Saturday, October 29, 2011

The Student Loan Crisis-REAL Solutions- Not Demagoguery!



By: Thaddeus S. Kaczor, Jr.

Anything in the private sector the Government Subsidizes, guarantees, bails out, or takes over (either outright or de facto) inevitably increases in cost beyond what it would be in a free and fair market. Subsidizing student loans has allowed the Education Establishment to raise tuition rates outrageously for years and years, because they know that students would always have 'Uncle Sugar' to 'guarantee' those loans. This subsidy of the education market by government has allowed colleges and universities to inevitably increase costs to the point where NO ONE (except the VERY wealthy) could afford a college education without taking on a massive amount of (government-guaranteed) debt! Since the loans are guaranteed, the lenders have had no qualms about the ever rising costs, since they would be 'bailed out' by the government on an individual basis when students defaulted. The educational institutions also had no qualms about continually raising tuition, since the students (who because of their age and inexperience) generally didn't think about the consequences of amassing a debt big enough to make them 'wage slaves' for much of their ensuing careers! Thus, educrats encouraged generations of students to 'not worry' about the eventual costs that they would eventually be required to repay, since that was 'far in the future', and college would get you 'a good job with high pay'. This is similar to how drug dealers 'hook' young impressionable kids, by only pushing the 'upside'- and hiding the risks, REAL costs and negative effects of the products they are selling.

Moreover, the educational finance system, in the form of the economic monster it ha now devolved into, is an unfair 'redistribution of wealth'- which forces the average American- whether they are college educated or not- be obligated through taxpayer support to take on the massive burden of those who cannot (usually through no fault of their own) sustain the crushing burden of Student Loan Debt. Those who are NOT college educated are unfairly asked to subsidize those who CHOSE to pursue a higher education, and those who are ALREADY college educated are asked to subsidize and absolve of responsibility those who cannot repay- even as they themselves are required to pay back THEIR Student Loan Debt load- WITHOUT a government subsidy or bail-out! Talk about creating class divisions between Americans! What is NOT needed to remedy this untenable situation is MORE of the same behavior and failed economic policy that got us into this mess in the first place. That is EXACTLY what President Obama is proposing, as he seems to do on just about every other economic problem- doubling down on failed policy with an even BIGGER failure!

What Ron Paul proposes is a drastic change- but it is a REALISTIC and workable solution. It will NOT throw those currently in the system 'out on the street', as the fear-mongering demagogues from the left and right are suggesting (the 'throw grandma off the cliff' propaganda tactic). Dr. Paul is clear that those in the present system will have the promises made to them honored, but is also adamant that what is needed to fix this massive problem- PERMANENTLY- is a structural change away from Government policies that distort, inflate and ultimately destroy whatever market they intend to 'help'- be it Student Loans, the Housing Market, 'Green Energy' and on and on ad-nauseum. Students deserve to have access to a quality higher education, but the present system is progressively and exponentially making that impossible by artificially inflating the costs, so much so that the ultimate College Education price tag is beyond the reasonable capability for even a higher-income career path to repay in a reasonable amount of time. Whatever the quality of the job you get after receiving your degree, if too much of your income during your employment life is going to be sucked up by the repayment of debt, the quality of your life that your receive from having that degree is profoundly diminished, as your income is stolen by the usurers in league with the government and the educational establishment that have conspired to steal your money, your future, and any hope of having a productive life beyond college.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

The Insidious Nature of the 'Flat' and Fair' Income Tax



'9-9-9'? A flat 20%? On the face of it, they both sound good. Catchy, simple- and grossly unfair when you scratch below the surface! How about 0-0-0? Or a REALLY flat 0%? Ron Paul says that the income tax is the Government saying it OWNS you, AND your income- 'graciously' allowing you to keep a portion after it takes it's big cut off the top. What most of these candidates fail to mention (as well as most of the media), is that '9-9-9' or a flat 20% is so regressive- in that both tax schemes unfairly take from the poor and the middle class a larger share of their income than either does from the moderately rich or the very wealthy. If you make $20,000,000 a year, 20% is $4,000,000. That's a hefty sum, but you STILL have $16 mil! If you make $30,000 (and are trying to raise a family!), that's $6000, leaving you with only $24,000 for food, shelter, energy, education, clothing and other necessities. 

But the solution is not the job-killing and also patently unfair 'soak the rich' plan that so many Big-Government Progressives favor. Even if you make $1,000,000, if you're a business owner, you likely don't BANK all your income, but re-invest it in your company. That $4 mil the gov't takes is $4 mil that you WON'T be using to hire new employees, expand your business creating new jobs or investing in plant and equipment that also create jobs. And the VERY wealthy ALWAYS will find a way to hide, stash or (most destructively) EXPORT their income overseas. Again, money being taken out of the U.S. economy that could be put to productive job-creating investment here at home.

