Most people don’t go gray overnight; it is a gradual process. But one day, you wake up, look in the mirror and… you’re hair has gone all white.
It’s the same with things like tax-by-mile.
This can’t, for practical reasons, be decreed overnight. For one thing, most of the cars in service – or at least, a very large number – are not equipped from the factory with the necessary technology.
But, almost all new cars are equipped with the technology. They have some form of send-and-receive-capable telemetry system, marketed as “concierge” or “driver assistance” technology. GM’s OnStar was the first, but pretty much every other car company now has some version of this as well (e.g., Subaru StarLink, Ford MyLink, Chrysler UConnect) and it’s rapidly becoming part of the standard equipment suite.
As this stuff becomes de facto standard equipment in cars – Uncle may not even have to mandate it – it’ll be much easier for Uncle to demand that drivers be taxed according to mileage rather than by the gallon. It is as inevitable as going gray.
But is it a bad idea?
Yes, absolutely.
If you care about preserving the thing that defines not just a free society but a civilized one (they’re both the same thing, of course). And that thing is…
Privacy.
Being un-monitored, not watched.
Anonymous.
Free to come and go as you like, without anyone else knowing a damned thing about it.
You may have noticed the trend toward its opposite. Which is essential culturally as well as legally if this country’s transformation into something very different than the thing described in the (old) history books is to be completed.
Tyranny (which need not be of the khaki and goose-stepping variety to be tyranny) is not possible where privacy is. And, of course, the opposite is equally true.
And this is why tax-by-mile (and many other things that are of a piece, like Obamacare) is not so much a bad idea but rather an evil idea.
Whether intended or not.
Because it will mean you’re no longer free to go where you like, when you like and how you like because these actions will be monitored and recorded. A government bureaucrat will have the power to obtain that information whenever he likes, for whatever reason “the law” says.
Or just because he can.
Someone will always be looking over your shoulder.
Or could be.
And that’s the hair-raising part.
Could be.
At any time.
It will be claimed that no one’s monitoring your comings and goings. They are just collecting taxes (you know, like the IRS…. which never asks for or stores personal information).
But the fact is the technology makes it possible to do exactly that: Monitor you, all the time. Whether it is actually done at this particular moment or that is irrelevant. The relevant fact is… it could be done.
Whenever Uncle likes. At his discretion.
Just as the relevant fact is that Uncle now has the legal power to listen to every phone conversation we have and can read every e-mail we send and can peruse our web surfing habits anytime he likes. The fact that he may not actually have a Stasi-type stooge actually listening at this particular moment, actually reading transcripts of every single e-mail of all 300-plus million of us in real time, right now, every day, doesn’t change the fact that he could, at any time. The “meta data” has been recorded – and “the law” gives him the power to filch through it whenever he likes.
Anything Uncle can do, he will do.
Bank on it.
It will be the same with tax-by-mile. It may be automated, they will sooth with talk of the “safeguards” built into the system, but the nature of thing requires specificity. They have to know it’s your car – and so, presumably, you – driving “x” miles today. Where and When; how Fast.
All of it.
Do you really suppose they will not “share” this information with – for openers – the insurance mafia? Why do you suppose the insurance mafia is literally champing at the bit for real-time monitoring of our driving habits?
Whether they – an actual human bureaucrat or just a bureaucratic computer – keeps track is not the relevant consideration. That you are, in fact, kept track of is.
You no longer have privacy.
The expectation that no one is watching you. That no one else knows – can know (without a warrant) where you’re headed, where you’ve been.
Such odd sentiments seem increasingly out of place in the public America that is rapidly replacing the private America.
It is interesting to note the perhaps deliberate, perhaps not – but irrelevant as regards the results – conditioning of the populace to accept the promiscuous broadcasting of their once-private business to… we’ll…. everyone.
Call it the Kardashianization of the country. Or perhaps the Facebooking of the country. People have been encouraged by mighty social pressure to gush about things most people used to keep to themselves or at least, kept with their circle of immediate family and close friends.
The societal change is worth noting. It tracks with the rise of the busybody as a political ideal; the ugsome people that H.L. Mencken derisively referred to as “uplifters” and “wowsers.”
We’re all wowsers now.
Everyone’s business is everyone else’s business – from your sex life to your driving habits.
The Brave New World requires this.
I much prefer the old.
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When Huygens Met Titan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L471ct7YDo
Titan is surrounded by an orange hazy atmosphere that extends about 370 miles high, which is a lot higher than Earth’s atmosphere. The surface pressure is Because the atmosphere is so 50% greater than here, so if you move there, find a homestead at a higher elevation if possible.
Titan’s atmosphere is active and complex, and it is mainly composed of nitrogen (95 percent) and methane (5 percent). Titan also has a presence of organic molecules that contain carbon and hydrogen, and that often include oxygen and other elements similar to what is found in Earth’s atmosphere and are essential for life.
There is an unsolved mystery surrounding Titan’s atmosphere: Methane is broken down by sunlight, so there must be another source that replenishes what is lost. One potential source of methane is volcanic activity, but this has yet to be confirmed.
Exciting real estate available on TItan
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Cassini-Huygens/Profile_of_a_methane_sea_on_Titan
Oceanfront property dirt cheap at a methane sea on Titan
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Cassini-Huygens/Profile_of_a_methane_sea_on_Titan
More images
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/target/Titan
every car is equipped with the needed technology for a tax by the mile .
its called an odometer.every year when you renew your license plate, the clerk could walk out and record the miles on your odo and tax you accordingly,
commercial vehicles have had to do this for years, called the quarterly fuel tax statement, 18 wheelers are forced to pay the tax on the fuel they burned driving thru a state, even if they did not stop and buy fuel in that state,
this will never happen since the main goal of a tax by mile is in reality the fed govs desire to track every persons movement, and not merely revenue collection for road maintenance.
The mileage is already logged in my state (Indiana) when you go in for your pollution check. So adding a bill for tax by the mile would be easy.
Granted that only happens in the parts of the state with pollution tests.
if the states, and FedGov, were to seriously look at road maintainence costs and make harmless cuts of fluff, the presently collected taxes at the fuel bowsers would more than cover road maintainance. Thus I am forced to the conclusion that the tax by mile efforts truly are merely a charade to extend the reach of their surveillance/monitoring operations.
I don’t know when paying the fuel tax started on trucks. It’s not that way in some states like Tx. and Ok. It’s been that way in SE states as long as I can remember though(60’s). If I couldn’t find #1 or get diesel close to the same price I’d pay in Tx. I’d have paid the tax fee and gone on. I’d rather deal and pay money to somebody than some thing though so I buy fuel and show them at the weigh station.
Once, in an ancap society, a body corporate owned the roads.
The roads’ maintenance and policing were contracted out according to the owner/user preferences.
Users could record their own road usage, and issue the information to a legal entity that held specific data secret.
The entity’s lawyers tranferred only enough data to generate a road user bill.
They all lived happily ever after.
I don’t have much worry about this coming to pass on the national level. Why? Because it affects a broad spectrum of people across all ethnic groups and income levels. Much of the big government that we have are due to the following reasons
1. Gibsmedat (a.k.a. social/welfare spending)
2. Class warfare
3. “Safety”
4. Government spending/contracts (e.g. military bases)
Tax by the mile doesn’t result in additional social/welfare spending, to which the only value seen by the voter is having someone else pay for their shit. There is no way to leverage class warfare spending via a tax by mile program. Tax by mile doesn’t enhance any “safety.” And it won’t result in broad based government spending projects, aside from infrastructure. I can see states like Vermont and Oregon enacting this for ideological reasons. These states have a lot of greenies who bellyache about muh global warming constantly. But these states have a lot of upper middle class SWPLs who can afford to pay the tax. But understand unlike our current tax regime, tax by the mile will not be withheld from our paychecks. When people have to write a big check to the government every year (including a lot of poor, and lower middle class people) the tax will prove to be highly unpopular. A historical reference point is former California Gov Gray Davis got recalled by his voters in a very liberal state, in part, because he raised the car tax. This tax wasn’t even popular with the young hipsters. So relax. I cannot conceive of the statists winning this one.
Jeff,
I think you underestimate how venal these people are.
They’ll believe (because their favorite Pol told them) that “tax by mile will affect the RICH, who don’t pay their fair (fare?) share!”
Class warfare is where I see this one making it through.
The other points will also be addressed, however:
– higher taxes means more for Gibsmedat. (1)
– More taxes means more spending for safety equipment, and more enforcement (3)
– From #1 and #3, #4 is a foregone conclusion. All the money taken from the populace means more government, and more contracts, and more Union dues, and “better” or more efficient technologies…. E.G., a ticket printer in the dashboard (and you’ll have to pay for the printer, or get another ticket, mind!)
You CANNOT set your expectations low enough….
The really sad thing is that this was instigated by libertarian think tanks such as Cascade Policy Institute. They called it “congestion pricing”, claiming it was more market oriented – conveniently forgetting that governments do not care for free markets.
Thank you for making this point intelligently and respectfully. I was about to make a quip about how this couldn’t possibly be evil since our perpetual Libertine-arian candidate here in VA – Robert Sarver – referred to this scheme positively.
