Guest Post by Hardscrabble Farmer in response to aptly named BigStupid’s belief that the ‘haves’ have an obligation to provide money to the ‘have-nots’ as a necessary consequence of living in a society.
And I see it exactly the opposite. Now you understand why some people think there is no fix for the current problem. My oldest son is exceptionally bright, well spoken, respectful, and on and on and on. I hear it from strangers, I’ve seen it myself his whole life long. Yesterday he came in after working a 10 hour day so filthy from his labor he looked like a coal miner. He was smiling, and he was happy about his productivity, what he’d accomplished, how he felt about himself and how he had improved the world.
He won’t be going to college in the Fall with the rest of his peers because a) he doesn’t want to incur debt b) he does not possess certain racial/socio-economic traits that would provide him with a scholarship despite his grades. In some ways the bigger loss is the society at large that will never be able to capitalize on the intelligence, drive and decency of this young man because they deliberately pass him over in order to promote someone who is less qualified.
On the flip side he has been earning his own income for several years now, maintains an investment portfolio and earns more than most college graduates. He has zero debt. That people like Big Stupid and the Government in general believes that an individual like my son has an obligation to people like the Baltimore drug dealer simply for the benefit of living in a society that actively works against his interests is patently absurd. I am lucky to have raised children that can see this for themselves and who do everything in their power to disengage from such a maladjusted and morally bankrupt system.
Our present situation is dire on every level; economically, socially, morally. The basic premises of our political system are deeply flawed and built on demonstrable falsehoods. The expectations of the industrious and the good, the moral and the just are to continue to work for the immoral and the lazy, to give away what they’ve earned to the hypocritical and the indolent, to be law abiding in order to promote the criminal, to sweat so that others may live in leisure because “it’s a necessary consequence of living in a society”. No, it isn’t.
And that’s why so many people like myself and our family, good people who are productive, responsible and intelligent have simply abandoned the system in order to preserve those parts of our dying civilization that are worth saving. We too have learned how to game the system by earning just enough to pay our way, but not enough to be compelled to contribute to the system that is actively trying to dispossess us. I expect we are not alone and just like the examples that are set by the youths in places like Baltimore, our youths are setting another kind of example. I suspect that the people who contrast the two will be ale to decide for themselves which represent the future they will choose to move towards.
I try and stay as far away from race issues on the Internet these days as I do IRL because it can be used as such a handy tool to marginalize and demonize anyone who fails to toe the official, socially acceptable party line that we are all equal. Clearly we are not. It is up to each of us to choose which side of that line we fall on and how we navigate the tumultuous rivers of blood that we were promised when we began our descent into collective madness. All ideology aside, each individual must decide for himself where the future will lead and what role we play as we move towards it.
It doesn’t matter if we want to contribute or not. No one asks if we want to pay taxes. You either pay or some government agent comes with a gun to take your property and/or arrest you. The joke about Ted Kennedy’s simplified tax system is where Big Government would like to go. You get get a post card that asks “How much did you make this year?” Then it says, “Send it in”.
Why do you hate poor, black people? Lol
Bigstupid doesnt do his screen name justice, if only stupid was his/her only defining characteristic… His idea isnt just stupid and counterproductive, it is downright evil and one of the primary reasons human evolution will stall and regress. People like bigstupid arent even foolhearty, they are parasites. If people like him and the people who gobble up the mental diahrrra he thinks and spouts as intelligent prose/policy want to fix the world they would take themselves out of it. At the very least they would sew their mouths shut and sterilize their genitals to stop dragging the average down for all of humanity.
His name should be Bigstupidevilneandethalshitheelcockbagfucknut.
In times of abundance, real or fraudulent, these kinds of things can go on. Those times are on the wane. It’s not just the underclass here. It’s all over the world. What in the name of god Is going to happen to billion of people packed into clintons A21 cities when the food carts stop rolling. We will be OK here. Maybe not individually, but america will survive. HSF said it best, several months ago. I’ll paraphrase, at this age most of us are full of hubris.
