenomenon. Like a storm rolled in off the North Atlantic and brought heavy rain and some more stupid fookin’ laws. I guess that’s what you get when 10 generations of the best and brightest are starved, jailed, executed or emigrate.
Anyway, whenever I am forced out into the real world in this country, I chat with people. I usually got similar helpless, resigned responses. Recently however, things feel different. They are still timid little sheep with no idea how change might be accomplished, but there seems to be less resistance and much, much more frustration. A sort of “something’s gotta give” feeling and a willingness to talk about it.
It feels as if Americans are becoming a supersaturated solution of anger and frustration and it’s getting harder for TPTB to make immigrants, turrurists and the evil rich the focus of our two minute hate. Something is indeed, going to give and it may not be so far off now. Let us hope that the seed crystal of the nonaggression principle has time to spread before Bang Bang time. There is reason to hope. There are more reasons to keep the 12 gauge handy.
Just wait 72a, until your local council decides that even outdoor smoking is banned. This happened recently here in Oz, in my old home town. I’d like to see how they’d police it, especially against the already highly aggravated and maligned “just leave us the feck alone” smoker.
My 16 yr old just started driving to school
in his dream car,that he and I have been rebuilding, a 77 Chevy 4wd, 4 speed, stepside
costs $50 per semester for permission to use the parking lot
and if your tardy more than 4 times per semester, they revoke your parking permit.
etc etc,
in my state , to get your DL at 16, you are now required to have drivers ed, which of course the state no longer teaches in school for free, it has to be taken at a state certified private instructor, most of which only work on weekends are are booked up months in advance and charge $500
40 hours in a classroom, 8 hours , one on one, in a car with the instructor.
and you must have had your learners permit for a year and a day, to get a provisional DL
an additional alcohol and drug awareness class, proof of attendance at HS, etc etc
cant drive between midnight and six, no passengers for 6 months, only one passenger for next six months,
Im all for this, and its in response to dozens of teens killing themselves and others in the last few years, and since the parents wont take charge of teaching their kids how to drive, the state had no choice but to do it for them,
however, all these restrictions disappear if you just wait till your 17
Sometimes – often – I fall to my knees and thank the fates that I grew up before the country turned into a giant day care center for adults (and young adults).
Learner’s permit at 15 and change. Unrestricted license at 16. Park at school for free. Drive a muscle car on a part-time/fast food income.
No got-damned “safety” seats growing up. No got-damned helmets to ride a bicycle… or a motorcycle. Legal to drink a beer – or Jack Daniels – at 18.
The entire country has gone poofter.
eric, now and then a young guy has the guts to tell them off. A decade or more ago a young farmer had his 8-9 year old son driving his pickup with flashers on behind the tractor he was driving. Now this goes on all the time but he had to do a stretch down the US highway and not just farm roads so the DPS stops them and rousts him for having that kid drive. he told him it was necessity and the kid wasn’t doing anything unsafe. This happens again and the DPS gets a full in your face go fuckyourself kinda response since this guy has quite a bit of land and lots of kinfolk with lots of pull. DPS gets all huffy and it all gets sorta bent out of shape. Next time, the kid is driving a 30,000 lb. 4 WD tractor with huge implements and the dad is in the pickup and everything’s hunky dory since the state doesn’t have an age limit on tractor drivers. Stupid is as stupid does.
Times (X) 100,000, Eightsouthman.
I think maybe, if I hadn’t have lived it for a time, I’d have no understanding of what you wrote.
Thank goodness for having experienced that.
And, Oh. My. God. My better-half works with Clover’s sister. WHoa. The ten ways to Sunday Clover’s sister would Freak Out about that, let alone having One slushy alcoholic drink in one night and then driving along side them! OMG! Conniption Fit City! Call in the Swat Team! Attack the corn crib! Take out the shit spreader! Save the world! Psft! … sigh.
helot, maybe she’d just have the runs back when going from our house to my MIL’s house was 235 miles, about 2.5 hrs(once made it in 2 hrs, 10 min since we were in a hurry) as the El Camino flies. We always had different size coolers for different needs. We normally used our Personal 16 since it would hold about 3 six packs, perfect for that run. Those years of CM Escorts and no instant on radar were heaven on earth.
“Those years […] were heaven on earth.”
I’m sitting and staring at those words.
It seemed to be as close as it gets,… because from today’s perspective, it seems like we’re miles away. And, getting further away, everyday.
In the management classes I took, they spoke about how it was important to articulate a vision of where you wanted to take the group.
…I think about that every time I hear a politician speak.
Maybe that’s why I became an An-Cap?
I paid The Fuck attention.
Justin, I simply have to point out something. I’ve seen ten year olds that could drive the wheels off nearly anything and be safe and 35 year olds that were constantly having accidents and will never be safe. I’m not sure how much safety you can teach with driving schools, classroom instructions and gory films(we used to love those things when they’d show them right before a holiday when you’re in college). Seems like good driving parents have good driving kids and bad driving parents have, well, bad driving kids. Evidently genetics comes into play here. I’ve seen a family where on parent drove well and the other didn’t and one kid would drive well and the other didn’t.
Ever notice all the famous combat pilots in history have been farm kids? Raised shooting by shooters, learned to lead that bird? Same kinda thing with driving.
I once stopped just in time to not crush a car between a light pole and the front axle on my trailer turning a right hand corner. I’d bet that genius went on to have many more “accidents”. Re, Forrest’ mama.
Like a lot of other areas of life, a lot of driving safety has to do with how much risk a person is willing to take; and how careful they are. When I lived in NYC, there were constant accidents on my corner. There was nothing special about that corner- just that it didn’t offer a good view (as is true of more intersections in NYC than not) and you’d have to creep out slowly till you could see if there was anything coming. The people who caused the constant accidents were the ones who would stop…not be able to see…and just say “The hell with it; I stopped; I can’t see; so I’ll just go!”. (Oner time the victim was a motorcyclist who went flying through the air and landed on top of a pointy wrought-iron fence!).
Pardon me, Eightsouthman, but I call bullshit on this line: “Seems like good driving parents have good driving kids and bad driving parents have, well, bad driving kids. ”
It may be your observation, but it runs counter to mine.
Individuals are, what they want to be, if they so choose.
helot, we’re both speaking of subject views. I have known people who really wanted to drive well but just couldn’t do it. Of course “driving well” is different things to different people so that’s not even something I can define.
I used to have people ask me to drive their cars so they could experience things they couldn’t do with them. I realize other people have something different in mind when they think of good driving. I’ve always tried to cover all the bases though, like not having accidents along with driving like a bat out of hell.
A couple weeks ago I got on a tear for some reason. I was driving the dirt roads between my house and the yard, taking my rig back home. Since I’ve been driving those roads for over 50 years I know them pretty well and know where I can hang it out and where I can’t(if you can’t see around the curve, don’t hang it out). But that day I was operating on the old adage of “no dirt, no traffic’ so I hung it out on a couple curves I wouldn’t have normally. I had a lot of fun drifting 18 wheels around a curve, diving hard to the inside and powering out with all 18 going somewhat sideways. I wouldn’t tell a big rig driver to ever do this but I felt at ease and had a lot of fun. Of course I wasn’t loaded and had a loose surface so I wasn’t pushing the envelope as much as it might sound. Still, I would caution most drivers to not do that. I’d hate to meet me…..but then again, that’s not likely since I use a lot of things most people don’t think of, like dirt coming up from the roadway I can’t see, curves I know are really canted for doing this, etc. I also knew I had room to run off the road if someone were creeping along coming my way. There are literally countless things that make a “good” driver. It depends on your definition. I had my first accident July 23rd in a big rig. I was sitting at the end of the line at a construction zone and nearly got killed by another big rig driver. I don’t think he’ll be out there in another 40 years. I don’t think he’ll be out there in another year. He ran up on top of me from behind in a zone that had numerous signs(for 3/4 of a mile) and big rub strips that rattle your teeth. He wasn’t my definition of a good driver even though he swerved at the very last second and didn’t climb my trailer and go over my cab but still had one hell of an impact with me. That’s my definition of a driver who won’t ever be a “good” driver.
Dear 8sm,
“I had a lot of fun drifting 18 wheels around a curve, diving hard to the inside and powering out with all 18 going somewhat sideways.”