Skipped ahead to post this response, so maybe others have mentioned…
Eric said:
It will be claimed that no one’s monitoring your comings and goings. They are just collecting taxes (you know, like the IRS…. which never asks for or stores personal information).
But the fact is the technology makes it possible to do exactly that: Monitor you, all the time. Whether it is actually done at this particular moment or that is irrelevant. The relevant fact is… it could be done.
Whenever Uncle likes. At his discretion.
The BIGGER problem is, a la 1984, that Big Brother MUST have enemies.
Perpetual revolution.
If there aren’t enough readily available… Even when there ARE threats available, as Big Brother MUST show the need for his presence…
Big Brother will MAKE threats.
Insert data into your electronic footprint to show that you’ve been somewhere. Even if you weren’t.
Draw correlations – because you were in proximity with a known “enemy of the state.” (Even just another manufactured enemy.)
I’ve seen a few stories like this. “Minority Report” was one, but it was even a bit limited… Imagine that you’re driving to work in your automated car. An aggressive driver passes you. Suddenly, you feel a bit tired. Thank god for self-driving cars…. You drift off, the car continues driving…
You startle awake, suddenly – the car is stopped. No idea where you are! The city is missing! You’re looking at a hill!
And then… the shock wave hits.
The light had already passed – THAT was what startled you awake!
But the air blast, the shock wave, the rumbling… And that mushroom cloud visible above the hill in the distance…
And the radio states your name as the terrorist, who ran away to watch his handiwork…
“Arlington Road” is a good example of the plot mechanism, but being framed for it – by an external or internal source, IE other agency, or your own government – is a bit new. And a very real risk here.
To all those that care to tax and regulate everything and to ‘ know all ‘ about everyone’s business…I will only say , to the best of my PC ability…..FUCK YOU…..I will never comply
Ditto, d –
I’m also not complying with Obamacare.
Enough.
What many people forget with 0bamacare is that the only authority to collect the fine for non-compliance is for the IRS to take it from your so-called tax “refund.” If you arrange your affairs such that no such “refund” is due they have no means to collect the fine. (Of course this may change in the future.)
jason, that’s impossible for many people to do. If you end owing them, they’ll simply add that to it. I know this from experience. Not paying that $650 for my wife and I would mean we’re tax evaders…….once again.
Yes, but at least as I understand it if you don’t pay the fine they are not empowered to come after you for it. So you can just pay whatever they claim you owe, minus the fine. (I stopped dealing with the scumbags entirely a long time ago, though, but that of course has its own risks and pitfalls.)
They’ve bought more than “a few” shotguns.
IRS has its own enforcement group. Make no mistake, they’ll extract blood or treasure – and both if possible.
Enough to make you want to run them over with the rig, huh…? Accidents happen…. (Especially if you could have them be DUI at the time…)
IIRC, they’ll place a lien on your home, should yo own one. Or, likely, any property they can locate. Including guns, cars, RVs, motorcycles, property, passports, professional licenses….
It’s already being done – yet Libertarians still claim to defend against such things “actively” violates the NAP….
The IRS is not able to use liens, levies, etc. to collect the 0bamacare tax.
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2015/06/25/can-you-really-ignore-obamacare-penalty/
https://www.healthinsurance.org/faqs/ive-heard-that-the-government-wont-really-be-able-to-enforce-the-penalty-for-not-having-health-insurance-is-this-true/
“The only way that the IRS can collect the ACA penalty is if you pay it voluntarily, or if you’re owed a refund.”
Interesting.
Wonder how it’ll play out? They’ve found lots of enforcement mechanisms for their other theft schemes…
It’s a loophole at the moment, it will be filled at some point. I will use it until it no longer works.
Also, FYI if you have a small business, not paying this latest mulct is the same as screaming “AUDIT ME”… Passive resistance/civil disobedience is going to require careful tactical and strategic thought. I’m considering lowering my revenue enough to get it as a benefit rather than being taxed for not making enough to afford $25k/year in “health” insurance.
Well, if people are so cowed and frightened that they are going to line up and pay a “penalty” for which there is not even an enforcement provision (beyond taking it from a refund) I guess the scumbags really have won.
Yes, the scumbags have won. The plane is crashing, the ship is going down. The law means nothing (except to the little people). The king can do no wrong. We watch in horror as 1000 years of western civilization are sundered by barbarians.
And remember, it’s not a penalty, it’s a tax! You gots to pay your fair share ya know!
The best we can do is seek something to stay afloat on, to stay out of the way of the shrapnel and flying debris. Try to stay out of Treblinka and Auschwitz.
If we’re really lucky we can watch with some homebrew and salty buttered popcorn in hand! What a show! And we get a front row seat!
Wow, I think I was channelling TGAWMG (The Great And Wonderful Mogambo Guru)… Credit where it’s due…
Actually, FWIW the Supreme Court ruled that the 0bamacare charge is a penalty or fine, not a tax, which is why the IRS cannot use their usual police-state tactics to collect it.
Of course the entire tax system is a sham from top to bottom to begin with, 0bamacare notwithstanding. There’s an excellent series of videos that lays it all out step-by-step for those interested, with the first installment here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW1Pqey_pe4
It is likely that when the SHTF many of us here will ultimately be targeted as thought criminals and hauled off if not simply shot on sight.
Allegedly John Robert’s justification for calling it Constitutional was that it was a tax and not a fine. But I have better things to do than read thousands of pages of law I care nothing about, so I’ll take your word for it.
As to the tax system being a sham, true but irrelevant. They exist, they have force, they have propaganda, and they believe their own BS. They steal and kill with the approval of their own twisted consciences.
Until the system collapses of its own weight, the best you can do is quietly resist. Sun Tzu lays it all out pretty well- to summarize: when they attack, we retreat. When they retreat, we attack, when they rest, we harass. Know your enemy and your self.
And never give them too much credit, with all the tech at their disposal, they are lazy corrupt scum. With apologies to scum…
“Allegedly John Robert’s justification for calling it Constitutional was that it was a tax and not a fine.”
That’s the way I remember it too, but, as you said, who cares? It makes not a rodent’s rectum worth of difference.
I thought it was the other way around, but bottom line is the feds have no collection authority beyond taking it from one’s refund when it comes to the 0bamacare fine, surcharge, tax, penalty, or whatever the hell it is.
But absolutely, what the law says is merely of academic interest. The gunvermin scumbags have the guns and ultimately they will do whatever the hell they want to do and retcon the rules later to permit it.
The way to avoid the Obamacare tax is to register for Medicare Part A. Then simply do not use Medicare.
Just some observations…
*Personal transport seems to be disfavored by the idiocracy, and needless complexity, cost, and obsolescence are the norm…economic “hobbles”perhaps…
*The range of these “transport appliances” seems to be limited to discourage travel from anywhere to anywhere outside the supply and distribution chain…much more so with “Electric Appliances”-a trip from LA to Las Vegas requires TWO 45 minute Supercharges…at designated locations
*Since your “Sailfawn” which stores large portions of your modern complex life is data dependent, no data service exists outside of the supply and distribution chain…
*Every convienence, phone or computer app, service, and advertisement seems to be designed to modify your behaviour, track your where abouts, and make you dependent on that service, ususally subtly, but more and more in the open…
*Nothing is really owned but rented, leased, taxed, service fee’d, or regulated into or out of existance at the whim of some outside hand, previously unseen, but becomming more obvious…
The “system” resembles cattle (or sheeple) on ranches, owned by ranchers (Oligarcial Fiefdoms). It wouldn’t do not to brand, track, monitor, and restrict the movement of your “property”…Much of the “New American” population comes from a privitively restrictive system, so the electronic leashes feel like freedom from their view…
Devo: Freedom of Choice-1980 (Programming for the Masses-sponsored by Warner Records)
“Freedom of choice Is what you got,
Freedom from choice Is what you want”
The libertarian ideal of roads is to have them all privatized. As it is now, no one needs to know where you are and what roads you are on. Under a privatized system you tell the owners that you are using their roads and how often, using whatever system you want to come up with. The use of a per mile system is far more likely with a privatized system than it would ever be for the system we are using today. If libertarians really want a privatized system then they must get used to the per mile system where hundreds of people know where you are. Could someone explain how privatized roads would work in your mind?
Hi Duster,
Sure. This has actually been dealt with – at great length – by myself and others, many times before. You’re right that a privatized road might insist on tax-by-mile (or seatbelts) and so on. But – here’s the thing – there would be alternatives and you’d have a choice because privately owned roads would be… private. You would not be forced to pay for them or to use them.
Like private restaurants and other such.
The problem with government roads is you’re forced to pay for them and then they have the effrontery to tell you how you’ll use them. Also, they are a monopoly – there is no alternative.
This whole plan is not fair to commuters, those living on fixed incomes like retirees those who travel more. Makes more sense if roads need repair to raise the gas tax. When car tags are due is when people will be paying mileage tax if it passes.
This is typical of the gunvermin shooting itself in the foot. 1st the EPA demands that cars get ever increasing mileage. Then the highway department complains that they are not getting enough income from the fuel tax.