Hubris can be a good thing, when it is based on knowledge and skills. In the meltdown in 08, there were 3 business responses I saw. Denial, and no ability to comprehend what was happening, and how it would affect them. They are long gone. Denial that the problem was going to be with us for a while, some of these businesses are still around, but have indebted themselves to the point that even a small shock will finish them off.
And then there are those who saw the need to restructure. De-leverage completely, pay off everything, re-negotiate or eliminate every ongoing contract or expense, batten down the hatches, in other words. I believe those people and businesses are going to be the foundation that america rebuilds itself on.
Just curious, BigStupid, how much did you contribute/gift to the “have-nots” last year? And I don’t mean taxes, as explained by Pavan above. Medicare and Social Security are “transfer payment” taxes, and are NOT sanctioned by the Constitution, yet we are burdened with them.
Furthermore, how many of the “have-nots” are a burden on society in the form of crime, welfare/food stamp costs, subsidised housing, education, etc.? It’s time for them to pull their weight.
If we get lucky, rebuilding america might be the ecomomic opportunity of a lifetime. Our problems are political, and the politics are shifting, despite what the PTB might tell you. Jindal is out talking against fast track for the TPP. This was heresy a month ago. Obama will be gone soon. Should have happened in 2012. This kind of bullshit isn’t permanent
Hard Farmer , you seem to have raised some good ,moral children with standards Who know right from wrong and will do well in life if the government and its agencies will leave them alone.That’s the problem our government is both financially and morally broke. They are not going to leave anyone alone especially people with assets. There are to many parasites in society both the poor and the corporate.I got my tax rate down to 22% after I incorporated but I still hate paying taxes of every kind .This government is always hungry for more .This government will use violence to keep the system going.I do wish you and your family the best but I am not sure how to stay out of the crosshairs of government.
Farmer gave an uplifting account; I also liked “We too have learned how to game the system by earning just enough to pay our way, but not enough to be compelled to contribute to the system that is actively trying to dispossess us.” For the 1st time in decades, I didn’t owe the St. of CT any $$$ and I did not withhold any funds for CT taxes during 2014.
starfcker: this is a link to excellent article by Ellen Brown on TPP
http://howestreet.com/2015/04/the-trans-pacific-partnership-and-the-death-of-the-republic/
Thank you. Excellently stated.
+1000 Hardscrabble, I find that my thoughts tend to align with the perspectives and outlooks you regularly share with us. Most of these issues come down to the core concept of what is right, moral, fair and decent. It seems that as we as a country go to greater lengths to fix societies real and perceived problems, the less fair it becomes to the folks that are paying the freight for all of it.
We may have already reached he point of no return, especially when you consider that our “leaders” best ideas are to keep doing what has already proven will not work, just at a higher level. Throw more money at our problems, that will fix it. Make more rules and regulations, that will plum it up. Hardly. The reset is coming and by all indications from recent events it will be brutal.
The laws of the land should not legalize theft. Able bodied adult individuals are responsible for the care and feeding of themselves. Periodic audits must be conducted to assure that anyone receiving welfare does not have a standard of living that exceeds anyone working and paying taxes.
Ten bucks says Big Stupid does not contribute one dime more than is deducted from his wages. Liberals always talk big about handing out everybody else’s money. He will prolly lie and say I’m wrong……….betcha…..just betcha. Either way he is a asshat.
I’m with HSF on this one.
RHS: there should me no government welfare and thusly no audits are necessary. All charity is to be done by private individuals. I promise you that if welfare ended tomorrow absolutely NO ONE in this country will go hungry, but a few oligarchs might end up at the wrong end of a pitchfork.
Hardscrabble – nice post, and reflects how I am setting up my affairs as well.
I want to bring up something llpoh spotted in another post. Facial piercings and tattoos. If you’re a minnie, avoid them like the plague. I guarantee they will cost you more lost opportunities in your life than virtually any other choice you could make. If you want to style yourself as if you just got out of prison, or a freak show, good luck ever getting anybody to hire you to represent their company. You won’t work for me.
HSF, whose side are you on? The answer on TBP is pretty simple.we know your character. Virtually all of us here are on your side.