Holy g-force Batman! And here I thought a four wheel drift was a big deal.
Man, 8sm, you are one crazy mf!
Bevin, thanks. That’s the best compliment I’ve had since you complimented me on being a philosopher. But please, don’t try this at home ha ha.
I have a lot of practice drifting and fairly much had it perfected by the time I was 13 or so. A buddy and I used to race pickup on farm roads(paved) on nearly an every day basis headed to do the chores. I often bested him on some curves and one that had a bit of ahump instead of a smooth transition from being banked to flat on the straightaway was esp. tricky. He once said Damn, you always smoke that inside rear tire on that curve. Well, it was a worn out mudgrip so I guess I was getting pretty good traction.
We’d do this with trailers on dirt roads. Once with his brother driving it didn’t work out so well and everything ended up shiny side down with the horses wandering around and shaking their heads and everyone else dreading the adults showing up. Beat up a bit but not nearly as much as having one of those horses try to shed you on a low tree limb.
I consider 18 wheel drifting mild to a friend who was pulling a trailer house with a farm tractor off the caprock of the plains about 3 miles N of Post Texas where the road is really steep and drops probably 8-900 feet in elevation in that distance. My friend decided he’d just kick that old tractor out of gear and use Georgia Overdrive to get down the hill. He passed other friends in a new Chevy pickup who were doing about 90 trying to stay ahead of him. You say you didn’t know a farm tractor would do that speed? I don’t think anyone in the world(still alive) knew they’d do that speed and stay in one piece. Good thing it was a Deere…with decent tires cause that trailer house wasn’t slowing down till it hit level ground. Nobody nor any equipment was injured and that was doubly weird. Of course a beer stop was a must, an extended must. The tractor driver said he never again kicked that tractor out of gear. Well, why not? The bad part was behind you ha ha ha ha. Once everyone realized they’d survived, it was funny.
Now if they’ll only raise our length laws, I see doubles in the future.
Dear 8sm,
“But please, don’t try this at home ha ha. ”
Not a chance in hell man. Not a chance in hell.
When I rolled my Alfa Romeo Spider Veloce at the race track, that was my sign from the universe to slow down and smell the roses.
If I ever want the thrill of drifting again, I will get a go kart.
Mang you guys are fucking cool.
Dear helot,
Remember this?
Blue Velvet Ben, One Suave Fucker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmtd0bOiPsM
“Suave? God damn, you are one suave fucker!”
It always cracks me up!
Like any parasitic monopoly, the transportation bureaucracy can’t suck too much blood from the public or its revenue (the source of its sustenance) will decline and, with the decline, the ability to command ever more authority and resources.
Penning the plebes up in urban enclaves may appeal to the homeland security bureaucracy in terms of effective population control but, unless this effort were carefully coordinated with the transportation bureaucracy, there may be “tar” wars between the bureaucracies as they compete for power and money much as parasites may compete with one another in the body of the host. Central planners probably take this issue into account. Too much negative nudging may be counterproductive.
Many people now pay more for the necessity of operating their motor vehicle(s) than they do in income taxes. If I were working for the transportation bureaucracy, I’d be pitching the notion that massive investment in public trans (financed by the Fed’s QE, i.e. by those who end up holding Uncle Sam’s paper and paying his debts) would be better to sustain our operation than our current reliance on motor vehicles. Profits are profits whether from the road or the rail.
As DHS. etc. round up people…. They’ll be rounding up the Transportation people, too. Not like Transportation can do much to stop it… They’ll just be disappeared, eventually. No need to let anyone out of the FEMA commune…. We can all be farmers using hand tools, until we drop.
As for the profits bit? Not true. They must have profits from EVERY group….
As per Continuum, a “life debt” will be assigned at birth, and you’ll need to pay it off… Failure to pay it off will be passed on to subsequent generations, and interest will be accrued… Etc.
Meantime, the corporation(s) (E.G., Weyland-Butandi from Alien?) , who are still “people” before the law, will not have any greater “debt” to pay off – and will be seen as The Producers.
Tribulations of the Comancheros are just the start.
Every time I think about such developments, I’m eventually reminded that “We did this to ourselves.”
Well, not quite. It all hinges of course on the definition of “we.” If “we” means “a majority of the citizens in a nation,” then “we” did in fact do this to ourselves.
Etienne de la Boetie had it right all along.
The tyrant has “nothing more than the power that you confer upon him to destroy you. Where has he acquired enough eyes to spy upon you, if you do not provide them yourselves? How can he have so many arms to beat you with, if he does not borrow them from you? The feet that trample down your cities, where does he get them if they are not your own? How does he have any power over you except through you? How would he dare assail you if he had no cooperation from you?”
That’s actually wrong, unless they actually want you around and doing stuff for them. But the agenda 21 stuff is for when they just want you out of the way as conveniently as possible; if you don’t co-operate, they can still do it anyway. It’s got a long history, e.g. the Ottomans and earlier Turks drove the Greeks out of rural Asia Minor as part of eroding the Byzantine Empire, English peasants were simply driven off when the common land was enclosed to raise sheep for wool as an export cash crop, and of course the U.S.A. has its very own precedent in the Trail of Tears.
Hey you turds(ha ha), you’re all correct. I just saw yesterday where NOAA/NASA said they’d seen the earth in the SW rise 15mm in the last few years due to drought. I drive through the patch all day every day, big reservoirs of water for sale everywhere you go(for fracking) yet towns are in dire straights(Straits?) just for drinking water. We’ll be ok though, just bathe in oil, drink it, eat it, etc. At least the economy here is booming, not an altogether bad situation.
Back to the entire schmear though, re-watching The Departed yesterday I was struck by what Costello says to his right hand man as they’re driving along about “rats” everywhere to which his man replies “it’s a nation of rats”. That just about sums it up.
People are simply accepting the huge number of bad laws resulting in the imprisonment of the youth of this country. I speak with people all the time whose kids are in prison, sometimes for murder but mostly for some type of drug offense, alcohol being right up there. And they don’t really back each other up either. That’s the amazing part. It is a nation of rats, gotdamn brainwashed rats.
I started a long drawn out response with references to Pax Romana, Francis Galton (the first eugenist), the Rockefeller foundation, and the project to map the human brain. But I got into a dive I couldn’t pull out of and it crashed…
It’s all about “green” and “clean!” It stared with the “underwear hoods” put on top of engines. All that dirt and oil was safely hidden away. Electric cars are clean! Electric cars are “green!” Nevermind that all that “clean” and “green” energy that they run on is going to come from natural gas turbines that are only slightly less polluting than the Internal combustion engine, and eventually will cost far more per mile to operate than an ICS, thanks to a concerted effort to eliminate low-cost electricity production. BTW, whatever happened to natural gas conversion kits? Seems like that’s a much better use for the stuff and leave the power grid for nuke plants.
Meanwhile, there’s still bad press about gasoline, in every form. The corn lobby is somehow able to continue to get more ethanol into the fuel cycle despite the entire congress acknowledging it is a lousy subsidy, fracking is demonized despite most of the claims being disproven, and giant corporations like Exxon/Mobil are called out for evil (granted, it’s not hard to do).
Kids these days have also been done a disservice by those of us who are older. We all pine for the “good old days” of carburetors and points instead of just sucking it up and learning about modern fuel delivery and ignition systems. The people who are into fixing cars these days have never had it easier with ways to program performance in, yet we all moan about how we need a PC to do anything. Yes, it’s very difficult to work on today’s transverse mounted engines, but we’ve all done a terrible thing by using Jiffy Lube instead of doing it ourselves. The other problem is today’s long-lived drivetrains mean most kids never get a chance to wrench with dad on the weekends unless dad has an antique as a hobby.
But I agree, ultimately the end of the car will come at the expense of the non-negotiable costs. The million-dollar-a-mile highway system will soon be a 10-million-dollar-a-mile highway with no visible increase in performance (but the union thugs building it will have a great retirement package). The insurance company will continue to lose money in ever-more risky investments, while exacting ever higher premiums to maintain their “solvency.”