Pay per mile might actually be more fair, probably would be, if the road system was not a gunvermin monopoly. But do we trust them w/”The Data.”? Not in a million years.
Hi Laura,
Of course it makes more sense to raise the gas tax… but the gas tax is anonymous; you pay as you go… and no one knows except you.
Can’t have that.
Laura M. Under almost all pay as you go systems you pay per month not once a year. It would not be when tags are due.
Eric you say that under a privatized system you choose if you want to use a road. Yes Eric you can choose to stay home today and not pay any gas taxes. The only problem is that trucks that deliver you your supplies like food have to use those roads. Privatized roads would not be cheaper. If I bought a road then I better get my costs plus 20% or more to allow for my risk and to compete with my other investments. Tell me how adding 20 percent to costs is cheaper and better? One of the most stupid things I see each day is 4 or 5 trucks and delivery vehicles pass my house on my side street. UPS, Fedex, USPS along with one or two others. Each of these need to make a profit and costs are higher because each vehicle is burning fuel as it passes my house along with more drivers. Can you think of anything more stupid than that? The privatized system you so love does not mean a cheaper and a better life for you and me. I realize that you are willing to have a worse lifestyle just to say that you do not deal with a government but I want the most efficient and best way of doing things no matter what is used to deliver the services to me.
There will have to be a change in the way that we pay for roads in the future because gas tax will not work in the future when the oil supplies keep dropping and we need to change to things like electric vehicles. Also the current gas tax for the most part has not increased in decades. Are you willing to build roads with the same amount of dollars you got 30 years ago? I wouldn’t.
There is more oil now being discovered than ever before. The oil is generated in the earth’s bowels by pressure and heat, and as such it is a renewable resource. Proof of this is that many of the old oil wells are filling back up with oil once again. The oil did not come from fossils as many “scientists” claim. The oil is too deep for that to have happened.
That natural gas that was supposed to have run out in the 80s. Now there is more of it than ever. Look how many power plants are switching from oil to methane.
joeallen who is feeding you those lies? I have never heard anything so stupid. If you take a big bowl of thick liquid and put a straw in the middle and suck it out really fast then soon you will get air. Let it sit a minute and you will again be able to get liquid. Does that mean that the bowl keeps filling up? What group is telling you those lies? I bet they did not make it through grade school. There are some people that will believe anything. Oil is not being created today. It is not being produced as you always hear. Oil is being pumped out of the ground that was created thousands of years ago. Once it is gone it is gone.
Duster, it’s not that simple at all. There is ground imaging radar that will find a bowl of soup twenty thousand feet deep. My point? They find oil in what was previously thought to be played out fields at various depths previously explored. Nobody knows why. Or if you do, I can get you one hell of a good fortune quickly. I speak with petroleum engineers who have no stake in the game except to have a job finding oil and gas.
When a guy my age who has seen every method of oil recovery tells you oil definitely could be abiotic…..or not, then I think nobody really knows. Using gas pressure(natgas and CO2) or water to reclaim more from a field is not the same thing as having old fields produce again.
Now the shale plays are a matter of using new frac methods to get oil that was in a known field but the number coming from those fields aren’t nearly as great as old fields that have begun to produce again.
The deepest wells I’m aware of(25-30K’) have always been gas fields. Does untapped gas push unrecovered oil up? No one knows for sure hence the word “exploration”. I’ll be glad when petroleum hits $60/bbl again so we can go a-lookin once more.
Clover,
You – being a Clover – prefer dogma to open mindedness. Were you aware that oceans of liquid hydrocarbons have been discovered on Saturn’s lifeless moon, Titan?
This fact arouses curiosity – questions – in the mind of a thinking person.
Also, the fact that – somehow – more and more oil continues to be discovered right here on Earth, at ever greater depths (and is reappearing in wells considered “dry”)…
But Clover knows what he (she?) knows?
Right, Clover?
Eric I do not know anything about your Clover but yes they do need to find more oil because every day there is an oil field that goes dry. Oil may never be all used up but spending thousands of dollars a barrel getting the last million barrels would be cost prohibitive. If you have younger kids it is possible in their lifetime that there will be severe oil shortages. Our country or should I say my country will be drastically changed with diminishing oil reserves in the future.
” I do not know anything about your Clover”
May be, but I think you are her clone!
Clover,
Perhaps it is genetic? The Of Mice and Men cadences, I mean?
Anyhow… why do you suppose gas costs less than $2 a gallon right now? If we are running out (something I’ve been hearing all my life) then imminent scarcity would incite constantly rising prices.… right? How do you account for declining prices, especially in the face of growing demand?
Tell us…. (As Clover styles it).
Well Eric a few years ago oil was $140 per barrel. Billions of dollars were spent in exploration and adding more drilling rigs leading to temporary oversupply and thus causing low prices. We are still using millions of barrels of oil a day and none is being created to replace it. Tell me Eric if you are using up a limited supply product then what eventually happens? What part of that don’t you understand Eric?
Clover,
Brent beat me to it. Higher prices triggered new exploration efforts… which found more oil… which resulted in (wait for it) lower prices.
You claim this is “temporary.” That makes no sense. If it were known that a given inventory of a desirable item was all there is, do you suppose the sellers would sell at fire-sale prices? Really? Can you site an example of this? If I have a warehouse full of bottled water – but I know the well’s run dry and I will not be able to re-stock my inventory or at least, not be able to do so without spending a lot of money on a new well – would I sell the water I have cheap?
Do you think the people running oil companies are idiots?
You continue to assert the “finite supply” argument. Well, ok. Maybe oil is finite (i.e., not abiotic/renewable – but this is by no means certain).
But how finite?
Sand on the beach is “finite,” too. But we have a lot of it, nonetheless.
You assume we’re on the verge of running out. Which is something people like you – who clearly want that to happen – have been asserting for literally 50 years now. You have no credibility. Because there is no basis for this chicken little/sky is falling claim.
The fact is oil is abundant; we’re swimming in it. Known reserves are enormous. How much in total there is yet to be discovered isn’t known, but likely to be vastly more than even the most conservative estimates based on currently feasible methods of discovery/extraction.
I realize that probably drives people like you nuts. But you should fall down on your knees with gratitude for the good life oil has given you and every other human being. Not just because we get gas and diesel to power our vehicles but because without all this oil, modern life and its comforts would be impossible.
Duster, peak oil people said this couldn’t happen. They said oil would continue to increase in price and that production would fall. It was those of us who knew better that said higher oil prices simply would allow a vast amount of oil to be tapped. We also stated it was the low extraction costs of Saudi oil that kept many of these sources from being developed. The fear being that the Saudis would simply drive the price down to where they were still profitable but the higher extraction cost oil was not. Simply put, the side of this argument you’ve chosen to be on, is wrong.
Furthermore oil is not going to run out because humans know how to make it from agricultural products and waste products. At current oil prices the process is likely not viable, but the technology is proven to work industrially. So oil can be made if need be. Also it has been proven that the solar system is awash in hydrocrabons. The idea it is all dino guts and plants contemporary to them is ridiculous given how deep oil has been detected.
“Eric you say…” “Tell me how…”
These cadences sound awfully Clover-like….
Eric, Eric, Eric, shame on you! You of all people should know it is not NICE to feed the trolls!
This shill by the name of Duster is spewing the same trash I heard when I was a teenager in the 60s. The oil will run out in the early 70s. Then it was the 80s, 90s, Y2K, 2010, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Reminds me of Chicken Little, Owl Bore and the Boy who cried Wolf one to many times. This mantra is old, weak and should die a horridly painful death but won’t due to the ID 10 Ts of the world. As Einstein once stated, “There are only two things that are infinite, the Universe and Stupidity. I’m not so sure about the Universe”. Duster is putting his gloriously infinite stupidity on display for all the world to see.
I, however, refuse to feed his need for attention, even the negative attention he receives from the good folks here is better than no attention in his mind, due to his poor thinking ability. Life is finite and mine doesn’t have time to deal with Duster’s trash.
D.
Morning, David!
Yeah… I know. But I feel torn. When a new person posts, I incline toward giving them the benefit of the doubt, assuming that they may not have heard/read points-of-view that we take for granted, having already thoroughly hipped ourselves to the issue. Of course, a point does come when you realize a person is not educable. That they are going to cling to their preconceived notions – their feelings – no matter what.
Duster is one of those.
I’ll just address the cost of the road. A private road, actually private with no gunvermin input would be built to the specs of the owner(s) and bids would be taken with no “insider” bidding. Costs would be lower in many ways, the first being there would be no state to exact it’s part up front and then continue to exact it’s charges in maintenance and the ever-present “law occifers”.
I’ve built roads of all sorts over the course of nearly 50 years. I’ve seen the state mandated bs reach astronomical levels. It takes the state several years to even figure out what sort of road, its path and what type they want. They build to current day needs every time so just a few years along(down the road so to speak), it’s obsolete or quite often, obsolete by the time it’s finished.
Oil supplies keep dropping eh? You need my job for a few months. 25 hours last week and none so far this week because there is a glut of oil. We’re just waiting for $60/bbl oil to get rigs back up and doing a bit of exploring.
