KD, I don't believe there would be a Democratic party if not for those issues and the government warchest they use to buy votes of unions and welfare queens. I was just telling a friend that all involved are going to find out there isn't any more money to get, so it then boils down to those issues.

Where the tea party needs to settle is the doctrine used to put together the Constitution, the idea of perfect and imperfect rights. We can talk about natural law in any way possible, but if we allow any party, group or spokesman to allow government to define our rights, we are in trouble.

What needs to be stopped is the government extorting money from the populace and giving it away to those they need to buy votes from. They aren't spending their money, they are spending our money. This is the law, not of governments, but of nature, that taking property and labor from one group and giving it to another is stealing and slavery. Womb to tomb treatment of people also has to cease, as it breeds helplessness and transfers decisions from the individule to the state. The state needs to stick its head up its ass and get it out of ours.

Government was somewhat prohibited from fucking with the money and once they started, look what happened. Wars and more wars. Taxes and more taxes. Bankers using leverage to rip off the economy and destroy it. Social Security and the Federal Reserve were ploys of government to get more money for politicians to give to their friends.

If having an accident and killing someone is judged to be some degree of murder, regardless of neglect, I have to believe that the right to kill an unborn human, no matter how you define it, having wreckless sex has to be looked at in the same vein. I don't advocate it be made illegal, just that the on a state by state basis, illegality be permitted. Abortion was legal in a few places prior to Roe vs Wade. The state wants to ask you what is in your computer or files and they have no agreements that any of us knowingly signed. Is that any less an invasion of privacy than abortion? It is the hypocrisy of the law that troubles me more than the issue. The last time I looked, there was a 4th amendment, but it doesn't seem to apply any more. As far as gay rights, the only one I know of is the right to be left alone, which is one we all should enjoy

The ironic thing is the protectors of gay rights, abortion rights and unionized labor seem to be interested in reducing the rest of us to poverty. They also seem to be the group that can't read the second amendment.

As far as Paulson goes, I have to believe he was at Treasury because the Bush administration knew everything was fucked and hoped he knew how to straighten it out. I guess they didn't know how hard it was to manage 50 gallons of spilt mercury, as it is still all over the place sliding around. I think we all can look to Rubin, Raines and Summers, along with Geithner, who fiddled while Citi and other NY institutions under his watch burned down the world and stole what was there before the fire.

Lsstly, I was reading 'The Law" by Frederick Bastiat, who was a borderline anarchist. Bastiat said a few things, but the most glaring one was that politics wasn't supposed to be important if the government was doing what it was supposed to, protect the rights and property of the populace. Once it started looting and failing to protect the rights of the people it became important. Once it becomes important, it becomes the tool of opposing parties to use against each other. The Feds main power in the states was to regulate commerce between them so that complex laws didn't arise to restrict trade. Its other primary power deals with waging war. I won't get into that one.

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The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.---John Kenneth Galbraith

See how worked up y'all are getting over the CONTENT of these (wedge) issues? If there were no content, we could all be 100 percent in agreement on everything and everyone would be happy because we would all think we got what we want. The country is on the edge. TPTB know it. Any one of these issues (and esp. economic ones) could cause chaos. That's dangerous. That's why there will be no more real issues, just highfalutin empty words...

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but there is a natural tension there as many fiscal conservatives are like trader, either socially moderate or just agnostic on a lot of it. the religious rights get a bit overzealous and the left uses that to tar the entire right, religious and conservative.

QFT!

zlow hand wrote..

grf - libertarians had their asses handed to them because they were about legalizing pot and isolationist foreign policy. I think they're pretty big on the gold standard too. none are winners. maybe pot but not as a major or even minor platform plank.

What you don't understand is there is about to be no money to get. Once there is no one left to milk, the gig is up. Then they come to take your shit.

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The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.---John Kenneth Galbraith

huh?

help a brother out here.

genesis wrote..

Who initiated the "War on Drugs" with the utter destruction of the 4th Amendment?

Karl, I'm glad you brought that up. I think the war on drugs was a populist issue of the Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, FDR, Richard Nixon vein. Some of it was actually right in that drugs had destroyed a good portion of the country 100 years ago. I think the entire country has been screwed by those laws

The most important issue should be 4th and 5th amendment issues if we want to get into that stuff. I am appalled at times when I realize how these rights are ignored.

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The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.---John Kenneth Galbraith

My plan was perfect but mrsmortgage wouldn't go along with it. Run as a Democrat on prosecuting the Wall Street felons and getting tough on Chinese imports.

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I think its time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that our founding fathers intended for us. Ronald Reagan 1964

Good ticker Karl. Yes it's sad how the issue of "national fiscal preservation" (i.e. the subject of 99%+ of your tickers) is getting watered down by issues that frankly won't matter one bit IF we fail to fix our fiscal/economic problem.

