How much longer will we be able to pay the mafias?
It is one thing to grumble about being made to hand over money to the insurance mafia to “cover” damages you’ve not caused – but might! – when you can still afford to lose the money.
It is one thing to grumble about being threatened with eviction from what can never be your home – even if it’s paid-for – by the government mafia if you do not hand over the rent money that is styled “property tax” when you can still afford to do so and eat.
What happens when people can no longer afford to do so?
This is the situation that’s developing. The average cost of car insurance is up by about 25 percent on average and many people (myself among them) are paying twice-plus what we were forced to pay just two years ago. And now the cost of rent that is styled “property tax” is also going up by that much – or more.
The other day, I received a letter from the government mafia informing me that they had decided my house is worth twice what they said it was worth four years ago, chiefly because of the spike in the transaction prices of houses that have sold in my area over that time period – which occurred chiefly because of the influx of people from other areas during “COVID.” That is to say, the influx of people from areas where on account of “COVID” living was becoming insufferable. Lots of people sold their million-dollar McMansions and moved here – and now my place is McMansion-valued by the mafia – so as to provide the pretextual framework for forcing me out of it by making the rent styled “property taxes” unaffordable.
This is happening to people all over the country – at the same time the cost of the car insurance we’re forced to buy has gone up by 25 percent – or more – and the cost of a couple of plastic bags of groceries has risen to $100.
I just paid $45 for a tarp (to collect leaves). This same tarp cost about $20 four years ago.
You have probably been paying similarly.
Soon, many of us will no longer be able to pay.
What happens then?
Will people buck at being evicted from the homes they not only paid-for but have been paying the mafia rent to live in for decades already? I’ve paid the local government mafia about $50,000 over the past 20 years to not be evicted from a house that cost $270,000. Now the mafia wants more – to pay for things like $45,000 a piece Ford Explorer police vehicles with the vary latest radar equipment to further fleece the populace with. Not to mention “the schools” that do such a fine job of not teaching other people’s kids not to read or write – or think.
There seems to be no end to the obligation to pay for “services” you don’t want, don’t approve of and do not want to subsidize – because other people have the power to to force you to pay for them.
But there is a limit to what people can pay.
Will people just stop paying the insurance mafia for “coverage” that leaves them nothing to pay the government rent in order to avoid being evicted from their homes to pay for “services” they don’t use, don’t approve of and do not wish to subsidize?
People are literally being driven to the poorhouse. Except poorhouses no longer exist. What will happen when quite possibly millions of people are living in tents because they’ve been forced out of their homes?
Will these confiscated homes be turned into government housing, a la Dr. Zhivago?
It’s a real possibility because it’s almost an inevitability. Force the working and middle class – the American proletariat – out of their homes and what becomes of the now-empty homes? There are only so any upper class folks able to afford to buy them – and pay the rent styled “property taxes.” It will leave many homes unoccupied. It will leave many areas depopulated. Either the dislocated will be forced to live in urban hives, Soviet prole-style or they will be allowed to return to a room in what used to be their home, now to be shared with other proles, Dr. Zhivago-style.
The good news is no more having to pay rent to the government in order to avoid being kicked out of what could never be your home anyhow. Now it’s officially not your home – and you’re allowed a room there so long as the government decides to allow it. Are you up to date on all your “vaccinations”?
This is the end of the road to serfdom – and we’re damn close to arriving there.
It is the inevitable consequence of abiding the idea that people who’ve not caused damages ought to be made to pay for damages they might cause. This empowered the insurance mafia, which has the power to force us to pay twice or more what we used to pay for the “coverage” we’re forced to buy because we’re not allowed to say NO to the mafia.
And of the Marxist idea that people “owe” money to pay for services they do not use, oppose and do not wish to subsidize – such as government schools for other people’s kids.
It is what was preordained to follow when the old American ideas of paying for damages you caused – and paying your own way – were replaced by Marxist ideas. The idea that you have a collective responsibility to “others” – no one specifically, just “others” – that supersedes your right to ever actually own a home, which Marxists understand renders Communism impossible. Hence the property tax. And the income tax. It’s all right there in the Communist Manifesto.
The idea being to prevent the average person from ever having capital – i.e., property – and thereby enserf him.
For many decades, the cost of Communism was bearable because we were allowed the fiction of owning things. But the end point was foreordained when Communist principles were accepted, even as we grumbled.
Perhaps we ought to have done more than grumble.
And just maybe, we will.
And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.
― The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956
. . .
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How Big Pharma Turned Disease Into a Trillion-Dollar Industry
Insurance companies profiting off death and disease…..
@ 13:19 in video…..history of when insurance companies became involved with Big Pharma….
Big pharma and their benefit managers work with the insurance companies to rip off consumers….price rigging…
Big Food works with Big Pharma….who work with Big Insurance…..get the slaves sick to make more profit….
Big Food’s…crappy food….a carrot today has 8% of the nutrition of a 1980 carrot….but….the fresh fruit, vegetable and meat section of a food store is very small…most of the store is filled with highly processed junk food…. filled with health destroying seed oils, sugar and chemicals…not food…
Go to a dietitian?……dietetics is captured by big food too.
Who owns Big Food, Big Pharma and the big Insurance companies?…Blackrock, Vanguard and State Street…..who also own Big Media that controls the narrative…..they are all owned by the slave owners…the Masters….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ra04tfmHjs
The Deserfment Picks Up Speed
‘Mitch McClownell, the longest-serving Senate party
hackleader in U.S. history, chose his 83rd birthday to share his decision not to run for another term in Kentucky and to retire when his current term ends.’ — APe NewsHopefully Dirty Old Turtle will chomp a fisherman’s worm-baited hook and get yanked out of the pond well before December 2026. Rigor Tortoise:
https://ibb.co/HTnMkmk7
The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades.
Amen, Jim –
It is my general policy to be accommodating and kind toward elderly people but when it comes to people like the Dirty Old Turtle (and Biden) I wish them a drawn-out, pain-filled last chapter of their lives, shitting the bed and laying in it for hours until the indifferent nurses get around to changing their diapers.
The government mafia will always demand a taste. I take pleasure in thinking about all those fired taxtaker DOGE’ed parasites screeching like children. Here’s hoping they starve!
You sound a bit like a monster, Chany.
Those deranged little parasites diminished the lives of everyone. Who’s the monster?
