Go Ahead, Make Our Day

by: J. Kowalski

 

 

The Obama Administration has resurrected the notion of a per-mile tax on driving our cars. An attempt of this nature would be a 21^st century Intolerable Act. Installing a federal tracking device of any sort on our cars and then using it to tax the miles we drive would probably produce an outrage and backlash unlike anything we've seen yet, and I eagerly welcome the Federal Government to try it. It could truly be "a bridge too far" for the forces of the statists.

Naturally, the bill has only been "floated" in order to gauge reaction and shield the President from inevitable negative backlash to such an endeavor, but the attempt offers further proof of the lengths our government will go to tax and control our lives and habits. Motivation for this idea could range from simply "raising highway revenue" to yet another attempt by our betters in Washington D.C. to shape our behavior to their liking. All are unacceptable.

A mileage tracking device could function in two ways that I as a non-technical layman could envisage though I don't doubt the resourcefulness of Big Brother to come up with many more methods.  The first way would be similar to the radio frequency identification technology used by major shipping companies and the United States Military to track and locate trucks and consigned shipments.  In brief, a tag on a vehicle or package passes an interrogator, which feeds the information to a network and a central database allowing people to see where a given object is.  An active system on a given vehicle could communicate to the network and tally mileage each time a vehicle passed an interrogator.

The second, and more likely, would be some sort of event recorder on each vehicle that would add miles to a balance taxed at the end of the year or added to the bill each time you gassed the vehicle.

Either way, it would represent a massive intrusion into the lives of our citizens.  While it seems most of the population is tragically medicated into uncaring stupors by garbage television and the fact that relatively speaking, our lives are still good and lost liberties aren't noticed yet, perhaps the time, cost, and general distastefulness of being forced to add any kind of federally mandated tracking device would wake more people up to the evolving evil of Washington D.C.

You could argue that most people do already carry tracking devices, and that this isn't a very big deal.  Cell phones, PDAs, On Star and other navigation systems all allow tracking of some sort, but all are privately owned devices and systems, and personal data is protected by the 4^th Amendment.  A device that would probably be owned by the government, providing tracking data to the government, for potentially unknown uses by the government, is an entirely different story. This should send any real civil libertarian into convulsions, and just might help some of us hitherto sheep-like Americans find their inner colonial revolutionary.

The Intolerable Acts of 1774 were so onerous, and so odious that the colonies were galvanized and the first Continental Congress was called.  The increasingly hostile attitude of the king and his increasingly egregious acts turned more people to the patriot cause, loyalists and moderates of the time found it increasingly difficult to justify support of the Crown or Parliament, and the nation came together before tyranny to bring us the American Revolution.

The implementation of a Federal mileage tax would be identified as a 21^st century Intolerable Act, and would meet similar resistance among the population just like the Boston Port Act, or the earlier Stamp Act or tea tax.  For a more recent example, consider prohibition.  While prohibition wasn't a tax issue, it was unpopular, unenforceable, and ended.  The mileage tax would be blessedly foolish for the progressives to attempt.  Their strategy always revolves around class warfare, pitting the "haves"" against the "have nots."  A uniform mileage tax would hit everyone in their pocketbooks and let the dependent and protected classes feel the pinch of their statist saviors equally.

A mileage tax could incite a peaceable tax revolt and help add to the already lengthy list of reasons to be rid of progressives and statists. The proposal would expose the Federal tyranny for what it is to Americans who never noticed before as few things affect us as universally as when someone messes with our cars.

Imagine the resourcefulness Americans would employ to dodge this tax.  Go ahead, try to place some sort of device in every vehicle in America; see how fast they all accidentally get hit with electromagnets, high voltage, or other unfortunate accidents.  Watch speedometer cables disconnect themselves, watch the young and typically liberal computer geeks of America turn their attention to the destruction of whatever network the government builds to enforce their tax.  Watch auxiliary gas tanks get installed on one vehicle in order to fill others, watch gas cans get filled for lawnmowers every single time a vehicle goes in for a fill.  Watch resourceful red state country boys pull the old pickups from behind their outbuildings and drive them unregistered across the great expanses of flyover country.  The less resourceful and more effete urbanites on the coasts and in Illinois who insist on forcing this sort of tyranny upon the rest of us would have none of these options and be most affected, forcing them to either pay, or stop voting for big brother.  Watch how much more time, money, and effort the program would end up costing the government than it would make. Imagine how much time and money would be spent attempting to deal with scofflaws, and how difficult it would be to prove that each destroyed tracking device wasn't really an accident.

