More of the Way We Are Now
Bailout: The press and much of the public is no longer able to recognise a swindle when they see one. Of course, also, it would not be nice to criticise our well-meaning bankers and politicians, and Americans are nothing if not nice.
Then, too, it is a sad truth that a crime, if it is big enough and successful, is not considered a crime.
The newspapers, of course, are dying. As has been said, this is in part due to the growth of electronic media. However, there is also the factor that the ignorance of the reporters is increasing even faster than the ignorance of the readers.
I have always found it interesting that the people who find it destructive that working men have a union to protect themselves are the same people who think that corporations should be able to collude and to ask for government support.
I just learned that Obama is a smoker. Maybe this fellow is not as bad as I thought.
I know I am naive, but I did not realise until I retired that you have to pay income tax on the "Social Security" payments you receive back. Just one of many ways the government swindles the decent, law-abiding, and middle class for the benefit of politicians and their clients.
It is a nice little agit-prop coup. The newspeople tell us that Hamas wishes to "kidnap" Israeli soldiers. Enemy soldiers are not "kidnapped." They are taken prisoner.
I hereby swear and affirm that I am not now and have never been a member of the Republican party or any other subversive organisation.
The housing market has gone down. Does this mean that we are not all going to get rich on real estate after all?
A little bit of extra enjoyment is added to the Christmas/New Year season when I remember that "O Come All Ye Faithful" and "Auld Lang Syne" are coded Jacobite messages.
Speaking of holidays, George Bush is opposed to Confederate Memorial Day but loves Kwanzaa.
I am not the least bit surprised and should have expected it all along. I just learned that Clint Eastwood is my compatriot in the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
"I don't really see how the Obama devotees can in future mock the Moonies, the Scientologists, or people who claim to have been abducted by flying saucers." —Peter Hitchens
Entries(RSS)
Superb column as usual. Nice to see the reference to Peter Hitchens a great columnist for the London Mail on Sunday.
Right on point Dr. Wilson, except that I fear you're being too forgiving. We have, indeed collectively entered the age of stupidity, (bread and games) - the news are not newsworthy - so many of us have stopped much reading (providing we were literate and astute enough to read between the lines). I find it to be our collective fault and we need a lot more than a voice of reason (such as yours). We need a good kick in the butt (repeated) to wake up from this lethargic state of ignorance. One of the solutions that would definitely work would be the New South - which would put the world on its ear, let alone the remainder of our country.
You seem particularly kind to the media in the following:
"The newspapers, of course, are dying. As has been said, this is in part due to the growth of electronic media. However, there is also the factor that the ignorance of the reporters is increasing even faster than the ignorance of the readers."
Most people don't have a first clue that we are now in the business of saving the Financial, Automotive and Real Estate industries. Wait to see what happens when we are forced to save the small corn and wheat farmers in Kansas, cotton in Georgia, small tobacco and rice farms in our South - I predict there won't be nearly the enthusiasm and ignorance we see today.
We are in dire straits and in desperate need of an opposition to the establishment - there is no real dissent in today's world, while the "checks and balances" can easily be bypassed. I am strongly in favor of massive opposition, reason and thorough following of our Constitution.
"I know I am naive, but I did not realise until I retired that you have to pay income tax on the “Social Security” payments you receive back. Just one of many ways the government swindles the decent, law-abiding, and middle class for the benefit of politicians and their clients."
Here's another one: 401k is only tax-DEFERRED.
Companies don't pay much in dividends any more, which was traditionally the only reason to own stock. Now, it is expected that share price appreciation is the reason to own stock. This is also known as the "greater fool" theory of investment, as in, "I can always find some greater fool to sell this toilettissuesrus.com, Inc. stock to."
So even if (capital I - F) your fund shares appreciate at 9% a year, those gains shrink drastically once you start selling your shares and your withdrawals are taxed at (iirc) regular income rates.
Nothing better than a bit of humor in a rough world.
I understood that making Social Security payments taxable as income is only a relatively recent thing. Is that correct?
"I am not the least bit surprised and should have expected it all along. I just learned that Clint Eastwood is my compatriot in the Sons of Confederate Veterans."
Eastwood is a rare breed in Hollywood. Frankly, I am not surprised either. That reminds me of the scene near the end of The Good the Bad and the Ugly where after a civil war battle in Arizona, Clint's character walks up to the loan survivor, a young Confederate private, who is dying. To comfort the young man, Clint gives him a puff from his cigar, and he then dies peacefully. A touching little scene.