When you eliminate the income tax totally, with he revenues STILL there from the remaining revenue streams, you will only go back to about 2002 revenue levels. The government ran without too many problems w-a-a-a-a-y back ten years ago, so why can't it now? Too many bureaucrats trying to protect their useless jobs, too many individuals and corporations feeding off of the government trough, and too many lawyers, lobbyists and crooks siphoning taxpayer money out of the government that could be better used in the private sector to create REAL jobs! Ron Paul proposes paring down the total workers, eliminating useless and counter-productive agencies (while still rolling their USEFUL programs into more streamlined agencies), and getting America back to work by getting the Federal Government Monster off the backs of every American, out of their wallets, and out of the job of micro-(mis)managing every economic decision that every small, medium and large business makes.

A message for Big Government Demopublicans AND Republicrats: Quit hiding behind 'the children', first responders and other vital parts of LOCAL and STATE governments! The Federal government should NOT be funding those jobs in the first place! State and local governments, while not perfect, are more responsive to the needs of their constituents, and FAR more responsible in utilizing those dollars. All the Federal Bureaucrats and their enablers in D.C. do is take our state and local money, then dole a PORTION of it back to us, and tell us we 'can't get along without Federal dollars'! What a joke. How about leaving ALL of our money at the state and local level- without the strings, unfunded mandates and ridiculous and counterproductive Federal rules and regulations that go along with it?

Thaddeus S. Kaczor, Jr.
xtrabiggg.blogspot.com

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Blame America? NO! Blame American Foreign Policy!

American support of murderous dictatorial regimes is the ROOT CAUSE of much of the Terrorism in the world today. This is not what the uninformed or hopelessly indoctrinated call 'blaming America', nor is it a 'conspiracy theory'- it is simply rationally assessing the cause and effect of over 100 years of adventurist American Foreign Policy, and the myriad unintended consequences of that flow from the policy of interference in the internal affairs of other nations. Most times, 'Vital American  National Interests' have nothing to do with American support for the Worst Of The Worst, though vital ECONOMIC Interests of the International Banksters, the Military Industrialists, and their proxies in the Government most assuredly DO!

Clockwise, from left: King Abdullah of Saudi ArabiaKing Abdullah II of JordanTeodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial GuineaIslam Karimov of UzbekistanKurbanguly Berdymukhamedov of Turkmenistan

Examples? Shah Reza Pahlavi of Iran, Augusto Pinochet of Chile, General Suharto of Indonesia, Anastazio Somoza of Nicaragua, Saddam Hussein (yes!) of Iraq, Fulgencio Bautista of Cuba, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Muammar Khadaffi (yes!)- and that's just the SHORT list from the PAST of murderous dictators supported, encouraged or actually put in power by America! How did all of our support for THOSE thugs work out? Just look at how the people of those countries feel about America to this day. Many of the people in those countries harbor a deep-seated hatred for America, in what CIA Analysts call 'blow-back'- a hostile retaliation motivated by a deep-seated resentment toward US Policies and support of Dictators. Blow-Back invariably leads individuals and groups to strike out at American Interests. That is not justification for the heinous acts of criminals and madmen, but goes a long way to explaining the motivation and reasons behind peoples' intense hatred that drives them to murder and mayhem. 

In today's American-supported rogue's gallery of murderous dictatorships, we can include King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan, Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov of Turkmenistan, Teodoro Mbasogo of Equitorial Guinea, the current and former regime in Pakistan- and the list (and the murders, torture, rape, looting and exploitation) go on and on! How many of the current dictatorships we support around the world are currently provoking people to attack America and Americans for simply our government's supporting those who attack, exploit and murder THEM? How much of this could have been prevented by the U.S. simply NOT interfering in the internal affairs of other sovereign nations? There always seems to be some justification for interference- usually 'American Vital Interests' are cited, or some large threat that invariably turns out to be inflated or wholly bogus- but there is ALWAYS someone or some group that profits from such interventionist foolishness. All you have to do is 'follow the money' to get to the basic motivation behind the continually beating war drums- something the American press seems to have forgotten how to do (or is prevented from doing by someone 'above their pay grade'!).

If you choose to ignore history, as well as the reality that exists in U.S. Foreign Policy to this present day, it is a comfortable ignorance to believe that they 'hate us for being free', or that 'we have to fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here'. But it is foolish to not listen to what our own CIA has found, as well as countless respected experts who study terrorism, international relations, the sociology of oppressed people and the origins of terrorist thought and action. It most certainly is NOT a 'conspiracy theory' or 'anti-American to say that America's foreign policy actually CREATES anti-American terrorism- if it can be backed up so easily with readily available and openly discussed FACTS!  Turn a blind eye to what our government actually does abroad, and you will NEVER understand the root causes for the intense HATRED many feel for the American Government (Note- NOT the American PEOPLE!).  



