LOL doesn’t even begin to cover my glee at hearing about Obama’s bruised stature!
Update: Things just keep getting better and better. This is the latest headline concerning Obama and the Non-Copenhagen deal…
Another email Alert from the “People for the American Way” which happens to be a cover group who themselves are Marxist. Enjoy the crap these leftists spew on this one…
Anything in red is my editing.
Here’s what their letter said… (these folks are NOT to be trusted)
Your support of People For the American Way is helping the national effort to counter the most dangerous rise in right-wing extremism we’ve seen in decades — instances of which are captured in our new video.
New McCarthyism, complete with communist conspiracy theories and guilt-by-association witch hunts. . . No Witches have been named, yet.
Challenging the legitimacy of Democrats and Progressives holding elected office. . . And this is a bad thing?
Whipping up fear and resentment based on race. . . LOL!
With you in our corner, we’ll make sure right-wing extremism doesn’t go unanswered. THANK YOU for your ongoing support. LOL!
– People For the Un-American Way
********************
Which do you think is closest to the truth?
Gio-
Very cool update…
Copenhagen is gonna want this to go away as fast as humanly possible.
Thanks to missmuffin for this humbling reminder of Christmas…
Who can forget this classic…
Newsmax has a poll on Sarah Palin for President in 2012. This is what the poll says:
| Sarah Palin for President in 2012? |
| Cast Your Vote!
Scroll down to vote. |
 |
| Newsmax.com, one of America’s leading online news services, is conducting an urgent national online poll about Sarah Palin’s role in the GOP and her political future.
Newsmax will provide the results of this poll to major media outlets. Additionally, Newsmax’s results will be shared with popular radio talk-show hosts across America. Newsmax reports have been cited by major media outlets, including CNN, ABC News, Fox News, CBS, MSNBC and other major networks. Don’t miss this opportunity to let your voice be heard! Many media outlets and national leaders are interested in your opinion. Hundreds of media outlets have reported on Newsmax’s online polls. Vote today! |
| ………………………..
You’ll then be asked 4 questions:
|
To vote in this poll, go HERE.
~Eowyn
Wanna see a headline that will put a smile on your face?
Gio-
“The city of Copenhagen is a crime scene tonight…”
“This is a great way to end 2009, a year that has questioned our faith in our fellow man. Here’s the rest of the story from the UK Guardian…”
The UN climate summit reached a weak outline of a global agreement last night in Copenhagen, falling far short of what Britain and many poor countries were seeking and leaving months of tough negotiations to come.
After eight draft texts and all-day talks between 115 world leaders, it was left to Barack Obama and Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, to broker a political agreement. The so-called Copenhagen accord “recognises” the scientific case for keeping temperature rises to no more than 2C but did not contain commitments to emissions reductions to achieve that goal.
American officials spun the deal as a “meaningful agreement”, but even Obama said: “This progress is not enough.”
“We have come a long way, but we have much further to go,” he added.
The deal was brokered between China, South Africa, India, Brazil and the US, but late last night it was still unclear whether it would be adopted by all 192 countries in the full plenary session.
The agreement aims to provide $30bn in funding for poor countries to adapt to climate change from next year to 2012, and $100bn a year after 2020.
But it disappointed African and other vulnerable countries who had been holding out for far deeper emission cuts to hold the global temperature rise to 1.5C this century. As widely expected, all references to 1.5C in previous drafts were removed at the last minute, but more surprisingly, the earlier 2050 goal of reducing global CO2 emissions by 80% was also dropped.
The agreement also set up a forestry deal which is hoped would significantly reduce deforestation in return for cash. It lacked the kind of independent verification of emission reductions by developing countries that the US and others demanded.
Obama hinted that China was to blame for the lack of a substantial deal. In a press conference he condemned the insistence of some countries to look backwards to previous environmental agreements. He said developing countries should be “getting out of that mindset, and moving towards the position where everybody recognises that we all need to move together”.
