Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.
From the earliest moments of the current, ongoing economic depression, our leaders signaled their fear by hastily concocting programs that postponed the reckoning that had to come.
Douglas French, writing about housing finance today, says a lot simply with his title: “Markets Stagnate Until They Clear.” Government policy has kept mortgages in a weird limbo, and market prices at unnatural highs. Our geniuses in power have even moved heaven and earth to reinflate the old housing boom.
Better to have let it crash and recover rather than keep it unworkably hobbling along.
But the clearing of markets scares politicians silly.
Right after the 2008 implosion, our leaders increased unemployment insurance and offered many new cushions for workers. Humanitarian? Or just another way to avoid new, lower wage rates to match the monetary collapse? I’m not sure about the latter, since the “wages” of not working proved so effective that many workers stayed unemployed voluntarily.
The cost? An extended, lengthy depression.
But that’s not all, of course. By putting more people onto the rolls of the federal government’s dependents list, the burden on taxpayers and on the debt system increases.
Meanwhile, politicians still cannot imagine a way to do what a few other countries, including Canada, have done: cut back on spending and balance budgets.
Our politicians will do anything to avoid that!
Some folks are calling the current period “The Great Recession.” I suggest a better term: “The Great Evasion.” And what’s being evaded is responsibility.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms, like law, discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside. Horrid mischief would ensue were one-half the world deprived of the use of them; for while avarice and ambition have a place in the heart of man, the weak will become a prey to the strong.
“Gun violence” is supposed to be bad. Right?
Not long after the New Year, a woman in Loganville, Georgia, was working in the upstairs office of her home when she spied someone lurking outside.
The suspicious man, Paul Slater, was about to break into her home with a crowbar. Fortunately, before he could do that, the woman hid herself and her two nine-year-old twins in an attic crawlspace. Unfortunately, Slater found out where they were hiding. Fortunately, the woman had a gun; as soon as the intruder menacingly presented himself, she shot him.
Alas, after shooting six times and hitting Slater five, the woman ran out of bullets. But she had the presence of mind to tell the would-be assailant that she would fire again if he moved. Then she took the kids to a neighbor. The thug tried to escape in his car, but was too seriously injured to get far.
“My wife is a hero,” her husband told WSB-TV. “She protected her kids. She did what she was supposed to do as a responsible, prepared gun owner.”
Responding to the fact that the invader was only partly subdued before the gun owner ran out of bullets, Glenn Reynolds (“InstaPundit”) says: “See, this is where one of those ‘assault weapons’ might have come in handy.”
An InstaPundit reader expands upon the point: “What if there had been multiple attackers? Then that 30-round clip suddenly seems appropriate.”
Indeed. And disarming the just sure seems like a poor way to reduce gun violence.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
The legal right of a taxpayer to decrease the amount of what otherwise would be his taxes, or altogether avoid them, by means which the law permits, cannot be doubted.
If the provisions of the constitution be not upheld when they pinch as well as when they comfort, they may as well be abandoned.
“Medicare’s trustees estimate that the hospital insurance fund supported by the payroll tax will run out of cash by 2024,” informs a Washington Post editorial, “but this is mainly a symbolic threat: The government will draw on general revenues to keep Medicare going.”
So, what exactly does this “symbolic threat” symbolize?
It shows that Medicare — like Social Security — was set up and run in an unsustainable, even fraudulent, way. Politicians promised benefits without collecting the taxes to pay for those benefits. This left “today’s voters” getting unpaid for bennies and future voters being handed a hefty bill.
The only question is: how hefty? That depends on how quickly the imbalance gets addressed.
Already, Medicare represents 15 percent of total federal government spending, last year costing taxpayers $555 billion. Worse yet, the cost is expected to double in the next decade — in large part, because the number of seniors on the program is expected to explode, from 50 million today to 78 million by 2030.
“No structural solution is,” the editorial bemoans, “for the moment, politically possible.” Instead, the Post endorses a number of small cuts — all making seniors pay more and/or get less — that add up to slightly over $40 billion a year. That drop in the bucket would, in a decade, account for less than 4 percent of Medicare’s projected yearly cost.
Frankly, the unavoidable first step in any honest fix of Medicare’s big, structural problems, is for those in Congress and the White House to fully admit the rotten fraud they have perpetrated against us for their personal political gain.
Acknowledging their deception would be more than symbolic.
You can’t change your ways until you first repent.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Uniting together to form mutual aid groups is a very old idea. Workers do it; professionals, too — even consumers. It’s usually a great idea, contributing a lot to human welfare.
But what we call “labor unions” have a problem: They tend to be, well . . . violent.
Why?
One of the main practices of unions has been (though it need not be) the monopolization of labor into a union-run pool, disallowing non-union workers from taking jobs in targeted plants, businesses, industries, what-have-you. Labor legislation in America and elsewhere generally shores up and regulates that power — which, by definition, is thuggish.
So we’ve come to expect thuggishness from existing unions. Members of unions feel they have the right to exclude non-union workers, and they will intimidate, threaten, and attack both “scabs” (competing workers) and “evil businesses.”
Which now includes a Quaker meeting place expansion project.
In one of the best-titled stories of recent times, “Union Workers *Probably* Torched a Quaker Meetinghouse Over Christmas,” we learn that an under-construction building was torched this holiday season, and that the culprits were “almost certainly” union members.
To call them “disgruntled” would be to euphemize. To attack a Quaker meetinghouse takes quite a bit of . . . well, you fill in the blank.
In one sense, unions are doing nothing different than hundreds of other organizations do, seeking special privileges from government. But unions continue to use the basic tactics of force when the “rule of law” fails them.
That they would do so even against another group known for the heritage of peace and non-aggression and even non-retaliation is breathtaking in its . . . honesty?
I’ll let you pick your own word.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
For the saddest epitaph which can be carved in memory of a vanished freedom is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch forth a saving hand while there was still time.
This weekend’s Townhall column underscores the real cost of the payroll tax hike, part of the “fiscal cliff” deal: The erosion of Social Security’s “safety net” feature. It ain’t a safety net when it precludes your own savings.
Go to Townhall and read the column, and come back here for a few links, for further thought.
Well, much of the background has been covered in past Common Sense episodes. But, when it comes to Social Security, there has been an almost concerted attempt by government folks to shield people from the truth about nearly every aspect of the program. Take the “employer’s contribution” to “your Social Security”: