After going through the earnings of the top 50 golfers ( 100 make at least a million ) I thought it's amazing how much one can earn as an athlete. I was wondering how much basketball players made a while back and discovered that in the NBA every player on a team makes at least $1,000,000 ( exception: two At $450,000 ) and the top player can make 20 times that. With at least 12 men on a roster that makes 360 ball players making $1,000,000 and mostly more. I didn't even get to MLB, NHL or NFL much less tennis or other professional sports.
Now it has occurred to me that there must be thousands of professional athletes of one type or another that make a million and more. So the question arises....
Give me the name of 1500 greedy CEO's that leftists talk about and want taxed to the bone for God knows what. I think maybe these athletes should get their hackles up, the body language of dogs, so to speak.
Golf Digest Top 50 Earners Of 2013 Full Player Money List
8th January 2014
Rank 1: Tiger Woods On Course: $12,091,508 Off Course: $71,000,000 Total: $83,091,508
Rank 2: Phil Mickelson On course $7,009,156 Off course $45,000,000 Total: $52,009,156
Rank: 3: Arnold Palmer On Course: — Off Course: $40,000,000 Total: $40,000,000
Rank 4: Jack Nicklaus On Course: $9,625 Off Course: $26,000,000 Total: $26,009,625
Rank 5: Henrik Stenson On Course: $18,594,670 Off Course: $2,850,000 Total: $21,444,670
Rank 6: Rory McIlroy On Course: $2,608,789 Off Course: $18,000,000 Total: $20,608,789
Rank 7: Gary Player On Course: $9,625 Off Course: $16,000,000 Total: $16,009,625
Rank 8: Adam Scott On Course: $8,048,068 Off Course: $7,600,000 Total: $15,648,068
Rank 9: Ernie Els On Course: $2,189,536 Off Course: $12,500,000 Total: $14,689,536
Rank 10: Greg Norman On Course: — Off Course: $14,000,000 Total: $14,000,000
Rank 11: Sergio Garcia On Course: $3,411,237 Off Course: $8,500,000 Total: $11,911,237
Rank 12: Justin Rose On Course: $6,253,672 Off Course: $5,500,000 Total: $11,753,672
Rank 13: Matt Kuchar On Course: $7,053,225 Off Course: $3,750,000 Total: $10,803,225
Rank 14: Luke Donald On Course: $2,926,655 Off Course: $7,000,00 Total: $9,926,655
Rank 15: Steve Stricker On Course: $6,590,532 Off Course: $3,000,000 Total: $9,590,532
Rank 16: Graeme McDowellOn Course: $4,515,205 Off Course: $5,000,000 Total: $9,515,205
Rank 17: Lee Westwood On Course: $2,889,087 Off Course: $6,500,000 Total: $9,389,087
Rank 18: Jordan Spieth On Course: $4,669,820 Off Course: $4,500,000 Total: $9,169,820
Rank 19: Dustin Johnson On Course: $4,643,214 Off Course: $4,500,000 Total: $9,143,214
Rank 20: Jim Furyk On Course: $3,474,779 Off Course: $5,250,000 Total: $8,724,779
21. Keegan Bradley
2013 RANK: 23 | ON COURSE: $4,177,480 | OFF COURSE: $4,500,000 | TOTAL: $8,677,480
22. Fred Couples
2013 RANK: 28 | ON COURSE: $2,312,710 | OFF COURSE: $6,000,000 | TOTAL: $8,312,710
23. Ian Poulter
2013 RANK: 26 | ON COURSE: $4,183,433 | OFF COURSE: $4,000,000 | TOTAL: $8,183,433
24. Zach Johnson