This was a not-so-veiled reference to the epic row over whether to ditch the Kyoto protocol and its legal distinction between developed and developing nations. Developing nations saw this as an attempt by the rich world to wriggle out of its responsibility for climate change. Many observers blamed the US for coming to the talks with an offer of just 4% emissions cuts on 1990 levels. The final text made no obligations on developing countries to make cuts.
Negotiators will now work on individual agreements such as forests, technology, and finance – but, without strong leadership, the chances are that it will take years to complete.
Obama cast his trip as a sign of renewed US global leadership. “The time has come for us to get off the sidelines and shape the future that we seek; that is why I came to Copenhagen,” he said. But he said he would not be staying for the final vote “because of weather constraints in Washington”.
Lumumba Di-Aping, chief negotiator for the G77 group of 130 developing countries, was scathing: “This deal will definitely result in massive devastation in Africa and small island states. It has the lowest level of ambition you can imagine. It’s nothing short of climate change scepticism in action.
“It locks countries into a cycle of poverty for ever. Obama has eliminated any difference between him and Bush.”
John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: “The city of Copenhagen is a crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport. Ed Miliband [UK climate change secretary] is among the very few that come out of this summit with any credit. It is now evident that beating global warming will require a radically different model of politics than the one on display here in Copenhagen.”
Lydia Baker, Save the Children’s policy adviser said: “By signing a sub-standard deal, world leaders have effectively signed a death warrant for many of the world’s poorest children. Up to 250,000 children from poor communities could die before the next major meeting in Mexico at the end of next year.”
Bears dance to celebrate the failure of the Copenhagen crazies.
H/T to Steve who always seems to know about everything. This one is so very very cool that it must be shared.
This is how crazy people on the Left are.
Yesterday, in the UK’s Guardian, journalist and climate change proponent George Monbiot looked to Obama to be the messiah who’ll salvage the Copenhagen Climate Change Global Warming summit. Monbiot actually wrote this:
“Only one person can now rescue these climate talks…it is Barack Obama, and Barack Obama alone, who can rescue the climate negotiations from the dismal bickering into which they have slumped.”
Alas, Obama’s big speech last night to the conference reportedly is a big disappointment to the true believers because he offered “no further commitment on reducing emissions or on finance to poor countries” BEYOND THE $100 BILLION A YEAR that Hillary Clinton already promised yesterday.
Adding insult to injury, Venezuela’s commie president dictator, Hugo Chavez, said he “still” smelled sulfur in the room after Obama spoke. Chavez once said the same thing about George W. Bush.
There’s no honor among thieves, nor is there sympathy among devils. 
~Eowyn
Today is Friday, so it’s Blue Friday. (Click HERE to learn more about Blue /Friday).
Remember to wear blue to show your support of our troops!
God bless America and God bless and protect our fighting men and women.
~Eowyn
Watch this very inspiring and moving video of a remarkable young man named Patrick Henry Hughes who was born blind and disabled, but is a musical genius with a joyful spirit. We should be ashamed that we whine and complain about our petty little problems!
His father is as much a hero as this young man. He accompanies his wheelchair-bound son to university classes and band practice during the day, then goes to work in the graveyard shift at UPS.
Together, they are a powerful testimony to the importance of family, the human spirit, and the mystery of God.
Merry Christmas!
~Eowyn (a big h/t to my friend Bob!)
Well I’ll be a son of a gun, Senator Chuck Schumer actually has a group of people who really do like him. I never would have chosen this group of folks for him to fight for, but I guess stranger things have happened in our Congress.
This story caught my eye because it started with the word “Fishermen” and ended with my favorite saying… “To March On Washington”.
I’m a fisherman myself so I thought this story would be of interest, and unless I know it’s a lefty group marching, I’m always interested in reading about marches on D.C. Plus, It’s nice to know that after the good Senator calls a lowly Flight Attendant a “Bitch” that he can redeem himself by supporting Sport Fishermen.