The automobile, the freedom of the open road, and the anonymity of our nation's vast expanse of highways may just be the one thing that most if not all Americans have in common. A mileage tax might finally be an intrusion that might awake enough of us from our stupors to stand up and fight.

To our betters in D.C, please, implement the mileage tax. Continue to expose yourselves for the collectivists and totalitarians you aspire to be. Please give us another reason to demand our states regain their power and protect us from the central tyranny. Please, give us another reason to fight you in court. Please, get the loyalists off the fence, pass the Intolerable Act. You've already awoken the productive, tax-paying, flag waving silent majority, "the sleeping giant" -do this and you'll rally the indecisive villagers to his side and help bring your own house down.

Go ahead, make our day.

J. Kowalski is the pen name of a United States Military officer

 

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/05/go_ahead_make_our_day.html

Food and Energy Inflation is Not Transitory

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernake on Wensday held his first press conference in history. The press conference took place shortly after the Fed announced its decision to leave the Fed Funds Rate at a record low of 0% to 0.25%, where it has been for an unprecedented 28 months. The U.S. economy is flooded with U.S. dollars and is close to overdosing on excess liquidity. The fact that our financial markets are not falling on the possibility of the Fed not unleashing QE3 immediately at the end of QE2, shows that we could be on the verge of hyperinflation with or without QE3.

The Federal reserve currently has a mandate of both maintaining price stability and facilitating job creation. However, central banks don't have the ability to create real employment. If any jobs happen to be created as a result of a central bank's policies, they are only temporary jobs created due to the errors and distortions of phony asset bubbles. All phony asset bubbles that are fueled by monetary inflation eventually burst, sending unemployment through the roof.

Almost every major central bank besides the Federal Reserve, understands the truth about job creation, and has a mandate that focuses solely on keeping price inflation low. The Bank of Japan, Swiss National Bank, Bank of Canada and the bank of New Zealand all have mandates that are entirely about low inflation and don't even mention the creation of jobs or the rate of employment. Bernanke said on Wednesday that, "while it is very, very important for us to try to help the economy create jobs and to support the recovery, I think every central banker understands that keeping inflation low and stable is absolutely essential to a successful economy."

Bernanke has decided to go down a route that no central banker has ever gone before. Bernanke has literally invented countless ways to create inflation that nobody else has ever thought of. If keeping inflation low was ever Bernanke's slightest concern, the Fed Funds Rate would currently be north of 5% and the U.S. economy would be in a steep recession. Bernanke has never once thought about keeping inflation low. He has literally implemented every measure he could possibly think of to create as much inflation as possible, while outright lying to the American public and saying that he isn't printing money and that inflation is under control.

Bernanke would like the public to believe that his policies of expanding the money supply through cheap and easy money will cause the U.S. economy to recover and unemployment to decline back to pre-crisis levels, and that right before price inflation spirals out of control, he can raise interest rates and prevent massive price inflation without disrupting the recovery. Unfortunately, this is impossible because the recovery isn't real and massive price inflation is already here. Bernanke's policies may have created 1 million artificial jobs since December of 2009, after 8.75 million jobs were lost in the previous two years, but he did this at the expense of 310 million Americans already seeing double-digit percentage increases in food and energy prices.

Since after the real estate burst in late-2008, the primary economic concern of Americans has been finding a stable job in order to make mortgage payments and put food on the table. Under the pressure of Congress, the Fed printed enough money to prevent a much needed recession that would be healthy for the long-term U.S. economy. In its attempt to reinflate the Real Estate bubble, the Fed has been destroying the free market and creating new economic distortions, which caused an artificial bounce in the rate of employment. Unfortunately, when you add together the money the Fed has either printed or committed for bailouts and stimulus programs, over $4 million has been spent for each job created. The Fed would have been better off just crediting the bank accounts of unemployed Americans with the average U.S. income.