My state, like many, has “school choice.” Parents are allowed to choose which area school their kids attend and they get the money via a “voucher” to pay the tuition. This is tax money, basically the equivalent of what our state figured it pays to educate a child.
I do not have kids in school, so not relevant to me, except I think I should get access to a voucher as well and give it to the school of my choice. Maybe I’ll choose the local district, the nearby Catholic School, an innovative new charter school or the neighboring big city district. Why should I have to support the local district – which I find to be peopled by totalitarian asshats – just because I don’t have kids? Families can “opt out;” I want to as well.
Hi Amy,
Jefferson, that old heretic, said something to the effect that compelling a man (or woman) to furnish money for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
He must have hated “the children” . . .
How many of us vote no for more taxes? Every year people in our town vote on the school budget and it passes without fail. A passed school budget means we all have to pay for it through our property taxes. We can blame the politicians for high taxes, but our fellow citizezens love paying taxes. When given the chance they still vote to have to pay. People have become dependent on the taxes and subsequently the skoolz as their kids go there and so many people work in them. On a side note, this is Winter Vacation Week for the government endoctrination camps around here. Traffic is down 30% to 40% in the mornings.
Hi Ground,
Yup. And: One of the toxic byproducts of all of this is enmity. I like kids – but because they are now my wards in a very real sense and without my consent, I grow to dislike them. More finely, their parents. The people who chose to have kids which then become my wards, even though I wasn’t party to the conception of these children and don’t even know who they are. Yet I am – somehow – obliged to “help” school these kids, without limit. People can just fuck – pardon the language – and the end result of that becomes the burden of people who weren’t even in the room.
We’re paying for other people’s kids. We are also paying for the pensions of teachers who retired after 20 years, and get half pay for the rest of their lives.
In my eastern suburban region and my western rural region, the school tax increases were both voted down and big. Eastern place twice over 2 yrs, and western 3 times.
They then play out the disaster scenarios, and they still got voted down, and still big.
In my blue-east area they have state law means to raise it anyway after being voted down, just a little less of an increase ‘because it’s an emergency’. but in my red area, no such state law, and they are shutting down one of the schools (and should have a long time ago).
Some half decent news in my red place was there was a pretty big effort to get a private school to buy the not-needed public school, and it would have worked great, but the blue union put out all the stops to prevent it, and they just barely won. You should have seen the propaganda. I was surprised that the private idea got defeated, but the outside $ that poured in to the little school district was off the charts, cause they knew if the private firm got a good foothold there it would have spread.
Nice to see some tax slavers saying no.
The majority vote to steal from others. That be Democracy.
It’s all rackets of enslavement. Required insurance that avoids paying out, property tax that is nothing more than an extraction of tribute. It’s one form of slavery after another.
DOGE has had a very interesting effect. As more and more rackets are exposed we have so many people defending the rackets. Most of the stuff is nothing we “conspiracy theorists” didn’t already know about, so it’s not really shocking but what is interesting is how the team democrat players defend it all.
Furthermore how now because of democrat “leadership” for the clearly intentional set up for the destruction of a huge hunk of LA county supposedly we all have to pay more insurance and taxation.
Preach it,Brent!
The whole idea is to keep the serfs in a state of perpetual financial insecurity such that they have to work from youth to old age and then die. Hopefully before they collect too much in the way of “benefits.” if it weren’t for all these rackets, a responsible/frugal person could achieve financial independence by middle age and then pursue their own interests after that. The catch is that the rackets always get greedier and a time comes when the serf realizes there’s not much point in working and decides not to. Why not just get that EBT card and smoke pot, eat sushi and beat off to porn all day like the rest of the moochers?
Why not indeed. Which brings up UBI. Those for it used to argue it was so people could pursue their passions. I argued I have lots of passions to pursue that I can’t make a living at for one reason or another. Then I would point out how little UBI need be for me to quit working if I lived tax free. These people would then make arguments about how people should keep working hard to pay the taxes. Nope, I want my time and UBI is on the table so I’m taking it.
I don’t hear much these days about UBI being so people can follow their passions. Now it’s just pushed as a welfare program with a different name. Another racket to steal from the productive.
All the wonderment why so many people don’t work. They don’t work because it isn’t worth it when they have options that preserve their time and what they work for gets stolen.
Amen, Brent –
I have worked all my life – and enjoy what I do – but I grow increasingly weary of working chiefly to pay other people’s bills. The mentality of most people is incomprehensible to me. We chose to have cats and a dog. So I pay for their food and care. It does not enter my mind to “ask” anyone else to “help” me pay for their food and care. That is, force them to pay for it. Yet people – the majority, it seems – think that if they choose to have kids the cost of their schooling is other people’s obligation. Come again? Having kids is a choice. If you make that choice, then be responsible for the choice you made and care for – and school – your kids.
No one owes anyone else a thing beyond live – and let live. That is the whole of law. Or ought to be.
There is a way to beat the system and I have done it for decades, but it takes balls and toughness. You can make a fake insurance certificate to show the cop when pulled over, I have done this for decades and have had to show my fake “proof of insurance” several times. Most auto insurance companies send you an email for you to print out, so take that image, save it to your desktop, open it with MS Paint, modify it so it looks official, including the dotted lines you cut out with a scissors. It helps to know how to us microsoft paint. When you modify the template, enlarge it 300%, to make sure it is accurate, then resize to normal when printing it out.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=auto+insurance+proof+&atb=v444-1&iax=images&ia=images
Being a former military pilot (with big brass balls), I took my defunct USAA and changed it to USSA as a joke, changed the dates, changed the phone number to a fake 1-800 number, etc. That was my proof and it works as proof because the cop has no way of knowing if it is not proof, so he must accept it as proof.
(The USSA is a joke for United States Socialist Amerika)
I am not suggesting anyone do this, but I did because I KNOW it is all a scam, and now with USAID outed, billions being laundered – the USGov is a MAFIA CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE. I hope that Trump prosecutes them all, and hangs them all. I will play fair when the god damned government gets its shit together, cleans house, and when the insurance mafia is no longer allowed to lobby our elected whores.
Now there is something else to consider, you must keep your wealth outside their grasp if you are going to cheat on the insurance. I land in a trust, have gold coins buried, etc. If you want to play hardball you must get it very clear in your head that government is a criminal enterprise and enforced by thugs.