2013 RANK: 27 | ON COURSE: $5,154,359 | OFF COURSE: $3,000,000 | TOTAL: $8,154,359
25. Brandt Snedeker
2013 RANK: 7 | ON COURSE: $5,654,337 | OFF COURSE: $2,500,000 | TOTAL: $8,154,337
26. Ryo Ishikawa
2013 RANK: 15 | ON COURSE: $1,483,146 | OFF COURSE: $6,500,000 | TOTAL: $7,983,146
27. Padraig Harrington
2013 RANK: 21 | ON COURSE: $1,333,819 | OFF COURSE: $6,500,000 | TOTAL: $7,833,819
28. K.J. Choi
2013 RANK: 32 | ON COURSE: $1,283,251 | OFF COURSE: $6,500,000 | TOTAL: $7,783,251
29. Jason Day
2013 RANK: NR | ON COURSE: $5,211,697 | OFF COURSE: $2,500,000 | TOTAL: $7,711,697
30. Webb Simpson
2013 RANK: 33 | ON COURSE: $4,683,999 | OFF COURSE: $3,000,000 | TOTAL: $7,683,999
31. Nick Faldo
2013 RANK: 31 | ON COURSE: — | OFF COURSE: $7,500,000 | TOTAL: $7,500,000
32. Jason Dufner
2013 RANK: 30 | ON COURSE: $3,676,268 | OFF COURSE: $3,500,000 | TOTAL: $7,176,268
33. Hunter Mahan
2013 RANK: 24 | ON COURSE: $3,261,164 | OFF COURSE: $3,750,000 | TOTAL: $7,011,164
34. Davis Love III
2013 RANK: 22 | ON COURSE: $352,643 | OFF COURSE: $6,500,000 | TOTAL: $6,852,643
35. Rickie Fowler
2013 RANK: 38 | ON COURSE: $2,206,892 | OFF COURSE: $4,500,000 | TOTAL: $6,706,892
36. Bernhard Langer
2013 RANK: 45 | ON COURSE: $3,094,468 | OFF COURSE: $3,500,000 | TOTAL: $6,594,468
37. Bubba Watson
2013 RANK: 18 | ON COURSE: $2,234,703 | OFF COURSE: $4,200,000 | TOTAL: $6,434,703
38. Charl Schwartzel
2013 RANK: 39 | ON COURSE: $3,658,889 | OFF COURSE: $2,750,000 | TOTAL: $6,408,889
39. Miguel A. Jimenez
2013 RANK: 49 | ON COURSE: $1,605,007 | OFF COURSE: $4,750,000 | TOTAL: $6,355,007
40. Tom Watson
2013 RANK: 35 | ON COURSE: $287,849 | OFF COURSE: $6,000,000 | TOTAL: $6,287,849
41. Camilo Villegas
2013 RANK: 40 | ON COURSE: $888,900 | OFF COURSE: $5,000,000 | TOTAL: $5,888,900
42. Colin Montgomerie
2013 RANK: 36 | ON COURSE: $322,945 | OFF COURSE: $5,500,000 | TOTAL: $5,822,945
43. Harris English
2013 RANK: NR | ON COURSE: $3,727,984 | OFF COURSE: $2,000,000 | TOTAL: $5,727,984
44. Bill Haas
2013 RANK: NR | ON COURSE: $4,042,663 | OFF COURSE: $1,500,000 | TOTAL: $5,542,663
45. Kenny Perry
2013 RANK: NR | ON COURSE: $3,383,804 | OFF COURSE: $2,000,000 | TOTAL: $5,383,804
46. Billy Horschel
2013 RANK: NR | ON COURSE: $4,098,370 | OFF COURSE: $1,250,000 | TOTAL: $5,348,370
47. Nick Watney
2013 RANK: 29 | ON COURSE: $2,845,413 | OFF COURSE: $2,500,000 | TOTAL: $5,345,413
48. Paula Creamer
2013 RANK: 44 | ON COURSE: $831,918 | OFF COURSE: $4,500,000 | TOTAL: $5,331,918
49. Darren Clarke
2013 RANK: 46 | ON COURSE: $281,550 | OFF COURSE: $5,000,000 | TOTAL: $5,281,550
50. Matteo Manassero
2013 RANK: NR | ON COURSE: $1,940,584 | OFF COURSE: $3,000,000 | TOTAL: $4,940,584
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Thursday, February 20, 2014
OLD DECISIONS MADE. WILL NEW ONES BE MADE THE SAME WAY ?
It strikes me that in today's world we have reverted to the same place we were in the late '30's and now we have to cope with world events and the decisions to be made about them. ......Will we wait too long once again ?