Electric vehicles running off Mr. Peabody’s coal mine, just what I need. I can see the old Peterbilt struggling along with 35 tons of vehicle and battery weight and a 4 ton payload….if that.
It’s obvious you don’t live in Tx. Taking a trip to mothers would require a few days of travel with all the stops. Electric vehicles make as much sense as using a condom after coitus.
“A private road, actually private with no gunvermin input would be built to the specs of the owner(s) and bids would be taken with no “insider” bidding. ”
Another problem w/gunvermin roads – by law they have to be constructed by the lowest bidder. Then they have to be constantly repaired because they were built to low quality standards. A private owner could insist on better initial construction that would last longer.
PtB, state roads base is constantly being evaluated(I used to do some of this working for a private company)so that the compaction and strength are up to the specs it was bid at and it’s final build. All too often a road is misjudged by those employed by govt. as to what types of loads and the volume of traffic. And then sometimes, they are obviously not testing the base or the specs were well below the level of load and traffic estimates.
I give you RR(ranch road)33 just south of Big Spring that runs to Big Lake, about 70 miles. I watched it being built for two years. It was mostly built in 5-6 mile sections. There was such a volume of such heavy traffic(don’t let the RR moniker fool you, it should have been built 4 lanes wide with lots of cement in the base)that long before the second section was completed, the first section had to be re-paved, then ground down, packed again, and in essence, replaced again. That section was paved six times in the end and parts have been repaved more than that. Every section of the road went through that same process although some of the country that was flat didn’t have to be rebuilt but only repaved.
Had I spec’d the road, it could have been accomplished in a single build and would have been 4 lanes and cost no more than those rebuilds and have the same amount of traffic from now on on two lanes instead of 4. Many fatal wrecks could have been avoided too during this strung out construction.
I had to get out of a rig today because of suffering today from injuries incurred getting run over from behind in a construction zone of that road. It’s been nearly two years now and I’m sure I’ll never recover from it.
Current day needs? In some (many?) places they design the road they need today and then don’t build it until years or decades later.
I visited relatives some years ago and a main road in their area was a 3 laner and freshly done. They would have cops out there morning and afternoon to direct traffic and set cones to change the direction of the middle lane. Come to find out that was the 1950s proposal for the road based on 1950s traffic that they had just gotten around to building in the early 2000s. It was decades out of date before construction started.
I hear you Brent. But sometimes (often?) it is poor estimates by the gunvermin, as mentioned by 8 above.
“They” built a new interchange on I-270 a few years back that “they” estimated would take 6 years to come to capacity. It took 6 months.
Duster (Clover?) –
This is a Libertarian site; we deal with issues of morality rather than utility. The moral issue here – as always – being coercion vs. free cooperation. Government roads are coercive. Land is seized, people forced to pay for – and use – them. They have no real choice. While a privately-owned road would have its pros and cons, it would not rely on coercive means to construct it and people would be genuinely free to pay to use it (or not).
I note that you use the royal “we” … glibly, as is typical of people who are unconscious collectivists.
Well, please, don’t include me in your “we.” I am not a part of your hive.
“we deal with issues of morality rather than utility”
In addition, we understand Bastiat’s ‘Thing Unseen.’ No one can even conceive of what good might come in a truly free market.
Eric under a privatized system you would also be forced to use those roads and since you do not like government regulation they can charge whatever they want to. Talk about coercion. You either pay or starve. Eric, I like our system we have now far better. OK, you say that you will just use another road. What if there is just one in front of your house? What if there are multiple and the same owner owns all of the local roads? Then you would classify your favorite system as being run by dicatators.
I have never seen it explained before how an all private roads system would work. Who do you pay? How do you buy a road? Who decides how much you pay and how is that determined? What happens if one day you travel multiple roads with multiple owners? If you are indeed in favor of private roads then you must know how your favorite system would work.
People made private roads long before there was govt. I build public roads seldomly but private ones often. Some private roads allow public access, some do not. But the way most come about is cooperation of a lot of people. The private roads don’t come from eminent domain though…..well, not these days. We had a court ruling in Tx. a couple years ago that has set back any entity trying to use ED. Even oil companies and utility companies prefer to go around recalcitrant land owners now. I can show you a route of a previous oil pipeline that the Koch bros. of all people took no for an answer. It’s at the edge of my property.
Really, Duster?
I am not forced to eat at McDonalds. I can freely choose to eat somewhere else. Because McDonald’s has no legal monopoly; no coercive power over me. Yes, they can charge whatever they like for a burger. But I am not forced to buy the burger. Which is why the cost of a McDonald’s burger is so low, incidentally. With government roads, the cost is very high… because the government can charge whatever it likes. Because we have no choice.
Poor ol’ Clover!
You eruct all the usual non sequiturs. It is tiring.
There are no alternatives now because Uncle owns all the roads. Your entire argument is premised on the way things have developed; the way things are. They could be different.
That you “like our system” (and – again – it’s not “our” system… it’s the system… leave me out of your bee hive) is irrelevant.
What’s relevant is whether anything should be done coercively rather than by the free consent of the parties involved.
Eric would it be coercion if your roads that you travel every day were privately owned or would you just drive on them without paying? What alternatives do you have than the roads that you normally travel?
To me a monopoly road system that is privately owned is far worse. You say that our government run road system is bad because they can charge whatever they want to. Give me a name Eric of the person that is pocketing all that excess money? Eric you just like to complain because that is how you make your living. To me it is stupid to complain if you do not have an alternate solution thought out.
“To me a monopoly road system that is privately owned is far worse.”
May be. But a privately owned road system would not be a monopoly. Monopolies only exist in the face of gunvermin enforcement. A privately owned system would offer alternatives. Don’t ask me what they would be, because no one will ever know unless it is attempted. This is Bastiat’s ‘thing not seen.’
Clover,
You take as your starting premise the current system. I dispute your premise.
Look: If government hadn’t arrogated to itself the power to seize people’s land and place roads wherever it (well, the apparatchiks who run the government) wanted, communities – and the road networks that served them – would be very different than they are.
Your assumption is that everything has to stay the way it is because that’s the way it has been done so far.
Well, no.
And, moreover, it has not always been done this way (the government way).
That’s a relatively modern thing.
Are you sure you’re not our Clover, Clover?
I’ll be damned. It’s clover come back as Duster. Same sentence structure, same everything.
Well-said, SC… it’s husbandry… the company town model. And you’re right. It’s more and more obvious…. probably because more and more of the population no longer cares.
Remember what Roddy Piper said: They Live was a documentary.
Back to the original subject. I am a very private person and all in favor of privacy. But give me the argument against complete openness. Why not know everything about everyone and just do away with all pretense of privacy? I want completely open government records. There is too much government information that is classified. I know from firsthand experience we have an over classification issue in government and way too many things are classified. Open up what the government is collecting on everyone to everyone. It should be fair game for everyone to have the information. Let’s get the information on every government crony, hack and stooge. We need to do away with all privacy and all secrecy for everyone. Sunshine is the best disinfectant. Since we cannot stop the march of constant monitoring, would we still be a civilized society if everything was completely open? How would all of you feel about that?
MRW – You are correct that all gunvermin records should be open. After, theoretically ‘they work for us.’ And how can we consent to what we are not aware of? But that does NOT mean that private individuals should not have privacy. I for one will not consent to that.
Govt. is what we don’t need. I live on the down low. When what I do affects YOU, then you have a legitimate gripe but till then, I will stay as private as possible. WTF I do is nobody’s bidness if I don’t step on anybody’s feet.
At the end of the day, I answer to my conscience…..and it’s been good for everybody so far. Trespass on me hard enough and that might be the exception.
As the Count said, Fuck that and I’ll do what I do till I die…..and a couple days after that.
I’m not a fan of anything that potentially impedes my RIGHT to be left the hell alone. What starts with “tax by mile” may sound innocuous enough, but it will be approximately 90 minutes before the steroid addled morons in the police cruisers have an app that reports to them El Guapo was doing 52 in a 45 on his way home from work and they’ll be sitting in the driveway with the ticket already written before I’ve even paid for my iced tea at the convenience store.
There is absolutely NOBODY in ANY governmental position that can demonstrate the rudimentary sense of responsibility to have this sort of technology without abusing it for A) Financial gain or B) Satisfaction of primal urges to make others perceive them as “strong”.
I don’t buy “openness” in general. I don’t think that anyone needs my “data”, and I could pretty much care less about theirs.
Re El Guapo’s comment: “they’ll be sitting in the driveway with the ticket already written before I’ve even paid for my iced tea at the convenience store.”
Just wait until surveillance cameras become cheap enough to be installed at EVERY intersection. We’ll all be driving like pussies and reduced to sheep at that point.
I don’t know what you’d call red light cams except surveillance. That’s the beauty of the system to those who make them and cities that profit. No need of a cop. Your ticket will come in that antiquated system, the USPS, and it will have the amount of the fine and SASE to send it in. Easy Peasy and no one will care if you were the driver or not. Just as long as you pay the fine……
In the People’s Republic of Maryland, you don’t get an SASE. You have to spring for the stamp as well. (unless you pay online w/plastic)
Hey 8, check this out –
https://photographyisnotacrime.com/2016/04/new-york-man-arrested-for-cutting-wires-to-red-light-cameras-after-exposing-government-revenue-generating-scheme/
PtB, hhhhmmm, didn’t think it would ever load the page, and it didn’t completely. I clicked on the link for the Austin man arrested for eating a burger in his parked car but it never loaded.
