Many people in America are still holding on to “hope and change” that the Obama administration would save them and the world from a devastating financial collapse. Gerald Celente has called out to the American people to stop believing in hope and change and immediately get into survival mode. As there is no recovery going on in the US (despite everything that the government are telling the people), many economic analysts predict that the American Empire is going to collapse very soon, and the collapse will be as severe as the Zimbabwean collapse. Another forecast say that America is turning into a third world nation, some even mentioned it will become as bad as the Indonesian economy under Soeharto.

There are so much that we can learn from people who understand the economy, are economic analysts and/ or are successful business people themselves, such as Robert Kiyosaki, Peter Schiff, Jim Rogers, Gerald Celente and others, I have listed the 7 sins of the American government that has caused them to fall into a great collapse. Here they are:

Deadliest Sin #1 – Giving Authority and Sovereignty of America into the Hands of Banks and Money

Although you may believe all you want that Obama is a good man and a good President, unfortunately he is not the one who is running the country. Politicians and the government are not the ones ruling over America, it is the bank and money.

The only American President who fought for the sovereignty of America from the enslavement of banks is President Andrew Jackson (1829-1937), the (officially recognized) 7-th president of the United States. When he ran the campaign for his second term in office, his slogan was, “Jackson and No Bank!”

This is a reference to his plan to take over the American money system so that banks would operate for the benefit of the American people and not for the profit of a few ultra rich men who was controlling the money supply and the banking system at the time.

When he was asked what his greatest achievement was, Andrew Jackson stated, “I killed the bank!” He was referring to his achievement to remove the government’s deposits from the Second Bank of the United States, a bank controlled by the few ultra rich, greedy men, and instead deposited them into banks directed by democratic bankers – banks who would only operate for the benefit of the people.

However, the ultra rich, controlling the money supply and the banking system in the United States, managed to set up their third “central bank” where they can control the banking and money system of the US in 1913, the Federal Reserve. This was under President Woodrow Wilson. After signing the Federal Reserve into its existence, he said,

“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men..”

Deadliest Sin #2 – Taking the US Dollar off the Gold Standard

In 1971, without consulting his state department or the international monetary system, the US President at the time, Richard Nixon, took the greenback off the gold standard. At the time, the US was importing more than it was exporting due to the costly Vietnam war. It was also the time when the economy was growing and they had to import more and more oil. The US started to have difficulties in paying bills in gold. Nixon decided to take the US dollar off the gold standard and made it illegal for people to directly exchange dollars for gold. By doing this, the US could print their way out of debt simply by printing money as much as they wanted and needed without being backed by gold. Because of this, today’s inflation started to take off.

Deadliest Sin #3 – Printing Money out of Nothing

As the US kept pumping money into the economy, inflation took off. Prices of everything went up. More and more people became millionaires because home prices won’t stop climbing. Getting credit was easy and people received credit cards easily in their mails. Blinded by greed more and more people have too much debt and not enough cash.

The Federal Reserve is likely to continue printing money out of nothing, pumping trillions of dollars into the economy, causing hyperinflation and pushing prices of all goods and assets up. The value of the dollar continues to plummet and gold price will shoot up. Some forecasters say that gold will cost about US$2,000 by the end of 2010.

Deadliest Sin #4 – Punishing Workers and Investors, Rewarding Borrowers

When Obama passed his health care bill, he imposed a payroll tax on investment income. People who make investments will be taxed for the passive income they earn. There is a strange habit in the United States that taxes people who work through huge income taxes and also people who invest and start businesses in favor of the poor. But people who borrow for consumption have it easy because this is what the bankers want and through debt is how the bankers make money and become even richer.

The result is the years of easy credit when people have credit cards in their mail easily, and subprime borrowers are mushrooming throughout the country. Poor people are getting mortgage loans they can not afford to buy the American dream, a propaganda to get the American people into debt and profiteering bankers.

Deadliest Sin #5 – Robbing People of Their Wealth

The ultra rich that have the whole country in their palm also have their hands in the pockets of every American. The 4 ways they reach into people’s pocket and rob them off their wealth are through taxes, debt, inflation and retirement accounts. By robbing people like this, the poor stay poor, the middle class slowly disappear and the ultra rich, the few men controlling the money and banking system in the US, are getting richer. When there is a lack of middle class people in a country, when there is only the poor on one side and the ultra rich on the other, the country is categorized as a third world nation. This is what America is currently heading to.

