Is There Hope Yet for America?

Have you seriously thought what life will be like in 20-30 years when you’re retired? Will crime be better or worse (it’s gotten dramatically worse in the past 30 years)? I know, the statistics say some types of crime have improved, but do you really feel safer? If you’ve been alive more than 30 years, I think you’ll agree there’s a lot more craziness going on out there today. With even children committing gruesome crimes – and police too busy pursuing other things – what will morality be like when we’re too old and decrepit to defend ourselves? Carry a gun? (If we’re even allowed to own firearms then?)

What will the dollar be worth? (It’s declined to one-third the value it had in 1971, you know.)

I hate to seem a bearer of bad news, but these are just the facts, folks. If you think it’s too unpleasant to think of these things now, wait ‘til you see what it’s like in 5 or 10 or 20 years. And then, it’ll be too late to do anything about it.

Fortunately, there’s a way to turn around the decline of American life. Politicians like to blame the decline on outside forces: drugs, terrorists, whatever – but the truth is, most of our current problems come from the growth in size and expense of government. Blame the politicians who’ve been in office over the past 70 years. Both parties.

Because of the growth of the size and expense of government, it takes two parents to bring in enough income for a family. What time is left to spend with the children, guiding them through their most important years? We have to pay someone else to raise our children now! I believe this is the cause of so many kids developing “bad attitudes” and going wrong – their parents aren’t able to raise them. There are some things we can’t delegate!

Our federal government and the TV took over raising our children in the 1970s, when rising inflation (a government creation, as we’ll show later) caused both parents to have to work.



Look: Our government on all levels takes 47% of our income on average (1995 figure); it commits us to wars that have nothing to do with the security of our homeland; it gives away Billions of our money to countries like Israel (www.CIAfactbook.gov/Israel), where the average citizen is better off than a lot of us; it fights a war on drugs and we have more drugs than ever.

Both parties favor more government to solve our problems. Well, How’s that working? Any problems been solved lately? (In fact, all the parties, except one are for bigger government, which means more taxes for you.)

How’s the Middle East? War still going on in Iraq?
Perscription drug costs come down yet?
Health Care Costs down yet?
Has Uncle Spendthrift learned to live within his budget yet?
Is the dollar buying more or less this year?

Face it, friends: Our government in Washington has done a spectacularly bad job of managing our affairs – and they haven’t done it cheaply, either. Our state and local governments also have more problems and require more money from us to solve them. Together, Federal, state, and local taxes eat up about 47% of what we earn.

And beyond having the nerve to ask for more money to try to fix the messes they’ve made, federal monkeying with things through the burdens of recordkeeping and compliance issues, they have caused the price of nearly everything we buy to go up!

Example: Due to Food & Drug Administration red tape, it costs a pharmaceutical company $100 million to develop a new drug. They won’t even try to find drugs to benefit rare conditions – there’s not enough money in it. So, the Feds have raised the cost and length of time to develop the drug, that cost gets passed along to you, the consumer. Government micromanaging and paperwork causes you to pay more for your prescription drugs.

Have you taken a look at what the Federal Debt is, lately? Check www.shadowstats.com/ for the real story on our current federal debt. At the rate we continue to go further into debt, what do you think is going to happen at some point down the road?

Well, as Robert Ringer has said, “If our government can collect taxes, print money, borrow money, and change the rules and terms of payment, and it still can’t live within it’s allotted budget, we’ve got a problem.”

My guess is – and this concerns your retirement – the US will have to inflate and/or default its way out of a lot of financial commitments. And, as huge as the debt (including commitments to back up unfunded pension liabilities) is, it’s going to take a LOT of inflation to make even a little of it go away!

And that’s going to make however much you saved for retirement worth a lot less. It won’t be enough, chances are.

Big government is only good for itself and the big businesses (and countries that can lobby for special favors. It is not making America a better place to live, is it?

The answer isn’t Republicans or Democrats, either. Both took turns presiding over this slow, subtle downfall of our country. Both parties put us into unwinnable wars and ran up phenomenal debts for our grandchildren to pay. The Green Party and Constitution Party are still big government parties, so - to me - they are not the alternative we're looking for.

So, what are we going to do about it? Something better start changing it soon before all us Boomers start retiring. Will Social Security be there for us? Doubt it! Will it be safe to walk the streets at night? Is it now?

There is good news, though. There is a third option – a third party that stands for all the principles of small government that made this country great. The Libertarian Party. And the turn-around of America is just as simple as telling your friends and going to vote.

We still have the right to vote – and we have a better choice, a slate of Libertarian candidates who aren’t financed by special interests, but do have a coherent system of principles very much in line with the ones on which our country was founded.