Funny how that site’s pages just won’t load.
I’ve noticed in the last year esp. searches that come up with nothing that I know are good search words. If you change the wording enough times you’ll finally get something although not what you were looking for. I’d bet i’m not the only one to experience this.
8, that site is loaded with clickbait ads and is very flash heavy. You might want to get an “obsolete” laptop on ebay without an operating system and install Puppy linux Slacko on it.
Slacko has an adblocker for its version of Firefox that will still load such pages without all the ad content. You’ll still need a somewhat faster internet connection. I use Verizon 4G.
An “obsolete” computer will have a dual core processor with something like 4 gigs of memory, which is inadequate for win7 or newer, but with a 300meg operating system like Slacko puppy, it will be plenty fast.
I’m using a Dell Optiplex tower made for Win7 that cost less than $200 for the entire system. I got it used for $195, and free shipping on ebay. Running Win7, it’s slow and sluggish, but with slacko puppy, it’s plenty fast.
Searches done with Ixquick on this cheap system are fast and thorough, but the Google ads are blocked and won’t connect. That’s no loss to me.
Ed, I have AdBlock+ on FF so I don’t see any ads but it’s loaded with scripts. My dialup won’t let me get through the bs. I have a laptop with Linux but haven’t installed Peoplepc software so it won’t connect. I knew I had it configured correctly and then it hit me they weren’t going to let me on till they had their software installed. I’m thinking about it. I don’t even know if their old solftware will work with Linux. I’ll have to call support and ask a furriner what’s up.
Government promises to “safeguard” privacy are lies.
A real-life example of a government Big Lie in this regard: When the Social Security system was being debated, one of the fears that Americans had was that the Social Security Number would be used as a national identification number to track them and invade their privacy. (They had this concern even before computers as we know them existed!)
FDR and SS proponents swore up, down, and sideways that the SSN would NEVER become a national ID; that it would only every be used for Social Security purposes. In fact the early SS cards said right on their face “not to be used for identification.”
There was a time in this country that the very idea that you need a federal ID number to hold a job, get a driver’s license, have a bank account, use credit, or do much of anything at all would have been laughed at like some kind of way-out dystopian science fiction. (Of course today it is fait accompli.)
What happened to all those government promises? The same thing that will happen with any “privacy safeguards” built into a tax-by-mile scheme. They will go by the wayside. A few graybeards may grumble, but subsequent generations will accept the situation as the “new normal.”
jason, I recently had to renew my CDL and had to dig out my SS card for ID even though it’s been on record with my DL number for decades…..and the DL is the main ID now, redundancy on redundancy. As if there are any rules of privacy now, check this out.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/29/us_government_proposes_rule_41_change/
On Thursday, the US Supreme Court approved a change to Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. It sounds innocuous, but the effects will be felt around the world.
Under today’s rules, US cops and FBI agents need to know where a computer is before they can get a warrant to directly hack the machine – because they have to ensure the judge and court they approach for the warrant has jurisdiction over the matter. In other words, a judge usually can’t issue a search warrant against someone or something outside her district.
Under the proposed rule change [PDF] this geographical information won’t be needed, and a single search warrant can be used to authorize American crimefighters to infiltrate any PC, Mac or other device anywhere in the world.
In addition, the rule change will also allow the FBI and others to hack into victims’ computers that have already been broken into by cyber-criminals. This is being billed as a measure to help track down the operators of botnets.
The US Department of Justice has been proposing the rule change for three years, saying it’s just a procedural matter that doesn’t mean the police get any extra powers. Not surprisingly, civil libertarians, technology companies, and some politicians disagree.
“Instead of directly asking Congress for authorization to break into computers, the Justice Department is now trying to quietly circumvent the legislative process by pushing for a change in court rules, pretending that its government hacking proposal is a mere procedural formality rather than the massive change to the law that it really is,” said Kevin Bankston, director of new America’s Open Technology Institute.
“Congress shouldn’t let the Justice Department and an obscure judicial rules committee write substantive law, especially on a novel and complex issue with serious privacy, security, and civil liberties implications. If government hacking is to be allowed at all, it should only be done with authorization from Congress, with strong protective rules in place, and after deep investigation and robust debate.”
The DoJ argues that because of the rise of anonymizing services like Tor it’s often impossible to find out where a target computer is located. It’s an issue that is dogging the FBI as it attempts to prosecute pedophiles who accessed the Playpen, a website hidden in the Tor network that hosted images and videos of child sex abuse.
In that case the FBI took over the site’s servers and ran it themselves for two weeks. During that time they deployed a “Network Investigative Technique” (NIT) to unmask and identify some of the perverts visiting the site, and begin making arrests.
That NIT somehow injected code into some Playpen visitors’ web browsers that leaked their real public IP address to FBI agents, allowing investigators to track down where the Playpen users lived with the help of ISPs. Exactly how the NIT worked isn’t known – the FBI refuses to talk about it.
When the Feds went to get a warrant to install the NIT on people’s PCs, the agents obtained a single warrant from a local magistrate judge who simply did not have jurisdiction over all 1,200 or so people, scattered over the US and beyond, who were suspected of accessing the Playpen hidden service. The US courts have now ruled that the investigation amounted to an illegal search, and hundreds of potential Playpen prosecutions are now in doubt.
Cutting corners
Changing the rules as a procedural measure, rather than after a debate in Congress, has been slammed for being underhand and for setting a dangerous precedent. “It carries with it the specter of government hacking without any Congressional debate or democratic policymaking process,” said Richard Salgado, Google’s legal director of law enforcement and information security in testimony on the matter.
Although the Supremes have now approved the rule changes, they aren’t in force yet. Under the law, Congress has until December 1 to respond to the tweaks before they come into effect. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) has said he will be moving on the matter immediately.
“I plan to introduce legislation to reverse these amendments shortly, and to request details on the opaque process for the authorization and use of hacking techniques by the government,” he told The Register.
“These are complex issues involving privacy, digital security and our Fourth Amendment rights, which require thoughtful debate and public vetting. Substantive policy changes like these are clearly a job for Congress, the American people and their elected representatives, not an obscure bureaucratic process.”
Quite how much support the senator will get from his fellow congresscritters is uncertain. This is an election year and Congress seldom gets things done at the best of times. But unless something is done before December 1, it’s open season for police hacking teams to go rummaging around in hard drives and flash chips around the world. ®
There is little doubt to anyone with his or her eyes open that in all too many cases the “crimefighters” are the ones who are the bad guys. Particularly the stasi-like scum of the laughably-misnamed “Justice” Department.
A technique these creeps commonly use is to implement over-reaching policies to go after people who are engaged in activities (such as child pornography or terrorism) that are truly repellent. Then anyone having the temerity to express outrage at the measures taken is accused of supporting child pornography, terrorism, drugs, VW diesels, or whatever the fatwah of the day happens to be. (You’re concerned about privacy? Then the child pornographers and the terrorists win!)
I have no doubt that will be the argument presented in favor of this pernicious “rule change,” and that if it prevails it will ultimately be used to conduct wholesale, broadly-based fishing expeditions against individuals.
“Then anyone having the temerity to express outrage at the measures taken is accused”
Along the lines of the old ‘Have you stopped beating your wife?’
It was always child porn before the terrrrisssttss got all the headlines. Complain about over-reach and as you say, you must be one of them or at least in collusion with “them”(pick one….or five).
All this was planned out in great detail not long after public demonstrations held the fedguv’s feet over the fire about Vietnam. I was determined that public opinion could never be used to deter TPTB and hence, their henchmen. The war on drugs, while some say it has racist roots, was really all about controlling the entire population.
If Waco didn’t get your ire up you were missing the entire thing. So OKC was used to tie everything including drugs, people with specific values such as Christianity as a way of life and distrust of the feds as an all-encompassing “criminal sect” bound for terrorism, child porn, tax evaders or whatever other group or mind-think they could determine to reduce taxes, increase civilian gun possession and any other thing you could imagine that didn’t revolve around state worship.
Get an instant “bye” with an NFL team sticker, a yellow ribbon and front and center, a sticker to show your support for the DPS or some such. I’d better hush now, just heard a B1-B kicking in the afterburners.
“It” was determined that public opinion could never be used to deter TPTB….correction.
“Substantive policy changes like these are clearly a job for Congress, the American people and their elected representatives, not an obscure bureaucratic process.”
He’s right that it is not a job for an obsure bureaucratic process, but neither is it a job for Congress, et al. It requires a Constitutional Amendment.
I’m afraid the days of the Constitution providing any meaningful guard against government intrusion on individual liberties are long gone, if they ever truly existed in the first place. (After all the ink was hardly dry on the document when we had suppression of free speech via the Alien and Sedition Acts.)
As offensive as it was to me, the shrub was correct when he said it was just an effing piece of paper…..and his administration made sure of it.
