Call it socialism, call it wealth redistribution, call it welfare, call it “we just want to spread it around a little, we think it’s better for everyone that way”, its evil.

Allow me to digress just a bit with several examples and I’ll circle back and show you why I believe it’s not just bad, it’s evil.

Keep this phrase in mind: “Every time someone gets something for nothing, someone else had to get nothing for something.”

Example 1: Taxes

In a graduated income tax system such as ours, the highest earners and producers pay the highest rate, while the lowest earners pay the lowest rate. And the non-producers often pay less than nothing as they actually receive payment from the collected taxes. This is commonly known as welfare, where people do not earn, yet still receive.

In this example, the welfare recipient gets something for nothing, while the top earner (you could even argue the mid-range earner also) pays for them, essentially getting nothing for something.

Who loses?

Hold that thought, let’s continue.

Example 2: Labor Unions

In a typical Labor union the workers of a company have united together to become a single body, the union.And all contracts, payment and otherwise, are negotiated with the entire body, instead of the individual worker. This claims the union, gives the worker greater bargaining power when it comes to negotiating said contracts.

Here’s what else it does: It gives the worker higher wages (and benefits) than they could get on their own and scheduled pay raises not based on merit but on union membership - something for nothing. And the Company itself, by not getting higher producers for the higher wages and compensation, has now gotten nothing for something.

Who loses?

Don’t answer yet, there’s more

Example 3: Children’s “self esteem” classes

Many public, and even private, schools have instituted programs to help the kids build self esteem. They do things like give each kid a prize for “effort” regardless of how qualified the effort actually is. The sports teams give everyone a trophy so the losers don’t get their “self esteem” hurt. They are careful not to reward the high-achieving kids too gratuitously for fear of hurting the other kids “self esteem”. It all makes sense, they don’t want kids who under achieve to feel bad.

Here’s what really happens: the kids who didn’t win, but still got trophies – the kids who crammed a sloppy half-effort entry to the science fair but still got a prize for “effort” – the kids who are told they’re doing a great job as to not hurt their feelings – all they really got was, you guessed it: something for nothing - accolades, prizes, trophy, even grades – all unearned.

Who got nothing for something? The team that won, the kids that achieve and get a silent grade as to not upset the others; all get unrewarded, maybe even unappreciated, effort.

Who loses?

I know I know, hang in there we’re almost done

Example 4: Friendship

This is a real example, from a real person, in a real school.

A girl, 12, we’ll call her Girl A, told Girl B: “I just don’t want to be friends with you, we have nothing in common…etc.” Well Girl B went home, told her parents, who called the school, next day teacher says to Girl A: “you have to be friends with Girl B”.

So hurray right? Girl B is now accepted and has a friend? Wrong.

Something for nothing, a friend she didn’t “earn”

Girl B now gets nothing for her something, she now has to endure hanging out with someone she really doesn’t like. (Although this is likely the most real life-preparing experience she’ll have while in school)

I ask again: Who loses?

Now, finally, let’s summarize.

In example 4, who loses? Girl A, who has to hang out with a girl she doesn’t like? Nope. Sure she has to endure a hardship, but who really loses?

Girl B.

Why? Because Girl B is being told, and shown that she doesn’t need to earn friends, or even make friends, that they’ll be made for her. She gets to live with the realization that because she couldn’t make her own friends, one had to be given to her.

Who loses in example 3? The achieving kids who don’t get the recognition they deserve? No again.

It’s the kids who get the praise and rewards they didn’t deserve that lose. They are being taught that they are worthy and deserving of such rewards without earning them. How prepared for life will they be with that lesson?

How about example 2? Sure the union wages and compensation hurt the company’s bottom line (ahem, GM?) but is that the real loser – nope.

Each union member who is told “you can’t get a raise, or earn this salary on your own, you need us to do it for you” loses big time. Because that’s exactly what they believe, they learn that they can’t earn such a raise themselves, and thus never will.

Finally, in example one, the high producer and wage earner, who is penalized at a greater rate of taxation for his achievement – is he the loser? Not even close. He’s used to overcoming obstacles and facing challenges, he’ll find a way to deal with the taxation.

The welfare recipient however, may never learn how to care for himself. He’s been convinced that, for one reason or another, he can’t. Or that someone else won’t let him.

All of these examples are one form of Socialism, here’s why they are all evil:

- Girl B could have made friends on her own, but she may never know. She expects someone else to do it for her. Her desire to make friends has been taken.