Deadliest Sin #6 – Keeping People Blind about Money

It is not a coincidence that children are not being taught about money and personal finance in school despite the fact that “money” plays a big role in everybody’s life, regardless of age, gender or social-economic status. It is to keep them financially dumb. The rich teach every average American to go to school, find a good job, save money, invest in stocks and prepare for retirement. It is not for the benefit of the people. It is for the profit of the rich.

While that is what they are teaching everybody, they teach their own children a completely different set of rules about money so that they may become even richer. Keeping the masses blind about money is to make sure that they have a steady flow of employees every year who are constantly in need for money so the rich can generate their own income from other people’s work.

Deadliest Sin #7 – Applying Crony Capitalism

Crony capitalism is a description of a capitalist society that is based on the close relationship between businessmen and the government. Instead of success being determined by a free market and the rule of law, the success of a business is dependent on the favoritism that is shown to it by the ruling government in the form of tax breaks, government grants and other incentives.

The US economic system is so embedded in the crony capitalism now that even if you interfere with it, you will have a crisis. However, if you don’t interfere at all, you will still have a repeated and intensified crisis anyways as it happened to Indonesia under Soeharto. So either way, America is toast. If America does not do anything about this, it will become a mess as it has been with Indonesia back then.

http://www.myloansconsolidated.com/2010/04/10/7-deadliest-sins-causing-the-american-empire-collapse/

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by Shane Musgrove (from Tenth Amendment Center)

Some say that you can “vote with your feet” – a phrase popularized by Ronald Reagan (most often taken out of context) in 1976 and a philosophy some attribute to Ayn Rand which was alluded to in Atlas Shrugged. Nevertheless, taken for only the meaning of the phrase in itself, it is questionable whether that philosophy exists today or if it is even plausible. Others say, “All politics are local,” a catchphrase quote from Democrat Thomas O’Neill. However catchy these phrases might be, they are hardly true if we stare realism in the face.

Evidence of this can be seen in the back room dealings, the handling of legislation of the House and Senate, and the constant push against the will of the people. Last week, I watched a live vote on C-Span of the health-care reform bill and was appalled by the remarks, demeanor, and the political bribes that surrounded this legislation. Who was it that said “transparency?”

That is a joke – nothing more than a campaign ad to gain power along with the slogan of change and hope. Pelosi, Reid and Obama have no such knowledge of the meaning of transparency. What they do know better than anything is “agenda.” For all the Democrats that are waiting to come after me, let me go ahead and say the Republicans have shown the same tactics, so the matter is not unprecedented on either side.

So, the votes were cast – just a little over enough for a win. Slightly fishy, as I am sure Pelosi knows who is up for a tough race for their seat and who is not. This is an obvious sign that this bill is highly unpopular. I would love to say all this came as a surprise, but it doesn’t – not now, not in this era. The federal government voting against the will of the people in order to fulfill their own wishes and desires is now the common trend. Whether you believe this legislation is right or wrong, you cannot negate the fact that an overwhelming majority of the public was against it.

Are there problems with our health care system? Yes, absolutely. Did the majority of people believe this was the answer? The answer: simply no. Argue with the data, not me. Therefore, the trust in our federal government dwindles and again the approval rating of the Congress drops even lower. As stated last week, give them all ten points of standard deviation and they are viewed as an utter failure by the majority.

They cannot run a Social Security program, the US Postal Service, Medicaid, Medicare, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, yet they can run a health care system? To the non-believers – do you not love paying Social Security taxes every two weeks? And to what end? Long ago a promise was made that this money would be placed in a trusted fund; not so – spent, disappeared, and we have still racked up a massive debt. China is on its way to owning the United States. Wherever you stand on the aisles of politics, common logic should say you cannot spend what you do not have no matter how good you think it might be.

If the money is not there, it simply is not there. Bluntly speaking, the money is not there unless you want to steal from the rich and possibly the middle class, which is simply socialism. If you have doubts that it is socialism, read Marx. The underlying tenant of Marx’s political philosophy: redistribution of wealth from beginning to end. Simply stated, stealing what people have worked hard for because others feel that they are entitled to something. Hope for a utopian society? Not in this life.