My sister found a way to beat the property tax scam in Oregon – every property, including her private residence, has a rental. She pays the tax alright, but she got the money from the rental on her property. After I got divorced and lost everything, I camped on her property for years, and went surfing everyday in Newport. I did not need much money because I was not renting, not paying insurance, etc. If I got desperate for food, I learned where all the free food places were, and in Oregon there is a shit ton because it is a liberal shit hole.
I also found out that a buff tanned surfer was a babe magnet even better than a pilot. If you are a tough muscular guy the wild gals do not care if you got any money, they want you because the rest of the men aren’t really men anyways – Oregon is full of soyboys and fags – seriously lacking testosterone. But I did not know what wild girl were until I lived in the jungle on the Big Island, but that is another story. Yes Virginia, there is a state where the girls run around naked.
Living wild and free in Hawaii is something anyone can do with no money. For many years I lived on the Big Island with no car (they had a bus that goes around the island for only a $1). The have a 5 cent deposit on soda cans, so you can easily get some money to ride the bus and go to Starbucks – which is what I did for years. No joke, back when I wrote for Veterans Today, I rode my bike in to town at o-dark-30 and went to starbucks, got free refills with their card, and wrote essays, one or two a day, you can still view them here:
https://www.veteranstodayarchives.com/?s=yukon+jack
—————
Great Men Needed to Save America
November 23, 2013
by Yukon Jack
“We need to revolt and take back the country. What is needed at this point are great men to organize the masses and route the snakes and return America to sanity. What is needed are authentic Americans who will return America to production and thrift.
No more free lunch. No more budget deficits or debt. No more foreign wars for Jewish interest, no more Jewish banks that pilfer the wealth of the nation with fractional reserve banking, no more debauched Jewish television stupefying the masses. What is needed is a complete overthrow of the Jewish order that has turned America from the powerhouse into a shit house.” … continues
read the rest of the essay if you want to read some serious shit
I realized decades ago I could create a great looking ‘proof of insurance’ from the insurance company of Dewy, Cheatam, and Howe that would fool any cop, but the problem comes up when the state demands insurance info for one of it’s random audits or as it did back in the day require the information on the license plate renewal. The there’s the problem of when someone hits me and the insurance isn’t real. As a result I decided that a fake insurance card was only going to cause bigger problems in the end.
If you got the money then you should pay to protect yourself, most insurance carriers have a cheap addon for uninsured motorists. If you don’t carry insurance make damn sure you do not cause an accident.
Hi Jack,
I agree that liability insurance is a sound precaution. But because it is mandatory, the cost is increasingly not worth the putative benefit. Even a “cheap” policy that “only” costs say $500 annually ends up costing you $10,000 over 20 years. If you do not cause an accident, what is the benefit of losing $10,000? I could completely rebuild my truck for that sum – or just buy another one like it.
And most people are paying a lot more than $500 annually.
Cost to run an old used car…from the pre 2000’s…. for ten years…..
Purchase price $2000 to $3000
Insurance $10,000?
Fuel $20,000?
Repairs and maintenance…if you do some yourself $5000?
Depreciation…maybe near zero….
Insurance is a huge cost….
Buy a new $50,000 EV….just the depreciation over ten years is probably 100%….$50,000….plus expensive insurance….plus charging costs….plus frequent expensive tire replacement…..plus lots of maintenance/repairs….EV’s are very unreliable…very defective….
Morning, Anon!
I’m about done with “insurance” – at gunpoint. I await the renewal “offers” on my motorcycles and antique car. If they expect me to pay twice-plus what I was paying last year – as happened with my truck “coverage” that covers nothing except the potential damage I might cause to others (and never seem to actually cause) – I will cancel all of it. I just don’t give a damn about playing by their rules anymore. The rules that are breaking me, financially. I will do the same next year as regards my truck if these mafia thugs try to double my “coverage” again. If that makes me an outlaw – it’s a title I will wear proudly. The gloves are off.
I’m done.
Next is figuring out how to stop paying property taxes without becoming homeless.
Or keep driving after causing one, and make sure to keep in in the garage for a couple months.
Of course I have UIM coverage. But the thing is if someone hits my car, even if it’s parked, the cops and the government start prying. This can allow for the discovery that the insurance card is fake. That’s why such a creative idea can quickly become a huge problem.
Why the homeless migrate to the Left coast:
https://s.w-x.co/staticmaps/wu/fee4c/temp_cur/usa/20250219/0500z.jpg
Take a look at the green band on the west coast of Amerika, Seattle, Portland, Salem, Eugene, Grants Pass, Medford are all in the green, warmer temps – compared to the subzero inland.
Dallas Texas will be down to 18F tonight. NO GLOBAL WARMING.
I like it, Jack!
Your post made my morning! On the fake insurance card: The problem isn’t so much the cops, it’s the computers. The DMV regularly checks to make sure you are “covered” – if you own a “registered” vehicle – and if you are not “covered” then you are screwed. The bastards will revoke your registration, impose huge fines and the insurance mafia will be notified of your “uninsured” badness and then, when you go to get “covered,” you will discover that it will cost you twice-plus what it would have before, because being “uninsured” is an excuse to charge you twice-plus.
That said, there is another option and it is one I think I’m going to choose. I am going to cancel the registration/plates on my bikes and so legally cancel the “coverage,” which I expect is going to double, too. Just like cost of my truck’s “coverage” did. Ditto the “coverage” on the TA. This will save my everything I’m forced to spend to “cover” the truck. And I will still ride the bikes – because fuck ’em. Same with the TA. I don’t drive it much anyhow and the odds of being “pulled over” are slim if I just knock around the backroads near my house. The bikes? They’re quick and I know how to ride.
Bye-bye cops.
I’m done being a fool. The time has come to fight dirty and survive – and thrive.
“Farm Use” tags, man. That is the way to go. No ins, no registration, no nuthin’ Get the tags at Farm and Fleet
Eric – you should consider moving away from Virginia, Oregon welcomes you, grow all the pot you want, and they don’t check for your insurance.