World War I reminds us that even amid the worst carnage imaginable there will likely be a victor and a loser, even if both sides would usually have been far better off negotiating rather than destroying their youth over sometimes solvable differences. That sophisticated Westerners deny this fact does not make it go away, much less convince their adversaries of the futility of ideas like victory and defeat.
We can still learn lots from World War I, if only in the sense of how to avoid disasters of this nature — especially given the present age of gathering war clouds not unlike those in 1914 and 1939.
China, like the Westernized Japan of the 1930s, wants influence and power commensurate with its economic clout, and perhaps believes its growing military can obtain both at the expense of its democratic neighbors without starting a wider war. North Korea is not convinced that demanding concessions from South Korea — or simply humiliating it and the U.S. — by threats of war would not work. Iran trusts that the age of the U.S. mare nostrum in the Mediterranean is over, that the Sunni Persian Gulf oil sheikdoms are spent, that once-unquestioned Western guarantees to Israel are now negotiable, that nuclear acquisition is an agreed wink-and-nod obtainable enterprise, and that terrorist appendages can achieve political objectives in the Middle East just as effectively as carrier groups.
Putin dreams that the Russian imperial world of the 1950s can live again, through coercion, Machiavellian diplomacy, and the combined lethargy of the EU and the U.S. — and he often is willing to take some risks to refashion current realities. Failed socialist and Communist states in Latin America nonetheless believe that a distracted or uninterested U.S. no longer cares to make the argument that transparent democratic capitalism is the region’s only hope for the future. The miseries of Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela are apparently no reason for them to feel that they should not extend them to other countries.
Amid all that, a minor bow and apology here, or an inadvertent pink line and empty deadline there, matters. Gratuitous talk of “reset” and “lead from behind,” coupled with serial scapegoating of past U.S. policies and presidents, massive new debt and vast cuts in defense, also sends a message to our rivals and enemies that occasional gambles and aggressive moves that would usually be seen as stupid and suicidal may not be any more.
We are reverting to our posture of 1938–40, when the United States talked very loudly of what it might do and what the Axis should not do, but had no intention of backing up such sanctimoniousness with force and was more likely to cut than augment its defenses.
War is the messy arbiter of peacetime false perceptions about relative power. Peace returns when all the nations involved have learned, after great agony, what they really could and could not do. Or as Thucydides sighed, war is “a harsh schoolmaster.”
Given that reality, the U.S. should start quieting down and stepping up, rather than stepping back while sounding off — before others come to believe that their own wild fantasies are reality, and the harsh schoolmaster of war intercedes to correct everyone’s shared false perceptions.
— NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author, most recently, of The Savior Generals.
World War I reminds us that even amid the worst carnage imaginable there will likely be a victor and a loser, even if both sides would usually have been far better off negotiating rather than destroying their youth over sometimes solvable differences. That sophisticated Westerners deny this fact does not make it go away, much less convince their adversaries of the futility of ideas like victory and defeat.
We can still learn lots from World War I, if only in the sense of how to avoid disasters of this nature — especially given the present age of gathering war clouds not unlike those in 1914 and 1939.
China, like the Westernized Japan of the 1930s, wants influence and power commensurate with its economic clout, and perhaps believes its growing military can obtain both at the expense of its democratic neighbors without starting a wider war. North Korea is not convinced that demanding concessions from South Korea — or simply humiliating it and the U.S. — by threats of war would not work. Iran trusts that the age of the U.S. mare nostrum in the Mediterranean is over, that the Sunni Persian Gulf oil sheikdoms are spent, that once-unquestioned Western guarantees to Israel are now negotiable, that nuclear acquisition is an agreed wink-and-nod obtainable enterprise, and that terrorist appendages can achieve political objectives in the Middle East just as effectively as carrier groups.
Putin dreams that the Russian imperial world of the 1950s can live again, through coercion, Machiavellian diplomacy, and the combined lethargy of the EU and the U.S. — and he often is willing to take some risks to refashion current realities. Failed socialist and Communist states in Latin America nonetheless believe that a distracted or uninterested U.S. no longer cares to make the argument that transparent democratic capitalism is the region’s only hope for the future. The miseries of Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela are apparently no reason for them to feel that they should not extend them to other countries.