I would not object to payment by mile (and weight of vehicle) on privately owned roads. If they decided to ‘share’ the data, they would be subject to some sort of discipline by their customers. But the gunvermin has no right to this data apart from that specified by the 4th Amendment, i.e., subject to a search warrant issued on probable cause.
Also, if they do get this, how much will you wager that it will not replace fuel taxes, but be in addition to them.
There was no amendment that ever gave the government the right to anything. There’s an argot of concepts and terms that conflict on a deep level with everything you’ve ever been taught. And everything your loved ones accept and believe in.
What do you mean by the term gunvermin? I hope you mean it absolutely literally.
The gunvermin are the ruling class stationary bandits who have fought countless bloody battles to enjoy the rights to your life and productive ability. If there ever even was any meaning to the constitution, it certainly has perished long ago.
It is mere window dressing that the gunvermin tyrants allow such things as constitutions. China and Soviet Russia have the same things. And in truth, one is no better than the other.
What used to be better about Britain and America, is there was a momentary breathing space where an individual could make something of himself, and keep a reasonable portion of it without fear of the stationary bandit of the state taking it from him.
An honest assessment of the world would be that right now, China is your best hope to create wealth and hang on to it. It is pretty much hopeless in America And it is extremely difficult in Britain. And in America, there is this extra layer of redistributionist insanity, where whatever remnant of wealth remains from better times, is arbitrarily doled and meted out in a system with no rhyme or reason, other than it makes other nations sleep better, knowing the American economy is nothing they need to be afraid of competing with.
The paying by mile or by gallon of gas is neither here nor there. It is just an effect of the initial cause. Which was stationary tyrants took hold of a whole new world and have saddled and hobbled it to the extent that in many ways. It is even more hopeless than the supposed old world.
Reading an article of someone recently attending a Bernie rally in NYC. He said there’s a huge amount of his supporters who believe nobody should have more than $100K and some more lenient who say $3-400K. Anything beyond that is just a sin. These are the same people who have never experienced a hospital bill or any of the other govt. maladies that WILL strike them some day, they’re just that far out of making a living.
Bernie isn’t running for president, he’s running for Santa Claus. As you say, many of his supporters are young adults with no real world experience…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLpE1Pa8vvI
I’ll admit the economy is playing a part in young people not making it. Not everybody can get an engineering degree, one of the few degrees worth anything. But good jobs were hard to find when I was much younger than that. I had been operating my own big rig for four years by the time I was 27.
Sure, it was glamorous….sleeping on top of a canvas tarp by the Houston ship channel, hanging out under the trailer during the 100+ degree days with 90+ humidity, mosquitoes big enough to use a tennis racket against and the overwhelming smell from countless cars of molasses cooking off right beside you but that truck was mine(and the bank’s)and I could and did get enough of it every year to pull off and go haul oilfield equipment or just about anything you could image.
I drove by a power plant the other day and thought “I helped build that”(over 4 decades ago). I drove by a big oil holding facility the day before and knew I’d put more work into building it than anybody I knew. Later that day I drove to another facility and delivered a few loads to a location I had done 80% of the hauling into, Yep, I built that. I don’t think the young have the need to look back and see what they’ve done. When I was young, that’s what defined a man….or a woman.
Yep, I”m a tyranosaurous ex….not quite fossilized.
“Not everybody can get an engineering degree”
And not everyone who is capable wants one. There is a lot of paper (or parchment) out there not worth the words calligraphed on it. And much of it ‘mortgaged’ out the wazoo. No wonder the kids ‘feel the Bern.’ But a ‘free’ college degree will likely be worth even less than the current ones.
Maybe I’m biased, because I’m a college dropout, but what’s wrong w/blue collar jobs? At least you produce something of value. And if we could get gunvermin licensing restrictions out of the way, better yet.
Hi Phillip,
Without question. It has gotten preposterous. In the ’80s, I was able to earn my liberal arts BA for about $5k a year. Very manageable. Today, that same degree – at the same school – is (wait for it) four times the cost.
No wonder they feel the Bern.
And, I suspect, so will we.
eric, here’s a transcript of part of an interview of Hitlery by the New York Daily News. Keep in mind she is exempt form taxes and the reason for all the bloodshed in the NW is due to her getting part of the selling price of that federal land to Putin, another sleezeball.
” Clinton: I have connected up my proposals for the kind of investments I want to make with the taxes that I think have to be raised. So on individual pieces of my agenda, I try to demonstrate clearly that I have a way for paying for paid family leave, for example, for debt-free tuition. So I would spend about $100 billion a year. And I think it’s affordable, and I think it’s a smart way to make investments, to go back to our economic discussion, that will contribute to growing the economy.
Now I’m well aware that this is a heavy lift. I understand that. But I think connecting what I’m asking for to the programs, to the outcomes and results that I’m calling for give me a stronger hand, and that’s how I’m going to go at it.
Daily News: So if I understand you correctly, if you look at your proposals for college costs and for family leave, for infrastructure investments…
Clinton: Well, that’s a little bit different, because infrastructure investment, I’m still looking at how we fund the National Infrastructure Bank. It may be repatriation. That’s one theory, or something else. It’s about $100 billion a year.
Daily News: A hundred billion a year, so that comes out to about a trillion dollars…
Clinton: Over ten.
Daily News: …over ten years.
Some of the tax proposals Clinton has made include:
$350 billion income tax increase for a “new college impact”
$275 billion business tax increase for “infrastructure”
$400 billion tax increase to restore “basic fairness” to the tax code
Unfortunately, as pointed out by Americans for Tax Reform, because Clinton’s campaign has “failed to release specific details for many of her proposals, the true figure is likely much, much higher than $1 trillion.”
Fantastic.”
I mean, her “plan” is just bullshit off the top of her stupid head. Of course she sees no problem in spending $100B+ each year and the military/spy organizations see no problem in spending more than that while other parts of the gunvermin see no problem in spending whatever will expand them and make them richer. After all, it’s just a matter of having a computer generate more zero’s isn’t it?
What the wackos like Hitlery, et al don’t get (at all) is that gunvermin spending is never an investment, because it is not subject to the constraints of true investment. It is ever and always theft and redistribution.
Oh PtB, they get it….and so do their pals who’ll be the ones that receive most of the money less what they kick back to her in various ways.
8 – I guess what I meant to say was that the supporters/listeners to Hitlery & co. don’t get it, i.e., don’t understand it.
Of course, we know that ‘Mr. Bill’ is the one who really gets it, and often.
PtB, I have an old t-shirt of Mr. Bill and Sluggo with Mr. Bill saying “Ohh no!”
Of course the voters don’t get anything. They argue D and R with each other as if either one are good for anything but ballast.
Hi Phillip,
Indeed. But who is she to “invest” our money? Isn’t the psychosis something to behold? The glib nonchalance of these bastards (and bastard-esses). Why, I am The Dear Leader! It is my royal right to take your money, peons, and then “invest” it as I see fit!
And most people accept this as normal.
Critics sometimes mock Christianity as the slave religion, but veneration of the state and its apparatchiks is far more degrading.
Eric in 1977 my last year of college, I paid $2200 for tuition and $100 for books. Today that same university charges $32,000 per year for tuition. I paid my way through college by working. No part time college student today can make $32,000 even working full time for a year.
They are going to fix that problem of not being able to afford the high prices of college caused by prices being bid up with federal loans with the $15 minimum wage. One intervention of begets another.
I swear it’s they went to the same medical school as Elvis’s doctor. This “logic” killed The King and it’s kills everything it’s used on.
Engineering degrees don’t even cut it any more unless you’re willing to be a debt slave and work 80hrs week when the price of houses in most areas where engineering jobs are is considered. Basically all that effort will allow the lifestyle that was afforded to a HS graduate working in the trades in the 1950s. Except working 60+ hours a week at most corporations instead of 40.
There’s negative incentive to build/create anything now. It doesn’t get you anywhere but stuck under an iron cap career wise and socially it’s not respected, but expected. It gets worse socially without an engineering degree. Saw an article the other day. Best careers starting out or some such top of the list mostly engineering disciplines. Bottom of the list all the jobs that go with engineering. Machinist, tool and die, etc and so on. If they keep demeaning these jobs then nobody is going to go into them. If I didn’t have my degree that’s where I’d be and my salary after this much experience would probably be about the same.
Hi Brent,
It seems “the money” is in government-related “work.” That and the Sickness Bidness (you know, the “health care” mafia).
I have a realtor friend who live in the DC ‘burbs. He says housing prices there are going gangbusters.
The so-called elite don’t want anyone else accumulating wealth and the jealousy in the peasantry means many of them don’t want to see anyone accumulating wealth either.
Humans also punish those among them that are prudent. Savers are easy for the powers to be to plunder because the majority spends every nickle as soon as they get it. They have no ability to save because they won’t do without to have a reserve. It’s a foreign concept to them. So they’ll demand the state plunder their neighbors who made no more than they did each year but were simply prudent and built capital.
Do this enough and nobody will build capital. Without capital society collapses.
“Without capital society collapses.”
Absolutely, but try getting any politician, or even most of the ‘men on the street,’ to realize this. Rotsa Ruck!
BrentP, you’re so right about the spending habits of Americans.