- All those kids who were “taught” self esteem could have earned it themselves, if only given the chance. But by giving it to them, you take their ability to earn it. You’ve literally stolen their entire future potential right out of them.

- Each worker could have actually earned his own pay raise, he could have learned to work harder, maybe even get more education and climb the ladder. But by telling he can’t , or doesn’t need to, you’ve stolen that potential from him.

- By paying someone to not work, you’re stealing their very motive engine. You’re buying their soul one cent at a time, purchasing their life, and enslaving them.

And that, my friends, is why Socialism, in any form, is evil.

DMobile Philosophy, Values socialism

Flat tax.  aka “Fiar tax” - where it’s a simple x% and everyone pays the same percentage of income tax.  Or the idea of a national sales tax - so tax becomes comsumption based instead of income based.

Both of these are great ideas and definitely make much more sense than our current system.  [We can argue that later, it's not the point of this short article]

Here’s why it’ll never happen:

Taxes; specifically, the right of congress to levy taxes, or even more specifically the right of congress to change how they levy taxes.

They can control how much you pay in taxes.  And they can adjust that amount (up or down) simply by saying “aye”.

How much power does that give them?

All the power in the world.

It literally gives them puppet strings attached to every single producer in America.  To use a Rand-like metaphor, it’s as if congress has a throttle control attached directly to YOUR motive engine.

In the recent 2008 electin, ALL the candidates included campaign promisses stating what they would do with taxes.  Obama promised to lower them for some, and raise them for others.  McCain promised the exact same thing, only for different groups.

They BOTH were essentially buying votes with the tax rate as currency.

A flat, fair, consumption (whatever you want to call it) tax would take that power away from Congress.  No longer would they hold such influence over American producers.  No longer would the rich fear retribution from them, no longer would the poor expect concessions from them.  The power of Congress would be greatly reduced with such a tax.

Political candidates, of all parties, could no longer use “tax breaks” as a campaign item.  What would they have left to talk about?  Sure would be nice to find out.

How could class warfare exist if we all paid the same % of our earnings?  If we all payed taxes based on what we bought, how then could a poor apartment dweller claim “unfair” against a wealthy multi-house owner?

These are just a few of the results (or as I like to call them: benefits) of a flat or consumption based tax system.  And they are the exact reasons why it will never be passed.

Very few in power are willing to legislate a reduction in that power.

DMobile Economic, Values congress, Economic, Taxes

I was watching an interview with Tony Danza on the Mike Huckabee show, (Please note, I am not a big fan of either) and Mike asked Tony about the stimulus bill.  His answer, very similar to answers I get from non-cons (a non-conservative, i.e.: moderate or liberal), was this: “I don’t necessarily think, you know, intellectually, that it’s the best plan, but I really want it to work.  Can’t we all just stop the bickering and get behind it?”

What exactly was he trying to say? That even though it’s the wrong plan that if we all “want” it to work it’ll be ok?

If you hire me to fix your car, and I put peanut butter in the transmission and replace some key engine parts with legos then tell you “well the other mechanics and I really want this plan to work, can’t you just get behind it?”  Is that going to make your car run?

Which brings us to:

Fundamental liberal thought flaw #1: “Wanting something to work, regardless of its actual merits, will somehow make it work” and this subsequent extrapolation: “Questioning the merits of something will likely cause it to fail, while massive public support of something will definitely cause it to succeed”

Also repeated by Mr. Danza, as well as countless media outlets, is how hard it is for a new president in his first 30 days, and how Mr. Obama didn’t ask for this recession, he inherited the greatest challenge of any modern president.

So…we should be forgiving and “cut him some slack” because it’s really, really hard to be president?  Um, no.  When you’re the President; you need to find a way to deal with it.

Again, if I’m fixing your car and I break something instead of fix it and my coworker comes to you and says “look, we just hired him and you know how hard the first month at a new job can be.  And besides, your car problem is a really hard one; he didn’t ask for it, you just showed up and expected it to be fixed.” Are you going to accept that answer?  I doubt it.  So why should we accept that answer about the President?  Unless you ascribe to Fundamental liberal thought flaw #2.

Fundamental liberal thought flaw #2: “The higher the difficulty of something, the more acceptable it is to give an excuse for failure, based on that difficulty”. There are examples of this all though society: “but it’s hard to get a better job”, “but it’s hard to pay my bills”, “but its hard to pay a full price mortgage”, “but it’s hard to start a business”, “but it’s hard to stay married” and more, which leads to this summarization: “If something is hard, that alone is reason enough for failing or not even trying”

We could go on and name many more, and we will, later.