Amid all that, a minor bow and apology here, or an inadvertent pink line and empty deadline there, matters. Gratuitous talk of “reset” and “lead from behind,” coupled with serial scapegoating of past U.S. policies and presidents, massive new debt and vast cuts in defense, also sends a message to our rivals and enemies that occasional gambles and aggressive moves that would usually be seen as stupid and suicidal may not be any more.
We are reverting to our posture of 1938–40, when the United States talked very loudly of what it might do and what the Axis should not do, but had no intention of backing up such sanctimoniousness with force and was more likely to cut than augment its defenses.
War is the messy arbiter of peacetime false perceptions about relative power. Peace returns when all the nations involved have learned, after great agony, what they really could and could not do. Or as Thucydides sighed, war is “a harsh schoolmaster.”
Given that reality, the U.S. should start quieting down and stepping up, rather than stepping back while sounding off — before others come to believe that their own wild fantasies are reality, and the harsh schoolmaster of war intercedes to correct everyone’s shared false perceptions.
— NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author, most recently, of The Savior Generals.
Monday, February 17, 2014
AT 82 AND RETIRED I'M NOT SURE I LIKE THIS......
February 17, 2014
Putting Social Security on Solid Footing
By Jon N. Hall
If you lend yourself money, should you charge interest on the loan? It would depend on how badly you need the interest income, wouldn't it? If you were desperate for cash, you'd pay yourself a hefty interest rate. After all, you need the money, right?
What may be even more absurd than those questions is federal finance. You see, the federal government "lends" itself money and pays interest on those "loans." The prime example of this practice is the surpluses generated by the Social Security portion of the payroll tax that have been "lent" to the general fund. But what does the government pay itself in interest rates on those loans?
In 2013, the federal government paid an average rate of 1.875 percent on the "special issue securities" held by the Social Security Administration (SSA). How does that rate compare with other interest rates? The FDIC lists the national average one-year CD rate for jumbos ($100,000 or more) as 0.21 percent, while Bankrate reported an average rate of 0.24 percent for such CDs. So the feds are paying themselves close to nine times the interest that commercial banks are paying depositors. For January 2014, the feds paid a 2.5 percent interest rate on securities held by the SSA. According to the FDIC, that's more than three times higher than even 5-year CDs are currently paying.
But the rates paid by commercial banks are excellent compared to what the feds are currently paying on 1-year T-bills. Recently, that rate has been below 0.10 percent. The feds pay lousy interest rates to those buying America's debt, but they pay themselves comparatively handsome rates that are well above market rates.
Also, the interest the feds "pay" on the "special issue securities" held by the SSA differs from the interest paid on regular treasuries in that it accumulates. With regular treasuries, interest is paid out periodically, it doesn't accumulate. T-bond owners, for example, get an interest check every six months. But the interest in the SSA's "trust fund" has been accumulating since 1937.
Democrats are forever alleging that the Social Security "trust fund" has, as Senator Liz Warren puts it, a "$2.7-trillion surplus," and that that, along with payroll tax revenue, is enough to pay benefits in full until 2033. As comforting as that might be to some folks, Social Security has never really been "solvent."
Regardless of whether there's a "trust fund" or not, Social Security, just like the rest of the federal government, operates on cash flow. Federal bills are paid out of tax revenue that is continually coming in, and out of the sale of treasuries. The government operates "hand to mouth"; what money comes in goes right back out. There's no "money in the bank," the federal government has no mechanism to save money, and if there is money left over at the end of the year, it is used to retire public debt, and the feds then start the new fiscal year from zero. Add to that the federal government's ability to "print" money and the term "insolvency" has little meaning in federal financing.
The big problem with Social Security is that it is not subject to a budget process; in fact, the program is classified as "off-budget." Whether payroll tax surpluses are flowing into the general fund, or income tax revenues in the general fund are flowing back to the SSA, no budgeting decision is required of Congress. It's all automatic.