Sergio Leone's three movies starring Eastwood (the Dollars Trilogy) are best understood as a southern critique of the western genre. Apparently Leone was a big fan of Gone with the Wind who wanted to film a version that was closer to the novel but he could never find sufficient financing.
I would like for Mr. Eastwood to play Nathan Bedford Forrest in a movie which he produces and directs. Mr. Eastwood, were he to play such a role, could find several occasions to say, "Make my day!"
I would like to for Mr. Mel Gibson to play General Richard Taylor in a movie which he produces and directs. Although there are many sources, the late Thomas Ayers' book "Dark and Bloody Ground," which recounts Taylor's life in the context of the Red River Campaign, would lend itself to a screenplay. (We Trans-Mississippi boys want some attention!)
"It is a nice little agit-prop coup. The newspeople tell us that Hamas wishes to “kidnap” Israeli soldiers. Enemy soldiers are not “kidnapped.” They are taken prisoner."
Now I understand that there is an objective correlative between my great grandpa Peters and Louisiana. He was "kidnapped" by the Union Army at Vicksburg, and the Union Army collected the ransom by plundering and looting Louisiana. One gains new insight into history every day.
"Then, too, it is a sad truth that a crime, if it is big enough and successful, is not considered a crime."
My good wife and I see the crime of it. Using the land assets which God has entrusted to us in stewardship, we dealt with a gas company in the new Haynesville Gas Field of north Louisiana and got enough on a lease agreement such that we could pay off our farm and place some in savings. Now, of course, the general government will punish us for liquidating our debt and increasing our savings by taxing us in a much higher bracket so that they can bailout those who are over indebted and who have no savings. I quite obviously lack the courage of my ancestors who would have undertaken much more than simply "playing their violin" on this Chronicles' thread.
"I would like to for Mr. Mel Gibson to play General Richard Taylor in a movie which he produces and directs. "
Actually, being that he is Catholic, a movie about the 'political' side of the CSA he would make a great Secretary Mallory.
@6 Robert
When does the shooting start? I already know which swindlers I want to grease.
Taxes on Social Security are due because it (SSA) is received as a federal privilege. However, ordinary earnings in the private sector are not due to a federal privilege and therefore are not taxable. See http://www.losthorizons.com for details.
Etienne @ 8
"When does the shooting start?"
When someone has the courage to blow the horn!
Dr. Wilson,
The use of the word 'kidnapping' in the context you mention is illuminating.
You point out that armies take their opponents prisoners. If the group with whom you are fighting does not take you prisoner but kidnaps you instead, can you be said to be at war with them? They cannot be an army - they kidnap you; they do not take you prisoner.
And if the nature of your struggle with them cannot thus be classed as 'war' or 'warfare', what is it?
#6. What a great film industry we could have in an independent Dixie! We have everything except the money and the freedom.
"Then, too, it is a sad truth that a crime, if it is big enough and successful, is not considered a crime."
Money is power, power to gain more money to gain more power to gain more money....
#s 4,5,6
Gentlemen,
Check out the new Western novel BLOOD IS OUR BIRTHRIGHT. The hero is an ex-Confederate, a Texan, who seved with Mosby's Partisan Rangers, and is a Comanche half-breed. The setting is West Texas in 1865, eight months after the War Between the States ended. There's plenty good stuff that you men will really enjoy. For instance, Mexicans and Comanches are portrayed as human and heroic. What a departure!
I would like to see a movie about Sgt Richard Kirkland 2nd SC Inf.
The movie everyone wants to see is one called The Outlaw Josey Wales, starring and directed by Clint Eastwood. This one has a distinct empathy for the South and at the same time shows the Yankee callousness toward the South.
Of course we Americans are "nice", the center of the universe is a 40 year old soccer mom located somewhere in America. The Tibetans have their Dalai Lama we have the yet to be discovered perfectly average soccer mom to which our economy and society are planned to placate. "Nice" is our prime directive.
"Bailout: The press and much of the public is no longer able to recognise a swindle when they see one. Of course, also, it would not be nice to criticise our well-meaning bankers and politicians, and Americans are nothing if not nice."
I agreed with you that the Republicans who supported Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and other such politically correct redistribution of wealth schemes were motivated by a desire to be "nice" little PC-ites who steal from the whites and give to the minority.