Some of us will hold on as long as we can, sacrificing the actual automobile’s usefulness to support the “automotive infrastructure.” I think many of us will move to a “pool vehicle” model, where we either join a vehicle coop that will negotiate with insurance companies (maybe the insurance companies themselves will run it) and take care of taxes, etc, or we will become permanent renters. If the automated cars are permitted (I think they will), you will order up a vehicle you need based on task. Hopefully, the company you rent with will provide a decent product, but I have a feeling they’ll devolve into a garish rolling advertisement on the outside and an uncomfortable “vandalism resistant” interior. See your local transit bus for an example of what I’m talking about.
At least for the “affordable” cars. The elites will continue to have big blinged out rollers with massive size and super-plush interiors. There won’t be anything in-between since everyone will just look for the cheapest option. Welcome to Wal-Mart Motors.
Hi Eric,
You wrote:
“The people who are into fixing cars these days have never had it easier with ways to program performance in, yet we all moan about how we need a PC to do anything. Yes, it’s very difficult to work on today’s transverse mounted engines, but we’ve all done a terrible thing by using Jiffy Lube instead of doing it ourselves. The other problem is today’s long-lived drivetrains mean most kids never get a chance to wrench with dad on the weekends unless dad has an antique as a hobby.”
Speaking just for me – but I suspect, for a lot of others, too:
There is something pleasingly tactile about working on a carburetor. You lay the parts out; can see and handle them.
“Tuning” an EFI system via a laptop is – to me – like fucking a mannequin.
There is also the cost.
Hot Rod recently did an article about a “stand-alone” TBI system for older cars (muscle cars) made by FAST. This unit features a learning algorithm – it “reads” the exhaust stream via an O2 sensor and – using various “maps” it comes programmed with – selects the one it considers optimal for your particular set-up.
Lovely.
Until you get into the cost.
The system runs $2,000 on the low end – and a lot more on the high end.
This is madness.
What teenager (or 20-something) has $2k-plus to spend on a fuel delivery system?
A brand-new carburetor (Holley, Q-Jet) costs about $400. But assuming a rebuildable existing carburetor (what came on the car originally), the cost is much, much lower. About $70 for a rebuild kit (new float, needle and seat, gaskets, etc.).
That a teenaged kid (or 20-something) could afford.
The issue here is fundamentally not about the merits of the technology. It is about dollars and cents.
EFI is too expensive. Period.
At least, for the young would-be (but increasingly, stillborn) hot rodder/gearhead.
Take a look at the pages of Hot Rod (or Car Craft or any other “buff” magazine) if you disagree with me – and take note of the fact that the writers are almost all older guys, well into their 40s in most case and in many cases, older than that. There are virtually no young-20-somethings. Either writing the articles or working on the cars.
Because – for the most part – it is only Gen X and older, who came into the job market when there were still jobs – who have the discretionary income to spend $2k-plus on a freakin’ fuel delivery system!
I could pretty much rebuild the entire engine in my ’76 Trans-Am for $2k.
Certainly – cost-benefit-wise – it would make a lot more sense to put in a new cam, or upgrade the exhaust, for that $2k, than to spend it on a TBI system that might provide a slight improvement in cold-start performance and which would be easier to tune (via the laptop) but which would not give a significant performance benefit over a properly set-up carb.
Add to that the fact that it’s fun – a hands-on thing – to mess with a carb while it’s an anodyne and joyless experience to tap a got-damned keyboard … and you have your answer, mang.
With you there Eric. I recently had to replace my 4 injectors. Had my car been carb fed it wouldn’t have cost me $600.
Yup!
FI has without question reduced (indeed, all but eliminated) the need for routine fuel system maintenance/adjustment, improved everyday drivability and, in general, is very durable and “forget about it.” But, when it does need service, it usually means replacing components – which are frequently expensive and not uncommonly very expensive.
Whether it’s “better” that carburetors depends on what you value. Carbs have serviceability, ease of service (if you are mechanically inclined) and low initial and down the road cost – but need more servicing. Not (usually) major work, just minor adjustments every now and then and occasional cleaning. FI – from new – almost never requires anything from the driver except gas – for (usually) many tens of thousands of miles. But this does not come without cost – and frankly, it has taken something intangible away from our relationship with cars. People tend not to get to know their car when they almost never open the hood, much less turn a wrench. And the less you know your car – the less involved you are with your car – the less you care about your car.
The expense of diagnosing a FI problem can often be substantial- dwarfing the cost of anything one would ever need to do to a carburetor; and the more so as they implement direct injection. It’s all fine when it’s just a sensor and it throws a code; but when it’s the computer or a module; or even something simple like a faulty wire or bad connector or something unrelaqted drawing a wee bit of extra current, and throwing everything else off and causing false codes…watch out! Even the stealerships often end up just guessing and replacing parts, to the tune of THOUSANDS of dollars…sometimes not even fixing the problem- as happened to a client of mine, who spent $3K to fix his Duramax at a stealership…and it still ain’t fixed!!!
I truly believe they’re making vehicles so needlessly complex so that there will be no such thing as a viable used vehicle- once it’s out of warranty, it’ll be too expensive to maintain/repair, so it’ll be junked. In Taxachussetts (MA.) the inspections are now so strict, that they’re routinely junking not-so-old vehicles with nothing wrong with them. Like in the UK- if you see a 10 year-old car driving around there, it’s a real rarity.
And look what they’ve done to diesels! A simple reliable engine that can run without a battery…and they’ve loaded it with computer controls/oil-pressure fired FI and emission controls, to the point now where they’re getting crappy MPGs, and are so expensive to maintain and repair (and often unreliable now) that the national landscaping company, Brickman, went back to gax trucks!
Just so much nonsense in this world- I’m embarrassed to be associated with present-day humankind!
Ditto that, Moleman.
When it all works.. great. But when it stops working…
A carb is a stand-alone mechanical device. Pretty much anything that could go wrong can be visually (or by hand) discovered. FI is… electronic. Numerous systems and subsystems; much more difficult to locate a problem (which can be intermittent – big PITAS) and then – as you rightly point out – there’s the cost to replace what’s not working, since most electronic components are throw-sways that can’t be repaired.
eric, I have considered this subject….considerably. I wondered many a time if simply sticking a well-tuned Quadrajet on a new style TBI engine with it’s much better heads wouldn’t have performed almost as well. There’s no doubt in my mind the low end torque increased with TBI but pure performance did not. I have never tried putting a carb on one of those engines and the city driving would probably suck mpg wise but I have my doubts on the road what the gains in mpg would be. It would be interesting to do this to the same vehicle. I have a feeling though that nothing would be able to respond to change in timing along with change in rpm and fuel delivery as FI does. After all, TBI does dump into a old style type intake but the heads are different. I can’t remember when GM changed to aluminum heads all of a sudden. Help, time flies and I ain’t keeping up.
A friend who worked at a Buick/Chevrolet dealership called me one day and said drop by after work. He was driving a new ’88 Chevy pickup, the same body style as my old ’82 but with a TBI SBC. He floored it and it broke the rears loose. We both grinned. My carb motor wouldn’t do that. BTW, that engine prompted nearly all GM pickups to have limited slip diffs.
Hi Eight,
I can tell you this:
My ’76 Trans-Am, a muscle car with a 455 and 3.90 gears, manages to get better gas mileage than several new cars I’ve test driven lately.
My TA average high teens/low 20s. With a Q-Jet.
The Benz S-Class I did a review of a few months ago did worse.
Despite all its direct-injected technology.
The one thing my car does have is an OD transmission.
This makes all the difference….
Eightsouthman said, “I wondered many a time if simply sticking a well-tuned Quadrajet on a new style TBI engine with it’s much better heads wouldn’t have performed almost as well.”
You know, some where, somebody has done that already.
It’s just a matter of finding out.
Hell, I think maybe I hired someone to do something like that once on a Ford F-150… Alll I remember is, the Great big dent that was left in the hood. …But Mang, was it Ever smooth driving! Pure Joy.
There is no doubt that the tipping point is at hand. The question is what will US amerikans do when it happens? Will they rise up and demand freedom or will they just get more comfortable in front of the idiot box watching “their team” play or the Kardashians, or whatever the currently popular skank reality show is.
The Clover/dolt/willfully irresponsible ratio to those who are responsible and love Liberty has gone decidedly – and irreversibly – to the former. We have been overrun.
What then to do? “Hide in plain sight” is my motto for my new “commando” lifestyle, i.e. breaking every law I can get away with that is not based on Natural Law.