If Congress is ever to get control over the federal deficit, its members must address automatic "mandatory spending." In a December article, I urged that Congress change Social Security to require the system to operate entirely out of revenue from its dedicated tax, the payroll tax.
That requirement alone would bring an end to the "autopilot" nature of the program, and would force Congress to deal with their fiscal problem immediately. Rather than being "off-budget," Social Security would be on its own budget. Social Security would be a totally separate system and totally self-funding.
That would require Congress to create a mechanism to actually save payroll tax surpluses so that Congress couldn't spend them. It's a pity that in 1953, when the GOP controlled Congress and the presidency, they didn't create such a mechanism. Such a change would have altered the history of federal finance from that point forward.
The payroll tax should never have been so high as to produce $1T of surplus, as it did in the 25 years after 1984. Ideally, the payroll tax would produce only a tiny surplus -- just a bit of a cushion. The proper repository for payroll tax surpluses should never have been government securities of any kind. (Personally, I think the surpluses should have been deposited in very conservative commercial banks, or have been used to buy income-producing commercial real estate. Perhaps the SSA could have used the surpluses to buy Rockefeller Center; instead, a Japanese concern bought it.)
Congress should summarily scrap the "unified budget." Congress should also declare that the SSA's "trust funds" are defunct, and that all past payroll tax surpluses were income taxes, which they effectively were.
The reason for the "autopilot" structure of Social Security is that Democrats want the income tax to fund social programs. The reason the feds pay interest on inter-agency loans is that that's how the Democrats insure that income tax revenue is used to fund social programs long after the "principle" has been paid back. This scheme allows the feds to not have to adjust the system and to continue paying benefits at the same level without raising the payroll tax. And it masks the financial unsustainability of Social Security.
During the aforementioned quarter-century following 1984, the interest credited to the "trust fund" was actually more than the payroll tax surpluses. But how "righteous" is it that the feds pay any interest on inter-agency "loans"? Paying Social Security benefits with "trust fund" interest is triple-taxation.
"trust fund" could be attributed to payroll tax surplus, while the remainder of it was mainly interest. The "trust fund" contains about $1.6 trillion of interest, an "asset" created out of thin air that will be paid for by your income taxes.
Democrats hate the idea of adjusting their sacred system in any way whatsoever other than expanding it, despite the highest deficits in history. Democrats fervently insist that the "trust fund" is good until 2033, and that Social Security spending "doesn't add a dime to the deficit." Americans who believe that have simply been duped. Social Security has been adding to the deficit since 2010 and will continue to do so unless fundamental change is made.
Hey, "fundamental change." Democrats ought to be up for that.
Putting Social Security on Solid Footing
By Jon N. Hall
If you lend yourself money, should you charge interest on the loan? It would depend on how badly you need the interest income, wouldn't it? If you were desperate for cash, you'd pay yourself a hefty interest rate. After all, you need the money, right?
What may be even more absurd than those questions is federal finance. You see, the federal government "lends" itself money and pays interest on those "loans." The prime example of this practice is the surpluses generated by the Social Security portion of the payroll tax that have been "lent" to the general fund. But what does the government pay itself in interest rates on those loans?
In 2013, the federal government paid an average rate of 1.875 percent on the "special issue securities" held by the Social Security Administration (SSA). How does that rate compare with other interest rates? The FDIC lists the national average one-year CD rate for jumbos ($100,000 or more) as 0.21 percent, while Bankrate reported an average rate of 0.24 percent for such CDs. So the feds are paying themselves close to nine times the interest that commercial banks are paying depositors. For January 2014, the feds paid a 2.5 percent interest rate on securities held by the SSA. According to the FDIC, that's more than three times higher than even 5-year CDs are currently paying.
But the rates paid by commercial banks are excellent compared to what the feds are currently paying on 1-year T-bills. Recently, that rate has been below 0.10 percent. The feds pay lousy interest rates to those buying America's debt, but they pay themselves comparatively handsome rates that are well above market rates.
Also, the interest the feds "pay" on the "special issue securities" held by the SSA differs from the interest paid on regular treasuries in that it accumulates. With regular treasuries, interest is paid out periodically, it doesn't accumulate. T-bond owners, for example, get an interest check every six months. But the interest in the SSA's "trust fund" has been accumulating since 1937.