With the press and much of the public not opposing the bailout though, I wonder if it's less a need to be nice, and more just a fear overtaking them where they'll give up anything to put off for a few more months or years the day of reckoning that they can feel drawing near for this misruled nation.
They've never known anything but plenty, so many of them have known nothing but plenty...
And so they borrow from their future selves, that they might go on knowing nothing but plenty.
"And the best part is, there will be absolutely no consequences."
-Homer Simpson
This new format makes it impossible to refer back to anyone else's comment in a convenient way. I can't help wondering if that is the real purpose behind the change.
Remember what Lyndon Johnson said about pantyhose.
Re: "This new format makes it impossible to refer back to anyone else’s comment in a convenient way. I can’t help wondering if that is the real purpose behind the change...."
I cannot help wondering even worse: if the format change is the first step toward eliminating readers' comments altogether, ala Taki's? If so, 'twould be a shame. If there's no good reason for eliminating the numbering of comments, then just restore it!
Failure to restore the numbers will only encourage more speculative comments that Chronicles' editors have base motives behind the altered format. That is, as long as comments are still permitted...
Well, the numbering of commentary is back on.
Now the conspiracy club (of which I confess to be a luke-warm member) can hypothesize that this is probably just an evil act of the editors to lull us into a false sense of security of having "won", before the draconian measure of curtailment of commentary is enacted for no reason at all:-)).
Yes I know this is a serious forum for weighty debate... But we have to ease up a little occasionally.
H.F. Wolff
@23
The only conspiracy going on here was by an unorganized cabal (oxymoron?) of hint-droppers.
If commentary is curtailed here at Chronicles it won't be done by the webmasters and editors, who seem to relish the give-and-take of controversial debate that goes on at these threads. They are always jumping in with comments, and they clearly enjoy doing so.
It will be curtailed by outside forces who hate and fear the intellectual freedom of the Internet. It's only a matter of time, mes amis.
May I make a request?Can the webmaster find a way to indicate which thread a commenter is contributing to in the "recent comments" column?It would be most helpful.
"A little bit of extra enjoyment is added to the Christmas/New Year season when I remember that “O Come All Ye Faithful” and “Auld Lang Syne” are coded Jacobite messages."
Dr. Wilson, have we made a Royalist out of you at long last??
I wrote in a somewhat open letter to some friends last summer that this election cycle was already showing quite a bit of promise for "change": mainly of the United States from a First World to a Third World country but also of my attorney (sort of) into a Republican and Ann Coulter into a (sort of) Democrat.
MGPM. My opinion is that if you are going to have a king then you ought to have a good one. Better a Stuart and a Scot than the tacky little German princelings that have ruled Britan for the last 3 centuries.
No, I agree... if I have a political opinion on Anglo-American politics it is definitely Jacobitism. But still (and I won't lie and deny that I'm trying to sell you on this, but I really believe it myself), I think even the Hanovers would have protected their Crown Colonies from the hegemony of each other more effectively than the States did so on their own.
(As a bonus, the Jacobite heiress is a real looker.)
I'd like to hear more about the Stuart heiress!
The present Jacobite claimant is Franz, Duke of Bavaria. Who is this beautiful heiress?
Hail Bonnie Prince Charlie and the real glorious revolution! Down with the sons of William the usurper!
Brings added enjoyment indeed as I toast a good flagon of highlander scotch to my rightful king!
"I’d like to hear more about the Stuart heiress!"
"The present Jacobite claimant is Franz, Duke of Bavaria. Who is this beautiful heiress?"
HM Francis II is unmarried and childless; hence his thrones (Bavaria, England [and Wales], Ireland, Scotland [and France]) will pass to his brother, Prince Max-Emanuel, Duke in Bavaria. Max-Emanuel has no sons and so by the Salic Law the Bavarian throne must on his death pass to his cousin, Prince Luitpold or, if Luitpold is dead, his son Ludwig.
HOWEVER, the Salic Law (or at least this constraint) does not apply to the Anglo-Saxon monarchs, so Max-Emanuel's daughter Sophia von und zu Liechtenstein (wife of the heir to the crown of the country in her name) will become the regnant Queen Sophie I. Princess Sophie's mother is the Swedish Countess Elisabeth Douglas, though Sophie seems perhaps conscious of her destiny: she majored in English language and literature at the Catholic University in Eichstätt.