Category Archives: The State

Death-Spiral States

Debt, Economy, Government, Political Economy, Private Property, Socialism, Taxation, The State

A death spiral state is one in which the parasites outnumber the hosts. In these states, the taker-(public sector workers)-to-maker (private sector workers) ratio is unsustainable.

William Baldwin of Forbes magazine defines a death-spiral state as one that has “more takers than makers,” where “a taker is someone who draws money from the government, as an employee, pensioner or welfare recipient. A maker is someone gainfully employed in the private sector.”

Charitably, Forbes counts only “11 death spiral states, rang[ing] from New Mexico, with 1.53 takers for every maker, down to Ohio, with a 1-to-1 ratio.”

Consider (or don’t):

Let’s say you are a software entrepreneur with 100 on your payroll. If you stay in San Francisco, your crew will support 139 takers. In Texas, they would support only 82. Austin looks very attractive.

Sick-Making Hussein And His Health Care

Barack Obama, Business, Economy, Government, Healthcare, Regulation, Socialism, The State

Not that I doubted it, but Mitt Romney was not “lying” when he told stupid voters that their health care would go up, under ObamaCare, by about $2000-$3000 annually. Before Creep Care this household enjoyed 100 percent coverage. Shortly after Creep Care became law, we were notified, like millions around the country, in an upbeat letter, that healthcare experts were hard at work hammering out the details of how they would continue to care for us under current conditions (and still stay in business).

Our plan has now altered what was once 100% coverage to a high-deductible plan with a health savings account. This could cost us up to 2000, even 3000, additional dollars a year.

The great John Stossel entertained a healthcare expert who reminded viewers for the umpteenth time that the employer mandate decrees that every employer employing more than 50 people must provide a one-size fits all government designed plan to his workers. This indeed will cost twice as much as the plans that employers currently offer.

The costs of this employer mandate are such that it’s cheaper for the owner to pay a penalty for denying coverage—all the more so when compliance may see a business go under.

Employer-mandated healthcare will add $1.75 per-hour (“every hour”) to the cost of a worker. Who does this onerous mandate hurt? Entry level hires, as $1.75 per hour doesn’t much matter when you are hiring a neurosurgeon. However, 2000 additional dollars a year for a relatively unskilled worker whose productivity—output per unit of labor—is not that high: That’s not worth it.

That ass with ears (Barack) doesn’t understand that a businessman cannot pay a worker (or fork out for him) in excess of his productivity and hope to stay in business.

Thanks to our Creep-in-chief, people who had full-time employment and insurance may now find themselves downgraded to part-time employees with no insurance, or to the ranks of the unemployed with no job and no insurance.

Rutting In Rome’s Military

Constitution, Military, Morality, Sex, The State, War, Welfare

Historum, a forum dedicated to military history, writes about the sad camp that marched after the Roman legion. It was far more sympathetic than David Petraeus’s and Gen. John Allen’s skanks:

“When a Roman legion was on the march its womenfolk – both free and slave – presumably followed behind in the baggage train. When a legion set up camp, at least in friendly territory, all the non-combatants set up their own ‘camp’ on the outskirts of the legionary castrum. These civilian settlements were called canabae. Women set up shops that saw to the basic needs of the soldiers, such as repairing clothing, etc. and the military prostitutes would have plyed [sic] their trade here as well.”

Not much has changed, except that, unlike Paula Broadwell and Tampa tart Jill Kelley, the pitiful prostitutes who attached themselves to the Roman Army were tragic figures. “A combination of STD’s and the general filth of their surroundings must have reduced their likelihood of ever living to see freedom greatly,” writes Historum.

Where is the clap when you need it?

Oh, and did I mention that, according to ABC’s Brian Ross, Jill Kelley and her husband have been sued “at least 9 times, and faced foreclosure on their home.”

Sordid stuff.

In the meantime, the Federal Goblins have raided the Petraeus mistress’s home, and were snapped by paparazzi carrying boxes of documents away. The objection to the violation of Broadwell’s constitutional rights have been sounded, and are serious. Still, I care not a wit about Broadwell. She is the type of broad who’d order a raid on you or me or any Iraqi in a jiffy.

Meantime, the not-to-be pitied Petraeus testified today, Nov. 16, “in private hearings before the House and Senate intelligence committees,” about Benghazi-gate (never touching, naturally, on the crux of the issue, which is “To be or not to be in Benghazi…”). Via Fox News:

Former CIA Director David Petraeus stoked the controversy over the Obama administration’s handling of the Libya terror attack, testifying Friday that references to “Al Qaeda involvement” were stripped from his agency’s original talking points — while other intelligence officials were unable to say who changed the memo, according to a top lawmaker who was briefed.

UPDATED: Secession: Trust Texas To Reject Untrammeled Federal Tyranny (The GOP Beast)

Political Philosophy, Private Property, Racism, Republicans, States' Rights, The State

The pathology of an overreaching federal government is fueling the fever of freedom, and all hail to that. And to the Lone Star State.

Glenn Beck has been scathing about the fact that, as the Daily Caller has it, “By 6:00 a.m. EST Wednesday, more than 675,000 digital signatures appeared on 69 separate secession petitions covering all 50 states, according to [an] … analysis of requests lodged with the White House’s ‘We the People’ online petition system.”

Sean Hannity is more patient. He interviewed “the president of the Texas Nationalist Movement, Daniel Miller, who [brilliantly] explained their cause — and just why they feel Texas needs [its] independence”:

“The fact of the matter is, that there cannot be a union between those that esteem the principles of Karl Marx over the principles of Thomas Jefferson. Here in Texas, we esteem those principles of Thomas Jefferson — that all political power’s inherent in the people. What we have seen given on Tuesday was that a majority of the people in the United States, and the states in which they reside, esteem the principles of Karl Marx over those principles.”

You’d think that as the party that professes freedom, Republicans would have embraced the peaceful political divorce that is secession as the quintessentially American response to untrammeled tyranny.

But no. The truth is that Republicans are vested in Abe Lincoln’s legacy of brute, centralized power. Falling back on the Party of Lincoln bona fides (and on the “glory” of Reconstruction) serves as a political buffer against the racism libel.

That’s the mundane, garden-variety argument advanced in Ann Coulter’s new book, to counter the perennial Democrat accusations of racism. After all, what other argument can one muster if you consider Barry Goldwater’s defense of private property an extreme libertarian aberration, as Ms. Coulter does?

UPDATE: Wonderful analysis of the nature of the GOP beast by Dr. Clyde Wilson (via Facebook Friend and pal Jerry Lynn Ward): “The American Revolution was a revolt of the country against the court. Jeffersonians understood that every political system divides between the great mass of unorganized folks who mind their own business — that, is, the country party — and the minority who hang around the court to manipulate the government finances and engineer government favours. It is much easier and quicker to get rich by finding a way into the treasury than by hard work. That is mostly what politics is about. Of course, schemes to plunder society through the government must never be seen as such. They must be powdered and perfumed to look like a public good.”

MORE.