What is happening is the third worldifcation of police state Amerika – the system has robbed us blind with inflation and wars. Either you got a million or don’t, the middle class is being eviscerated (see Charles Hughes Smith articles on how the Fed is killing the middle class)
https://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2024/01/what-fed-accomplished-distorted-economy.html
So what do poor people do in all those turd world nations? They cheat like hell to survive. Life becomes cheap, cops get killed if they do things the people don’t like. I really don’t see why we should pay any more to this god damned federal mafia, they have proven themselves to be somewhere between criminally negligent to outright treasonous. USAID proved it was way worse than we thought. Eggs prices is a false flag attack, bird flu is a damn hoax, they are screwing with our food supply – an act of war. Damn them and damn their manipulations, they all deserve death.
Morning, Jack!
I’ve been to (and driven around) Oregon. It’s a beautiful state but -like Virginia – it is ruled by Leftist-infested urban hives and so I don’t see that it’s much better than Virginia. If I am forced to move, it will be to an extremely rural area in a depopulated state where the odds are good the locusts won’t arrive until after I am gone.
Yukon Jack,
“If you are a tough muscular guy the wild gals do not care if you got any money, they want you because the rest of the men aren’t really men anyways.”
I see why this works for you with the ladies…..Hot/Crazy Matrix
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_USJCTIgs4
That video was hilarious, Hans!
this video never gets old
That was pretty funny.
“For many decades, the cost of Communism was bearable because we were allowed the fiction of owning things. But the end point was foreordained when Communist principles were accepted, even as we grumbled.”
Ludwig von Mises observed some 100 years ago already that it is not possible to only have ‘a little bit of socialism’.
Because that little bit soon grows into a large bit, and then swallows all. Exactly like cancer.
Which is precisely where we’re at. Trump and DOGE notwithstanding.
(It will take a lot more than DOGE to convince me Musk wants freedom for the masses!)
Was it Bastiat who said government is the fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else?
He was almost right. Government in the land of the free is the great fiction by which the rich and well connected live at the expense of the non rich and not well connected.
During a second Soviet purge in the 30’s under Stalin, farmers knew that their horses and cattle were in the process of being collected. According to Bill Whittle, an estimated 30-40MM animals were slaughter, not by the Soviets, but by the farmers themselves so the Soviets wouldn’t get them.
So now, we have property taxes being levied to pay for local socialism of public schools and armed government workers (who abuse people’s rights, not protect their rights). Property tax is a bill of attainder in that apartment dwellers *think* others are paying the tax increases and or bonds they vote in favor of. This might go on for a bit longer but, as Margart Thatcher said…eventually you run out of other people’s money. When that day comes the insurance mafia may get a surprise as homeowners torch their houses rather than have then collected.
People already pour cement down the drains & otherwise trash the place when the bank forecloses on them.
The banks & the insurance companies are in this together, there is virtually always a clause in the mortgage that requires you to maintain a certain level of insurance on the property for tge duration of the mortgage.
Like birds on a wire we dance to their music. We do the creating, the inventing, the work and mental gymnastics. They buy it up and sell it back at ten times the cost. Roads, electric, gas, coal, oil, land, you name it,,, they take control of it then claim its theirs calling it ‘Public’. Our Emperor and his Court Jester (two fraudster billionaires )act surprised at all the fraud they’re ‘finding’. Both are well aware of the scams and frauds in good ole Scam USA as they have been part and parcel of it all their lives. Now they’re America’s hero’s.
I remember when cops used to drive around in old dilapidated Crown Vics. Today, they drive brand new $ 75,000 dollar SUV’s dressed in all their cool tactigear! In many locales even their guns are paid for by the very people they’ll likely use them on. Even many of the lowest life forms in corpgov drive around in taxpayer purchased vehicles using taxpayer gasoline.
We even pay for the military and equipment they use against us if we complain too harshly. The January 6 bunch invited into the capitol for the grand tour got several years in jail. Some are still in .
Naaaaa,,,, we pretty much deserve it.
I agree with everything you said, except “we deserve it”. Normal people just want to live their lives and be left alone. But it’s never the case. Someone has always been the exploiter.
Here in WA the knife gets twisted one more time when you sell, the REET:
Real Estate Excise Tax. Gross sale price, not on the gain (or loss).
It’s a combo state and local jurisdiction grift, with the rate increasing the higher the sales price. Around my area most homes fall under 1.5 million so our effective rate is 1.78%.
Oh, put it in a trust? Well, that’s a “transaction of controlling interest” so yep that triggers the REET as well.
Also my local school district school bus replacement levy passed, of course. Lump that on to the ‘hobby farm out behind the school building’ levy from several years ago. Those two account for around $800 of my near $5k yearly bill. Yeah I know that’s a pittance compared to New York but a 100% increase over 6 years is still maddening.
Know your enemy:
David Medina
@davidmedinapdx
Anti-@elonmusk, anti-Trump Portland lady goes on unhinged tirade over my US flag, hunter hat.
https://x.com/davidmedinapdx/status/1890940121542807774
Just imagine how this deranged Karen would have reacted to a Confederate battle flag … :-0
Last year our insurance agent (Farmers) told us to expect “stunning” premium increases. Stunning indeed. Then some idiot ran into a large circular brick planter in our small gated community. The Farmers adjuster berated my wife (who is on the HOA board) and shorted the HOA by $1,000 on a $2,300 claim. The HOA voted not to pursue the matter. It obtained new coverage from an independent agent. My wife an I canceled our Farmers coverage (auto liability, home, umbrella) and also obtained coverage from the independent agent. We now have auto coverage with Progressive (out of the pan, into the fire?) and other coverage with a couple small carriers. Liability in an amount equal to our net worth. Let the personal injury attorneys duke it out with our insurers and not us. Our attorney placed all our assets in a trust. That might help when the SHTF. We drive a 1999 Civic coupe (wife), 2007 Civic Si (me), no new “connected” vehicles for us, thank you.
I used to be the maintenance manager for an HOA management firm. Vi had 1200 units, mostly in gang controlled areas of Salinas CA, back in the thick of the 2008 housing situation. Imagine trying to enforce HOA rules on gangbangers; have I got stories! Anyway, the scam of HOA management companies is “billable hours”, just like attorneys. I was always pressured about increasing my billable hours. I would never live in an HOA if I could avoid it. Same human situation there: each board member is its own special interest group and likes to spend other people’s money on pet projects. As I sat through countless board meetings with each mini tyranny lobbying for their pet project, I realized I was witnessing Congress in miniature.