Maybe you want this and maybe you do not. My assumption is that the many hard working American’s do not. Why would they? Another assumption: those who do not want to work and earn want things handed to them on a silver platter as if they are due to be paid something. Any reasonable person should know that no one in this life is entitled to anything. What do we deserve? At most, we should embrace charity and help those in need – not mandates from an ever increasing federal government.

What is next? No one knows with certainty, but I believe the smiles on Obama’s, Pelosi’s, and Reid’s face will soon change. Yet, another power monger will step in to fill their shoes no matter what party wins the favor of the people. That is, unless we can truly say, “All politics are local.” However, this requires the will of the people and the power of the states and a certain degree of boldness regarding state rights.

Thomas Jefferson once had the fortitude to stand against this and established the doctrine of nullification as he opposed an overreaching federal government in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798. A profound statement by Jefferson:

“I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people. To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.”

Therefore, a line is drawn in the sand between the Congress, the States, and the will of the people. Of course, men of valor comparable to Jefferson must be elected at the state level and this solely depends on the people and a gallant effort to bring power back to the states. To this end, it might be plausible that soon we can all confidently say, “All politics are local” and you may truly have the ability to “vote with your feet.” If the majority of a state wants it, let it be – let them say yes. If they do not, let it be – let them say nay and adopt the doctrine of nullification. Only then will power rest in the hands of the states and the people, which happens to be their diminishing tenth amendment constitutional right.

This diminishing tenth amendment right is a breaking point that we undoubtedly reached long ago. And to that I quote Thomas Jefferson:

“Whensoever the General Government assumes un-delegated powers, its acts are un-authoritative, void, and of no force.”

If you’re thinking about starting a business — or even keeping one afloat in this economy — don’t be discouraged by the climate. If anything, find inspiration in the fact that — no matter what happens — things will turn around eventually. Of course, eventually could be a long time, so you should prepare for an extended winter — especially considering the reckless irresponsibility with which our leaders are handling our currency and our banking industry. But once it’s over, the new generation of industrialists will come from small-business thinkers who knew how to stay lean and efficient when times were tough.

Times have changed. Believe it or not, the Internet is still in its infancy, and I promise you it’s not going away. If you don’t own a computer, or if you don’t know how to navigate the World Wide Web, it goes with out saying that you’re already at a serious disadvantage. Of course, if you’re reading this, that probably means you have at least a modicum of computer skills. Still, computing and networking have defined the last fifteen years of business, and yet, what we’ve seen so far will be nothing compared to the next 20 years.

I’ve prepared a list of useful tips any entrepreneurial spirit should keep in the forefront of his brain as he weathers this economic crisis.

1. If you don’t know web design and web development, you better find someone who does. Do you know the difference between (X)HTML and CSS? Would you be able to interface with a database using PHP? Can you create an image, logo, or animated presentation using Adobe CS4? If not, you need to partner with someone who can.

   I don’t need to tell you this, but the internet is the place people go first to find what they need, and it has been that way for some time. If you aren’t presenting yourself in the cleanest, easiest-to-read, friendliest, and eye-grabbing way, then you’re going to lose. Period. It’s the new frontier, and you need to be at its cusp.




2. SEO, SEO, SEO. It stands for “search engine optimization,” and that’s exactly what it is — an entire industry whose purpose is to make sure that you, your name, your business, your product, your service, and your reputation are available to as many eyes as possible on the internet. It’s not an exact science, but it’s not wizardry either. And above everything else, it’s not easy.

   
   

   SEO specialists spend years trying to understand the intricate complexities of search engine do’s and don’t’s, and if you truly optimize your presence on the internet, you can drive traffic like nothing you can possibly imagine. But it takes patience, dedication, and consistency. If you think you know enough to do your own SEO, you’re probably just about 180 degrees wrong. Look into it, and once you understand just exactly how much you don’t understand, then find someone who does. It’s critical.




3. Social networking, social networking, social networking. If you think Twitter is a dirty word, and you think Facebook is something a woman carries her makeup in, you are in a lot of trouble. Social networking is the way people connect with each other now. It used to be that if you wanted to find someone, you did a Google search and crossed your fingers. Today, that’s no longer true. You want to find someone? Go to Facebook. With all the updating, connecting, chatting, and gossiping going on in social networking venues, you better understand that you need to be in the fray, promoting yourself. There’s no way around it. You’ll also need to familiarize yourself with LinkedIn and several other social/business networking sites.