There is another aspect of this story that needs to be told. Just a few paragraphs into the story one of the rally organizers says “We can’t let seasons stop the momentum…” knowing darn well that having a March on Washington on February 24th could mean they might be standing in 4″ of snow during their rally. NOTICE: All Tea-Partiers and 912 Coalitions could take a lesson in keeping the pressure on Congress from these gritty Sportsmen.
Gio-
December 16, 2009 – In a historic show of solidarity, recreational and commercial fishermen will gather together on the steps of the Capitol on February 24, 2010 from noon until 3 p.m. in an organized demonstration against the unintended negative impacts of the Magnuson Stevens Conservation and Management Act (MSA), the federal fisheries law which was revised in January of 2007. Coordinating the march under the flag of United We Fish, rally organizers are hoping to see a large show of force in defense of coastal communities.
“The closures keep coming and it’s good to see the collective fishing communities and industries, both recreational and commercial, calling for scientific based Magnuson reform,” said Jim Donofrio, Executive Director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA). “We are all in this together.” Donofrio cited recent closures of amberjack, black sea bass and red snapper fisheries as examples of what he calls a “broken” federal fisheries law.
The groups organized through United We Fish are hoping to prove to legislators just how many American anglers and business owners are truly being impacted by the overly restrictive management requirements created by MSA based on non scientific arbitrary deadlines. According to Bob Zales of the Conservation Cooperative of Gulf Fishermen (CCGF), the time-specific deadlines mandated by MSA coupled with flawed data collection methods are forcing anglers off the water. “We fully support real science based management and the conservation of our marine resources while also being able to sustain recreational and commercial fishing activities, providing locally caught seafood, sustaining small family businesses, and supporting our coastal communities.”
This effort is being coordinated by many organizations and individuals including but not limited to the RFA, CCGF, United Boatmen of New York, United Boatmen of New Jersey, New York Sportfishing Federation, Maryland Saltwater Sportfishermen’s Association and the Fishing Rights Alliance. “Some people have asked ‘why, it’s winter’,” said Donofrio who said he’s gotten the required permits and expects a large crowd in DC on February 24th, regardless of weather. “We can’t let seasons stop the momentum, and if we wait any longer none of us will be fishing. Many members of Congress will be standing shoulder to shoulder with us,” Donofrio said.
Nils Stolpe, a consultant to the commercial fishing industry and columnist for www.SavingSeafood.org said that over the past three decades since the original Magnuson Act was established, fishermen have been gradually phased out of the fisheries management process, regardless of sector. “The scientists have been put in charge, and as the list of closures and restrictions up above painfully demonstrates, the Act has been turned into a weapon that is now being used against fishermen and fishing communities.”
U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) first introduced the Flexibility in Rebuilding American Fisheries Act of 2008 in the 110th Congress to incorporate “limited flexibility” into federal fisheries management. More than 100 fishing groups and industry members from around the country pledged their support for the legislation and the bill’s 19 bipartisan coastal cosponsors, but the bill languished during the volatile economic climate in advance of the presidential elections in November of 2008.
Realizing that fisheries closures would continue without congressional intervention, in March of this year, Rep. Pallone and fellow Representatives John Adler (D-NJ), Henry Brown, Jr. (R-SC), Ginny Brown-Waite (R-FL), Barney Frank (D-MA), Walter B. Jones, Jr. (R-NC), Patrick Kennedy (D-RI), Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ), Mike McIntyre (D-NC), Michael Michaud (D-ME), Solomon Ortiz (D-TX) and John Tierney (D-MA), reintroduced the Flexibility in Rebuilding American Fisheries Act of 2009 (HR 1584). Twenty-five total co-sponsors have since pledged support to date including Rob Andrews (D-NJ), Timothy Bishop (D-NY), Allen Boyd (D-FL), Joe Courtney (D-CT), Peter King (R-NY), Rob Wittman (R-VA), Jo Bonner (R-AL), John Mica (R-FL), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH), Clifford Stearns (R-FL), Donna Christensen (D-VI), Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), and Ander Crenshaw (R-FL).