Unrealized capital gains. Remember when that was an election topic? Well, here’s the perfect example of unrealized capital gains, the property “assessment.” The valuation is determined quite scientifically, using recent sales of similar properties, so you can’t really complain. Oh, you can appeal, but at least in Colorado the appeal process is to fill out a web form and wait for them to deny it.
There are no “capital gains” UNTIL they are “realized”. Another example of creative language brought to you by the Psychopaths In Charge.
And considering that a substantial part of any ‘capital gain’ will be due to accumulated inflation, even where there is an actual disposal of the property, often you’ll be paying tax on zero, or even negative, net ‘gain’.
It’s a great system…for some.
‘The Free State Project’ – “Liberty in our lifetime” …seemed nice, Then, they went & picked cold on the East, New Hampshire to do it in & it was all over from there.
As if it were even possible that People would/could entertain bridge ideas like only corporations paying property & income taxes.
After watching North Dakotans vote down the idea of eliminating property taxes – twice! – serfdom, it’s what’s for breakfast.
Can’t imagine, “Liberty in our lifetime” now. If it did, be too old to enjoy it or make use of it, anyway.
“’Save democracy’ is code phrase for a club of delusional people who belong to a delusional group that does delusional things to justify their delusions.”
– Wendy Williamson
“… — the gaslight will finally get turned off and the sunlight will shine in. You know this is going to happen.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/blobs-reality-distortion-no-longer-working-so-well
Do ya? …& what diff. would it make?
…And the beat goes on.
“After watching North Dakotans vote down the idea of eliminating property taxes – twice! – serfdom, it’s what’s for breakfast.”
This is an example of voting ones self largesse. I imagine ND, like most states, have over 50% of the population being subsidized by such taxes.
Or, it could be, and probably is another example of ‘He/She who counts the votes, controls the outcome.’
I’m stunned how its always blamed on half the country being leftists when in all likelihood its nothing more than a run of the mill 2AM vote drop. A van pulls up, either full of mail in ballots, or USAID operatives with pockets full of flash drives. Then its all over but the shouting, or re-counting in this case.
We really ought not have any more elections if we cant wipe all the rolls clean and start over fresh.
I don’t think election tampering is required. The universal belief of anyone older than about 50 right now is hand’s off my social security and medicare. The Boomers didn’t stand in the way of that for their parents so the die is cast. I think intuitively Gen X understands those things won’t be there and we’ve perhaps lived more within means and stashed IRAs, but I’m not betting my future on it. And we’re getting the full brunt of property taxes and insurance right when we should be winding down the earning years. But what are many of us doing? Selling everything and doing van life, barely a more comfortable version of our 20s living in a truck or with 3 room mates to get started. Nah, there’s no easy fix to all of this other than massive collapse, lots of financial haircuts and widespread noncompliance.
‘theres no easy fix to all of this other than massive collapse, lots of financial haircuts and widespread noncompliance.’ Couldn’t agree with you more, especially the part about widespread noncompliance.
Early GenX here, born in 65. Paid a lot of SS over my working years. especially considering I was self employed and paid both sides=15%. I never counted on seeing that money again. Been retired for years and now Im just two years away from drawing a monthly check. If they refunded me a portion of that money, I’d take it, forgo any future SS checks, and go away. If not, I’m taking my 22OO$ a month until the day I die. If they end SS or cut me off, that might convince me to stop paying all taxes.
To old for the van life but out here in the west, every once and awhile, it feels like anything is still possible. Going out and building something off grid from scratch is still doable in certain parts of Arizona.
“Going out and building something off grid from scratch is still doable in certain parts of Arizona.”
Yes it is.
Ditto, Norman!
I will collect as soon as I am eligible – if there’s anything to collect. I am (per my comment to Jack above) also considering going outlaw as regards “coverage” because I will not be bankrupted paying for harms I haven’t caused to these legalized mafias. If it is not enough to cause no harm, to pay one’s own way and leave other people alone, then they can call me a “criminal” and I will wear the title with pride.
You might as well. My wife started getting hers last year and she was self employed as was I. With the total amount she paid in, we figured in about six years she will break even. Of course thats not accounting for what money was worth then as compared to now.
Hi Mark,
That’s exactly the problem, there are enough tax feeders to keep the gravy train going. A referendum passed here years ago limits property tax increases to 2-1/2% a year; of course that can be overridden with a special election and it happens almost every year. The scare articles in the local press claiming there won’t be enough teachers, firefighters, cops, snowplows, etc. get all the chicken littles to approve it every single time. Between all the town employees and the parents afraid little Johny might not get into Harvard fiscal sanity doesn’t stand a chance.
Could it also not be that we’ve not had fair or free elections in decades and we are so ate up with Stockholm syndrome that we just gloss over this point?
Living in Vegas for twenty years I learned that the house always wins. Is not the ‘Blob’ of GovCo equal or greater than the ‘House’ in Vegas?
Every Law enforcement officer, their wives voted no on the property tax measure.
Every school teacher, every city employee and their spouses voted no, every school janitor voted no, every university professor voted no, every single government employee voted no. Anybody paid by taxes and fees and taxes and fees voted no.
It didn’t stand a chance the first time, the second chance was futile.
Too much dependence on the system by too many on the take.
When someone’s salary depends upon not understanding somethun, you will not be able to tell them nuffin.
Homeowners are victims, to the hilt.
Why doesn’t Elon address property taxes?
Property taxes pay, that’s why.
Everything costs at double or more because the money supply, M2, has nearly tripled from $8 trillion in 2010 to just shy of $22 trillion today:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL
The government needs to increase M2 to inflate the $36 trillion debt away (it was only $5 trillion in 2000). They cannot tax you enough to pay the debt, so they pay the debt back in inflated, debased currency by simply printing more money, which is a form of a “hidden” tax on the people.
At some point the circus ride comes to an end…
The ONLY thing that will help normal people to defend against that is gold and silver. It can’t be inflated, it can be bought piecemeal in small quantities, and it can easily be hidden. But we’re still going to have to gnaw off the leg to get out of this trap.
Even ‘money supply’ is a loaded term. More accurately, M2 is the ‘scrip supply’ of keystroke kurrency, none of which is redeemable for anything — not even for the Treasury notes that supposedly ‘back it’ [sic, LOL].