Democrats are forever alleging that the Social Security "trust fund" has, as Senator Liz Warren puts it, a "$2.7-trillion surplus," and that that, along with payroll tax revenue, is enough to pay benefits in full until 2033. As comforting as that might be to some folks, Social Security has never really been "solvent."
Regardless of whether there's a "trust fund" or not, Social Security, just like the rest of the federal government, operates on cash flow. Federal bills are paid out of tax revenue that is continually coming in, and out of the sale of treasuries. The government operates "hand to mouth"; what money comes in goes right back out. There's no "money in the bank," the federal government has no mechanism to save money, and if there is money left over at the end of the year, it is used to retire public debt, and the feds then start the new fiscal year from zero. Add to that the federal government's ability to "print" money and the term "insolvency" has little meaning in federal financing.
The big problem with Social Security is that it is not subject to a budget process; in fact, the program is classified as "off-budget." Whether payroll tax surpluses are flowing into the general fund, or income tax revenues in the general fund are flowing back to the SSA, no budgeting decision is required of Congress. It's all automatic.
If Congress is ever to get control over the federal deficit, its members must address automatic "mandatory spending." In a December article, I urged that Congress change Social Security to require the system to operate entirely out of revenue from its dedicated tax, the payroll tax.
That requirement alone would bring an end to the "autopilot" nature of the program, and would force Congress to deal with their fiscal problem immediately. Rather than being "off-budget," Social Security would be on its own budget. Social Security would be a totally separate system and totally self-funding.
That would require Congress to create a mechanism to actually save payroll tax surpluses so that Congress couldn't spend them. It's a pity that in 1953, when the GOP controlled Congress and the presidency, they didn't create such a mechanism. Such a change would have altered the history of federal finance from that point forward.
The payroll tax should never have been so high as to produce $1T of surplus, as it did in the 25 years after 1984. Ideally, the payroll tax would produce only a tiny surplus -- just a bit of a cushion. The proper repository for payroll tax surpluses should never have been government securities of any kind. (Personally, I think the surpluses should have been deposited in very conservative commercial banks, or have been used to buy income-producing commercial real estate. Perhaps the SSA could have used the surpluses to buy Rockefeller Center; instead, a Japanese concern bought it.)
Congress should summarily scrap the "unified budget." Congress should also declare that the SSA's "trust funds" are defunct, and that all past payroll tax surpluses were income taxes, which they effectively were.
The reason for the "autopilot" structure of Social Security is that Democrats want the income tax to fund social programs. The reason the feds pay interest on inter-agency loans is that that's how the Democrats insure that income tax revenue is used to fund social programs long after the "principle" has been paid back. This scheme allows the feds to not have to adjust the system and to continue paying benefits at the same level without raising the payroll tax. And it masks the financial unsustainability of Social Security.
During the aforementioned quarter-century following 1984, the interest credited to the "trust fund" was actually more than the payroll tax surpluses. But how "righteous" is it that the feds pay any interest on inter-agency "loans"? Paying Social Security benefits with "trust fund" interest is triple-taxation.
"trust fund" could be attributed to payroll tax surplus, while the remainder of it was mainly interest. The "trust fund" contains about $1.6 trillion of interest, an "asset" created out of thin air that will be paid for by your income taxes.
Democrats hate the idea of adjusting their sacred system in any way whatsoever other than expanding it, despite the highest deficits in history. Democrats fervently insist that the "trust fund" is good until 2033, and that Social Security spending "doesn't add a dime to the deficit." Americans who believe that have simply been duped. Social Security has been adding to the deficit since 2010 and will continue to do so unless fundamental change is made.
Hey, "fundamental change." Democrats ought to be up for that.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
I LOVE COMMENTS.
As I read through articles every day I find that the comments made at the end of each one sometimes more revealing on the subject of the piece than the piece itself.
Below are some comments I found interesting and not too hard to guess the subject of the article.