Following a letter-writing campaign by the RFA-NY and members of the New York Sportfishing Federation, senior Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York announced his Senate version of the bill (S.1255). Currently, the Senate bill to correct the flaws in MSA has no co-sponsors, which is something United We Fish organizers are hoping will change in February.
“New York’s Senator Schumer is as concerned about his fishing constituents as he is about the fish, just as Congressmen Pallone, Frank, Jones, LoBiondo, Kennedy, Adler and others in the House of Representatives are,” said Stolpe. “Hence they have formed the nucleus of a growing movement in Congress that, in spite of the editorial opinion of the New York Times and the expenditure of many millions of dollars by the Pew Charitable Trusts, is aimed at preserving recreational and commercial fishing, the lifestyles of millions of fishermen, and the tens of thousands of businesses and hundreds of fishing communities that they support,” Stolpe added.
Organizers from within the recreational fishing sector are hoping to get commitment from all user groups and across varied state and regional boundaries. “This is much bigger than any one state issue or individual grievance,” said RFA’s Managing Director Jim Hutchinson, Jr. “Whether it’s our restrictive fluke fishery in New York, the arbitrary closure of state waters for our anglers in California, or the shutdown of red snapper and amberjack down south, our community has been divided by preservationist tactics for too long. It’s time to unite the clans in defense of our coastal heritage and traditions,” Hutchinson said.
“We need to let Congress and NOAA know that we are the collective voice of the recreational fishing community and the collective voice does not accept the current broken management system which wreaks such havoc on all of us and our businesses,” said Donofrio, adding “The goal on February 24th will be to get all of our congressional friends to attend.”
“At this point Senator Schumer and his Congressional colleagues in the House deserve the thanks and the support of every one of us who fishes, whether for fun or profit,” said Stolpe.
The United We Fish rally is set for 2/24/10 at noon at the Capitol. For details as they become available, sign up for the RFA’s email newsletter on the homepage at www.joinrfa.org.
About Recreational Fishing Alliance
The Recreational Fishing Alliance is a national, grassroots political action organization representing recreational fishermen and the recreational fishing industry on marine fisheries issues. The RFA Mission is to safeguard the rights of saltwater anglers, protect marine, boat and tackle industry jobs, and ensure the long-term sustainability of our Nation’s saltwater fisheries. For more information, call 888-JOIN-RFA or visit www.joinrfa.org.
I recognize your right to believe, without ridicule, that there is no God. I do not recognize any right for you to ridicule my belief in God.
MERRY CHRISTMAS
Johnny Mathis “Silver Bells”
Somebody please explain to me the following question. If you rely on the numbers collected by the Census, how do you know if they missed counting 3 million blacks?
Gio-
AP WASHINGTON – Black groups on Wednesday urged the government to improve the count of African-Americans in next year’s high-stakes census, saying they won’t be satisfied with a tally that has historically overlooked millions in their community.
The National Urban League, the NAACP, Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson met with Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to voice their concerns the Census Bureau might not be doing enough to ensure an accurate tally. Roughly 3 million blacks were missed in 2000, while many whites were overcounted.
“The undercount of blacks in the last count and the overcount of whites by 1 percent is not just a Washington statistic,” Sharpton said at a news briefing after the meeting. “It manifests itself in goods and services that cost us.”
“We want what is ours,” he said.
The group said it wanted the Census Bureau, an agency of the Commerce Department, to expand its paid advertising to cities such as Newark, N.J.; Oakland, Calif.; parts of Mississippi and other areas that have high percentages of hard-to-count blacks, many of whom are distrustful of government workers.
They also said they wanted to see more census funding specifically targeted at black communities. About $23 million, or roughly 17 percent of $133 million allocated for media buys, is currently earmarked for black communities.
The black leaders said they wanted to see a change in how the government tallies prisoners, so they are counted as residents of the cities in which they previously lived, not in the places where a prison is located.