Or maybe, just ask yourself a simple question: How would you feel toward those responsible if you were an innocent bystander, and death rained down upon you or your family members? The root cause of most terrorism is not ideological- it is personal, visceral, and deeply emotional. America's failure to recognize this basic fact will only lead to more hatred, more attacks, and more Americans unnecessarily wounded and dying.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

A Media Outlet actually LISTENS to what readers say about Ron Paul!



By Thaddeus S. Kaczor, Jr.


What's worse than the blackout? The type of 'damning with faint praise' type of articles that almost ALWAYS accompanies the meager amount of coverage that Dr. Paul gets. Any positive news is always followed by a qualifier. He has good plans BUT... He has dedicated and avid 'followers' (hate that word) BUT... He won the caucus BUT... In the Chrisitian Science Monitor article linked at the top, Writer Maud Dillingham, after seeing article avfter article deluged with intelligent rebuttals from adamant posters, objectively and soberly looks at the complaints that Ron Paul supporters have about the media.

My take on the media coverage? Excuse me, but since when is having a large grassroots organization; gaining and MAINTAINING popularity WITHOUT the help of (or in spite of) coverage by the media; motivating people to get out on their own (NOT 'bussed in') and actually VOTE for you; having five times as many individual campaign donors as the purported 'front runner'; having more active duty military contributors than all your opponents COMBINED (yet being criticized for 'not supporting the military'!), and finally, actually having a plan that does what all the other candidates PROMISE to do- balance the budget- in one-third the time; proposing to actually CUT the deficit by actually CUTTING spending, and by ONE TRILLION DOLLARS the first year, while the ostensible 'front runner' is proposing to cut about 2% of that, and spreading it out in time (as Buzz Lightyear would say) 'to infinity and beyond!". Ron Paul's record in this race is TEXTBOOK politics on how to build a campaign, stay on message, motivate your base and maintain fundraising- all without compromising your principles.

ANY other candidate does even HALF of what Ron Paul has proposed and accomplished, and the media and the Party Elites would declare the race OVER. Yet the more sense Ron Paul makes, the more solid support (not 'flavor of the week') he gets, the harder the media try to bury him, and the more foolish they look.

One final example. The day after Ron Paul announced the boldest proposal by ANY candidate, promising DEEPER and REAL spending cuts, I did a survey of all the major news outlets on line. Half of the news outlets put the story on their front page, or even in their 'Top News' section, while half of the major news outlets had NO STORY- even if you did a search of their entire website! How can a story be 'Top News' on HALF the major outlets, yet not even rate a MENTION on the other half? The only explanation can be a systematic and deliberate censorship of the news when it pertains to ONE CANDIDATE. It's not paranoia if they really ARE against you!

SO congratulations, CSM! Continue to cover Ron Paul fairly and in an even-handed manner with the other candidates, and you will see your readership rise as people continue to drain away from the outlets that continually and blatantly shoot themselves in the foot with obviously biased and ham-handed coverage (or non-coverage). The American people may be ignorant due to not being presented all the facts, but they are not stupid. And they recognize when they are being lied to. And they don't react to that very well.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Ron Paul- The Only Serious Man Left In American Politics.

By Thaddeus S. Kaczor, Jr.

For those who say "I like his fiscal programs, but his social and defense programs scare me': Ron Paul's Social Programs would return responsibility (and Money) back to the states and the INDIVIDUALS! If you think someone in the government can manage your money better than you, apply to be a ward of the state- otherwise, take responsibility for your actions. Most of the Federal programs Dr. Paul would return to the states were actually run BETTER and more EFFICIENTLY before the Federal Government took them AWAY from the states. As for defense- Ron Paul's proposals would make America safer by not bankrupting us by;   A. Paying for the defense of allies (or not-so-much Allies); B. Refusing to subsidize BOTH sides of many conflicts (Thus eliminating the profit motive for most 'Defense' Contractors; C. Returning our troops to ready status here at home, where disaster relief efforts have been spotty at best, as most National Guard units and equipment are either overseas or severely depleted due to the 'back-door draft' of repeated deployments overseas; and finally (And Most Importantly) finally ELIMINATING wasteful, duplicate, obsolete and just plain corrupt Military Contract Spending. Others have talked about all of this since World War II, but once in office have been bought off by Big Money Banksters, International Industrialists and Crony Capitalists. Ron Paul would return America to REAL Capitalism- without the Crony Corruption and Lobbyist Legislator-Buying.

ROn Paul 2012 - Or else you DESERVE the same old $#!+, America!