Back when the patch was booming we were making decent money for once, not that bs you read about but merely decent wages. Having said that though, it was more than what everybody was accustomed to making but they spent it willy-nilly, as fast as they could get it.
Meanwhile my wife and I are living like paupers but we’re socking some money back. I’d be on the road and have a couple blow-outs, maybe tear some lights up, have to buy chains and boomers or load straps so I’d just whip out my credit card and send in receipts for reimbursements and I was considered the worst of the lot because I’d refuse to drive a dangerous truck. I drove so many more loads than everyone else that the foreman would laugh at the comparisons. Fast forward to the highest paid guy who couldn’t make it week to week and the next highest who couldn’t either. The highest paid hand would leave town and his wife would burn up every dime they had on crack and like the second highest paid hand said “You can see that poison trying to come out of her”….and you could. But even he would get away from home, run out of fuel and be stuck because he didn’t have $20 to get home.
I still see this every day and wages have dropped like a rock so times ain’t so great but it’s still the same, broke every payday. I occasionally buy everybody on a crew a case of beer during the week so I don’t have to hear them cry. I draw the line at finding out where the crack dealer lives though.
I feel very sorry for guys like you that work and save. You are so last century. Once inflation and taxation are through with you and god forbid you kept your earnings as cash and some road warrior confiscates it under the pretext of Civil Asset Forfeiture – all of your work, responsibility and saving is wasted. Under the Transformed economics, you are actually better off pissing away every dime as soon as you get it, demanding a bailout and vowing to support your helpful bureaucrat.
The trick is to become one of those bureaucrats or have a sufficient “investment” in such a bureaucrat as to have inner party benefits.
Work, saving, responsibility – are all passé. That is why you are being replaced with the more progressive 3 Billion or so New Americans in waiting..
Hi ThoughtCriminal,
You know what? I’ve thought about buying as much stuff as I can on credit – and then just saying ya lose! Walk away, like everyone else seems to be doing. I could live pretty well for probably several years until it all finally caught up with me.
Why not?
I’m hobbled by self-respect and respect for other people, I suppose!
Self-respect and honor are constraints that “our” betters do not have.
I am from Brooklyn, of Italian heritage. More concisely Italian heritage with organized crime involvement. Despite this, I had been convinced that it was possible to do well by working hard and saving.
The older I get and what I see that goes on around me – we are the suckers. Credit card defaults are part of the game, bankruptcies are the institution – small potatoes for the little people.
60 years ago my great-uncle was maxing out forged credit cards, and bouncing checks – the horror you say. When I witness the abject thefts that go on daily around me by our “New Americans” who make the likes of my La Cosa Nostra tied relatives seem like pickpockets. Even better they are protected by “our” government. They reap billions in Medicaid frauds alone, have political protections and answer to no laws great or small.
It is an amazing time – the 1950s American work ethic has been supplanted by state supported theft. William Plunkitt of Tammany Hall wrote about “graft and honest graft” – in truth honest graft is what America always was, it can be understood as everyone being a little crooked together and getting a better deal. Now we have a crony-fauxcapitalist oligarchy whose legalized thefts are breathtaking.
The system has already collapsed but is still being propped up by the air pressure of printing presses. Picture the Hindenburg with a massive hole in its side but remaining to stay filled because it is attached to gargantuan pressurized hoses – an equilibrium is being achieved by pumping and pumping. Eventually the pumps will wear out and the hole-y Hindenburg will crash.
Individuals acting responsibly are going to be crushed under this Hindenburg no matter how hard they worked, saved or how they were responsible- Only those riding high on the collapsing balloon will have an easy ride back down to earth, with our lives and presumed corpses breaking their cushioned fall.
I get the argument that we answer to God and our own conscience, but our stomachs, and bones answer to deprivations and hardships. You can reason with the Almighty in a sense, but your stomach and your children’s stomachs won’t hear it.
The whole system is kept glued together by the “responsible.” It is what our betters count upon, that and their heavily armed body guards.
Hi ThoughtCriminal,
I always thought Goodfellas were more honorable in that they were direct about what they did (didn’t try to tell you it was “for your own good” or “because safety”) and – so I gather – didn’t bully people just for the sick yuks of it, as (for instance) cops do routinely.
I have family in Mexico – and one of the things I like about that country is that officials are very direct about bribes. You pay a guy off, you get what you need. Simple, even honest in its own way.
The faux moralizing and unctuousness of American busybody politicians and bureaucrats makes my teeth hurt. I wish they would all sleep with the fishes!
eric, the govt. in Mexico is so convoluted it’s nearly impossible to get anything done officially.
Several years ago there was an outrage in this country over Walmart building new stores in Mexico while other big stores were tied up in a never-ending red tape fiasco.
Walmart was rightly accused of simply bribing those who could make it happen while others sat in limbo for years.
I thought it was no more or less good business practice. Walmart never really tried to defend itself. The hubbub gradually faded away and not a lot more was ever heard about it by me anyway.
I suspect the rest of the companies just did what Walmart had done…..eventually. I’m not supporting any institution or way of govt., just pointing out how it works there.
Your comment about “burning it all down”… Ever see “Thief” with James Caan from 1981? It is right up your alley if you haven’t.
It has become one of my favorites – there also a great scene with Willie Nelson and his advice.
That would be piranha, killer sharks and whales, and electric eels!!!!!!!!
Several years (a few decades?) ago, Caterpillar resorted to bribery to try to get some sort of business going in Mexico, or some such ‘south of the border’ country. The US Just-Us department brought criminal charges against them for doing so.
I know many of you here care not about Biblical Justice, but according to the Torah, it is a sin to take a bribe. Offering a bribe is not condemned, if fact it is occasionally praised as a way to avoid problems.
Badly hobbled.
You didn’t even think it through, did you, to steal identities first…?
Spend OTHER people’s money living the high life, and then let THEM declare bankruptcy….
Like Uncle Sam(antha) does……
Hi Jean,
I think, when it comes time, I will simply downsize to a small cabin deep in the Woods – and hope I can just kind of stay under their radar…
You really think they will let you do that? Tsk, tsk. there is surely a State approved cell that the State will demand you occupy out of “safety.”
Hi Thought,
Yeah, I know. I’m definitely doomed. Not because I’m dangerous. I’m just a Gen X car jockey journalist who hates Uncle. But Uncle cannot abide anyone who hasn’t imbibed the Kool Aid. And I won’t.
The one upside is I’ll have a head start. It might not be much… but it is a chance. When things get ugly, it will take them time to make their way out here to The Woods.
By which time I will have departed for the deep Woods.
They will probably find me, eventually.
But not right away…
Eric – “I’ve thought about buying as much stuff as I can on credit – and then just saying ya lose! Walk away, like everyone else seems to be doing.”
If you can somehow hide your other assets, max out the cards on physical gold and silver, bury the metals somewhere safe (under stinky animal pens or compost heaps is good) and then default on the cards.
My buddy has almost no assets of value but has at least $100,000 total in available credit on several cards. I have suggested the above plan but he has yet to do so.
Hi Me2,
It is sometimes hard not being a scumbag… 🙂
If everybody is a scumbag, then nobody is a scumbag. 🙂
Exceptionally true when you note the scumbags are making out like bandits.
Christ told us we’d have these people; that these people have their rewards here.
But I’m sick of “Buddy Christ” kissing everyone’s ass when they do evil. I want some response, some retribution, some punishment of the evil people here.
Especially since I’m NOT going to the Promised Land anyway – I might as well put my past failings to good use, and send some on ahead – ya know?
Since God won’t do it, I’ll send some souls to him for judgement. Mine will be there soon enough anyway; might as well send some who deserve said judgement, maybe make the rest of the world a better place BEFORE my passing, instead of just after…
Hi Jean,
I am still young and strong enough to head into the Woods if it comes to that. I realize it would not be easy; but I will not just shuffle into the truck or rail car, with the rest of them. And if it becomes impossible to live my little life, have my little pleasures (the yard, the Trans Am, my bikes) then I will burn it all down rather than left them get a finger on it.
Tor, you nailed it with this:
“[…]There’s an argot of concepts and terms that conflict on a deep level with everything you’ve ever been taught. And everything your loved ones accept and believe in.”
The whole truth is, the useless eaters (economic man, rent seekers) exist solely to damage us, and perverting the meaning of words is a key element of their arsenal. It’s why we have the story of the Tower of Babel. (Babble, remember?)
No one can talk to another person and convey a meaning, unless everyone uses the language the same way.
Without meaning, it’s just a lot of noise, a bit of babble, and no one really cares…
We are not allowed privacy, we must be pristine and clear. TPTB can be obscure and opaque and to question Das Boot is the act of a ter’rist.
Today I had to take training on “risk” and process controls to prevent Risk.
If we applied those rules to FedGov, they’d all be lined up and shot, down to the poor mail carriers…. And the janitors.
Understanding the Fed, even in the slightest, reveals that all of business is a true conspiracy. It’s ALL meant to take from us, and give to others, whether by devaluing the money through inflation, devaluing through Quantitative Easing, or by directly altering the costs (increase costs of production by whatever means possible.,)
WE go to prison…
THEY get the golden goose, AND the eggs, in perpetuity.