“There are a lot more things that have to be done for us to say that we are confident that this plan can address the historic undercount in this nation,” said Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League and chair of the 2010 Census Advisory Committee.
Commerce officials said the Census Bureau would take a second look at its $300 million communications campaign to determine if there are ways to make it better. The bureau kicks off its ad campaign next month and will conduct its head count via mail and door-to-door canvassing next spring.
“African Americans and other minority communities have been consistently undercounted in past censuses so were grateful to the respected leaders we met with for their commitment to achieving an accurate count,” Locke said in a statement.
The population figures, gathered every 10 years, are used to apportion House seats and distribute nearly $450 billion in federal aid.
A bkeyser design
As world leaders jet into Copenhagen, emitting prodigious amounts of noxious CO2 fumes into the earth’s atmosphere, to attend the closing of the Climate Change Manmade Global Warming Summit, Denmark’s capital is having its first white Christmas in 14 years.
Copenhagen is inundated by a freezing blizzard that has already dumped 4 inches of snow overnight. “Temperatures will stay low at least the next three days,” Henning Gisseloe, an official at Denmark’s Meteorological Institute, said, forecasting more snow in coming days. “There’s a good chance of a white Christmas.”
Denmark has a maritime climate and milder winters than its Scandinavian neighbors. It hasn’t had a white Christmas for 14 years, under the DMI’s definition, and only had seven last century. Temperatures today fell as low as minus 4 Celsius (25 Fahrenheit).
Oh, the irony! Ha ha ha….
~Eowyn
We don’t want to count our chickens before they’re hatched, but we can also use a boost.
It is looking bad for both the Senate healthcare bill and a Copenhagen climate change treaty!
On the Senate healthcare bill:
As for the Copenhagen climate change summit:
In the meantime, keep praying, everyone!
~Eowyn
I just discovered Alan Caruba’s “Warning Signs” blog this morning. Highly recommend!
~Eowyn
……………
Thursday, December 17, 2009
By Alan Caruba
When President Obama shows up in Copenhagen to take part in the greatest fraud perpetrated worldwide in the modern era, there is only one thing you need to know. It is all a lie.
It was a lie from the first moment a scientist like James Hansen told Congress on June 23, 1988 that the planet was going to be roasted by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and it was a lie when Al Gore wrote “Earth in the Balance” and there were still more lies in his Oscar-winning documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.”
A British court banned the documentary from being shown in their schools unless a long list of disclaimers was read to the students before his lies were inflicted on them. American students were not so fortunate. Indeed, as I have said many times before, global warming has been a form of child abuse, causing needless anxiety and fear for countless children on whom it was inflicted.
But how could such a lie be perpetrated on such a vast stage and for so long? My answer to you is “the Soviet Union.” From its inception in 1917 when the czarist monarchy was overthrown and Marxist theory, Communism, was imposed on Russia, whole generations were forced to suffer under this huge lie that the state would provide everything for everybody.
It is such a popular lie that it has been resurrected in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador. It returned the Sandinistas to power in Nicaragua. In the last century, millions died under the Communist banner, but that lie never seems to die.
Little wonder then that, when Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s communist dictator addressed the conference, Andrew Bolt of Australia’s Herald-Sun reported that he received “a rousing round of applause.” He was followed by Zimbabwe’s despicable president, Robert Mugabe, who decried “these capitalist gods of carbon burp and belch their dangerous emissions.”
A conference that celebrates such communist blather betrays its true intent. No American President should participate in such a naked display of contempt for capitalism unless of course he shares it
A really Big Lie told often enough acquires the verisimilitude of truth. Global warming, however, was dependent on a different kind of truth, one subject to vigorous review and challenge; it is scientific truth and no matter how many lies were told by the global warming scientists, there were others who stood their ground and challenged them.
By itself, the Big Lie cannot exist solely in a political framework like the United Nations or any one of the nations, including our own, that wasted billions based on it. It has to have the support of the media, both our own and those around the world.