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3/17/2013: Bullish on nothing - 100 percent in cash.

Abortion and gay rights aren't even national issues, duh. Laws governing murder and marriage are passed in the state houses. So why, every election cycle, do we hear candidates for national offices from both parties spouting off about them? It's called "sleight of hand." Keep the dumbass voters distracted with one, on issues about which you can and will do nothing during your term, while with the other, you're picking their pockets.

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They assume an authority which is nowhere so dangerous as in the hands of those who have folly and presumption enough to fancy themselves fit to exercise it. --Adam Smith

Great ticker and good point. I am so tired of the same non issues year after year while the real issues get ignored. One of my pet peeves is this breaking it down to every man woman and child.

"If, on the other hand, fixing our economy, locking up the fraudsters and putting a stop to the rampant theft from each and every citizen in this room, which has personally indebted each and every man, woman and child in America by more than $40,000 over the last three years,"


Every man woman and child my sound good but I believe it is much more effective to break it down on a per household basis. Not only does that give you a bigger number but it makes it real. At any given point in time, our population will include children. Children are not wage earners and thus can have no ability to pay down debt. While true that they will have the debt burden on them at some future point, they will be replaced with new children by the time they come of age.

To hit home, you must use per household, then people have something that is a much harder number to swallow.

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Dear Euroland: Relax, Germany has a plan for your money!Political Capital Defined: We are out of money but will tax our citizens for whatever it takes to "SAVE" the Euro.

2banana wrote..

The works we think are "good" in America are good works from a Christian viewpoint

2banana wrote..

We grew up and live in a country founded in Judeo-Christian values

Ah that's funny. Had your Eastern transplant not stopped off in Greece to be informed by Stoic and Cynic thought, it would NEVER had the "umph" to spread through the Empire enough to be more than a regional cult. Had it not gone on to be informed EVEN MORE by Greco-Roman civilization in general, it would have ended up being a more savage thing. And you would have still had mass in Latin with no Bibles in your own language had it not been for your Eastern transplant being again being informed by the PAGAN values that came from Saxons, Jutes, Angles etc - which is how you got your Protestant reformation, not to mention your Protestant work ethic.

Your religion didn't inform Western European civilization, it was informed BY IT. I'm glad it could be improved upon during its spread so it wouldn't end up like its contemporary and fairly similar competitors (cult of Isis, etc), but Europe would have had the same values it gave TO Christianity regardless of whether it had spread or not. It's too bad that you have no idea how many of your values came from pagan civilizations, but at least you have them and that's something.


But I'm reminded of the part in Enter The Dragon in which Bruce Lee says "Not my finger you fool, the moon!"

Stop focusing on where to give credit for rightness itself and pay attention to what IS right. Your assertion about where morals come from is a great example of why I can't vote Republican anymore. And there was actually a time when Republicans RESISTED the late 60's movement to eradicate the fruit of Western Civilization from education. Its progress in art, literature, philosophy, jurisprudence, human rights, music, architecture, medicine, and so on - and how it got there. No more. I guess the 60's radicals succeeded because now our "conservatives" are nutballs that believe a religion from the East gave the West its values.

And this illustrates Karl's point - the majority are worried about issues they think are crackpot issues being pushed by the right OR the left. Speaking for myself, last election I felt forced to choose between lesser evils - which candidates would do the least harm. Bring those wedge issues in and you won't get the vote. Leave them behind and you WILL. I would LOVE to have a candidate to vote for that isn't carrying a whole bunch of miscellaneous crap along with one or two good ideas.

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Karl- Thanks for the advice. We have 60 tea party groups in my state of SC and we have several meetings a year and have decided on three basic principals.

Fiscal Responsibility
Limited Government
Following our Constitution

Keep it simple stupid.

WIN!

"the beck weekend was apparently a smashing success, btw. lots of sheep showing up, lots of media coverage... polarization galore. god save the two party system! any threats, local or national from "true" tea party (anti bailout, anti corruption) independents have been obliterated as the so-called "fed up" "conservative" voters gladly bent over to have weasely wedge issues shoved up their asses.

"people must have religion to have honor and morality!" bunch of spineless dupes that can't figure out, without an all powerful imaginary friend, the simple truth that theft (of all types; property, life, liberty) is wrong."
-------------------------------

Regarding the Beck Restoring Honor "camp-meeting tent revival", I didn't hear anything approaching political talk except one speaker, it was not a tea party. What "polarization or save two party system" are you talking about? The tone and message was aimed at Christians, which if any group needs to restore integrity and honor it should be those of us who have claimed that name, yes we sheep. Why be disrespectful? Sounds like you are trying to create a wedge and are insistent that those of us who look at our country's foundation, founders and religious beliefs should be silent.