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The Obama administration's spokesmen and loyal media sycophants are spinning it as a positive sign, a portent of the new utopia in which people find fulfillment in less work and more government subsidies. This is elitist clap-trap which appeals to the kind of people who take a sabbatical, but which angers all of those people who struggle to make their car payments, keep MasterCard off their backs, and pay for braces for little Suzie and Johnny.
Jason Furman, Chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, embarrassed himself yesterday explaining why it is a good thing that 2.5 million people will leave the workforce thanks to Obamacare, with a performance Brit Hume described as "pathetic."
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When we are given the opportunity to help our neighbors, we invariably first choose to help ourselves. The proof? Eric Hobsbawm, avowed socialist and defender of Communism died with an Estate of $1.8 million dollars. Pete Seeger? His estate is estimated at $4.2 million. Russell Brand, who recently called for global socialism is worth an estimated $15 million. There is no indication that any of them are or were particularly interested in the redistribution of their own wealth; there have been no redistribution checks forthcoming from them or their estates.
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Marxism criticizes the achievements of all those who think otherwise by representing them as the venal servants of the bourgeoisie. Marx and Engels never tried to refute their opponents with argument. They insulted, ridiculed, derided, slandered, and traduced them, and in the use of these methods their followers are not less expert. Their polemic is directed never against the argument of the opponent, but always against his person......... von Mises
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The Atlantic takes a novel approach, declaring "So what?" if Americans are a bit lazier due to ObamaCare. No big deal that, "More adults will simply decide to take it easy." Goods will be produced and services provided all by themselves if workers stay home and take it easy. Tax revenues will magically appear in the Treasury if fewer Americans are working, earning an income, and paying income tax. And everyone will be paying his or her mortgage, student loans, and credit cards by taking it easy. Never mind that average household credit card debt is over $15 thousand. The only ones who can "Take it Easy" and still pay their bills are The Eagles, earning royalties on their hit song.
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And perhaps there is value in reflecting upon and lamenting the intense irony derived from thousands of privileged Americans, supported by prominent Democrats, outspokenly begging for the application of Marxist principles -- while on the other side of the Earth, muted masses are suffering and dying under the weight of that very yoke.
The above is in page One , paragraph One of the Marxist Creed. At first glance, it sounds pretty reasonable; but there is a problem.... It means, invariably, that Someone Else is going to be deciding what it is you need. That Someone Else, doing the deciding, will always hasten to assure you they are better qualified to decide what it is you need than you are. If you don't agree with them, there will be places where you can be "re-educated" to a better appreciation of their wisdom. This is how Marxism is practiced, how it is lived, in the real world.
One would think that anyone that would want to live in such a world is either deluded or insane. The question is raised of why, after nearly a century of theft, rapine, repression, torture and murder, on an unprecedented global scale, Marxism still retains, overtly or otherwise, as many adherents as it does. The answer is simple: those that push the idea of Marxism or Marxist agendas the hardest are convinced that, they, once Marxism is established, will be among those doing the deciding. Thus are their true motives revealed: a lust for power over the lives, the livelihoods, and, ultimately, the minds , of people they regard as their moral and intellectual inferiors.
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Detroit, Cleveland, Dayton, Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, and more. Once vibrant cities, with successful, happy hard working people at all levels of the economic spectrum. Then came the government, to fix the lives of these people. Now, their grandchildren live lives of unknown parentage, with no jobs, no need for a job, no morality except their own survival, no education. This is the result of liberal compassion. Each inner city is a testimony to what happens when a liberal insists on spreading the wealth around because of their superior moral vision. They leave behind a wasteland. And the wasteland now moves to the suburbs where people attempted, futilely, to escape the reach of good hearted liberals and their deadly compassion.
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A fundamental problem with progressiveness is that it is not interested in creating wealth; but redistributing wealth instead. The old line, "Give a man a fish and he will have dinner tonight; teach him how to fish and he will have dinner every night" is a conundrum to the progressive. He doesn't know how to fish, let alone teach another how to fish.
Therefore his response is to run up and down the river bank stealing fish from all those who are fishing and giving it away to those who are not, telling them the fish comes from him.
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Below are some comments I found interesting and not too hard to guess the subject of the article.