And they could have gotten away with inflating away the debt if only they’d have stopped spending. But they’re rolling over and adding more debt at the inflated prices so the whole crazy train is spiraling faster. Back in 2008, 2012, if anyone had listened to Ron Paul with an honest, open mind we could have acknowledged the problem and maybe could have normal FED inflation spread the pain over a decade of tightening belts. They were able to stave off disasters in earlier decades. Terribly painful consumer prices and mortgage rates, no doubt. But the world kept spinning and people weren’t kicked out their houses. The government was nowhere near as bloated, school districts still reasonably solvent, police and fire that more or less just existed to keep the peace and serve residents, military that had to prove it’s worth after Vietnam. Those relatively good times were shattered by 9/11 in my view. That’s the moment when every public “servant” became a hero and there was no limit to bureaucracy metasizing.
Looks like we are fast approaching a “Let them eat cake” moment. Which If you recall, didn’t work out so well for the cake eaters. Or anyone else for that matter.
Yep, and here’s how they’re rolling out the propaganda to prepare us for it:
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/canned-foods-convenient-affordable-nutritious-100019087.html
“What happens then?”
First steps into the Weimar Republic, then a tyrant with a stupid moustache, then destruction?
‘There are only so many upper class folks able to afford to buy them – and pay the rent styled “property taxes.” It will leave many homes unoccupied. It will leave many areas depopulated.’ — eric
One would think so. But in practice, it hasn’t happened yet. A decade ago, when I left the NYC suburbs, ordinary 3-bedroom, 2-bath, fifty-year-old, ticky-tacky houses were incurring property taxes in the $12,000 to $24,000 range. Today that range is probably 50 percent higher.
Yet two-income couples with high-paying city jobs tote that load (we sold to one such couple). Those who bail out head for lower-cost parts of the country. What ultimately acts as a shock absorber when a recession hits is falling real estate prices.
Residential real estate is bubbled up like never before (even 2006). Orange Hoover is going to smash that bubble. But first, his new Secretary Scott Bessent plans to monetize the Treasury’s 261.6 million troy ounces of gold, carried on the books at $42.22 an ounce. Marked to market, it’ll add $700 billion of thin-air purchasing power to the Treasury’s General Account. ZeroHedge called it a new kind of QE (Quantitative Easing).
All that ‘free money’ is going to be like covid stimmy checks all over again. Watch everything from lumber to eggs to used car prices crank like a mofo. Who’s your daddy?
That bubble is going to bust regardless of what Trump does. At least there is some leadership now which doesn’t hate the American people and the idea of Merica.
When the plane is going down, your only options are to control the descent and pick the least awful place to crash on. Keeping it in the air is not an option.
The time for a crash and painful recovery was 2008.
But the banks were rewarded with a bailout – and “too big to fail/too big to jail” became the principal behind the Obama Syndicate (brought upon by the Bush II Syndicate and then handed over to the Trump Syndicate.)
Orange Man sure enjoyed the printing press too.
The entire economy has been hollowed out and the stonk market/asset inflation is the ONLY thing keeping this house of cards from folding – until it does.
Deflation is a 4-letter word and nobody in the White House – or anywhere else – will hear of it.
100x worse than 2008.
That accounting trick only works if everyone agrees not to audit the gold. Who’s going to buy the gold? The FED carries certificates for the gold they sold to the Treasury in 1934 as an asset already, so they’d have to buy it back (at that $42.2222/ounce price though) to re-sell it. The Treasury has loaned or swapped that gold they claim to have so it’s got a liability against it by someone who will want to be paid before they clear the lien. It’s a circular firing squad with the national gold reserves and I kind of mean literally. Someone will get antsy or sense a way to exploit things, they may literally end up with a flurry of two-to-the-head suicides to keep a lid on the paper trail.
You can sell and move to Arizona. There are 113,900 square miles of state there. All kinds of room in southern Arizona, the land is not nearly as expensive and there is plenty for sale.
75 degrees in December is convincing, the weather is not bad, the skies are blue and the scenery can’t be beat.
The record low on this date in 1966 was minus 26 degrees.
Today, it is -34 degrees F, a new record for this date set today.
Don’t ask me why I live here, born and raised in the same spot, you grin and bear it.
Global warming is doing the best it can to warm the place up, Old Man Winter says nicht so schnell.
Freezin’s the reason is why people live in milder climates.
‘There are 113,900 square miles of state there.’
This is true. But it’s not all for sale. In my little county, 97 percent of the land is owned by the US fedgov (national forest; Indian reservations). Towns where you can buy property look a map of Hawaii in the middle of the blue Pacific.
Despite perpetual complaints from the county about its inadequate tax base, property taxes are about one-fifth of what one would pay for the same structure in Mortitia Hochul’s Workers Paradise.
There is land for sale along the Kansas Settlement Road, an area close to Willcox and Benson is where I’m thinking. The San Pedro River is there, so there is water.
Pecan groves up and down the roads, irrigated hay fields, grape vineyards, cotton fields, cattle, pistachio groves. Oranges are ready to pick in February.
The place is on the move. I-10 is a busy road.
I was taken aback to see what I did see. I have a son down there and he has a good job, I will visit again next winter. Somehow find a place to rent for two months or so.
The economy ain’t hurting that bad in Arizona.
The flocks of Sand Hill cranes in southern Arizona will be in Canada by early June.
It is not easy to pull up stakes and move to someplace new and different.
Be careful about living near those pistachio farms — they’ll suck your well dry:
‘Big farms around Willcox draw on wells as deep as 2,500 feet. As they do, water levels throughout the area are plummeting and homeowners’ shallower wells are increasingly going dry. As the water is pumped out, the ground is sinking. As
the earth settles, fissures are gouging cracks in the roads.
‘Farms and other well owners are pumping more than four times as much water as the estimated natural recharge that goes into the ground in an average year, according to data from the Arizona Department of Water Resources.’
https://www.sej.org/sites/default/files/Arizonas_Next_Water_Crisis.pdf
California is subsidence land. Too many acre feet pumped out of San Joaquin Valley spells doom, 29 feet lower in one spot out in irrigation areas.
So much oil was pumped out of the ground in Long Beach, the land dropped 29 feet there too. Ocean water flooded in.
There is a limit to subsidence.
The subsidence in Willcox and those places is seven inches per year.
The recharge of the aquifers will be possible.
If the Romans could build aqueducts, so can Arizonans.
Dam the Colorado River, do something.