God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Thomas Jefferson (another "spineless dupes that can't figure out")

Wcvarones says -- You obviously just have a wingnut Tea Party there in Niceville.
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How can you say that. What about that wacko guy who supposedly was the head of the teaparty up in Sacramento who had that letter to or as Abe Lincoln. That sounded very racist which gives the impressions that teaparty people are a bunch of country bumpkins.

I have been a Republican for 30 years but when George W. Sr. started courting the Moral Majority I did not vote in that election. I did not vote for George W jr the idiot because of his romance with Fundamentalists (among other issues). I also did not vote for McCain for various reasons as well as Fundamentalism. (I did not vote in either of these elections. I am originally from the south and left 25 years ago for lots of the weird stuff they use to say. What was that young guy that was always fronting for the Moral Majority. He always reminded me of a young nazi.

If Tea Party people want to win they have to stay out of the wedge issues and stop telling people how to live their lives. PERIOD. As the joke use to go in Oklahoma, "Why do Baptist not have sex standing up, because people will think they are dancing." When people start telling me that the Grand Canyon was carved in the great flood and such crap you lose the vote of people like me.

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Hope is neither a good strategy or birth control methodology!

Bravo Karl, EXCELLENT TICKER!!

What we are complaining about, in terms of the definition of "Conservative" is the result of one thing:

The radicals won the culture wars. Sad but true. They won them so definitively, they bombed the losers back into the stone age. The losers of the culture wars are squatting in the ruins telling each other superstitious stories with no memory of what the fight was about, what was being defended, or even the glory that is their own birthright, evidenced by some of the remaining ruins they are squatting in.

I like to vote conservative, but no way do I want the bombed-out trogledyte ruins-dwelling descendants of the losers (the losers, who DID fight for something worthwhile, mind you) put in charge. Oh hell no. Better to start from first principles - equal justice, rule of law - and go from there, rather than try to get people to re-learn their history at this point. Outside the Republican party, at least that is possible.

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Excellent ticker. I've long believed that we need more economic conservatism and less social conservatism. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with socially conservative positions, but I regard myself as more a libertarian than a conservative. In a way, I'm the voter that Karl was talking about. I would be much more enthusiastic about voting for a candidate who is right on issues of economics and limited Constitutional government. The social issues get more complicated, and I'm conservative on some and liberal on others.

And Genesis' comment here really nails it: http://tickerforum.org/akcs-www?singlepo....

You should consider adding that as a postscript to the original ticker.

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Someone posted the ticker over at freerepublic.com and it's started a bit of a shitstorm LOL...

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"Pull your pants up, turn your hat around, and get a job"
---P.J. O'Rourke

Oh, and I also like Glenn Beck and his Restoring Honor rally. I didn't go (I dislike traveling, large crowds, and heat) but I've been watching and reading about it online. As he said, it wasn't intended to be a political rally.

I'm an agnostic, yet the spectacle of several hundred thousand Americans peaceably assembling and praying doesn't bother me.

Like I said above, it's complicated...

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Zlow Hand, once all the chips are on one side of the table, the chips on that side of the table are no longer good because they are owed by the other side of the table that has no chips. Even if you give a good part of the chips back to the other side, they are still all owed to the other side of the table. All the money owed is owed by all the people with the money. It can't be collected from the other side. I heard a guy one time that knew what he was talking about. This sounds like a joke, but he said that if you had the money you owed it, which is why they call a $10 bill a bill. Who are they going to collect from, those that don't have any money? The vast majority of what we call savings is evidenced by debt. The FRN is a collateralized by a debt that only the FRN itself can pay. The money in the banks are collateralized by debt that can only be paid by those that have the deposits. Even if you wanted to pay in gold, you would have to exchange it for currency or bank deposits, which are pretty much equivalent until the bank can't pay. The entire mess is a circular paradox that requires more debt in order to keep going. At what point is the bottom sucked dry from the top? Game over. http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/

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The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.---John Kenneth Galbraith

"Regarding the Beck Restoring Honor "camp-meeting tent revival", I didn't hear anything approaching political talk except one speaker, it was not a tea party. What "polarization or save two party system" are you talking about? The tone and message was aimed at Christians, which if any group needs to restore integrity and honor it should be those of us who have claimed that name, yes we sheep. "
Why be disrespectful? Sounds like you are trying to create a wedge and are insistent that those of us who look at our country's foundation, founders and religious beliefs should be silent.