> “The question is what will US amerikans do when it happens? Will they rise up and demand freedom or will they just get more comfortable in front of the idiot box watching “their team” play or the Kardashians, or whatever the currently popular skank reality show is.”
Skunkbear, you might find the following an interesting read. It is called, “The Politics of Obedience, The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude” written by Étienne De La Boetie, written in 1552 or 1553
https://mises.org/rothbard/boetie.pdf
LARRY, thanks for the link but I had already read it a few years ago. It is indeed a good read and helped me develop my philosophy of disobedience.
While my little acts of law breaking may seem insufficient they help to condition my mind to unlearn obedience. I recommend it to everyone.
Larry & skunkbear, it’s a beautiful thing, what you wrote.
How-freaking-ever; the question still remains.
Some days I am doubtful,… others, I’m a bit optimistic.
STupid ‘time’ and its, ‘telling’.
A.k.a. Only Time will tell.
Top Gear UK calls it a “war on speed”. Not even close. It’s a war on the automobile – for cash. That’s the only real reason.
Take a look at how many laws are made in proportion to the amount of money that can be extorted and you’ll see that laws regarding roads and cars are by far some of the most prolific and profitable for the grabbermint. It’s a massive cash cow they’ll fight for in every unlawful (but legal – on paper anyway) way they can in order to maintain it.
I doubt they’ll ever make cars in general illegal, because they continue to make laws which profit from their mere use – even as keepsakes and ornaments. But you’re right Eric, they’ve pushed it to the tipping point. Once they realise nobody’s bothering with the car anymore, you’ll need to register your bicycles and shoes to keep up the flow of moola. They’ll justify it like they do anything these days, under the fake stance of “safety”.
Conversely, once everyone realises they’ve had the right to freedom of movement in any conveyance of the day under common law since the enactment of the Magna Carta, TPTB are going to have a much harder time of it.
Anything that can be licensed must be fundamentally lawful anyway, otherwise it can’t and isn’t. A licence is only required to “drive”, which is described in every law dictionary on the planet as a commercial activity, otherwise you’re “travelling”.
Your licence isn’t even a valid contract, because there was no full disclosure as to the right you’re giving up for a mere privilege. Nobody in their right mind would have even applied for one had they fully disclosed just this fact alone.
Only those that continue to bow to their laws of Maritime and Admiralty will come under their yoke and continue to pay in increasingly inventive ways. If you don’t know your rights, you have none.
Hi Rev,
They may have over-reached.
The disparity – in terms of the hassle/expense of owning/driving a car – between today and as recently as 25 years ago is astounding.
If I were 19 or 20 today, I doubt I’d bother with a car. I’ve got a couple of friends in their late ’20s and for them, cars are albatrosses. They have no affection for the car as such – and hate driving.
Motorcycles are still viable – but for how long?
The helmet thing alone is extremely aggravating to someone – like me – who can remember the living actuality of a world in which one could ride without one, if one wished.
What is the fine for driving without a helmet?
Seems to me a fine for driving without a helmet is a crime all by itself.
I mean, if a man wants to catch bugs with his teeth, whack birds with his head and take on rocks thrown at him by an oncoming semi truck or take his chances with avoiding hard immovable objects, that’s up to him. It’s the same with riding a horse! …And, driving across the neighborhood at 25 m.p.h.,… well, it’s ridiculous that doing so is a crime if one is Not wearing a helmet.
I really can’t stand the State I live in, what with all the NSA cameras they’ve allowed at just about every intersection in my city, but I’m thankful [throw-up] my ever-loving Overlords and Supreme Masters in synchronicity with the busy bodies living in this State haven’t yet burdened us with a mandatory helmet law.. yet. I can’t hardly imagine being forced to wear one. That must suck beyond all Get-Out.
The choice to decide to wear a helmet, along with the feel of the wind in your hair, should be each persons decision. …In retrospect, I think I get an inkling of what it was like to be a North American Indian when The Empire changed their ways via force of arms.
When people say, “We’re all Iraqis now” what they mean is, “We’re all Native American Indians, now”. ….Whoa, think about that.
Don’t pay the fine for no helmet Helot, demand to pay it off in jail. One of two things will happen.
They drop it, or
You do a couple of days in the clink, make a heap of noise about it on TV and all the papers if possible, highlighting exactly what happens to those who make a personal choice which is unable to harm anyone else.
And: Notice that it’s selective (and arbitrary).
I’m forced (by law) to wear a helmet – purportedly because it’s less risky, that I’m less liable to get hurt and impose costs on “society.”
And yet, all the fatties I see waddling around Wal Mart don’t face fines and harassment at gunpoint every time they go to stuff another mouthful of Cheez-Its down their gullets, notwithstanding the increased risk this presents to their health and the potential costs it might impose on “society.”
Numerous other examples.
What it comes down to is that those who control the machinery of government us it to impose their arbitrary value son others.
if the standard were objective, we’d all be forced (by law) to avoid doing anything that could conceivably increase our personal risk, or possibly impose costs on “society.”
But that won’t happen – because Clover, et al, would then find themselves inconvenienced.
Howdy Eric,
Bikes are still a good proposition down here in Florida.
Here is how it works: Insurance is optional for motorcycles. Helmets are also optional. Well… Optional if you have insurance.
But wait, there’s more.
Since Motorcycle insurance is optional, it costs way less than (mandatory) auto insurance. To me it is well worth the cost of insurance to be able wear my helmet or not.
Hi Dixie,
That’s pretty cool – thanks for the info!
Here in VA, they require both insurance and helmets.
For “safety,” naturally….
Along these lines, I recently read in a book that it although it may be government’s job to tell us what we can’t do, it certainly isn’t government’s job to tell us what we must do or how to do it. I don’t see how anyone can disagree with that last part. The analogy was that civilization (or the state) is like a corral. Everything outside is what we’re not supposed to do (commit crimes, harm others, etc.). Inside the corral we should be free to do what we choose. Period.
Hi Steve,
Screw the corral, too!
Seriously. What gives anyone – or any group – the moral right to do violence to another person who has not caused tangible harm to another person?
Whether you or I dislike or disagree with the actions taken by someone else is irrelevant, insofar as our right to forcibly intervene.
Therefore, the government (which is just people – people who have arrogated unto themselves a legal monopoly to do violence to other people) has no right to tell anyone what they may and may not do – excepting the one no-no: Causing others harm. That you may not do.
But otherwise?
It’s no one else’s got-damned business!
Dixie, sorta like Tx. No helmet needed…..if…….you have proper auto and health insurance(both, since auto insurance is mandatory). It gives the hogetts the legal right to pull over anyone on a bike since who can say if they have the proper “legal” papers? If that isn’t discriminatory on an income or job status level or both, what in hell is it?
RE: “It gives the hogetts the legal right to pull over anyone on a bike since who can say if they have the proper “legal” papers?”
I guess – blink – I. Am. On. Bizarro World.
I look at that and think just the opposite.
…wHAt is that I was called once, “Old School”?
helot, when I first heard it was legal to not wear a helmet but only if you have the proper health insurance/life insurance policy, I could only shake my head. So all the La Raz bikers have great company or private insurance? Ok, I’ll go along with it….but I find it hard to believe everyone I see has with no helmet has that insurance. So what’s the alternative? It must be the legal right to stop anyone on a bike and check, since having proof is part and parcel.
It’s sorta like the court in superior court in Bexar county made a ruling and now it’s taken as “state law”……somehow, that if any part of a license plate display, such as the cotton bowl, the pumpjack, etc. on a tx plate is obscured, that plate is rendered illegal, never mind all the numbers and letters show fine. About the only thing I see that can’t be pulled over on the road for that these days are pickups since nearly every car, SUV, etc. has some holder, generally installed by the dealer, that covers at least part, if not all, of these very things. No doubt about it, authoritarianism is rampant to the nth degree.
If motorcyclists had to have special injury insurance, the helmetless ones may end up with the lower premium. I read once upon a time a study showed that those without helmets simply died while those with had serious expensive injuries often requiring life-time care. Although the helmets probably do save on the lesser crashes and probably a lot of pain and suffering to boot, but overall they are probably a loser for insurance companies.
I think it is this financial situation that keeps these helmet laws in a state of flux. If it saved insurance companies big money they would be mandated in nearly every state and wouldn’t get undone from time to time.