When asked about rising gas prices, NIA is very happy that Chairman Bernanke acknowledged that gas prices "have risen quite significantly" and are "creating a great deal of financial hardship for a lot of people". Bernanke admitted that gas is a "necessity" as "people need to drive to work" for the artificial jobs Bernanke created at a cost of $4 million per job. However, Bernanke seemed to be confused when he said "higher gas prices add to inflation". The truth is, Bernanke's zero percent interest rates and quantitative easing are the inflation, and inflation leads to higher gas prices.

Bernanke is directly responsible for gas prices rising back to $3.87 per gallon, yet refuses to admit it. Bernanke placed the blame on the growing global and emerging market economies and their strong demand for oil. He said that America's demand for oil is going down, which NIA believes is actually due to the U.S. dollar losing its purchasing power and Americans seeing their standard of living decline. Bernanke said there is nothing that he can do about rising oil and gas prices "without derailing growth entirely". The truth is, Bernanke already derailed growth entirely when he derailed the free market. It is impossible to see real economic growth when a government and central bank is interfering in every aspect of the economy and impeding the free market in every possible way. All nominal GDP growth in the U.S., along with growth in retail sales, is solely due to inflation. Even when the government adjusts GDP and retail sales growth to the rate of inflation, it is based off of the consumer price index, which NIA believes is currently understating price inflation by approximately 4%.

Although Bernanke denies he has the ability to reduce gas prices, he claims he can prevent "gas prices from passing into other prices and wages throughout the economy and creating a broader inflation which will be much more difficult to extinguish." Bernanke obviously doesn't want Americans to see higher wages because he believes it could lead to broader inflation, but NIA believes rising wages would be a good thing. Inflation hurts Americans most when the rate of inflation is far outpacing wage increases. The fact is, the U.S. is already experiencing broad inflation even without wage increases.

Bernanke's brand new favorite word as of late seems to be "transitory", which he used about a dozen times during his press conference. Despite what Bernanke says, NIA strongly believes that rising food and gas prices are not transitory. Bernanke likes the word "transitory" because he can use it to try and pretend that rising food and gas prices are only just a temporary phenomenon and that their current high levels aren't here to stay. Many Americans can remember the day 40 years ago when a can of Coca-Cola cost a dime and a Hershey chocolate bar cost a nickel, with a gallon of gas back then costing only thirty-five cents. Have rising food and gas prices over the past four decades been transitory?

NIA first predicted two years ago in its documentary 'Hyperinflation Nation', that rising food and gas prices would soon become the primary concern of all American citizens as a result of the Fed's dangerous and destructive monitary policies. Bernanke back then claimed that inflation would not be a problem and said that the U.S. risked deflation. If Bernanke has been so wrong about the inflation that Americans are faced with today, NIA doesn't see how anybody can possibly believe that Bernanke will be right and that current high food and gas prices aren't here to stay. In our opinion, the food and gas price inflation that Americans have experienced over the past 40 years, is likely to occur all over again during the next 4 years. NIA believes that 4 years from now, Americans will look back at the good old days of having cheap $4 a gallon gas.

The last thing the U.S. government wants is for the American public to realize that Bernanke is responsible for rising food and gas prices. If the public demanded to end the Federal Reserve, the government will no longer be able to spend recklessly knowing that the Fed will be there to monetize their deficit spending. In an attempt to make up excuses for rising gas prices and deflect attention away from the Fed, Congress has been pressuring the U.S. Attorney General to investigate the matter. Attorney General Eric Holder just announced the formation of the Oil and Gas Price Fraud Working Group. The stated purpose of this working group is to monitor the oil and gas markets for potential violations of criminal or civil laws to safeguard against unlawful consumer harm.

