Smoking gun for covert Fed intervention

[Stump Rancher]

Fascinating take on Scandinavia. Lots to ponder there. Thanks.

The last bit about the politician "stimulating the economy" by building all the buildings for consumption is true. Bastiat's "Fallacy of the Broken Window" comes to mind. A rube might think of stimulating commerce by throwing a stone through a store window, thus providing work for the glazier.

[Horsea]

We spend a fortune trying to save people from old age. My wife's hospital had a patient recently in for heart surgery at 94. The surgeon opened her up, and she died within minutes as her poor old heart simply fell apart spontaneously! The tissues were far too fragile. We also pay for dialysis for alcoholics, medical care for drug dealers and "madames" who have "no visible income" but drive into the hospital with their late-model luxury cars. My wife had a patient who was connecting her "girls" to her customers from her hospital bed on her cell phone, while the bill is being paid by the taxpayer.

While I find your entire post highly informative, not to mention entertaining in spots and terrifying in others, I want to add my two bits' worth to the above.

It's not only old people that we are "saving".  There are countless seriously inferior beings of all age groups being propped up decade after decade for no reason that I can think of except our culture's death denial.       

Your example of the 94-year old woman who had useless "life saving" surgery is only the tip of the iceberg and by no  means the most offensive example.  However, a person who's 94 in 2009 never made it that far on her own steam; but a person who reached 94 - and don't believe the propaganda, there were plenty of them - prior to about 60 years ago certainly did, and had every right to live those 94 years.  I know of no older person today - say, anyone over 70 - who hasn't been held together for years with wax and string and a whole shelf-ful of prescription drugs and a million dollars' worth of unnatural medical technology.  Every godforsaken, rotting  creature in my late mother's old people's "home" would  have croaked on the spot without their countless doctor-prescribed poisons.   Is it just an issue of who pays?  Even with private insurance, aren't we all ultimately paying when we let this go on?

I also want to comment on the supposedly unjustified dialysis for alcoholics.  Should anyone get dialysis at public expense?  Why?  If your kidneys have given out, it's time to meet your Maker, and you should not be kept alive; it is a crime against nature.  Why single out alcoholics as being undeserving?  I would not distinguish between a born weakling, an alcoholic, or someone who lived on junk food for 50 years, would you?

Well, I don't know if it's Asperger's or not, but way back in 1973, when I was really young, I looked around and thought, this can't go on forever.  Look how comfy we in N. Amerika are!  Look at those third world countries - endless droughts & monsoons & revolutions & civil wars & starvation & so on and so forth.  I belonged to a union and every year, for a few years, we'd get a raise of about 17-20%, just for drawing breath.  I felt something was wrong and that the s**t would hit the fan.   

[Mike]

If it's full employment that is needed, everyone can employ themselves digging holes in the backyard.

Rubes want productive employment, so they first destroy windows.  Then glaziers can be productive.  That is not much different than cash-for-clunkers, save the order of wealth destruction.

Then there is the wild idea that, "WWII got us out of the Great Depression," a bigger and better Rube prescription than breaking windows. 

Bastiat's window-breaker falacy still applies.

*************8
horsea, I agree with everything in your last post.... 100%

[Atash Hagmahani]

"...looking at ANY way to CREATE jobs":

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091014/D9BB4MD80.html

SPRINGFIELD, Va. (AP) - Standing at the site of a highway project funded by his economic stimulus plan, President Barack Obama said Wednesday he is committed to exploring all avenues to create jobs.

Obama said his administration is going to keep going until "every single American in this country who's looking for work is going to be able to get the kind of well-paying job that supports their families."

Obama spoke from the top of a large mound of dirt and gravel, the site of a highway construction project in the Virginia suburbs outside Washington. He chose the site of the Fairfax County Parkway Extension project to feature the progress of the stimulus package passed earlier this year.

The project is the state's largest stimulus-funded project. When completed, it will connect both ends of Fairfax County.

While some businesses have credited the stimulus bill with preventing layoffs, the national unemployment rate stands at 9.8 percent. Many economists have said unemployment could continue to rise.

They're not making the connection. 

[Beeherder]

 
You folks are all so "on point" it hurts. I am new to this way of thinking. Having been raised by bigoted zealots who wraped themselves and all their crazy ideas about atomic warfare in "Old Glory" it just seemed absolutely insane. So silly me I actually spoke out beginning way back in the 60s. Ohhhhh you could get hurt doing that back then and probably still could today. Only now they back stab and obfuscate and deny you are being excluded because you refuse to go  along to get along.

If you point out how insane global warming is to you lefty friends you're a right wing gun totting crazy . If you point out how insane continuous war is to your righty friends they call you a commie and say things like "well if you don't like it here why don't you just go someplace else".  Since nearly everybody thinks i'm off my tally whacker that means I must have it about right.  And if you invite any of either to join you if TSHTF they drop you like a hot potato. Well good now I don't have to plan for them coming here.

Now how do I keep them from committing me to an institution because I say things like "I never ever want to spend even one day of life in one of those Nursing Homes like where they just tortured my Mother for the past 3 years." Wow that will get you run out of almost every place in town of Colorado Springs. Nobody and i mean NOBODY wants to hear you say "Why did you refuse to honor her Do Not Resucitate Order three years ago?" They all accuse you of hating your mother and wanting to steal her money. No this can NOT GO ON.

[Atash Hagmahani]

Politics is the problem, not the solution. There are two flavors of politics: left-wing and right-wing. Often they both come down to the same thing, but just look superficially different. One hides behind care-and-concern, the other one behind patriotism and duty.

I found a job for one of my college chums. After work, he would often drive us to his home. His parents were both quite deaf, and did not speak English.

One evening after being treated to supper, some home-made "halawi" (sweets) and some chess games, the family patriarch gave us young men a lecture about the evils of politics. I'd never heard one like it before, but it resonated.

I suggest not rattling cages, but being discrete with potentially controversial opinions. No 1960s street rally ever made the world safer, or a better place.  Instead, talk thoughtfully and respectfully to your friends. 

[offdalip]

stay on the low low... no matter how much they ruffle your feathers.... it ain't ever worth it to express your views to disapproving authorities

[opsec]

the family patriarch gave us young men a lecture about the evils of politics.

Can you give us the bullet points of what he told you?

[Atash Hagmahani]

That was a mightly long time ago Bud! Something about creating un-necessary divisiveness through labels, political parties and party identity, and paradigms. It was a fairly lengthy talk too.

It ended with something about forgiveness. I remember that part distinctly:

(in translation:) "The trouble with this world is that people do not listen to the teachings of our Lord Jesus regarding forgiveness."

[Beeherder]

 
It felt oh so good to pretend those street marches and teach-ins made a difference but you are probably right that they did not change much of anything in a basic sense. Low low is the way to go go. Gotta cool my jets stay home more keep the garage door closed more, even when I'm in there. Speaking out has not helped, it has only alienated me from others (i don't do it well or politely enough to be tolerated) and sometimes hardened their illogical positions. Your advice is well received, thank you, offdalip.

Your Patriach seems like a wise and sage person, thank you for sharing his gift, Atash.

[Horsea]

Yes, indeed.