Greetings,
Please allow me to approach this from another angle: It is always easier and cheaper to feed people than to fight them. If we choose to live in a civilized society then we need to have some foundation. For example, food is relatively inexpensive and, given that we throw a full half of it away, should be given freely to those that do not have any rather than watch them starve in our streets. Orphans, too, should be looked after and the mentally ill should be taken off of the streets and placed in nice asylums. Oh yeah, I also believe that the most gifted should be allowed to attend school for free so they can then pay us back by inventing all kinds of new miracles. Just saying. . .
Now, that may make me some kind of crazy bleeding heart liberal but, frankly, I’ve been places where the hungry, homeless children and the crazy all get to run around with everyone else and it isn’t pleasant. Not at all.
For some strange reason we live in a weird “all or nothing” society that has redefined the hand-outs given to the FSA as Entitlements. This is wrong. But, I do not see our politicians doing anything to ratchet back all the give-a-ways. Those receiving all the free sh*t have little but hate for those that toil for them and those that toil hate the FSA. It will probably end with all of us in the streets beating each other to death with hammers until nothing is left to fight over.
I sure hope I’m wrong.
Nickel, I would never want to see anybody go hungry, but I balk little at a new escalade and a 2400. a month section 8 voucher.
Nickel, Let’s say there twenty people sleeping under a bridge with no food, so you give them food and a place to live. The next day there’d be another twenty people (or more) under the bridge. If you pay people to sit on their ass, surprise, surprise – more and more people will sit on their ass.
I would be happy to pay whatever level of taxes was necessary to give the ‘have nots’ what they need to become ‘haves’. The quality of life for everyone is dragged down by having blighted crime infested neighborhoods but we don’t know how to fix it. Has anything been more studied and more money and effort spent to fix it than black academic failure? We still spend $6 billion per year on Head Start , a 1960’s program meant to close the gap between poor blacks and everyone else in our public schools. It doesn’t work yet we keep spending the money. As someone said ‘you can’t fix stupid’ but you can’t declare stupid to be the problem either unless you want any career you might have to be destroyed.
If we can’t fix stupid neither can we afford to subsidize it any longer with Affirmative Action programs that turn out doctors who can’t practice, lawyers who can’t pass the bar exam, civil servants who cannot serve and teachers who can’t teach.That being the case we need to stop the pretense and try a new approach. A scientific one.
We have available to us now the human genome. We even know how to manipulate genes. We just don’t know YET how one kid can sit down and master a musical instrument seemingly without effort while another can spend his whole life practicing and never be as accomplished a musician. How a guy like Dr. Michael Burry can outsmart the best traders and investment professionals on Wall St. in his spare time while he is a resident at Stanford Medical school. Rather than spend hundreds of billions on failed social programs year after year I’d suggest we try and find out the why of human genius and see if we can’t give everyone the same opportunity in life that only a few now have.
A suburbanite has some weeds in his yard and sets oUT to reduce them. His grass yellows when he lets the weed seeds dessicate, so he takes some of the water and fertilizer intended for the grass and spreads it on the weeds. Soon he discovers that more and more of his grass turns to weeds, demanding more and more water & fertilizer be taken from the dwindling grass.
Moral; you can’t fertilize or water the weed seeds if you want grass.
Nickel…on the food issue only:
Not a liberal slant; Christian charities have always aided food for the poor and you would call them Conservatives.
Suggest a video documentary “Taste the Waste” – the EU has strict measurements for food (vegetables) and any item not within goes to the landfill. Workers have gotten fired giving the good, fresh food to the poor/hungry only to be fired. This same food is not even allowed to be eaten by livestock.BTW – the EU leaders are what I would call Liberal.
fired, fired….but no edit function to correct the sentence
You don’t get what you wish for, you get what you work for.
I think we all recognize — at least subconsciously — that we are heading down the road that Russia did so many years ago… people wanting “fairness” for the underprivileged, some Big Government fix to income inequality, standards in education that made everyone equal even at a lower level than before the solution. The Russians / Soviets learned the hard way, after untold suffering over decades, that that approach didn’t work. But people in the U.S. don’t understand that history repeats. They don’t learn lessons that other people had to experience first-hand.