4. Blog, blog, blog, blog… BLOG! Are you talented? Do you consider yourself an expert? Do people come to you to solve their problems? Of course they do! And for all these reasons, you are in business! Now go write about it.

   
   

   Do you know how much it costs to create a blog? Zero. That’s how much. You can use blogger, Drupal, Joomla, or my favorite — WordPress. Or, you can use any of the innumerable alternatives out there. Be creative, and tell the world how much you know about your specialty. And keep telling them… over, and over, and over again. Eventually, search engines will recognize your expertise too (especially if you correctly employ SEO), and they will help you find business.

   Remember, an article stays on the Internet forever (at least theoretically). So if you’re writing about yoga techniques today that will still be germane ten years from now, well, then your article could be performing the passive task of marketing for you indefinitely. What could be better than that? And as your reputation grows, so will your audience — and that’s when things go viral. So crack those knuckles, get in front of your keyboard, and write. And don’t stop until you’re rich.




5. TIE IT TOGETHER! As you get older, you’re going to accumulate more knowledge. You’ll learn different skills that transcend the original scope of your business, and you need to tie these skills together.

   
   

   I’m going to use myself as an example: when I began my career, I was a financial analyst. I’m great with numbers and math. But after I started my hedge fund, I found myself developing deep technological skills — including web development, SEO, web design, spreadsheet expertise, networking, database management, and programming of every imaginable sort. The next thing I knew, I was as good in these fields as I ever was as a financial analyst, and yet for years, I didn’t market those skills at all! Likewise, I became expert at marketing, writing, and presentation, and yet I did nothing about it.

   Eventually, however, I wrote a book and used my skills in all of these areas to find as much success as I possibly could — on all fronts. Today, I’ve brought it all together through blogs, web sites, marketing campaigns, and SEO. I know technology, so I write a technology blog at MyTechTool.com, and this helps my web-development, design, and SEO business (DesignOriginate.com). Likewise, I have leveraged my financial and economic knowledge into the content-driven site at BottomViolation.com.

   Finally, I have combined my book’s site — DisciplineNovel.com with my personal site — PacoAhlgren.com. And, of course, there’s Facebook and Twitter, which get updates every single day, no matter where the content comes from. The end result? It’s hard to visit one of my sites without having access to all the rest of them.

   One caveat: from an SEO perspective, it’s okay to create loose links between your various enterprises, but make sure those enterprises stand alone. Use tools like “nofollow” tags to ensure that search engines see each entity as unique and stand-alone.




6. Understand business. Okay, okay… this doesn’t have much to do with emerging technology, but it may be more important than anything else.

   
   

   So you’re a great chef! Isn’t that fabulous! You can prepare the meanest steak tartare east of Boise. Man, we are all just so impressed! But what do you know about A/R, A/P, credit terms, cost of carry, and inventory management? Nothing? Wonderful! Your business is statistically nearly guaranteed to fail!

   It doesn’t matter how good you are at what you do; the overwhelming majority of small business in this country fail because proprietors focus too exclusively on their talents, and not enough on the business of their business – much to the detriment of their cash flow. Enroll in some community college courses. Learn the basics of business and accounting. Believe me, you’ll thank me later.




7. Speaking of education. Do you know what the biggest search engine on earth is? Of course you do. It’s Google. But do you know what the second-biggest search engine is? It’s YouTube.

    

   Are you surprised? I was too, until I realized that YouTube is the ultimate online learning resource. Ever.

   I know — I just told you to enroll at a community college, and you are certainly welcome to do that. But why on earth would you spend $150 on a textbook — along with whatever tuition costs — when you can find anything and everything you could ever possibly want to know about accounting, cash flow management, taxes, employment costs, insurance, software, (or anything else) on YouTube? For free! Try it. You’ll be absolutely blown away at how much you can learn in such a short time.

   And the best part? There’s not some stupid sorority girl in the back row saying, “Do we have to know this for the test?”

Paco Ahlgren solves business problems. He is a financial analyst, economist, author, web-developer, designer, and SEO specialist in Austin, Texas. If that’s not enough, he’s also a single father (that’s the job he likes best).