Because the Libertarians aren’t financed by the big-money interests that have been running this country for their interests, not ours, we have to rely on word of mouth, volunteers, and election contributions from citizens like yourself. (Libertarian candidates are usually excluded from political debates.) Thanks to the Internet, spreading the word just got a lot easier for you.

This peaceful, digital revolution is do-able. And if you think about it – what’s the alternative? More of the same? A steady, or maybe a more rapid downslide for the economy, more regulations that make it harder to create jobs in this country, more crime, more war, and more terrorism here – all coming at a time when we, the working generation, want to be settling down for a comfortable, safe, and quiet retirement.

A financial panic is waiting in the wings - it's time to begin correcting the course of the US, while it's still possible.

So join us! Spread the Libertarian word – there is an alternative and it will be better than the same-old, same-old government that got us into the fix we’re in.


Now I am just a simple guy, no degrees behind my name, no syndicated column in the newpapers, but I can do the math. I have heard Albert Einstein say that compounded interest is “the Eighth Wonder of the World.” I believe him and other smart people who say we’ll never be able to pay off that debt.

So, it’s not going away even if we ignore it – and the folks in Washington keep spending like there’s no tomorrow (it's not their money!), so the Debt Bomb has got to explode during the twenty or more years we’ll be retired – and I’m just saying "We ought to take care of this now and not wait."

Solving Your Biggest Problem

Solve Your Biggest Problem

All of us have one Big problem, whether you’re young or old, rich or poor, healthy or sickly. If you’re an American citizen, you suffer from this problem; if you live abroad, to some extent you suffer from it, too.

The problem is our giant, growing federal government and the way it has come to look at our world.

Do you have this problem:

High taxes that won’t allow you to get ahead?
Not Enough Retirement Savings?
Spouse or kids in the National Guard or other Military, stuck in Iraq?
You’ve been a victim of Crime?
You feel you have no say in government?

We all suffer from these and related problems. They all have one cause and one simple solution.

The Cause is an over-reaching federal government that is totally out-of-control.

It tries to be the World Policeman, which makes lots of enemies and costs a lot of money
Because of the enemies it has earned us, you are asked to surrender some freedoms here at home (and you have less freedom to travel safely abroad)
It takes on totally impossible problems, wasting more tax money
It has hidden from us a HUGE COMING FINANCIAL CRISIS, due to its overspending

One thing you need to remember about government: Like any living thing, it will do anything to get re-elected – to stay alive.

It will promise you anything to get re-elected
It will keep taxes low by “stealing from future generations” (piling up debt)
It will commit our country’s military might to protecting the property of campaign contributors (think Halliburton, KBR, the Carlisle Group…)
It will start wars we can’t win.

Something you should know about American politics:

We, the people, have the votes but
Special interests and large corporations have the money

So, politicians promise certain things to the voters – lower taxes or more spending on popular projects – but they also must quietly please their special interest groups and corporate donors to keep receiving the big campaign funding necessary to be re-elected

This is why we have wars that make no sense, such as Iraq. A lot of lies were trotted out to get the American people into the war and then, when they were exposed to be lies, new reasons were found to explain why we must “stay the course.” This is why, after voters expressed their dissatisfaction with the Iraq war in the November election, the President is still trying to please the big money interests that he really works for. The war goes on. It’s not about what we want; it’s about what Bush and his cronies want.

The Good News

We can change regimes here, too.

If you’re tired of being treated like a chump, who’s expected to pay (and lose loved ones) for wars that only create more enemies for the US, inflicting misery on innocent people in the process, then get ready to replace the bloodsucking politicians that got us into this jam!

You may be saying, “But all politicians are the same!” And you’re partially right.

That’s because the only politicians you are allowed to hear about are the Republicans and the Democrats – and they are basically the same.

They are all indebted to corporate and special interests. That’s the only way to raise enough money for the expensive ad campaigns they must run these days.

You don’t hear much from the so-called minor parties, like the Libertarians, Greens, and the Constitution Parties. They may be on the ballot, but they don’t get the daily publicity the major party candidates get. So, you probably don’t know enough about them to be confident in voting for them. Besides, you may say, “They’ll never win.”

But they do sometimes win. And they can win more often if more people get fed up with the Democrats and Republicans and decide to find an alternative.

That’s what this crusade is about: Getting the word out that there is a better alternative to the two parties that have been leading the US on the road to ruin. More about that, later!

The Internet can level the playing field for better, uncorrupted, people to get into public office and start taking America back for the people,

In a way, our Congress and President have been writing bad checks in our names – and our kids and grandkids’ names – and not telling us.