I loathe the insurance mafia even more than the government – because the insurance mafia is an openly for-profit gang that uses government to ensure its profits.
I hate them with a hatred that is incandescent.
I love how first they make laws that hospitals can’t refuse to treat anyone; and they erect a giant tyranny of “free” medical assistance/disability for life/etc. THEN they demand that you carry special insurance so that you can pay your own way IF something happens- rather than just saying “If you can’t pay, you may be left to die”. And of course, they say nothing at all to those who are prolific procreators, and who can’t support a goldfish- and they just hand out Medicaid cards to them and their “chil’in”.
Dear Steve,
To be perfectly frank, libertarian thought over the past five to ten years has advanced by leaps and by bounds.
I wouldn’t be surprised if anarchist libertarians outnumber minarchist libertarians by now.
To many libertarians today, any talk about “limiting the role of government” sounds positively timid and seriously behind the curve.
As well it should. For once one groks the principle of individual sovereignty, any talk about the “proper role of government” is simply going to stick on one’s craw.
The “proper role of government” is NO ROLE WHATSOEVER.
“For once one groks the principle of individual sovereignty”
And that, therein, is The Key.
Do you know How many People I’ve tried to convince of that who have held steadfast to the idea the empire owns them?
…Psft..sigh. I Can only hope it it less than you’ve talked to, and the other people out there.
Bevin, a friend several years older than me, so that makes him older than dirt, is now one of the anarchy crowd. Recently he said in an e, something along the lines of “What’s “limited” govt?….no such thing”. I was the only one to come out to rightly agree with him. I notice less equivocating and more belligerence to govt. on my private forum every day. A decade ago nearly everyone was on board with the Iraq and Afghanistan war, the “you’re either with us or with the terrrrisssts bs” of GB. I never was and was shouted down for years. I was even shouted down when I rightly pointed out Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. My cousin said even so, Saddam was a bad guy. So I retort “in comparison to what? GB’s old man who killed countless more than Saddam…… or RR…… or BC?” He said I was stupid. Of course a lifetime of sucking on the Lockheed teat tends to enforce that view.
I was already “learned up” before getting out of pubic school and knew who the real aggressor in this world was.
Everybody used to tell me I was born 100 years too late. I wholly agreed with them. Let me straddle my old saddle underneath the western sky. I want to ride to the ridge where the west commences, gaze at the moon until I lose my senses…..
When we were much younger friends would come visit and their kids would ask after sitting outside at night Hey, why isn’t it(the sky)like this at home? Hey kid, knock out some streetlights and see the universe. I grew up at the very edge of town. We’d lie outside at night and shoot streetlights in one direction. The local WTU guy got disgusted and quit relamping so everybody was happy.
Dear helot,
“And that, therein, is The Key.”
It really is the key. Every discussion about rights and liberty invariably must return to the Myth of Authority, to the false belief that individuals must submit to a “higher authority.”
Higher authority my ass. If “all men are created equal,” and they are, not in natural endowments, but in the natural right to life, liberty, and property, how can any of them claim to represent any “higher authority” and demand obedience from others?
It’s crazy. Looking back with 20/20 hindsight, I wonder how I could have ever believed it for even one minute.
Dear 8sm,
I swear to god, 8sm, you should have been a poet/philosopher.
Hell, you are a poet/philosopher!
You have an amazing deftness with the written word. Many of your comments are like short stories, brimming over with heartfelt emotion.
I salute you, sir.
The way I heard it is: “We’re all indigs now.”
indig being short for and perhaps a not so nice term for indigenous population.
Dear Brent,
Isn’t the Britishism “WOGs?”
Abos? Isn’t that what they call them in Oz?
The original slang term “WOG” meant Worthy Overseas Gentleman, usually from Greece or Italy back in the old days when they migrated here to Oz. Now it’s a derogatory term that I believe they’ve finally accepted as a moniker of kind recognition in most circles, although I could be wrong. I highly recommend reading the Wiki entry for this as I believe it accurately reflects what’s happened.
“Abo”, the slang term for Aboriginal, is now seen as highly derogatory and racist because of the anti-racist crusaders being hell bent on enforcing their views.
In fact, the original term Aboriginal is also becoming somewhat offensive, because they’ve now adopted the term Indigenous as their own, probably because it infers they’re the original owners of this land.
They’ll never be happy. I think the Wogs are way smarter and more tolerant.
Hitler’s comment, in the bunker, comes to mind:
“The future belongs to the stronger, eastern people… ”
The West is doomed.
ЯΞ√ΩLUT↑☼N wrote on August 26, 2014 at 2:16 am:-
Wrong. That’s a spurious folk etymology, made up to fill in a meaning by people who didn’t know any better. It’s actually a very old term meaning foreigner or stranger, that was sometimes spelled “Waugh” and still shows up that way as a surname, and had an irregular plural that gave rise to “Wallace” and “Wales” (and so, “Welsh”).
You’re probably right Mr. lawrence, but many of my friends and I used that definition of WOG since the 60’s. We still use the term WOG to mean influenza.. 😉
Who knows, it probably originated when the Irish began to settle in Oz, before the Greeks and Italians. We can never be absolutely sure unless we invented the term ourselves.
Many times my own friends used to call me Dutch WOG or German WOG. Still, the most widely used form of WOG means Greek or Italian immigrant.
ЯΞ√ΩLUT↑☼N, did you never hear the expression “wogs begin at Calais”? That shows the stereotype as seen from the U.K. point of view.
Actually, I should have said it’s a war on motorists, not cars per se. That war is all about money, and nothing else.
I see your point regarding kids today Eric, they drive the most bland and pointless things ever to disgrace a showroom. I don’t think it’s a matter of cost, but they were probably hammered by their parents to avoid something fast-looking, because they’d be hassled remorselessly by cops. But that’s just probably.
The only reason I wear a helmet is because it keeps me warm in winter and the rain and bugs outta my face. Couldn’t care for “laws” that are written purely to exploit. Helmets are only useful up to about 30MPH into a pole. Anything after that and your brain turns to a can of cold spaghetti. Besides, you can wear only shorts and helmet on a bike without breaking any of their laws.
Same as wearing a seatbelt in my car. It keeps me in place while I pull G’s to the limit. Should ask the cops next time if their kids are safe on a school bus with no seatbelts, watch their heads explode. At least the driver’s safe.
I can’t wait for the day when everyone realises the truth and chucks their number plates, helmets, seatbelts and licences, stop pulling over for cops that use their emergency lights against their own laws to impede and fleece someone for harming nobody.
We just need to get the clovers out of the way.
The war is more about money. I’ve been frequenting an anti-driving site. It’s not just the drivers’ money they want. They are squeezing everything including off street parking on private property. They demand new stores, apartment buildings, and condo buildings are built with -zero- parking or as close to it as possible. They oppose single family homes. They’ve been brought up on a diet of agenda 21 propaganda and don’t even know it.
Wow BrentP, sounds like they’re dyed-in-the-wool members of Greenpiss or something. They obviously have issues with motorists probably because they live right next door to (or above) their shops and don’t like the humanity that doesn’t think like them.
Let them move out of town a few miles. They’ll soon realise that carrying their weekly shop will have them wishing for a car. Besides, do they bitch about having their internet purchases delivered to their door? Bet not.. :Þ
BrentP – They obviously are not capitalists, or they would realize that businesses need more customers than those within walking distance.
In Chicago they attack Walgreens, Trader Joe’s, basically any business that needs a parking lot. (Walgreens on every corner should be opposed because do we really need a six hundredth walgreens location a block away from another one, but not because of a parking lot) If someone tries to build a multi-unit building with parking they go on the attack. Usually they cause a redesign with less parking. They’ve also been removing street parking throughout the city, having arterial roads sliced up for ‘protected’ and buffered bike lanes. They are going to destroy Ashland avenue for BRT (bus rapid transit). The list goes on and on.
The effort is foundation funded in bigger cities around the country. They make it appear local to each city but it’s a national effort best I can tell. The Rockefellers’ foundation has been funding the Ashland BRT too.
In some instances they’ve been successful one of which being the proposed Wicker Park Trader Joe’s. Proposed site is a closed lumberyard. But heaven forbid someone sells beer and wine too close to a school… which gave the anti-driving crowd the boost over the top they needed and Joe dropped the plans.