Journalists are not scientists and they are subject to what scientists tell them unless they do some fairly easy investigation of their own. They didn’t! Instead, journalists at influential newspapers like The New York Times repeated and amplified every global warming lie and they continue to this day.
The true science, not the stuff conjured up on computer models, always refuted the global warming theory. That’s because it was widely known to honest climatologists, meteorologists, and others. It was always known that carbon dioxide (CO2) was a miniscule part of the Earth’s atmosphere, barely 0.038 percent. Of that amount, man-made CO2 emissions constitute less than 0.00022 percent! Some will argue these figures, but they always remain within these very tiny parameters.
Carbon dioxide has nothing to do with global warming or as it is now called, climate change.
Nor has the Earth been rapidly warming. The last warming cycle began around 1850 as a response to a Little Ice Age that began in 1300. The Earth warmed about one degree Fahrenheit. By 1998, it began to cool again!
So, when President Obama shows up in Copenhagen to attend the liar’s competition called the United Nations Climate Change Conference or COP-15, anything and everything he says about global warming, fossil fuels, CO2, et cetera, will be a lie.
Al Gore has been at the conference and managed to stumble around like a punch-drunk boxer saying really stupid things like the Arctic will completely melt away any day now or that the center of the Earth is millions of degrees hot. But Gore is a stranger to the truth because, as you may recall, he’s a politician who served in Congress and as Vice President.
If George W. Bush is remembered for anything, it will be that he saved the nation from a “President Gore.” Despite Bush’s poll numbers when he left office, President Obama has accomplished one extraordinary thing; he has made people think more kindly of Bush.
At the heart of the Big Lie is, of course, MONEY! There are millions to be made selling bogus “carbon credits” for the use of energy. That’s what Obama’s “Cap-and-Trade” scam is all about.
Billions were wasted on “climate research” over the past twenty years and now they are being wasted on “clean energy” research which we’re told is needed to replace “dirty” fuels like coal, oil and natural gas. It too is all a lie.
Solar and wind power can never and will never replace or even rival the power that so-called fossil fuels provide. Combined, solar and wind provide barely one percent of all the electricity used daily in the nation. Biofuels are another bad idea.
Listen, if you can, to Obama delivering yet another of his speeches in Copenhagen, barely getting his breath back after his acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize, and remember, he is lying.
Being the Chicago thug that he is, Obama resorted to extortion in an interview with ABC’s Charlie Gibson (whose imminent retirement I will celebrate). Obama said that if Congress does not pass ObamaCare into law, the American economy would go bankrupt.
Merriam-Webster defines ”bankrupt” as “a person who is insolvent,” i.e., broke, i.e., a person whose spending and debt exceed his assets. By that definition, America is broke. Here are some inconvenient truths:
I’m one of those weird people who don’t like to be in debt because I don’t believe in spending my money foolishly by paying INTEREST on debt. I pay off my credit card bill each month; I pay for my car in full. The only debt I’ve ever incurred was a $2,000 student loan, which I paid off a year after I graduated with a Ph.D.
Why aren’t Americans up in arms over this COLOSSAL national debt that grows bigger literally with each second, each minute, each hour, each day?
Who do you think will have to repay this debt? Santa Claus?
~Eowyn
A highway billboard in Missouri
Here’s another sign of the breakdown of the social contract between government and the people in the United States.
~Eowyn
……………
NEW UNDERGROUND ECONOMY
by Richard W. Rahn – Dec 9, 2009 = http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11038
Richard W. Rahn is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth.
The underground or “black” economy is rapidly rising, and the fault is mainly due to government policies.
Here is the evidence. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) released a report last week concluding that 7.7 percent of U.S. households, containing at least 17 million adults, are unbanked (i.e. those who do not have bank accounts), and an “estimated 17.9 percent of U.S. households, roughly 21 million, are underbanked” (i.e., those who rely heavily on nonbank institutions, such as check cashing and money transmitting services). As an economy becomes richer and incomes rise, the normal expectation is that the proportion of the unbanked population falls and does not rise as is now happening in the United States.