They have saddled us with a debt that the smartest economists guarantee cannot be paid without causing major suffering here at home. (Read The Coming Generational Storm by Laurence Kotlikoff for more on this.)

What Are We Talking About?

For the retired or soon-to-retire, we’re talking about a major cut in the value of your retirement savings, due to wild inflation. We’re talking 24-hour a day printing presses cranking new dollars out of thin air, like they did in the late 70s.

For the young worker, these honest independent economists are warning that payroll taxes of double what they are today. A big cut in your standard of living, plus more of the usual wars, terrorist incidents at home and abroad, welfare for more corporations and individuals as the economy goes into the tank under the weight of all this taxation.

Big trouble – like the Depression of the 1930s, except that you may have noticed that people are not as civil and peaceful as they were in the 30s. But, even in the 30s people did desperate things to get food and we can expect no less in the next one.

More Good News!

We have some time to prepare, but we must start educating other voters now. Fortunately, this can be as easy and empowering as your pressing the “Forward” tab when you get done reading this.

The key deadline is the 2008 election.

What Are Libertarians?

There are a few people in Congress today – fighting a lonely fight – by Libertarian principles. One of the best examples in Representative Ron Paul, MD, of Texas. Visit his Web site or Google him to see the kind of person he is. He labels himself a Republican, but his principles are pure Libertarian – the same principles this country was founded to protect. I have a link to one of his speeches in Congress in one of my previous posts.

If You’re a Republican

You’ll be happy to know that Libertarians are fiscally conservative – unlike theRepublican party we have come to know in recent years.

Low Taxes. Balanced budgets, no foreign aid to kleptocratic regimes around the world, no welfare of any kind – corporate, national, or personal (leave more dollars in taxpayers’ pockets so they can provide charity donations to the nonprofits who do it best. There’s a lot to like about Libertarians.

If You’re a Democrat

You’ll like the fact that Libertarians are socially liberal. There are a lot of issues that are simply none of government’s business.

No foreign entanglements, no foreign wars.

No unwinnable Wars on Drugs and similar campaigns. (Prohibition doesn’t work)

Lower taxes for everyone. Less recordkeeping and the unpaid expense of producing complicated tax returns.

More affordable health care – the effective way.

More and better JOBS here in the US because big government gets out of the way of small, medium, and big businesses. Over-regulation and high cost of doing business in the US are driving our jobs overseas.

What You May Not Like…

If you’ve come to believe our federal government is to be used for handing out favors to your special interest group, you won’t like Libertarians.

If you think the feds should set a minimum wage at some arbitrary higher figure – Libertarian candidates won’t be doing that either. Honest economists will tell you this doesn’t work to anyone’s benefit. (Most professional politicians don’t care what works, they are perfectly willing to promise voters anything and then blame some third party when it doesn’t work.)

If you want to use government to legislate morality as you believe it should be, you won’t be happy with Libertarians. On the other hand, you may like the savings left in your pocket when government shrinks down to what we really need it to do: Protect us from foreign attack and natural disasters; keep civil order; maintain a system of laws that enforce contracts and prosecute fraud. As it is, our federal government is so stretched thin it can’t even perform the essential basic services we created it to do! And it’s headed for bankruptcy.

If you favor some grand New World Order scheme that requires military bases and ongoing wars in multiple parts of the globe, you won’t be happy with the Libertarian Party (http://www.lp.org/)

If you believe the government owes special treatment to you for your race or special investment in your area to benefit your city or state at the expense of all the rest, you won’t like the LP, either.

But…

If you weigh all the factors and really are honest about what is fair and feasible in government, you may realize that the Libertarian Party is the right choice for taking back America and creating a just and prosperous society for all.

You see, we have been conditioned over the past 90 years to expect things that our government cannot deliver.

In the real world, you can’t have both:

Free medical care and get someone else to pay for it

Peace at home when we’re meddling and pushing other nations around abroad

Low taxes and lots of government services

Freedom for you and unfreedom for those you don’t like

We’ve been seduced by our professional politicians to believe “We can have it all – and get someone else, some big corporation or some snooty rich person – to pay for it.”

Libertarians don’t believe in using government force to steal from one group to benefit another. Period.

So…Start thinking about it, please!

Read my previous post about the Debt Bomb that is going to demolish your happy retirement. That’s the kind of results the present way of doing business in Washington is getting us. They should be prosecuted to the extent they stuck us with an impossible debt burden!

We need to get the word out about the Libertarian alternative, so we can do something about our dissatisfaction in 2008!

It will be fun and the most patriotic thing you can do.s

More to come soon. Thanks for reading. May God bless you and prosper you!