We have to consider that groups like greenpeace have been taken over to the point where their founders sound more like us than the current people. Organized big time environmentalism today is nothing more than a vehicle for political control.
I almost bought a condo a couple of years ago. It was a nice little place and I would have been able to get a good deal and decent interest rate on it. I’m at a stage in life where I don’t need a huge house and all the associated hassles anymore.
Only one thing stopped me. I had one parking space for myself and that was it. There was also no off street parking. Nowhere to put my second car. Nowhere for visitors to park. When I asked the realtor about it, she suggested that my family and friends could take the bus or that I could pick them up and take them home. She also suggested that I sell my second vehicle and apply the money towards the down payment, since “nobody needs two cars.”
Needless to say, I kicked that one to the curb and kept looking.
@Dan M.:
Needless to say, I kicked that one to the curb and kept looking.
Which? The Realtor, or the Condo? 😉 Or Both? 😀 With an explanation as to why, I hope…
I reached the tipping point a few months ago. When I was 19-22 (03-06) I was making the same amount of money as I am now working part time (35 hours) with a medical insurance that had 100% coverage up to a $5 million.
At 30 years old I work 55-60 hrs/wk. making the same (sometimes less) money than i did before with health insurance that has a $10k deductible plus only pays 80%.
Since the recession began my wage earnings have been destroyed by stagflation and shitty job prospects. I’m fed up of using my labor to pay for some dipshit to “manage” my daily activities. I’ve made the decision to become self employed. I no longer believe in the system my generation has been conditioned to accept.
My generation is trying to play by the rules which have been rigged against us in every possible way. Its a system where individuality or innovation is destroyed and “corporate culture” is rammed down our throats. A system that tells us to keep your head down and “play it safe” by following orders without question. A system where we are told we must waste away our most productive years doing slave work for pennies on the dollar in the promise of a brighter tomorrow. The promise that one day we will get that big job promotion and raise so long as we “pay our dues” only to have those jobs downsized or eliminated completely during the next recession.
The only way to break the cycle for my generation is to break free of the system.
Pedro, I reached the tipping point back in ’88, and am now making a few dollars more than what I made then and quit to do something more lucrative. Problem is, lucrative has taken a big dive since then. I took home $6-700/wk back in 74…….and that’s not an uncommon wage now for lots of people, more in fact that many make. It really is the shits when considering inflation. Our wages have fallen…..but not steadily since then. In the last 14 years or so, they’ve fallen worse than ever. Don’t worry though. Congress has said things are going well. I can see how they’d think that. Looks like things are going swimmingly for those who can vote themselves a raise.
A guy posted an article on Linked in that Talked Happy about how all we need to do is “diversify” our skills and all will be well. I left a vinegary reply for him pointing out that “diversification” means work more and longer for less money. I gave him the example of journalism: Writers used to write. Now, they also copy edit. And then do layout and graphic design. Sometimes, marketing, too. But do they get paid to do the additional work that was once done by others? No. They are simply expected to do more work for less pay.
This is not confined to my area of work, either. It has become pretty typical across the board.
Meanwhile, the real cost of living has gone up considerably; stuff costs more – and we have less money (buying power) at the same time.
And, we’re now forced to buy shit such as “health care” – a formerly optional expense – and that has added yet more financial pressure…
RE: “But do they get paid to do the additional work that was once done by others? No. They are simply expected to do more work for less pay. ”
Yeah, that’s the way it is for my old friends who work in the factories and some I know who work in the “fishbowl” called, the office.
I suspect things have to catch up to them yet, RE: “And, we’re now forced to buy shit such as “health care” – a formerly optional expense – and that has added yet more financial pressure…”
I suspect, if it’s affecting them now, they are just working more overtime to make up the difference?
…And then, there’s the layoffs? John Deere is taking the lead right now, I hear.
…Also, and whoa, are the farmers I know Ever complaining about the regulations being implemented. They’ve got this SHTF attitude when they describe what’s taking place. …Freaks me out the way they talk. ..And I’m not an easily freaked out sorta person.
Spiraling down, the same way it spiraled Up?
helot, you must not live in Texas. Farmers here are counting their money since they rarely raise a needed crop, just something we subsidize and they get rich from. They amended the subsidy program this year in the federal ag budget so that farming is now a no-risk business. Hot dog, more Roundup, more psycho drugs in the water, what’ll they think of next?
I would have liked to have been an engineer in the 1930s. I would produce ideas and rough sketches and then hand it over to draftsmen. Other people would do much of the project management on my orders. What does an engineer do today?
All the ideas, all the drafting, all the change notices, organizes just about everything with regards to a project… it just goes on an on. Much of the time we even do the sourcing. We even do our own prototype and model making much of the time, but that’s fun sometimes. Anyways my point being is that several jobs have been condensed into one guy who’s pay hasn’t even kept up with inflation.
It’s really absurd.
That’s because it is skilled labor.
In the estimation of the (pseudo) elites, skills are the mark of peasantry.
Honestly, in the minds of the elites, your value is in the social connections. You’d be better off spending your efforts in the chess club, the press club, the student counsel, the handball club, the club-for-no-reason-club, than in spending them learning an actual useful skill that enables a measure of control over the physical world.
Look at them. How often do you see a Yale, or Harvard grad working in high management who has actual, vice theoretical or by-way-of-association, SKILLS?
Take an ivy-league educated CEO and strip all mentions of awards, clubs, and social organizations. Then delete their ‘accomplishments’ as CEO to view them as you’d view any other middle-management candidate for a job.
What do these guys know?
Honestly, those social organizations, clubs, etc ARE THEIR QUALIFICATIONS IN THEIR ENTIRETY. Which fact necessarily indicts this society as more a plutocracy than meritocracy.
Unfortunately western culture today has more in common with the castes of India than with Renaissance Europe.
Pedro,
Forgive me, but I need to play “grammar Nazi” for a moment, so I’m clear on understanding you. Or, sure I’m correct in understanding you.
Original:
I reached the tipping point a few months ago. When I was 19-22 (03-06) I was making the same amount of money as I am now working part time (35 hours) with a medical insurance that had 100% coverage up to a $5 million.
If I understand you correctly, the meaning would be better this way:
I reached the tipping point a few months ago. When I was 19-22 (03-06), I was working part time (35 hours) with a medical insurance that had 100% coverage up to a $5 million – and making the same amount of money as I am now.
Original sounds like the CURRENT job is 35 hours/week with medical insurance @ 100% up to 5 mil.
I’d guess I’m correct, seems others read t that way, too – but would you correct if I’m wrong, please?
😉
It’s of a kind with precision in language and meaning. Lawyers are screwing us with their (ie, this) precision of meaning every day.
E.G., you’re DRIVING (for-hire, such as OTR trucker or limo driver or cab driver) vs. travelling from one place to another in your private vehicle.
Placement and meaning of the words is essential. I need to remember that – I’m as guilty as anyone else, moreso than some, no doubt.
But our laxness allows others to take advantage. We must not allow it to continue, it’s just as much a weapon in their hands as a gun.
And they know it. (E.G., mis-apply a term to get a legal precedent set; base future twists and alterations of meaning on that legal precedent; collect money and fame from these improper cases, all starting from a false decision – IE, bad premise = bad results. In other words – not an accident, a perversion of language – frequently from slang, mis-statement, innuendo or inference, or spliced modifiers and mis-used clauses. It is simple to see, as well: Say, “Did you get it?” two ways, and you’ll hear the difference: “Did you get IT?” is different from “Did YOU get it?” – and the sounding is enough to convey a context… The more complex it gets, the more these little flourishes become important, and the more you realize that when that Pro-2 Amendment Demoncrap says they support gun-owner’s rights, they mean: “The GOVERNMENT is the only valid gun owner, and you peasants should lick the shit from my boots.” )
Whoops. I forgot to proof-read my writing…
I used to make the same amount of money 10 years ago working 35 hrs/wk as I do now working 60 hrs/wk. I also had significantly better benefits.
The 45-70 age group populate most management positions. They realize that they are a dying breed so they don’t hesitate to screw everyone (especially younger employees) in the name of job security.