If you’d like to contact him about how he can help you make your business run better, you can contact him at paco@designoriginate.com. Or you can visit his design | development site at www.DesignOriginate.com. Find out more about his book Discipline at www.DisciplineBook.com.

I know you probably don’t believe it; you’ve heard it all before, and yet everything has turned out okay, hasn’t it? Sure! If “okay” means a failing currency, hyperinflation, a systematic destruction of the middle class, and the end of the United States’ role as the world’s preeminent financial power — and, indeed, its role as a sovereign nation. Yep. Things are just great.

In reality, of course, things are awful — and they’re only getting worse.

The United States Constitution and Bill of Rights were written — not for those in power, but for those not in power. These are social contracts designed to limit the amount of influence wielded by any human being, or group of human beings. These contracts were created to specifically to prevent the use of complex rhetoric and emotional appeals as masks for depriving people of their liberty. Unfortunately, the documents have failed.

The Soviet Union disintegrated because it was not financially solvent — nor could it be. Central planning doesn’t work. Nonetheless, it took over half a century — and the loss of tens of millions of innocent lives — for the evil empire to collapse. How did they do it? By lying and keeping their citizens uninformed. And it worked for a while, but eventually information got through anyway, and the people would no longer have any of it.

China was much wiser. Sure, they’re a gargantuan centralized communist power, but they’re also smart enough to see what happened to the Soviets. As such, they have embraced capitalism — and even encouraged it — slowly breaking down the imperative to centralize, and providing for a great deal of autonomy among its citizenry and markets. Granted, China seems to be trying to monitor and suppress information — mostly on the internet — but does anyone really believe they’re having any success? The news channels love the story: Insidious, Oppressive Government Seeks to Censor Its Population. Really? Come on. The reality of the Internet is that it is — by design — made to circumvent impediments. The Chinese can’t block the internet! Anybody with even a cursory knowledge of the world wide web can easily find ways to get around any silly governmental attempts to limit information.

Ah, the Internet… the ultimate weapon against propagandist tyranny and oppression. The Chinese know this. They’re not really trying to block the internet; they’re just trying to assert their authority as a paternalistic entity. No; the Chinese are rolling with the punches, and they’re doing a far better job than the United States.

And that brings me to the point of this article. Everyone knows the dollar is failing. Everyone knows hyperinflation is coming. Everyone knows the American consumer is broke, and the government has more debt than any nation in history. The United States federal government flushed the Constitution and the Bill of Rights down the toilet last month when it passed Obamacare — the most unconstitutional piece of legislation ever seen in this country. And while this reform is abjectly, and obviously a blow to everything our great republic once stood for, this is by no means the first time our contracts with our government have been ignored.

As far back as Abraham Lincoln’s tenure as our nation’s Commander-in-chief, executive powers have been flagrantly abused. Indeed, the entire Civil War was an illegal act on the part of the Union — an abusive and irresponsible campaign that relied on the politicization of every topic du jour, and ultimately cost the country over 620,000 lives. And why did this happen? Because some states wanted to exercise their right to leave the Union. What an unbelievable tragedy…

Unfortunately, Lincoln’s unprecedented tyrannical behavior set the stage for a string of equally offensive abuses. You don’t believe me? Where in the Constitution did the Founding Fathers provide for the creation of the following:

1. Social Security?

2. The Federal Reserve?

3. The CIA?

4. The FBI?

5. The NSA?

6. Medicare?

7. Medicaid?

8. National health care?

I’m sure many of you have bought into the rhetoric vomited out of Washington D.C. over the last 150 years — phrases like “national security” and “executive privilege” and “times of crisis.” I, however, have not. These organizations and programs (along with so many more) are illegal. They are oppressive, expensive insults to our freedom and to the very growth of knowledge. Americans have used these organizations to circumvent the core imperatives of the very documents that made the United States of America — ignoring, and even decrying the most fundamental and yet important philosophies contained therein.