NIA considers this to be complete insanity. Any government interference in the oil markets will only drive oil prices up even higher. Oil prices are rising solely do to supply and demand. Demand is going through the roof because the Federal Reserve is creating a lot of inflation, and inflation always gravitates to the goods that Americans need the most to live and survive. Oil supplies are falling because President Obama has ordered U.S. troops to occupy Libya. In the past we at least made up excuses to invade countries like Iraq over oil by claiming they had weapons of mass destruction. Today, the U.S. government doesn't even bother. Obama campaigned as an anti-war President, saying he would bring our troops home from the middle-east. Instead, he has increased our middle-east troop levels, and the sheep who voted for him are showing absolutely no signs of outrage.

http://inflation.us/

Don't Like a Weak Dollar? Might as Well Get Used to It

It only seems like yesterday that you were a tin foil hat wearing nut job if you dared speak of the day when the US dollar would collapse. Well my friends, those days are long gone, for I give you the following article courtesy of CNBC. It's nice to see them finally discussing the death of the dollar, it's just sad that it took them so long to show up to the party.

article by: Jeff Cox

Weakness in the US dollar, which is causing everything to go up—including gas prices, food and stocks—is unlikely to go away soon as a selling frenzy hits the currency market.

The greenback is approaching pre-financial crisis lows and threatening to smash through its all-time low when measured against the world's predominant national currencies.

A combination of factors accounts for the weakness, with the Federal Reserve's easy-money policies, huge national debts and deficits and the consequential possibility of a debt downgrade because of the financial mess in Washington leading the way.

In short, as trader Dennis Gartman noted Thursday, "the rout of the US dollar" is in full effect.

"Panic dollar selling is setting in," Gartman, a hedge fund manager and author of "The Gartman Letter," wrote in his daily commentary. "This may carry farther than any of us dream of or, worse, have nightmares of."

How low can it go?

Rick Bensignor, chief market strategist at Dahlman Rose in New York, said the dollar index , which measures the greenback against a basket of select other global currencies, has scant technical support "that has any meaning" between its present level and the historical low of 70.70.

That's a widely shared view, even as currency pros wonder how the dollar could be falling against the euro considering the near certainty of sovereign debt defaults in smaller European Union nations.

Gartman described the dollar as being in "serious jeopardy" because of its status against the euro, which was defended recently as European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet announced a rate hike in the zone.

No such defense is being offered in the US, where neither Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke nor most of the rest of the central bank's Open Market Committee seems much in the mood to raise rates despite the anemic dollar. Though the Fed is ostensibly apolitical, there is no pressure as well from the Obama administration to boost the dollar's value.

"If things were to somehow go into freefall or there were disorderly markets, or if it is associated with a rise in interest rates, there could be some concerns there," said Josh Feinman, chief global economist at Deutsche Bank Advisors. "But that's not happening at all. Rates in the US are still very, very low. At the margin, (a weak dollar) is a slight easing in financial conditions."

That, of course, is not the case for consumers buying food and energy. Some economists believe that a weak dollar is contributing heavily to the surge in prices at the pump, with one speculating that gas could reach $6 a gallon or beyond by summertime, given certain conditions.

Food prices also are on a steady climb higher. In both cases, a weak dollar is at least somewhat to blame as it drives commodities, which are priced in dollars and therefore cheaper and more attractive to speculators in the global marketplace.

But the stock market has enjoyed the weak dollar.

The Standard & Poor's 500 and the dollar have had almost a perfectly inverse relationship this year, with the stock index gaining just over 6 percent in 2011 and the dollar losing 6.5 percent.

"At the margins it helps US exporters, and the US importers probably also increase profits as they're repatriated," said David Resler, chief economist at Nomura Securities in New York. "I don't see the dollar as having a significant intermediate-run effect on the performance of the economy."

With Wall Street shaking off the dangers of a possible downgrade from S&P, the market is likely to prevail against any thought that it's time to start enacting policies that defend the currency.

The only thing on the horizon that appears to be dollar-friendly is the end of the second leg of the Fed's quantitative easing program—or QE2—in June.

Even then, the central bank is likely only to stop its $600 Treasury-buying operations. There are no indications that the Fed will be selling back into the marketplace any of the securities it has purchased, so a rise in rates is unlikely until inflation becomes more widespread and indicated through government economic metrics.

"That's probably just a warm-up for a QE 3 program later on. All these things are undermining the fundamentals for the dollar," said Sean Hyman, currency director for World Currency Watch. "It doesn't help anything that commodities keep going through the roof. There are a few dynamics working in a concerted effort all at once, and that's killing it."

http://www.cnbc.com/id/42703813