Nice article! However, I don’t know if this is part of some grand plan to corrall the plebes into high rise condos in the city so they can be controlled by the elites, as that would require more foresight and intelligence than they seem to have. To me all this nanny-state encroaching on personal liberty looks like the camel slowly sliding his big self into the tent, once he was allowed to put his nose in.
The so-called elites have been working on this project for about a century, maybe more. It starts with the public schools they created. Then they fund those people who start activist groups. The foundations publish papers. The whole system pushes political action. Everyone meanwhile is acting on their own, doing what they think is best. That’s how we are controlled. We are told how to think and then we build our own cages.
Anyway, my favorite way to point out how old Agenda 21 is, is to point to the HG Wells film, “Things to Come”. The compact, underground cities. This was written in the 1930s. It follows what HG Wells knew of the plans this so-called elite was following along. We can see their earlier attempts. Places like “Pullman” and “Fordlandia”. Many more company towns, many more ways they tried to organize and shape society the way they wanted it. Just because they failed doesn’t mean they stopped. This agenda 21 will ultimately fail too, but it will probably get a lot further than the previous attempts unless it is recognized and resisted by lots of people.
I find myself daydreaming about FTL travel more and more often…
If such existed, and we had access, it would at a stroke vaporize the power of the elites; people could just leave. The elites would lose control, completely and utterly – forever (given the essentially infinite universe).
The fundamental problem is we’re on a Company Planet now. Nowhere to go. The problem is insoluble – in terms of liberty-minded folks seeking to be left alone – because there is no place (realistically) left on this earth to retreat to. In prior ages, there was still undiscovered country, beyond the reach of Clovers.
Today, only FTL can recreate that safety valve.
No where to go. They harass people who live in the middle of the desert to get away from all the BS. If a person can’t even be left alone on the land nobody wants, the land that is toughest to live on, there’s no where to go.
I’m at the point where I just want to move away. Far far away. Where a small house and big garage doesn’t start a half a million dollars unless the place is wreck. And then when it’s a wreck the property taxes are 10-12K/yr.
Dear Brent,
Indeed.
Battle for the California Desert: Why is the Government Driving Folks off Their Land?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw3RiMdS7sE
It shows that the goonvermin’s real agenda is totalitarian control.
We moved as far away as we realistically could – meaning, as far out into “the woods” as we could and still be able to work in our respective professions. That provided a respite of sorts in that our cost of living did go down significantly. Which was a damned good thing, because not long after we made the move, so did our income. Had we not moved – had we stayed in Northern Va. – we’d have been in real trouble.
But things are tight, nonetheless. And if they’re tight for us – with a paid-off house and fairly low taxes – I can only imagine what they’re like for others, still stuck in suburbia . . .
Same here, Brent. I made a big improvement when I moved from Lonmg Island/NYC to a very rural area; we still have a lot more freedom here- but not for long. You can see the tyranny coming, as the gov’t school “educated” young people are demanding it- more gov’t as the “solution” to all of their problems; and as the provider of their every want. It won’t be long before we have the $12K a year property taxes of LI.
My next move is out of this country- to the third world, where they just don’t have the resources to erect gov’t control over every aspect of one’s life, once ya get out of the biggest cities.
It’s the only option for those of us who want to still live free! No freedom anywhere in the US police state…and it’s going to get worse, not better; and even after the country collapses, it’s not going to get any better, because the majority of people are statists/communists, and will just erect the same thing again- only this time without the benefit of the wisdom of the Founding Fathers.
Hey Brent, while we can’t escape it all, we can escape much of it. I live in a county with no zoning laws, no building codes, a sheriff’s department that only rarely writes tickets, and where my yearly property taxes are $6.72 on 21 acres with a house. I keep my income under $10K per year so I don’t pay income taxes and I’m not forced to buy Obummercare. We have a long growing season and produce a lot of our own food. It’s not the life for everyone but hardly a day goes by I don’t thank my lucky stars for the freedoms I enjoy here which have been lost in the majority of the rest of the counties in this country.
Hi GG,
Are you in AK?
SW Va is (well, was) kinda like what you’ve described. My county has no zoning ordinances (though Yankees have settled here and are working hard to change that), the cop shop is small (but expanding) and taxes are (relatively) low, compared with what we were paying previously.
GG, I haven’t quite gotten to the point of giving up my so-called career and leaving behind family to be alone on some spread down south. But I probably get closer every day. I’m tired of the time consuming, difficult things I have to do to achieve what I want while keeping the costs at an affordable level. Unlike other people, what I can afford is what I can afford to buy, not the debt I can service. This makes most everything around me unaffordable as people bid it up with borrowed money. Seems the only places that are affordable are where people are too poor to borrow extensively and are considered poor enough credit risks that they aren’t given four hundred thousand dollar loans.
“Unlike other people, what I can afford is what I can afford to buy, not the debt I can service…”
Me too, Brent.
I never buy anything I can’t afford to pay for outright. This has limited me to stuff that costs less than $10k.
But now – thanks to debt-fueled “advances” in features and equipment – $10k is no longer sufficient to buy (as an example) a new liter-class sport bike. They’ve been bid-up to $12-$14 (and more). And cars? Forget about it. Even something modest – like the Honda Fit I reviewed recently (and like a lot) is still going to cost you about $17k – and that’s before you add in the cost of mandatory insurance, taxes and so on.
Dear Brent,
“This makes most everything around me unaffordable as people bid it up with borrowed money.”
Not sure that’s the real problem.
The real problem is the debasement of the currency through legalized counterfeiting by the banksters who are the shareholders of the Fed and who control the Treasury from behind the scenes.
The Fed as Giant Counterfeiter
Mises Daily: Monday, February 01, 2010 by Robert P. Murphy
http://mises.org/daily/4029
Stripped of its fancy terminology and confusing mechanics, modern central banking boils down to a legalized counterfeiting operation. If there were suddenly a widespread public outcry to “punt the press,” we can bet our hypothetical monarch would mobilize all his allies in the media to discredit the people threatening his source of revenue. In that light, we can understand the reaction today to people calling to “end the Fed.”
In other words, the banksters have stolen your purchasing power through “monetary policy.”
Bevin, the people who are outbidding me for a house with a nice garage aren’t connected to the fed. They are wage slaves. But unlike me they are willing to borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The purchasing power isn’t the problem. In the economically depressed areas the same sort of houses go for 1/2-1/3 what they do where people have credit. I can get the same house, somewhere else, where people aren’t bidding it up, for an affordable price.
Dear Brent,
Okay, in that case, your specific circumstances suggest that local factors outweigh nationwide factors.
But from the perspective of the economy as a whole, and consumer prices as a whole, what I mentioned still holds true.
As Austrian economists have pointed out frequently, today’s dollar is worth 2 cents in 1913 currency.
That is true regardless.
Hi Bevin,
I think what Brent is getting at is that because so many people are encouraged to live beyond their means, the price of things like homes and cars has been pushed artificially beyond where the price would be if most people simply bought what they could afford.
I agree with this view.
False (debt-financed) prosperity is everywhere… and it affects almost everything.
Eric, I’ve been a compulsive saver all my life and very patient. Childhood lessons under Voker’s term as fed chair. I made 14% interest when I was a kid. 14% a year. If I could make 14% now, I could retire! Not the kind of retirement a cop gets, but enough to get by.
I am out of patience with this economic system that screws savers. Just before the bust, when interest rates went up? I was making good money on interest. Real toy buying money. Last year I didn’t even make enough money in interest to line item report it on the 1040.
This system is perverse. It rewards squandering, consumption, financial risk taking and debt. It punishes thrift, prudence, and saving. And then people wonder why the economy is in the crapper? The incentives are backwards.
Geeze, you guys, it’s a one-two-punch! It’s Not Only the debasement of the currency – it’s also the easy money – the easy availability of money, brought to you by, not PBS and the Sesame Street, but by the same the bunch that brought you Sesame Street.
That’s the horror of fiat money, it’s sooo easy for them to dole it out.
That’s what I learned from reading mises.org and thehousingbubbleblog..com anyway.
I’m so glad I bumped into them both in 2003. I’m certain I’d be fucked over without them. Upside down and inside Out.
In the background, ‘The Count’ is laughing as he says, “One,… Two, …You owe the bank Two hundred thousand Dollars! AhHaHaHa!”
Ka-boom!