DMobile Philosophy, Values Liberal, Progressive

Van Helsing over at RightWingNews hit the nail on the head with this one, here’s a clip:

Say Group A works hard and has created $1 trillion in wealth out of nothing. Group B smokes crack and watches Oprah, and doesn’t create any wealth at all. It receives food stamps, welfare, subsidized housing, et cetera, ad nauseam, but say Group B has no more wealth than it creates. If Chairman Zero wants to spread the wealth around so that both groups have the same amount, he doesn’t have to take half a $trillion from Group A. All he needs to do is give Group B $1 trillion dollars that doesn’t exist in the form of mortgage bailouts and stimulus packages.

Since the money doesn’t exist, the government will have to print it. Instead of $1 trillion dollars, there is now $2 trillion that represents $1 trillion of actual wealth. By making money worth half as much, Obama has effectively seized half of what Group A worked to create.

DMobile Economic, Values Bailout, coup, marxism, Obama, redistrubution, socialism

Many people these days are calling for higher taxes on the upper income earners to help offset the growing social needs of the citizenry. They feel that “the rich” need to pay their “fair share”, and it’s up to Congress to soak them for all they’re worth. Nevermind that the upper 5% of income earners shoulder 39% of the total tax revenue, as long as they still have a penny left over at the end of the year, someone needs to take it away from them. But let’s think about what this REALLY does.

Bill Gates earns, approximately, $2 billion annually. Let’s say we jack up his tax rate by an extra 10%. A $200M tax increase on Bill Gates means an extra $0.61 to each American, ASSUMING zero administrative cost of redistributing the wealth. With and extra 61 cents, most people will super-size a happy meal or buy a lottery ticket, or do something frivolous. With that extra $200M, Bill Gates could start a new hospital, employing 1,000 people, and adding billions of dollars to the economy in the form of created wealth - wealth from which he, too, could profit, if he runs his investment well.

Instead of working to increase the taxes on the rich, if we’re so concerned that they’re not paying their shares, why not mandate that they invest that money in startup firms that create jobs and help the community. (Like hospitals, private schools, and so forth.) The competition from all these forced-investment properties will drive the prices of the services that they offer down, which will be good for consumers. They’ll create new jobs. The money won’t disappear into some government tar pit. And they might even end up turning a profit for the erstwhile taxpayer - something his taxes would never have done. We mandate that they invest, say, 5% of their net income each year to funding startups, and we’ll start to see an explosion of wealth and new business like we’ve never seen. Observing Europe, we can see that increased government intervention leads to economic stagnation and double-digit unemployment. Let’s see what happens when we empower millions of Americans to start their own businesses each year.

If the people trying to take the money from the rich were really, honestly, trying to do something abuot poverty and equality, this is what they’d be proposing. However, it’s all about stealing from the productive to increase the size and bloat of the government.

[editor's note:  Thanks Mike.  We love hearing from you and thank you for you contributions and support]

About Vegas Mike:  Mike is a fantastic American with a great love of liberty and freedom.  While we often cringe at his radical ideas for proposed implementation, we completely agree with his ideals of limited government, personal liberty, and free trade.

DMobile Economic, Values Capitalism, Libertarian, Taxes

Stupid.

There, I said it.  I tell my 4 year old not to use that word, and I seldom say it out loud, but there’s just no other word that fits this situation.

Everyone including President Obama, the major media outlets, my coworkers and most of congress are talking about the tragedy of the recent home foreclosures.  Not just that, they’re (even some GOP senators) talking about how something “must be done” to help keep people in their homes.

We can all agree how sad it is to lose your home; I personally came very close in 2001 after the dotcombomb but that’s a different story.

Here’s the problem with nearly every one of the sob stories that get paraded in front of us non-stop by our loving 24-hour news cycle:  They nearly all have variable rate loans.

Yup, maybe one out of 20 stories is about someone who lost a job or something, but nearly every one of them is about someone with a variable interest rate mortgage that has now adjusted up out of reach of their income, and the home has dropped in value so they cannot refinance to a lower payment. 

Here’s the problem with that:  If you needed the low variable rate to afford the home – you couldn’t actually afford that home.

I’ll repeat that in case you didn’t hear me:  If you can’t afford the fixed rate loan, you can’t afford the house.  Period.

So what do we call someone who can’t afford the real payment, but takes the low introductory payment with no idea what they’ll do when it matures? 