Tax revenues are falling far more rapidly at the federal, state and local level than would be expected by the small drop in real gross domestic product (GDP) and changes in tax law that have occurred since the recession began. The currency in circulation outside the U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve banks and the vaults of depository institutions – that is, the currency held by individuals and businesses – has grown by 13.3 percent in the last two years, while real nominal (not inflation-adjusted) GDP has not grown at all, and real (inflation-adjusted) GDP incomes have fallen by more than 3 percent. With the growth of electronic means of payment and financial service providers, it would be expected that the currency component of GDP would fall, not rise.
Countries such as the United States, Switzerland and Japan historically have had relatively small, nonreporting and/or illegal sectors, a typical estimate being 13 percent of GDP.
Most European countries have had somewhat larger underground sectors (typically 20 percent or so) in part because of the desire to escape higher tax rates. Italy and some of the other Southern European countries are believed to have underground sectors that account for 30 percent or more of all economic activity.
I recall an Italian finance minister telling a few of us at a meeting a couple of decades ago that, for policy purposes, he assumed that “the economy was 40 percent larger than what was reported.” In some developing countries and/or highly corrupt countries, underground or “off the books” activities are estimated to be as high as 70 percent of all economic activity.
The FDIC report about the size of the unbanked or underbanked sector in the U.S. should be of concern because those who do not use the banking system often have to pay higher fees to cash checks, pay bills (e.g., money orders, etc.), or transmit funds.
People who keep their savings in cash at home rather than in banks make themselves easier prey for criminals and are more likely to lose their money to fire, flood, or just neglect. Not surprisingly, a majority (71 percent) of the unbanked have household incomes of less than $30,000 per year.
There are many reasons people do not have bank accounts. Banks, because of the “know your customer” and other anti-money laundering regulations, make it difficult for nonestablished people, such as the young and transient, as well as legal and illegal immigrants, to open bank accounts.
Also, many of these same regulations are responsible for the rise in bank fees, which are a particular burden for low-income people. You can be sure that every time Congress passes some new law or the IRS implements some new regulation to “get tax cheats,” much of the real burden of these compliance costs will fall on those least able to afford it, while those intent on finding their way around it will do so.
People also avoid having bank accounts because they are vulnerable to asset seizure, judgments, levies, etc. Increasingly, bankers and others who provide financial services are forced by governments to spy and snitch on their own customers, and this is a real turnoff for many people, which causes them to find other ways of maintaining financial privacy.
Many studies have shown that when people believe the taxes they are required to pay are reasonable and the political leaders tend to spend their tax dollars wisely, tax compliance rises, and vice versa. In the United States, there is increased evidence that many tax dollars are not being spent wisely and are often used to pay off political cronies.
Over the past year in particular, the public has become aware that many in Washington who advocate higher taxes and argue that everyone has a responsibility to pay taxes are themselves not complying with the tax laws and regulations.
When you have a secretary of the Treasury and the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee (the tax writing committee) accused of cheating on their taxes, it greatly undermines the moral authority of the tax collectors, making the common citizens feel like chumps and, hence, much more willing to try to legally avoid or illegally evade taxes themselves.
The evidence is unambiguous: governments cannot increase tax compliance and decrease the size of the underground economy by ever increasing and more onerous regulations.
It is no accident that those governments that allow their citizens a high degree of personal and financial liberty, including financial privacy, and spend taxpayer dollars wisely, honestly and competently, have much smaller underground sectors than corrupt and oppressive governments. Washington, take note.
The overwhelming majority of people in the United States celebrate Christmas because they believe in God, and it is the time of year that we celebrate the birthday of his son Jesus Christ.
So with all sincerity in my heart, I leave a message for our more liberal citizens…
I recognize your right to believe, without ridicule, that there is no God. I do not recognize any right for you to ridicule my belief in God.
And to celebrate my belief, I give you…
Nat King Cole “Oh Come All Ye Faithful”
Merry Christmas
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