Don’t kid yourself; we’re not going back to the “good, old days.” Where we’re headed is a brave, new world that isn’t going to be kind to those of us who know better. The adage “ignorance is bliss” is there for a reason.
Hardscrabble, it sounds like you have done an excellent job raising your son, I hope to even come close with mine. He isn’t even 2 yet, so it will be some time before I’m teaching him certain things, but I am curious, at what age did you start telling your kids about the kinds of things discussed on this site? Things like how this system is set up. My wife and I can’t really afford to homeschool right now, so unfortunately he will most likely wind up in the hellholes that pass for public schools these days, and while I don’t want them brainwashing him, I don’t want to get him in trouble for arguing with everyone about everything all the time.
Greetings,
Ok, I’m gonna see if this gets my point across.
The work I do sometimes allows me to be a fly on the wall and I get to listen to politicians and corporate execs talk amongst themselves. I’ve learned that these guys do not care about the past and they barely pay attention to current events. No, what everyone is interested in is the future. The future is the future and whoever guesses it correctly stands acquire a lot of power. No expense is spared trying to work it all out.
So I’m listening to these guys talk about how medical knowledge is now doubling every 3 years and that by 2020 medical knowledge will double every 72 days. No human will be able to keep up with it all. A doctor can’t double his knowledge. So, given that doctors will not be relevant in less than 5 years, these guys were trying to be ahead of the trend and place their bets.
This just isn’t true for doctors. Most of you working today will not be working 10 years from now there will be owners and the poor-nothing else. Perhaps, then, we should have a discussion as to what the poor will be given to eat. The age of human labor is nearly over so the way we decide how to divide up the pie should be open to debate
Your scenario jives with the biblical story that man will achieve immortality but at a huge price, it says they will seek death but they will not find it. Another verse, out of context, says the living will envy the dead.
You reflect GilbertS’ concern (Spy Mountain) that the bigshots are looking after their own interests.
Thinker says:
I think we all recognize — at least subconsciously — that we are heading down the road that Russia did so many years ago…
I have heard this and said this myself about our country so many times in the past few years! History doesn’t repeat itself… it echoes.
HSF, good job with your boy(s)? (Aren’t there more?) I tried to steer my son into the technical school route, but he was determined that he wanted to attend college. So we encouraged him to get as much out of junior college as possible and then we would see him through Missouri S&T the final few semesters. IF, and this was the big IF… he paid for his first year of S and T, since junior college was practically free, paid for by our excessively generous (four times Missouri rates) property taxes.
He did the bagging groceries thing, as most of you know until he was ready to drop, but saved the first year’s room and board give or take a couple grand. And now he has a summer internship at Johns Hopkins Applied Physic Lab, (yes, in Baltimore… don’t ask me if I’m worried because I walked the streets of Riyahd in an abaya, remember?) and I think I just might have to admit he was right about being college material.
Anyway, the reason I posted? Nick retired last November and we’ve been busting our tails getting our log home and land ready (and barely ready to move in and getting the dogs fenced, having decided they’re far more interested in chasing/killing coyotes than hanging around our house. Which might be okay, except for the mountain lions out there…), and I let my Missouri tags on my car expire from last March. So, coming home from visiting my son at Rolla April 2 (internship interview preparation), I got a ticket. Not a big deal… except that when I went to the courthouse to pay it, the tax assessor questioned me about whether we’d moved into the log home. NOPE, I said, explaining that my husband and I were finishing it and living in the “little” house until it’s ready. Well, who comes driving up next day but the tax assessor and her husband. (Remember, SHE is the tax assessor, but he gets out and snoops).
Fortunately, I was walking the dogs up to the log house and hadn’t even opened the gate to the log house drive, so they had to go down to the little house and drive in through that drive, where both our vehicles are parked, along with all our “stuff.” So, I hollered for Nick to get onto the Quad (which isn’t registered either, but unless it is on the road, we don’t have to) and go visit with them.