Irresponsible? Short-sighted? Long-term planning ability disabled? Unable to read or find a source of information or even ask someone older who owns a home so we’ll listen to the shady realtor trying to make some quick money syndrome?

Don’t let my kid hear, I think “stupid” will do just fine.

UPDATE:  Heres a great article by Michelle Malkin detailing some specifics of recent sob story mortgage “victims”

DMobile Economic irresponsible, mortgage crisis

Background: Republican Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire is being asked by President Obama to accept the Cabinet position of Commerce Secretary.

Great…Except that New Hampshire has a Democratic Governor, who would likely appoint a Democratic Senator, or at best a very weak RINO.

With the current balance in the Senate being 59-41 there is just enough to eek out a filibuster if needed to stop a run-away Democrat bill from passing - replace Senator Gregg with a Dem and that goes to 60-40, essentialy filibuster-proof.

We would be powerless to stop any Democratic legislation from passing…

and they’d know it.

YES WE CAN do something about it, sort of.

We can contact Senator Gregg and ask him to not accept the offer.

DMobile Political Filibuster, Obama, Senator

Many Americans, and nearly all conservatives, are growing weary of all the hype and publicity revolving around the Obama presidency and upcoming inauguration.  In a book store recently I, from the doorway, could see his picture on the cover of a book or Magazine eleven, yes eleven times without even fully walking into the store.  Even some that voted for him agree that the “Obama dinner plate collection” is a bit overboard.

While I’m well past annoyed by all the press & publicity, I can actually see a great potential for this celebrity status to be put to good use.

There’s a role that a US President plays that isn’t in the constitution, or in any piece of legislature, or probably even written anywhere – it’s the role of Leader.  By that I don’t just mean Commander-in-chief or Chief Executive Officer, I mean the intangible Leader.

Most of my US readers are somewhat fans of football so I’ll use a football analogy:  Parallel the US President with the quarterback.  Most of the QB’s responsibility is to call the right play, and execute his part of that play.   Same as the President, he has to have a good plan, and successfully execute his role in said plan.

The quarterback, like the US President, also have a very large intangible role that accounts for, I’d say nearly half, of his value to the team.  And that is the role of Inspirational leader.  The QB and POTUS have to not just call the best play for the situation, execute their role in the play, but also must inspire the team to believe in three things:  The play he just called, his ability to execute the play and, most importantly- themselves.

For example, let’s look at President Bush2 post 9/11.  While many people didn’t support (or even want to acknowledge) his presidency, you can’t deny that he gave everyone a feeling of comfort.  In troubled times, nearly everyone looks to the leader.  And he didn’t let us down (at least not right away). 

He gave us confidence in 1. the idea that America would retaliate and seek justice, 2.  His ability to get us there and 3.  our ability as Americans to come together and overcome tragedy.

And that brings us to the point of this article.  Soon-to-be President Obama may be a Marxist, a product of corrupt Illinois politics, a glutton for political celebrity, a manufactured by the DNC, or all or none.  But one thing he is for sure, is an inspirational leader.

In our current economic situation, not only do we need a good plan, and sound execution, but we need belief & confidence.  Much of the US condition is based on “consumer confidence”.  And while the real permanent solution is fiscal responsibility, we also need a big dose of individual belief, and here’s why Obama might be the guy to help:

From: “Obama can save us!”

According to a survey published last night, 71 per cent of Americans believe the economy will improve during the first year of the Obama presidency and 65 per cent said they think unemployment will drop.

Asked about cash-strapped Wall Street, 72 per cent said they thought the stock market would recover.

Some 63 per cent were confident that their personal financial situation would improve.

So he’s doing what he does best, in fact possibly the only thing he’s actually good at, inspiring people to believe.

HOWEVER:

(and this is a big however)

The problem with Obama’s inspiration?

1.

He’s inspiring people to believe in the government, and not in themselves.

Admittedly yes it’s good that they’re being inspired to something, we really need a leader who will inspire people to believe in themselves.  Since its individuals that actually make up America and her economy.

2.

He’s inspired much of America yes, but some of the most important facets of the Economy, the “rich” – business owners, producers, and job providers, are not onboard with his plan, and therefore still quite uninspired.

I’m thankful that the economy is still good for me and my family - for now.  As for the future, I sway bettwen somewhat concerned, and really concerned.  I guess we’ll see.

DMobile Economic, Policies, Political Economy, Obama, Obamamania

We’ve all heard about fair tax or “consumption” based tax as a tax vehicle preferred over our current income tax system, and there are great arguments both for and against such tax methods.