And we keep swallowing the lies….
I hope the sheep are starting to notice…
For example, recent case in Michigan – Moslems are allowed to pray in public schools. Christians cannot read the Bible in their private time, but Moslems get prayer time, prayer rooms, wash facilities, and halal meat at the lunch room, all on our dime.
Dhimmitude all the way – and since Islam re-unifies Church and State, and therefore to resist the “secular” forces of the state is to resist “Allah” (meaning god in this context), they’re bringing back the divine right of kings….
We are going to end up slaves if we don’t deal with these idiots.
Clover needs some Roundup. And if there’s a bunch of Dandy Lions, well…. Small loss, overall.
Guess I’m just too Brujah. “Think for yourself, or you’re better off dead. Either way, I’m happy.”
You have to come to a new understanding regarding the nature of wealth and what the Fed is. Orwell said it best: “The Law of Gravity is nonsense. No such law exists. If I think I float, and you think I float, then it happens.”
Laws of economics are nonsense. They do not exist. If I say a piece of paper is worth X value and you have no choice but to accept that piece of paper for X value, then it happens.
We are so far outside of Capitalism and economics now, that trying to force the Regime to abide by these models when it is willing to use its full weight against you and is importing hundreds of millions to replace you – is simply pointless.
We little people are just along for the rides. Stop swimming against the tide and ride the tidal wave until it crashes. You won’t survive, but get to enjoy the ride whereas you’d just end up in the same place without enjoying anything.
Coming from Brooklyn, I have seen every scam imaginable. The “Bust-out” is the model for the US economy now. In the “Bust-out” an “honest” business owner opens a business and begins lines of credit slowly with as many wholesalers as possible. They pay their bills at first and get increases in their lines of credit. They keep increasing the credit lines and partner with new vendors. Slowly they start pocketing the revenue and not paying the vendors. The vendors write off the loses of merchandise that they were not paid for, but needing to still sell their wares continue to ship more goods on the lines of credit – this goes on as long as possible with less and less actually being paid to the vendors.
Now is where the fun begins. Three things can happen –
A “fire” at the warehouse that burns the empty boxes of the credited merchandise, or a fire at the stores.
Sudden Bankruptcy – where there is no assets nor vendor merchandise to seize. All of the money from the sold merchandise has since been moved multiple times and is well protected from bankruptcy lawyers.
This is my favorite –
Now if you had been doing “Bust-outs” long enough, you should have multiple businesses operating under different corporations that are completely separate. You move all the merchandise from one corporation to the other collecting a 100% profit on all of it as you are filing for bankruptcy on one corporate entity and not both. You remain in business opening up yet more legally separate holding corporations and establishing new relationships and new lines of credit – you repeat the same bust-out – move the merchandise to the other corporation, sell it at 100% profit again and have the separate corp again file for bankruptcy.
When you understand that the United States is the Ultimate Bust-Out, you can finally understand what the economic plan is. It is that cynical but accurate. There is no way $20 TRILLION is ever being paid back, let alone the estimated $100 TRILLION in unfunded liabilities.
It used to be, you could look down at the first peoples of America. They weren’t able to defend their way of life against the stronger, more advanced, Europeans.
The native Americans were some times so pathetic, they traded land and things of great value for trinkets.
They didnt understand money and would give up their hunting grounds and extra children and wives in exchange for some rye whiskey and a couple of blankets.
Us second peoples aren’t quite that bad, but we’re a long ways gone from our angles, saxon, huns, franks, romans heritage, that’s for sure.
Is there any Europeans here that work for silver, tobacco, oil, cotton. Or are you all just like me. A sort of mongrel new Visigoth that works for paper wampum. Humiliates myself to earn a few shiny federal reserve trinkets.
I mean its fucking pathetic when you really think about it. This isn’t just some battle of words we’re engaged in. It’s not trolls versus liberals, versus christian conservatives, versus hedonist libertarians.
It’s a battle for civilization. If you don’t demand true value for what you do. If you’re a soviet that pretends to do the work, and then accepts that the part pretends to pay you. That’s a huge concession, and acceptance of a reduced and meager way of life.
We can all see how talented eric is. Yet the best he can hope for is to earn enough wampum to give to the internet utility chiefs. And the property tax chiefs. And the grocery store chiefs. And the gas station chiefs.
Eric is chief of this virtual realm. But most of the braves that frequent this place aren’t really that brave or smart. If you and me were really that smart. We’d stop trading our labor for federal reserve wampum and hold out for something of real value like a man.
Until we do something brave. We will remain lowly wandering visigoths. Skilled enough to sack Rome. To bring down men of higher station than us, because they have an broad enough upper class that only trades value for value.
Say you own a taxi business as an example. If you’re a classical European you would only provide rides to parties who paid you in gold, or else proxy tokens that could easily be converted to something of value.
If instead you are some deluded Visigoth who speaks a pidgin form of English and imagines himself a Brit. But then like some savage depreciates his vehicle and burns up his gas only to receive some ragged pieces of paper that are of only some kind of muddled highly sketchy value.
If you’ve ever been to Canada, the difference is palpable. Some of it being the pound and shilling system of Wampum isn’t quite as deceptive and rigged as our own system of… Create things worth pounds and pounds of gold, but then instead accept worthless paper that is tracked and inflated and restricted and forced upon you using thugs with badges and bureaucrats with gavels and cages.
Civilization is more about what you do. Not about what you say to make yourself feel better.
Some words were once written. But no actions were ever performed that go like this:
We the people. of the united states. In order to form a more perfect union. Establish justice ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America
This was ever just words. Not ever deeds.
I see no people among the 6 million here in Houston. Just a bunch of savages driving around and trading trinkets and sharing lies with other savages.
If you’re a savage, you can’t be united. You can’t form a coherent union. You can at best be bullied about like a bipedal brute animal by those with the mandate from the unseen humans who would never be so stupid as to accept a paper trinket for anything.
There is no justice. Just official rituals of mob mentality that rarely if ever helps anyone out ever. It only keeps the ruling European human minority in power and out of harms way from the careening frothymouthed ravings of the trinket spending visigoth second people lunatics.
I could keep on going on down the percepts of the preamble, but I think even the most basic visigoth bitch can understand where I’m coming from, and the terrible truth I have uncovered here in this oasis of temporary European civilization and cloverfree visigothfree lunacy.
The Disjointed State of New Visigotham (aka ameriKuh)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visigoths
read up on your true losting and founding fathers of chaos and looting – the Goths…
Thanks, Tor…
We’re all kind of stuck. Like men who find themselves on a ship in the middle of the ocean. Maybe we can fix up our berths to be a little more orderly/nicer than the berths of the others; maybe we can even cordon off a section of the ship and try to make it a nicer place to be than the rest of the ship. But we’re still stuck on the ship… with them.
I sometimes daydream about what it must have been like for a man who lived in the 18th century, when the country was still open country and you could “light out” for the territories and while it would be a struggle to survive and you’d be battling the elements, you’d genuinely be free in the sense of not being owned by anyone. You could hack out a cabin and it was yours. If someone did try to take it you had every right to defend yourself and didn’t have to fear prosecution for doing so.
I round to the idea that – ultimately – too many people is the ur problem. Not the numbers per se (though that’s a factor). It’s that the more people, the more Clovers – and the more powerful the Clovers become, as “civilization” waxes.
I am kind of at a crossroads myself. Debating whether to keep at this or just bag it and retire to The Woods, among my books and hope I’ll be left alone for the duration.
Ah eric, but you won’t be left alone and to the politician, the bureaucrat, the cop, that’s the beauty of the system. To the owners, you are just one person who will eventually be found out.
“But think of the last guy. For one minute, think of the last guy. Nobody’s got it worse than that guy. Nobody in the whole world.”
―Arlo Guthrie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOEvS8awmb4
And on that boat, you can’t get on the bridge, can’t even speak to the captain and have no input into where the boat is going. Ever once in a great while the captain issues an edict and pretends to want to know where everybody thinks the ship should go. He sends out pursers who take your suggestions you write on a slip of paper. After they’re collected, he and the first and second mate read them and have some good laughs(holds one up and reads it “Like that’s gonna happen” )and they all break up, big belly laughs. They might save a few of the most humorous just for their own entertainment. Then they’ll change course for a while….during the day but some foggy night they’ll recorrect the course so that the next day it appears as if they’re maintaining the new course. But it will all be a sham and if anyone correctly points out that the course really didn’t change and keeps saying it loud enough, they might just slip overboard some night to the amazement of those steering the ship. They’ll turn and go back, just for show, look for him but never find him since he’ll be chum long eaten by this time. Everybody will know this but this time, they’ll be fain to say it out loud cause the captain has spies and good spies are always the ringleaders of discontent. If it becomes too obvious, even the spies are disposable.
After all, a little better food on the sly, a few trinkets and you have a new spy.
Don’t be deceived. We are not the 2nd people. We are at best, the 3rd. There were other people here before those who Tor refers to as the 1st. And they may not have been the originals, either.
But Tor’s point about wampum stands.
wampum campaign
http://honorthetworow.org/learn-more/history/