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The Obama administration's spokesmen and loyal media sycophants are spinning it as a positive sign, a portent of the new utopia in which people find fulfillment in less work and more government subsidies. This is elitist clap-trap which appeals to the kind of people who take a sabbatical, but which angers all of those people who struggle to make their car payments, keep MasterCard off their backs, and pay for braces for little Suzie and Johnny.
Jason Furman, Chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, embarrassed himself yesterday explaining why it is a good thing that 2.5 million people will leave the workforce thanks to Obamacare, with a performance Brit Hume described as "pathetic."
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When we are given the opportunity to help our neighbors, we invariably first choose to help ourselves. The proof? Eric Hobsbawm, avowed socialist and defender of Communism died with an Estate of $1.8 million dollars. Pete Seeger? His estate is estimated at $4.2 million. Russell Brand, who recently called for global socialism is worth an estimated $15 million. There is no indication that any of them are or were particularly interested in the redistribution of their own wealth; there have been no redistribution checks forthcoming from them or their estates.
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Marxism criticizes the achievements of all those who think otherwise by representing them as the venal servants of the bourgeoisie. Marx and Engels never tried to refute their opponents with argument. They insulted, ridiculed, derided, slandered, and traduced them, and in the use of these methods their followers are not less expert. Their polemic is directed never against the argument of the opponent, but always against his person......... von Mises
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The Atlantic takes a novel approach, declaring "So what?" if Americans are a bit lazier due to ObamaCare. No big deal that, "More adults will simply decide to take it easy." Goods will be produced and services provided all by themselves if workers stay home and take it easy. Tax revenues will magically appear in the Treasury if fewer Americans are working, earning an income, and paying income tax. And everyone will be paying his or her mortgage, student loans, and credit cards by taking it easy. Never mind that average household credit card debt is over $15 thousand. The only ones who can "Take it Easy" and still pay their bills are The Eagles, earning royalties on their hit song.
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And perhaps there is value in reflecting upon and lamenting the intense irony derived from thousands of privileged Americans, supported by prominent Democrats, outspokenly begging for the application of Marxist principles -- while on the other side of the Earth, muted masses are suffering and dying under the weight of that very yoke.
The above is in page One , paragraph One of the Marxist Creed. At first glance, it sounds pretty reasonable; but there is a problem.... It means, invariably, that Someone Else is going to be deciding what it is you need. That Someone Else, doing the deciding, will always hasten to assure you they are better qualified to decide what it is you need than you are. If you don't agree with them, there will be places where you can be "re-educated" to a better appreciation of their wisdom. This is how Marxism is practiced, how it is lived, in the real world.
One would think that anyone that would want to live in such a world is either deluded or insane. The question is raised of why, after nearly a century of theft, rapine, repression, torture and murder, on an unprecedented global scale, Marxism still retains, overtly or otherwise, as many adherents as it does. The answer is simple: those that push the idea of Marxism or Marxist agendas the hardest are convinced that, they, once Marxism is established, will be among those doing the deciding. Thus are their true motives revealed: a lust for power over the lives, the livelihoods, and, ultimately, the minds , of people they regard as their moral and intellectual inferiors.
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Detroit, Cleveland, Dayton, Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, and more. Once vibrant cities, with successful, happy hard working people at all levels of the economic spectrum. Then came the government, to fix the lives of these people. Now, their grandchildren live lives of unknown parentage, with no jobs, no need for a job, no morality except their own survival, no education. This is the result of liberal compassion. Each inner city is a testimony to what happens when a liberal insists on spreading the wealth around because of their superior moral vision. They leave behind a wasteland. And the wasteland now moves to the suburbs where people attempted, futilely, to escape the reach of good hearted liberals and their deadly compassion.
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A fundamental problem with progressiveness is that it is not interested in creating wealth; but redistributing wealth instead. The old line, "Give a man a fish and he will have dinner tonight; teach him how to fish and he will have dinner every night" is a conundrum to the progressive. He doesn't know how to fish, let alone teach another how to fish.
Therefore his response is to run up and down the river bank stealing fish from all those who are fishing and giving it away to those who are not, telling them the fish comes from him.
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