God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Thomas Jefferson (another "spineless dupes that can't figure out")

i invoke god's name all the time. doesn't make me a christian. doesn't matter anyway, invoking jefferson to wedge the issue is quite political of you.

you support my point that beck succeeded in splitting tea partyers by claiming that his event was entirely aimed at christians. do you realize that?

i'm disgusted at the willful destruction of a terrific opportunity for unity and peaceful resolution of injustice by the hordes of mindless gnats who otherwise call themselves righteous americans. would you join me in condemning corruption in government if i stipulated that only evolutionists knew the difference between right and wrong?

well, you completely missed the point anyway, so this post is moot.

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Even Bob Brinker on the nationally-syndicated radio program Money Talk was talking about this polarization today. He was saying that none of the politicians will lift a finger when it comes to the budgetary mess we're in. Instead, they're creating a big fuss over a Burlington Coat Factory converting into a mosque. That's just what politicians do, as KD so aptly described in his post - pick a "hot topic" to run on that drives a "wedge" in between voters. In the meantime, just continue bankrupting the country.

He was discussing when the show started in 1986, and one of the things he said stuck with me: "I would not believe it [the deficit] if I saw it with my own eyes."

Anyway, Karl is spot-on and timely with his post. I'm not sure what's going to happen politically in the near-future, but I rest assured that if this is the attitude that politicians have, then we're better off without them, even if it means anarchy. The good, hard-working people of this country will stick together and make it through no matter what. The rest of the leeches who can't hack it will suffer. And I think that's where a guy like Glen Beck comes in handy. Although he may not be the brightest financially, whether right or wrong, he knows the basic tenets of society, and I think this is the core message he's trying to get across daily.

Quote:

At what point is the bottom sucked dry from the top?

I don't know, Mann - still a lot of people to suck from. Maybe the better question to ask is when does the bottom middle-class which creates the vast majority of wealth refuse to play this charade any longer?

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Intentional manipulation of markets is usually thought of as a crime, not a benefit, and should lead to indictments, not praise. -Karl

Guys,

If you are going to run exclusively on fiscal issues and how you want to jail all the crooks and bailout babies, you had better hope we get cracking on that next leg down in the DJIA.

By my watch, we have two months.

The Left knows they are vulnerable on this and if you are going to campaign on how all the bailouts are bad and you are going to stop it, you had better look out the window and take your eyes off your briefing book.

DJIA is well above the March 2009 lows.
Interest rates are at 60 year lows.
Stimulus spending can't be seen as a failure.

I disagree with the premise and understand all the Tickers of the past year, but J6P only knows that he either has a job or Funemployment, he still lives in his house, and that the stock market is in the 10K range. He doesn't look at any closer details.

If you say you are going to take away all the .gov support and jail those that engineered "the recovery," the Dem is going to bash your brains in. Couple that with the fact you steadfastly refuse to confront any assault on your character or standing before your base, and 11/3/10 could be the biggest headline in 150 years.

If you want to spend your campaign teaching macroeconomics and the finer points of capital formation, you will be talking to empty auditoriums.

I still want to know three things:

When was the last successful third party campaign in the US?

How many elections in the modern era (post 1968) were lost because the Fundies scared everyone off? (GOP point of view)

How many elections in the modern era (post 1968) were won because the Fundies showed up to vote in a reliable fashion? (GOP point of view)

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Diversity + proximity = WAR

-They wanted camps; I want ropes.

Quote:

DJIA is well above the March 2009 lows.

So what? J6P's pissed because he doesn't have money and had to take it out of 401k.

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Interest rates are at 60 year lows.

Doesn't matter to J6P - he's paying 30% on his credit cards.

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Stimulus spending can't be seen as a failure.

Polls show more people worried about the economy than anything else. If J6P's on funemployment, he's gotta get a job. So the first thing on his mind is can I get a decent job other than burger-flipping? What if he gets laid off again, or fired, will there be unemployment next time if the government doesn't go broke? Is J6P going to be taxed to death to pay for this profligate government spending?

And don't even get me started with working J6P, who has two choices: work harder, or get fired.

Not to be an asshole or anything, but it sounds like you're giving the Dems too much credit and J6P too little...

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Intentional manipulation of markets is usually thought of as a crime, not a benefit, and should lead to indictments, not praise. -Karl

I'm not underestimating the Dems. They are a fucked up bunch, but they do know how to consistantly win elections with the poker equivalent of 2-7 offsuits. Lefties have a passion for winning. Conservatives have a passion for virtue. That's no contest. When Conservatives play to win, they do. The trouble is that they usually don't and Dems KNOW they will choose virtue over victory almost every time.

IF you scare people, you lose. Negative campaigning is all about demonizing (making scary) your opponent.

IF the Dem convinces J6P that the bailouts and stimulus worked, and you are campaigning against them, you lose.

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Diversity + proximity = WAR

-They wanted camps; I want ropes.