Wilcox is a nice area. Go a little further east to Portal AZ to be really awe inspired. I’m partial to Bisbee, we have a few longtime acquaintances down there, almost pulled the trigger on a deal a few years back. My only problem with that whole area is the proximity to Mexico. We’re just one more stolen election away from having a government that decides to abandon, or shrink our borders. I figure being north of Phoenicia is the safe bet. Although opportunity requires risk, so there is that.
Sal Tirrito is a medical doctor, a cardiologist, lives in the area, and built a farm in 2017, Tirrito Farm.
A modern facility, dining room, camping in geodesic structures, vineyard, cattle, poultry, a pistachio grove. A farm with a brewery, bar, and other interesting features. A new barn with a loft and a machinery steel building. Locals were in the bar at noon.
You can travel there on the Kansas Settlement Road.
It is a tourist trap, but a nice facility.
Don’t know how deep the well is, 300-400 feet is a close estimate, 55 dollars per foot to drill, the pump and pipe, run you another 25 thousand.
My son is the master brewer there at Tirrito Farm, and takes home silver and gold metals from the Arizona craft brewers competition.
Formulates a brew and cans it on the canning line. The beer sells and is distributed in Tucson.
A brewer in Tucson talked to Sal and recommended my son for the job.
Everybody is happy.
That is how I know.
Paul Revere and the Raiders wrote a catchy tune about Arizona.
Sounds like your son is doing what he loves. As parents we cant really ask for much more than that. Kudos to you and his mom.
Hi Drump,
My folks used to live in AZ and – I agree – it’s a nice state. But real estate there isn’t much less than it is here. They’ve pretty much got us cornered…
Phoenix to Tucson has a population of 5.5 million with the metro areas counted, those places can be avoided.
You will pay through the nose in those two cities.
The Gem Show in Tucson is winding down, gems from all over the world on display.
Willcox is where history buffs of the Old West spend their time.
You can buy 10 acres adjacent to the Kansas Settlement Road for 30,000 USD. 20 acres, 10 acres next to the first 10, is 60,000 USD.
You can visit Canyon de Chelly.
Four acres in a small nearby town will run you 10,000 USD.
Southern Arizona is a great place on the planet.
RE: “Four acres in a small nearby town will run you 10,000 USD.”
I imagine zero jobs around, & very little in the way of other on-the-ground income generation, surrounded by zero real trees or green grass.
I wonder what food costs are, A/C costs, & property taxes.
I dunno, only drove through parts of the State twice, long long ago.
$10,000 for 4 acres, even without a house, sure is tempting.
[Insert video of the table scene from the film, Easy Rider’.]
“No, I mean it. You’ve got a nice place. It’s not every man that can live off the land, you know. You do your own thing in your own time. You should be proud.”
Iowa farmers sold their land and homesteaded in a county in my state.
Made bank, free land.
Every winter is bad up north, you make a beeline to Arizona to escape Old Man Winter and Mother Nature’s relentless wrath.
Winter is a war of all against all.
Plenty of Canucks in Phoenix, ya know.
Anne Murray sang a song about snowbirds from Canada.
In Benson, the winter up norte attracts snowbirds, 5000 becomes 15,000 residents for a few months.
Of course, there is a Safeway, you can drive around like it is Sunday forever.
No worries there.
By the middle of April, those snowbirds are on their way back to the same old dreaded drudgery.
They’re nomads.
Make Lake Mead full again.
There they were, gone.
Back to the Mercury mines.
Now there’s snowbirds in search of that sunshine and night life
And fond of greasin’ palms down the beach as they’re goin’
Now this livin’ on the edge of the waters of the world
Demands the dignity of whooping cranes
And the likes of Gilbert Roland – Guy Clark, South Coast of Texas
One of the coolest sights I saw in AZ was an area where two main highways intersected at a tiny blink “town” in the middle of nowhere, at dusk, hundreds of RV’s in little groups all camped out in chuck wagon style circles around a shared campfire.
Unforgettable.
As far as the GovCo school scam, when you speak as you have you will inevitably get pushback. The first will be that it’s needed to ensure that the kiddies are “educated” and that you will benefit from their knowledge. If that doesn’t work you will be reminded that YOU went to GovCo schools therefore you MUST pay for that “right” for others. It’s as though as a five or six year old you had any sort of control over what, where and how you were to be educated. You must pay for the decisions of your parents. Lastly, and this is my favorite, you will be told the GovCo schools are needed to provide a suitable workforce in the area to “attract” business. If that’s not socialist/communist/slavery I don’t know what is.
GovCo schools are, at best, an intergenerational welfare scheme that provides jobs for the otherwise unemployable. Nothing more. Now, pay up.
Hi Eric,
I am not understanding the argument. Has the county decided that your $270k home is now worth $540k or have they increased your real estate taxes, but the home value is still the same? Where is the twice as much coming from? Or this isn’t the county, but homeowners insurance has doubled from last year’s premium?
Hi RG,
The assessed value – the basis for the property tax – has more than doubled and that’s just now. It has been increasing for years. I bought this house 20 years ago – for $270k. Since then, I’ve been forced to pay appx. $50k in property taxes. For what? For “services” I do not use or approve of and do not wish to subsidize. The county recently bought six brand-new Ford Explorer Hut! Hut! Hut! mobiles for the Tacticooled thugs to cruise around in. Someone’s got to pay for that, eh?
So the county is assessing the value of the home at $540K? Can’t you argue this based on the previous year assessment? That is a ridiculous hike. I don’t see how the country is able to validate an increase of value of 2x the amount from the previous year.
Hi RG,
Because they can. That’s the point. Just like the insurance mafia. We are reduced to hoping they won’t screw us too much… and then, of course, they do. Because they can. And so, they will.
This won’t stop until it’s ended. How about we try paying our own way again? I mean we each pay for what we need and want – and that’s it. No more of this “community” stuff, which just means a majority of people can force everyone to pay for what they say is needed and wanted. That’s not “community.” It’s Communism. And it ends up with everyone being a prole – except for the few who enforce the “dictatorship of the proletariat.”
No, no, they can’t . Are you not going to fight this? I would think that the county’s Commissioner of Revenue is going to have a hell of time to explain a 200% increase in assessed value. You also cannot be the only citizen who has seen your RE increase this much.