They came out here to see if I was lying.
Where do I go to report harassment by the tax assessor? Definitely Soviet Style tactics. Does it come from the individual or is it directed from above?
Random thoughts: Watching all the whining from black people lately is actually making me embarrassed for them. If my kids whined and blamed everyone else for their problems, I’d be giving them a lecture about personal responsibility. What created this situation where 90% of blacks think the rest of the country owes them a living and they aren’t responsible for their own actions? Don’t they realize what pathetic losers they have become? They are wasting their lives wallowing in self pity. It’s time for the 10% of blacks who have their act together to step up and do something to straighten out the losers in their midst. They also need to tell the white limousine liberals to STFU. It really is a shame that the first black president doesn’t give a damn about black people. He plays them like a fiddle and makes them look like fools. Also, I’m tired of all the talking head apologists who come on the news channels. And the white kids who go to Baltimore to support the whiners are even bigger fools. They are accepting the bogus guilt trip that has been laid on them by the Progressives running the public school systems.
Something my dad always told me when I was young was: “The sooner you make friends with work the better off you will be”. Nowadays .gov incentivizes being lazy and not working. The fruits off this attitude can be seen in all the inner ghettos, like Detroit, Baltimore, and Admin’s 30 blocks of squalor among others. These people took the gubermint cheese and never looked back. A few of them got crap jobs to supplement themselves but just enough, so as not to fall off the gubermint cheese wagon. Others peddle drugs and bitches. The single women hedge their bets by having multiple kids by multiple sperm donors increasing their cheese allotment. The kids are raised to hate all things “normal” by the majority and to milk the system to get back at the man. These places are like going into a foreign country in your own country. I don’t see how they can be reintroduced to normal society, short of some kind of miraculous job creations taking place that can be performed by this sector of society.
It is easier to feed someone than to fight them?? I don’t think so. If a person chooses to drop out of free public school, have babies at 14, get a grill and tats on his faceand threaten me with violence if I don’t support him, he had better be ready to fight. Screw that crap.
@Nickel: “Oh yeah, I also believe that the most gifted should be allowed to attend school for free so they can then pay us back by inventing all kinds of new miracles. Just saying. . .”
————-
There is already a process for this–it’s called academic scholarships.
” I expect we are not alone”
No. No, you are not.
Pavan nailed it. The first black president could have at least tried to inspire blacks with a lesson of hard work, self-determination, personal responsibility, etc. Instead, while paying slight rhetorical tribute to those concepts, he implicitly pushes the Sharpton “blame whitey” line. Why else would he have had Sharpton at the White House so many times? Some might understandably conclude that blacks are incapable of living peaceably within civil society, but the experience of blacks prior to the Great Society argues against that somewhat. Can we even imagine an illegitimacy rate of only 25% among blacks these days? It would be the greatest cultural comeback in history, yet that was the rate only 50 years ago. Obama’s done more to hurt blacks than any other recent president, mostly through a sin of omission.
I didn’t read all the comments, but I will. I wanted to say this.
HSF, It is nice that your son is putting money away. I’m sure that the banks with their upcoming ‘Bail-Ins’ will take half of it and the Feds the other half. The truth is that they will take everything away from you to ensure their own survival. They will take the food that you grow and the animals that you raised and then your farm. They will give it to others that have no incentive or knowledge of how to farm. Think Zimbabwe. All central planners suffer from the same disease. Hubris.
When everybody hasn’t any more to give, it will end as all socialism in the past has ended in utter desperation and mental depression of the population “Things will never get any better”, people will say, and we will claw our way out of the hole that these social progressives have created. The only hope is that people, in their misery, finally realize the destructive nature of governments and turn away from it, en mass. Considering the nature of man and the differing levels of morality in the world, I feel that some governance is necessary. Whether it is a centralize function (police) or individual function (Smith & Wesson), I don’t know.
Like it has been said. “When the legislature is in session, no man’s life, liberty or property is safe.”
unit472–It is not a question of paying more in taxes to help the truly poor. You could give 100% of your salary in taxes and it wouldn’t be enough. It is the system that stops people from taking care of themselves.