These documents were not created to be hung on a wall and forgotten; no, they were created to protect the Rights of Man. But it goes further than that. These documents were created by the minds of people like Thomas Jefferson — building on the foundations created by revolutionary philosophers like John Stuart Mill — not to protect the rights of some men, but of all human beings. Yes, you may wish to fall back on the institution of slavery — an institution loathed by Jefferson and many of his colleagues. Indeed, Jefferson fought hard to write the end of slavery into the tenets that would guide our nation. He was a champion of individuality and freedom, and while the tide of opinion ultimately prevented success in that regard, it is a vacuous argument to suggest that Jefferson and his ilk were champions of slavery. They were not. They were early revolutionaries whose ideas clashed with the tide public opinion at the time — and yet they somehow laid the foundation for universal human freedom going forward.

And now, all of their painstaking work is being threatened by the likes of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, and Paul Krugman.

Our leaders seem to have forgotten about the principles of freedom. When Jefferson was president, he answered the door to the White House personally, and walked alone through the streets of Washington, D.C. Why? Because he didn’t believe his office was powerful enough to warrant a threat to his safety. My, how things have changed.

The U.S. now fights wars all over the globe — wars in which it has no business engaging. Our citizens have tortured other human beings, and our leaders have condoned the behavior! Does that sound like something Jefferson would have approved of?

The United States government will now try to perpetuate its policies by oppressing its own people. And because the legal challenges to the flagrant abuse of the Constitution will almost certainly be dismissed and ignored, the government’s oppression will succeed. For a little while.

Unfortunately, the days of Soviet-style information suppression really are gone for good. The United States government actually invented the internet many decades ago, and I wonder if the minds behind this revolutionary and ubiquitous technology realized it would mean their own undoing? Yes, the U.S. will react to the second wave of the economic crisis with characteristic and militaristic oppression. But it won’t work this time, because people are simply too informed. And you have but to turn on the television to take notice of the growing tide of human beings joining “tea parties” all over the world. We have not forgotten the purpose of the original event, and no amount of propaganda or twisted politicization will succeed in stemming the flood of information available to almost every human being on earth.

I will leave you with this thought: the United States of America is no longer a constitutional republic — simply because, we no longer have a Constitution. None of the elements conspiring to bring us to the current economic crisis were conceived out of respect for the aforementioned social contract — whose purpose was to stop these actors in the first place. And that leaves us with an extremely important and nagging question: if we are no longer a constitutional republic, then what are we? It sounds like a question Roman citizens probably asked themselves over 2000 years ago, as the slow, painful decline of their own empire began with the suffocation of the democratic principles on which it was founded.

But, of course, the Romans didn’t have the Internet. And that changes everything.

Paco Ahlgren

www.BottomViolation.com

This is the third chapter – Jefferson – in the (somewhat) weekly audio book series Discipline, read by the author, Paco Ahlgren. Click the link below to listen:

Chapter 3 – Jefferson – Discipline by Paco Ahlgren.mp3

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Click here to listen to previous chapters…

According to the Obama Administration, the U.S. deficit will reach $18.6 trillion by 2020. Now let me ask you this: when has an administrattion ever underestimated a deficit?

And to move things even further into the red,  let’s talk about U.S. debt. What do you think is going to happen when all these obligations finally come due? Do you think we’re just going to whip out a credit card and transfer the balance at a “special introductory rate?” I don’t think the Chinese are offering that sort of incentive. In fact, I think they’re laughing as they devise their usury. Oh, and by the way, Obama, as you’re trying to complete your image as the next FDR, remember this: fighting Chinese is not going to be the same thing as fighting Germans and Japanese:

1. There are over 1 billion Chinese who would like nothing better than the re-visit the Korean conflict. You can pull out all the technologically advanced weaponry you like. Then start counting to 1 billion. Let me know how that goes.

2. The Chinese don’t have any debt. The United States does.

3. Nukes? I don’t think so.

4. Texas won’t stick around. Neither will Alaska, California, Florida, Canada, or Mexico.

5. The U.S. is fighting two unwinnable wars of aggression already. Stupid. Fatuous.

6. Chinese are used to being poor. U.S. consumers are used to being union-card-carrying spoiled brats.

Can someone please tell me what confluence of conditions has brought so much stupidity together with so much hubris in the United States? We deserve everything that’s about to happen to us. Hell, even I’m not safe, and I’m short the United States in every meaningful way possible. I’m sure I’ll be the first against the wall — labeled a traitor and a heretic.

After all, isn’t that how the statists and propagandists work?

Paco Ahlgren

www.BottomViolation.com