Hi RG,
Yes, I and a number of my very pissed off neighbors are going to beg for mercy. Because that’s all we can (legally) do.But I suspect a time is not far distant when more will have to be done. Minimally, there ought to be a cap on how much a person is forced to pay. Say 25 percent of the original purchase price – which is still confiscatory but at least there’s an end to it – and a point at which you will actually own your house.
Can an insurance company seriously seize your home and property (that is paid for) because you do not have insurance? WTH?? I can understand if one is making payments on said home or property. But if it is paid for, leave someone the hell alone.
Hi Shadow,
If the home is paid in full you are not required to have insurance on it in any of the 50 states throughout the Union. Homeowner’s insurance is a requirement by lenders, not government.
That is what I thought, RG, but thought I would ask. These days, you just never know…
‘No more of this “community” stuff, which just means a majority of people can force everyone to pay for what they say is needed and wanted. That’s not “community.” It’s Communism.’
Thank you, Eric. It’s become a glaring obvious code word. Coercion thinly disguised as benevolence.
“Commmuuuuunity!”
So then, what’s the word to use to describe what the word ‘community’ used to mean?
In my neck of the woods, on the rural roads – sometimes – the locals, complete strangers, would wave at you when you passed each other going the opposite way. That’s about as ‘community’ as it gets if you’re new to the area.
…But, it’s something.
Much better than the exchange of the complete non-acknowledgement & blank-eyed stare that you even exist as you walk towards people outside a store entrance in The City.
…What word is used to describe WHY the locals voluntarily get together for their church pot-lucks or, white-tail deer club dinner at the big dinning hall connected to the bar & grill/gas station, or the group of UTV’s gathered for the mud bog races in the cornfield if not, ‘community’?
“In my neck of the woods, on the rural roads – sometimes – the locals, complete strangers, would wave at you when you passed each other going the opposite way.”
This seems to be the rule where I live, Helot. In fact, if someone doesn’t wave, you question whether they live here. Then there is the sheriff, who, if sighted out here, does not wave in return, but is prone to giving you a shitty look.
And what word to summarize these phenomena? Perhaps two words in rustic speak: “Bein’ neighborly.”
Yeahbut, that Waltz creep usurped ‘neighborly’ …didn’t he?
Outside of that, I can’t exactly see calling the mud bog gathering, ‘neighborly’.
Tim Walz? Did he?
Walz also spoke of ‘freedom”, but seemed to have absolutely no idea what that word means. Also, “mind your own damn business”, though he didn’t seem to understand that concept, either.
It’s not me seeking to change the meaning of the word ‘community’. I just have noticed the trend of using that word to typically denote some kind of sacrifice said to be necessary for the good of some collective, and the inability to leave others alone.
I hear this word these days, and the last thing it brings to mind is a pot-luck or mud-bogging (social events?). I’d think maybe I was being crazy, but it looks like Eric and perhaps others have noticed this as well.
I hear ya about the term, ‘community’. I think even Slick Willy used that quite often, if I’m not mistaken.
A new word usage seems appropriate. Dunno what.
Anyway, catch ya up to speed:
“… A video has been going around social media of Walz saying “one person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness”…”
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/congressman-andy-biggs-slams-minnesota-gov-walz-saying-socialism-good-neighbor
Amen, BaDNOn!
Summoning the ghost of the Reichsmarschall: When I hear the word community, I instinctively reach for my pistol . . .
I feel the same way when I hear the word “stakeholder,” which really means the “stakeholder” has no ownership interest and did not expend any money or resources for the particular thing, but the “stakeholder” intends to assert some sort of ownership interest in it nonetheless.
Hey Mr. Liberty,
Having taken project management classes, the term “stakeholder”, in that context, means a person or group who is to benefit from the project undertaken.
In the “public policy” sense, when you’re hearing “stakeholder”, you’re right in that it doesn’t seem to denote those on the receiving end of the “policy”, but those who benefit from whatever it might be. And you can be generally sure that it isn’t you or me.
Perhaps if people only elected officials that endeavored to maintain the status quo. You know fix the roads, arrest criminals and that sort of thing but instead we get elected officials wanting a subway line installed in your neighborhood whether it makes sense or not.
I suspect that until that happens politicians will spend for what the rich want instead of what the working class can reasonably afford. I know in some States there are still unincorporated areas that have no building codes and such but then you are usually far from work and amenities.
As for house insurance you can cancel that if it’s paid off but then you’re into a whole lot of risk mitigation like cutting down any tree that could fall on your house to making sure you’ve got sprinklers in the event of a fire. Peter Schiff mentioned years ago that house insurance had gotten so expensive that he just self insured, but he’s got money though.
Hi Landru,
Yup. My area was very rural 20 years ago; it’s becoming suburbanized by people who like the lower cost of life here – and then vote to increase it.
It sounds like your area is getting Californicated, Eric. These recent arrivals are just smart enough to not want liberalism, but too damned dumb to leave the mind set behind and merely “try it again” somewhere else. It is too bad you cannot cap your property taxes, the “supposed value” be damned. Hell, forget that, how about eliminate property taxes altogether? Aw, forgive me, I was dreaming for a minute, and have not heard of hell freezing over, either.
Capo Gecko’s annual dose of simple homespun wisdom — formerly ghostwritten by Carol Loomis of Fortune — is due Saturday morning along with the numbers from his piece of the action.
In previous years, The Lizard hinted at using his “beak wetting” cash to get into the Texas energy market in a serious way, but, when the gas generator slush fund his point man in the Legislature drove onto the ballot in 2023 finally started accepting applications for construction “loans” last year, the Capo was absent from the process.
Hi Eric. Libs a cross between the Paclet and those critters out of the movie Independence Day. Suck a planet dry and head to the next one but on a smaller scale.
Good one, Landru!
You nailed the unappealing personal aspects exactly. A common criminal is far more respectable than the criminal who votes to take your stuff.
The leftists like to say all the richer areas of the nation are democrat and paying most of the taxes. They have the gall to imply the people in such places are richer because of democrat rule. The reality is they are controlled by democrats because of the productive people there. That attracts democrat voters. Poor places are republican because they are poor. There’s nothing there to attract the parasites that vote for democrats.
Yep –
And the richer (blue) areas – DC, for instance – are hives of government apparatchiks, who take (not earn) comparatively enormous salaries that allow an affluent lifestyle. The dilemma for us is how do we separate ourselves from these people?