However, the concept of a consumption tax is being twisted and perverted into a “discouragement” tax. Take tobacco for example; politicians claim that taxing this harmful product is a way to discourage us from using it. (For the record, I haven’t used tobacco products since about age 23). They’ve made similar proposals for Alcohol and most recently, gasoline.

Here’s the problem with this type of tax: what if it works?

I’ll use some simple numbers to demonstrate. Say there are 100,000 people that smoke, and a tax is levied to discourage smoking.

Let’s suppose that this tax costs the smokers $100,000 per month, about 1$ per smoker, generating an additional $100K per month of tax revenue.

The government, now basking in the additional revenue creates a program, or hires some workers or initiates an improvement project, or something that costs $100K per month to sustain. No problem, the new tax revenues are paying for it

But what if it works? Let’s say that a small amount of these smokers, 10%, fed up with the extra $1 per month decide they’re going to quit smoking.

Well now we have only 90,000 smokers, paying $90,000 per month. Great, it’s working; we’re a healthier society with 10% fewer smokers.

But wait!

What about the new parks, teachers, roads or whatever else we were doing with that $100K per month?

You got it, budget shortfall = more taxes.

And that’s my point, be it tobacco, gasoline, alcohol, carbon or what-ever – the truth is that taxing something to make us use it less may work temporarily, but it can’t be sustained…because the government spends the money.

It creates the following situation: we’ll tax you to make you use it less, but the less you use the less money we get, but if you actually use more, we’d get more money….

Note: we feel that in general, a usage based tax in replacement of, not addition to, income tax could actually work. (But would NEVER be enacted)

DMobile Economic Government waste, Taxes

Welcome to the Bizarro Universe, also known as present day America.

Forget what you thought you knew, we already live in a world where high achievement is ridiculed and mediocrity is rewarded.

We live in a land where many think we can spend our way out of debt.

And don’t forget, in mortgage land we plan to reward the irresponsible as well.

Now finally, a renewed effort to punish the responsible In a letter to Michelle Malkin from one of her readers:

I want to share this story with you, and you may share it with your readers if you wish. I ask only that my name be left out.

5 years ago while we were in the middle of putting an addition on our home - the final step in our remodeling - my wife was forced to leave her job on long term disability due to very serious back issues. She had been having back problems - including two surgeries prior to this so when she began her job at a nearby university we purchased disability insurance. Even with the insurance, we lost 40% of her income. We went from things being a little tight but comfortably manageable to mortgaged over our heads instantly. For five years we have managed to bootstrap our way from month to month by drawing down savings to cover whatever we were short on the mortgage and putting any extra that came our way back into the savings account.

After four more surgeries and little relief it is quite clear that my wife will not be returning to work, and the savings well is nearly dry.

We recently contacted our mortgage lender, WAMU/JP Morgan and outlined the situation for them. Explaining that while we had never been even a minute late, in about five to six months we would likely be unable to make a payment. We weren’t looking to get out of our debt, but to hopefully restructure it to take some of the pressure off, and hopefully keep our home. We thought we were doing the right thing by being proactive. We thought they would be happy to work with us before we defaulted.

We thought wrong.

They took all of our financial information to review, but the person we were working with explained that they really didn’t have anything in place to help people like us.

Repeat: “they didn’t have anything in place to help people like us”  That’s right, nothing in place to help actual responsible people who want, and are willing to work, to do the right thing.

He recommended that we stop paying the loan because once we were in default it would be easier for them to work with us. I have to admit that I thought about the benefit of saving a couple of months worth of our mortgage. I thought about it for about ten seconds. Then I sat down and took another look at what we squeeze out of our budget. Just tightening the belt further would buy us a month or two. So I started taking on extra work on the side.

They actually told them to STOP PAYING THE LOAN because they could only help them if in default.

translation: “sorry but you currently qualify as a producer with some semblance of ambition and personal responsibility and therefore don’t qualify for our socialist program”

Seriously, how far have we come that we can’t/won’t help someone who is actually working but needs help, but we can help someone once they pass the fail threshold?  That’s the equivilent of not offering any preventative medicine saying “come back when you’re really sick and we can treat you”.

Read the author’s last line below:

I don’t know if we will be able to restructure our loan, but I [am] damn certain we will never miss a payment. You can count me proudly among the chumps.

 This is someone I would gladly help to pay their mortgage.

DMobile Economic, Values