PM's Self Reliance Tools: We've Become a Nation of Serfs in the New World Order

Poor Man Survival

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A Digest of Urban Survival Resources

A Nation of Serfs in the New World Order

We’ve become a nation of lowered expectations. For the first time in several generations we no longer believe our children will live a better life than we do.

At no time in our history have so many citizens held such a low view of Congress and our national leaders. Voting, for the most part, has been a waste of time for the past 50 years.

Despite endless political promises from either party, we’ve seen our rights diminished, the cost of living increase dramatically and a never-ending crush of costly and unjust rules, regulations and laws which have robbed us of our privacy, our world ranking in free enterprise and the American way of life.

For the most part there is no longer a social contract between corporations and workers and many Fortune 500 firms don’t even pay their fair share of taxes. They have shifted that burden to what is left of the middle class while parking record profits overseas.

The following is my opinion on how our nation works today.

The Fed, Bankers [multi-national and federal chartered]

· Controls the money supply. Formerly, the Treasury Dept. controlled our money. Now the Fed ‘loans’ the government fiat money and charges interest, creating an artificial national debt and inflation. We’ve lost 40% of the value of a dollar since 2005 and 95% since the Fed was created.

· The IRS and the income tax on individuals [created at about the same time]. The IRS acts as its collection agent. After the IRS was created, most states duplicated the process to collect money from citizens. Citizens are collateral for the money the Fed lends to the government which is why we’re all assigned a Social Security number at birth.

Corporate Cartels-An average of five corporations control everything.

EXAMPLES

FOOD=Nestle, General Foods, Kraft

PHARMACEUTICAL=Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Astra Seneca

MEDIA=Time-Life Warner, ABC

The Military-Industrial Complex controls the defense industry and the surveillance industry [both domestic and international], aircraft, etc.

When profits need boosting, we wage another war or the equipment and spy technology is further sold to governments to be used against our own citizenry.

Beginning in the 1960s corporations managed to ‘persuade’ politicians to shift the tax burden from corporate America to the Middle Class. By the mid-1980s corporations began shedding their social contract with workers by offshoring jobs and factories and eliminating pensions and other perks and by lowering wages.

Corporations such as WalMart and McDonalds’ subsidize their profits by offering low wage jobs and by encouraging its workforce to apply for government assistance [food stamps, medical care].

The Political Elite

Politics have proven very profitable for many. Insider stock trading among members of Congress has been very lucrative. Perks provided by special interest groups are often lavish and there has been no slowdown in this form of bribery despite rhetoric to the contrary.

The Clintons and President Obama along with the Bush family, the Kennedy family and many others have reaped large rewards for their activities which is why so many scrabble so hard to remain in one office or the other. Mrs. Clinton even went so far as to move to another state in order to continue feeding at the public trough. Pensions and other perks for politicians are highly lucrative despite the lack of anything meaningful returned to the people.

THE RESULT

By 2008 America had lost roughly 10-15% of its middle class. President Clinton eliminated laws that kept Wall Street in check, effectively turning Wall Street into a casino which ultimately crashed and had to be bailed out by cash strapped consumers who had previously paid for the bailout of the Savings and Loan industry, and eventually General Motors.

Taxpayers were rewarded with additional offshoring, weak wages and no benefits. Many consumers foolishly ran their household budgets as if they were the government, using home equity to ‘buy up’ into more expensive homes and live the ‘good life,’ which ultimately could not be supported by lack of decent jobs.

The Decline of Entrepreneurship in the USA

One path to financial independence and job creation in the United States has been small business. Unfortunately, government red tape and over regulation has discouraged business startups here and we’ve actually dropped to number 13 in terms of free enterprise. New Zealand, and several Asian countries now lead in small business creation.

What’s left of living wage middle class jobs?

The bulk of such jobs are taxpayer supported occupations such as law enforcement, fire and emergency services, teachers and administrators, and bureaucrats at every level of government. These are the only sectors which still offer generous health and retirement benefits, paid holidays and vacations.

The majority of new jobs that Obama brags about are low paying service jobs.

Occupations such as medical and legal still offer a living wage but it has become more difficult to maintain a middle class lifestyle because of insurance costs and shrinkage of benefits to workers and most lawyers rely on government work, property and casualty claims against insurance firms or class action style lawsuits against ‘deep pocket’ opponents.

During the time that blue collar and white collar jobs are being decimated, we’ve seen a large rise in the working poor, families who are working, often two jobs but unable to afford the high cost of living now associated with the United States. In California for instance, it is estimated a bare-bones lifestyle for a family of four is nearly $47,000.

Personally, more of my outgo is dedicated to government taxes and mandated costs [auto insurance for one] than for anything else. Government at every level nicks taxpayers…all of our utilities, our phones, our water, our fuel, etc. is taxed. Although we live frugally, no mortgage, no credit cards, no fancy vacations, drive a 10-year old vehicle, no fancy cell phones, etc. – supporting government is our largest annual expense.

Our antiquated and complex tax system has evolved into a scheme to reward and punish rather than fund legitimate government activities. For more than a decade I have maintained we need a system wide overhaul where the first $25,000 of income is not taxed at ANY level and that Fortune 1000 firms and foreign entities operating in the USA need to pay their fair share.

This is unlikely to ever take place so long as corporate America is able to buy and sell politicians just like any other commodity.

As a college education becomes more unaffordable and less meaningful I see a continued decline for this country…a nation of serfs who don’t have the gumption to question authority and insane rules and regulations.

Frankly, I find it disgusting that we live in such adversarial times, us against them. I suspect our children are deliberately being dummied down [despite large expenditures] in our public school systems. Today, few college grads are able to pass school exams routinely given to 8^th graders from 1912.

Coming next: Government Stupidity: The Never Ending Story

Yours for a life fulfilled

[or,is the future useless]?

Bruce ‘the Poor Man’