You alluded to it. When an 8yr old kid gets arrested for a lemonade stand on his own lawn, something is terribly wrong in how we structured our society.
When Governments want to be the god of all, in seeking justice, they create injustice, when ending poverty, the create more poverty, when promoting life, they destroy more life. Their track record is one of failure. They have the Midas Touch for sh*t.
unit472, Prodigies, whether musical, mechanical, or others talents are not genetically determined. Your talents come from the sub-conscious. That is the unconscious and specifically from the Super-conscious. One doesn’t become good at something without practice, whether it is walking , talking or playing the violin. These talent were practiced in past lives and came to fulfillment in the present life.
Ya, Stucky, it’s reincarnation again. It is a spiritual thing.
unit472, you brought it up.
I’ve gone Galt, in my own way. I spent a lot of years working at dumb corporate office jobs and became debt-free. Now I don’t work any more than I have to (about half the year) and I sure save a buttload on taxes.
No kids, either, to inherit part of our national debt. I’ll probably consume the last of my assets before I die and then I don’t have to worry about how things go.
I’ve watched the standard of living of the middle class dwindle my entire life. It went from a single income earner being able to support a family, to two adults working and taking on debt to support a family. Retirement will be the next luxury we give up, and by the time my hypothetical kids were grown, everyone will spend their entire lives in debt to the bankers and all of their income will go toward taxes, food, and energy in that order.
Homer……….”They will give it to others that have no incentive or knowledge of how to farm. Think Zimbabwe.”
Actually, it is Think S. Africa
HSF–You are doing the only thing to do. You have a realization that 80% of the population ignores and you are taking action. Other than heading for parts unknown, like Llpoh, what can one do? Not to act, I believe is suicide. You will attract people to you, who share your beliefs. Hopefully you will provide a center of stability when all around you is falling apart. From that stability perhaps a better future will arise.
raymond_c_aronson–Rhodesia was the bread basket of Africa, which is why I used that example. Robert Mugabe and Nelson Mandela, both socialists, have spread their lack of understanding of economics and the value of contract law to their respective societies. Mugabe’s error has caused much grief in Zimbabwe. White residents, who saw the future, sold everything and move out of the country. But that was then and this is now. The US will build a fence from Texas to California, not to keep illegals out but to keep you in. The US now charges you thousands of dollars to renounce your American citizenship They don’t give up their slaves easily. Soon, when there aren’t any more jobs, you will be put on a work furlough program, breaking big rocks into little rocks, for a pittance. Your family will be separated, you will be alone without a support group unable to live your life or foment resistance. Think, the old Soviet regime under Stalin, China under Mao, Cambodia under Pol Pot or North Korea, today. All socialist hell holes on earth one and all. Soviets–45 million dead, China–25-35 million dead, Cambodia–2 million dead, North Korea–??? dead, Dead, DEAD!
What’s going to happen here with our social progressive governance??? Is HSF going to be safe, or even Llpoh in Australia going to be safe?
People you are fast running out of time to change things. Can’t you see the destruction around you?????
Change won’t come from Hilary or Jeb any more than change came from Obama, “Change you can believe in” Prez. You know the one that pulled the wool over your eyes and told you what you wanted to hear. YEA! the one you voted for. Our noble, Nobel PEACE prize winner, who brought peace to Afganistan, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Syria and Ukraine. Truly “War is Peace”.
Hi P.J., good to see a comment by you after such a long (it seems) time…
I figured out the system in my early 30’s. I also haven’t paid a dime in income tax since 1973 and still do not and do it completely legally. I still pay taxes such a property tax rape (know as renting your home from the State) and sales tax skimmed off by the state – I just haven’t figured out a comfortable (i.e.legal) way to avoid them. I suppose I could rent a home – but the property taxes are just built into the rent so no win there. I do go to a lot of farmer’s markets – especially on weekends to the ones set up out of their pickup trucks with big sun umbrellas keeping things cool. They don’t charge taxes and it’s a cash business. We get all our fresh veggies that way and sometimes other goodies as well – such as a 1/4 of a cow all cut up and wrapped and grass fed to boot!