This classic is not about housing, but it might as well be South Park episode And it’s gone!
Ah-hem. Easy Money:
It Begins: Council On Foreign Relations Proposes That “Central Banks Should Hand Consumers Cash Directly”
The plan is to promote violence and then capitalize.
Always the same.
Economics – such as inflation? Violence against our purchasing power. If Mackerel were to be currency tomorrow, you can BET there’d be a RUN on the fish – and again, same people would find the same methods to own all the fish.
Same with trade, deficit spending (captured well by Wimpy’s Famous “I will gladly pay you Thursday for a hamburger today!”), just the same as guns and force.
To them, it’s a game. “What do you mean, you don’t have a chauffeur? ANYBODY who is ANYBODY has at LEAST 5!” [followed by the elite shrugging and walking away from “one of THOSE” “little people” – that’s us.]
And that liberal, promoting racial intrusion (I mean, multiculturalism) goes back to their gated community, where the people all own the homes, and the servants know their place – the Hispanics do the lawns, the Blacks are the maids and butlers and maybe drivers, and either could be the pool boy… But the Whites make all the rules, and pay the lesser peoples “enough” – “what they deserve.” [Watch the beginning of the first “Triple X” film for that, in a five-second scene… Mr Politician, driving a Ferrari or such, is going to tip the valet $0.50 to park the car…]
FTL is likely being delayed.
NASA is scrap.
Our entire space program no longer exists.
TPTB don’t WANT a release valve, of ANY sort. Their biggest fear is that someone will escape their control… Even Mars or the Moon is too far away. Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Martian Chronicles. Let alone things like Wing Commander (Pioneers, was it?)
We must all know our place: Worshipping our betters and scrounging for crumbs.
After all, they KNOW their place: Make billions deciding whether we live or die, and how, and get additional pay and adulation for doing so in expensive and destructive ways.
If we got away, why – we might invent something new, or build something scary, and they wouldn’t be invulnerable any more…
Suppose it’s impossible?
I moved to New Hampshire a few years ago looking for freedom. Part of the Free State Project. There are about a thousand of us here now with more coming every day.
We are seeing some improvements in some areas. It’s not necessarily getting any free-er, but by having a number of state reps we have essentially created a “libertarian veto” that keeps new bad laws from being passed. Plus, activists all over the state are patiently teaching the blue-light gang that harassing innocent people can be costly for the towns that pay them. We’re seeing some real improvements in the attitude of the cops.
One fun thing some of the activists do is to show up in front of the “sobriety checkpoints” with posters suggesting drivers turn to avoid them. I was once in the center median with a sign when the window of a blacked-out Escalade rolled down and a guy handed me a Benjamin. He said we just saved him a lot more than that. It was pizza and beer for the whole group!
No seat belt law. No helmet law. No car insurance requirement. Open carry without a permit. No state income tax. No sales tax. I’m in the southern part of the state where there are enough “Massholes” to keep the property taxes high, but there are counties up north where there is cheap land, low property taxes, and no building codes.
It ain’t Galt’s Gulch, but doing something is better for my soul than just talking. All ya gotta do is be able to take the cold for a few months.
Hi Baxter,
It sounds great… except for the “few months” of winter… Isn’t it more like 5 months? That’s half the year in a holding (and freezing) pattern.
They get you one way or another…
Tell me about it. I grew up in the So. Calif. desert. It took a while to thicken my blood, but that’s a small price to pay to escape (somewhat) the leviathan.
I have a small farm that is very productive in the spring, summer, and fall. Winters are for repairing things (in a heated shop), planning next year’s crops, running the sawmill for next year’s projects, and writing books.
The warmth of (relative) freedom more than makes up for the few months of cold. There’s no furnace that will ease the frost of repression.
I just recently read somewhere about how the gov’t of NH is actively going to go after the free-staters there. You can be sure they’ll squash any organized rebellion to their tyranny. Basically, it’s going to be like what they did to the “Freemen” and militias in MT and other places out West. Can’t win anywhere in this country.
I moved to this rural area for the same reasons- to get away from NYC/high property taxes/building codes/etc. To have cheap land, etc. but with each passing day, I see a war being waged against those good things- and not just by the gov’t, but at the behest of the citizens. (They WANT free this and free that…so taxes go up; they want a new school because the old one is 30 years old and doesn’t look modern….they want to restrict what their neighbors do…they want the new multi-lane highway to save them 20 seconds on their commute to the town job…)
New Hampshire is a small state with a small population. And it has a very large (~450 members) house of representatives. Each gets paid $100/year, so they tend to be non-professional legislators. In other words, while the govt is far from “us”, it’s probably closer to the people than any other.
Some in the govt have tried to go after the Free Staters. One state rep (who herself moved here from Massachusetts a couple years ago), is trying to get the Free Staters to go back home. She called Free Staters the biggest threat to the state. We saw that as a huge win, and largely true.
Once a cop learns that someone is a Free Stater, that fact usually goes in their database as “known gang affiliation”. But this tends to work to our advantage, as it gives the cop some pause as he decides whether or not to pull one over.
The same tactic is used by the BLM on western ranchers. On grazing allotments the fees raise each year and the number of livestock allowed are decreased. The result – ranchers ‘voluntarily’ go out of business. It’s incremental, but did not work with Cliven Bundy.
It’s absolutely real.
Many years ago during a stint of unemployment in the UK I applied for a job where I would be in charge of all the government-run car parks in the county. It came with a hefty salary and perks, I had relevant experience so I applied and got an interview fast…
I actually turned the job down. Why? Because while describing the position and what it entailed it was explained, quite openly and without shame, that one of the goals of the position was to make driving private cars difficult, thus encouraging the use of public transport instead.
For example part of the job would be inspecting *privately* owned car parks, such as private companies having parking spaces around their business. I was openly told that the rules and regulations were intended to grind down such private car parks, making it an unattractive option to offer parking for employees due to the cost and hassle of compliance with the regulations.
I was shocked at the agenda but even more shocked at how casually they explained it, as though under the impression I would be on board and in full agreement with such treason against my fellow countrymen and motorists. They weren’t even dressing it up in pretty language; it was an older man and a young woman, cheerfully talking about the tools available to discourage private car ownership.
It’s a very real agenda.
This was explicit policy in openly authoritarian regimes world-wide.
In Eastern European nations, like those from which my wife’s family originates, the governments actually FORCIBLY resettled people into the cities and burned down their “villages”.
The purpose was OPENLY stated as control. Various justifications were used (safety, industrialization, etc) that appealed to different populations at different times. And regular propaganda themes were established to discourage any desire people might have to move out of the city centers.
The policy of population resettlement and centralization is one that is shared between the various ‘schools’ of collective totalitarianism (communism, socialism, national socialism, progressivism, etc).
The propaganda themes are easy to identify. Decide for yourself whether sub-urban and rural living are being discouraged by propaganda in your location.
If you are a victim of anti-rural (or suburban) propaganda, you may be tempted to believe some of these themes. If so then please keep in mind that many of the greatest human works of invention, engineering, science, and literature were created by rural-living people.
Here are some of the older themes:
“Outside of the city centers people are:
– Lazy
– Slow
– Stupid
– Unsophisticated.
– Uneducated.
– Fat.
– Unattractive.
– Sub-human.
– Violent.
– Murderous (think ‘Southern Comfort’)
– Bigoted.
– Primitive.
– Superstitious.
– Backwards.
– Incompetent.
– Boring.”
Here are some of the newer ones:
“Outside of the city centers people are:
– Destroying the environment.
– Eco-criminals.
– Dirty.
– Polluting.”
It’s an ever-evolving meme El_Gordo. I remember when I moved out of my country town here in Oz back in the mid-80’s, the yuppies moved in. I was never a hippy, but they rapidly turned into them. Hypocrites trying to escape their own invention.
El Gordo – forcible resettlement into densely populated areas is nothing new. Check the story of Joseph and the famine in Genesis.
Wow,… and to the other comment, wow.
Like many People, I guess I just expected better, compared to say oh, 1000 A.D.
..I’ve really Got to lower my expectations of the Daleck followers.
I used to think they could “get it”… but anymore, I’m having doubts.
Is it the fluoride that does them in, or the effects of geo-engineering?
…Or? …Psft, both, and vaccines, with a dash of pesticides?