That’s why, if the GOV has its’ way, as soon as they can figure out how to force the citizens of this poor old used-to-be Republic of United States into a chip on the wrist or a plastic implant in the forehead or maybe a bar code tattooed on your ass so you have to use those to buy everything and every transaction goes through GOV’s machines so they can rip off a percentage of every transaction whether you like it or not.
I more than suspect a government action like that would lead to an immediate return to gold and silver as a medium of exchange with some barter thrown in.
Mostly, the way I avoided paying income taxes was working overseas – there was (and still is, as far as I know) a husky tax exemption for those working outside the USA which I did for over 40 years all told. I worked for the highest bidder who had the neatest place the work needed doing (a tropical island or atop a volcano or such) in a country where I could take the family without worrying about their safety. Once – around 1979 or so, they temporarily stopped the overseas tax exemption and since I wrote my own contracts, I just wrote in a few hundred bucks a day in ‘per diem’ as ‘per dim’ remained non-taxable. That only lasted a year or two because the multi-nationals couldn’t get anyone to go overseas and sell, install/maintain or upgrade what we sold overseas without the tax break! So the tax exemption came back into being really quick..
All in all, it was the best of all world. Great experience for the family, great fun and challenges for me and no damn taxes.
So there are ways to opt-out of the current system of being ripped off of your hard earned money only to have it given to those who do not ever have to look for a job anymore to get their handouts (and THAT pisses me off!). You just have to be creative and search out the loopholes in the tax laws you can use to minimize what you pay. (Like Hardscrabble does! They can’t tax you on food you grow and eat or beef (or venison) you either grow, shoot or barter for, freeze and eat..
Sure, you’ll get nipped and snipped here and there buying staples, flour and nits and picks you have to purchase through the system – but you’d be amazed at the tax free bargains you can find on things you need at small flea markets and yard sales.
Look at it like a challange and it will soon become a hobby and a fun thing for a family to do – make a list of needed things and spend a morning a week systematically hitting yard sales in your area to see what you can find. Take discipline and skill – map out the yard sales so you waste no time searching or backtracking, etc. Pack a picnic and include a park on the route. Bring a ball and gloves (for boys) and let the wee girls bring what will keep themselves amused..
Fun morning for all.. And no taxes involved.
MA
PS: Buy a Prius like I did.. 50-100 mpg does wonders for your sense of humor when your tank only holds 12 gallons for a 400+ mile range! You can do a load of yard sales on pennies!
Rise Up–How much did I contribute to the Have-Not’s last year???
Let’s see.
One big screen tv,—————value $800
Four tailored suits—————value $4,000
Two new laptop Computers–value $1600
A rifle——————————–value $300
Cash——————————–value $200
I think that is about $6900
That was what was taken in the burglary.
Homer….yes, and the career politicians will keep the music playing, until…..
I am very concerned about the lack of jobs (due to trade deals that were solely to benefit the International Corporations), just like QE and ZIRP. It seems our gov’t is purposely creating the U.S. to be substandard in order to uplift developing countries.
Our younger generations will suffer. Ticks me off that most don’t see it.
Left blank on purpose..
Muck About,
It’s damn good to see you (and the cute little red-booted piglet) too! I’ve just been busy.
I was worried about you – hope you and your sweetie are doing alright and you’ve been in good health.
Yard sales … takes me back to the good old days. My mom would give us each a dollar (in change) and boy we could make that last all day.
P.J. — As one gets older (who me?) it’s like crawling into a pen full of nasty dogs armed with a baseball bat.
But I’m lucky.. I just knocked one of the mutts on it arse last week and so tomorrow I get to go waltz with a surgeon for 15 minutes or so, so he can pop a chemo port out my chest and fix the vein he sewed it to! Last scan showed me cancer free (after dealing with it since 1994).. So you could say I’m in the best of health, thank you – the only problem being is that there are more nasty mutts in the pen and one of them will be sure to get me one day!
As always – my very best to you. I still wish you were my neighbor. We’d never have a boring minute!!
MA