Wednesday, September 21, 2016

like rome


LIKE ROME
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note: for those with KU, "Shooter Galloway" by Roy F Chandler is quite excellent.  As are a lot of his other books.
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note: all those that caught my mixing Hi-Power with Hi-Point, thank you.  As embarrassing as it was, leaving as is would have been worse.
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I’m not going to get into all the aspects of collapse that all empires share.  Depleted soil, slavery, ruined economy, militarily weak, etcetera.  Today, I’d like to merely touch on the one thing you can clearly see and taste.  Taxation to the point of ruin for all the lower classes.  I used to be an adamant Libertarian ( before anthropology threw a wet blanket over that fantasy ) and read far and wide on the ways of our FedGov.  It wasn’t wasted effort since those facts come in handy now and again, but all it was good for at the time was to agitate the believers into political action.  Futile political action, obviously.  “If voting could change anything, it would be illegal”.  I’m not sure who said that but I believe it goes way back to the Great Depression/FDR time or even earlier with Girl Power/Women’s Righter’s.  Back in a more innocent and simple time, that just meant the one party system monopoly but sometime in the past, perhaps even prior to the Hanging Chad/Supreme Rubber Stamp Court fiasco, that was getting too expensive and so now they just fix the vote beforehand ( wonder why politicians are getting even worse?  The graft and bribes are decreasing along with the very need for their class and that shrinking pie is more viciously fought over ).

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So, hence explains the demise of any political party but especially the Libertarian.  Our Owners/Elites have complete control and could care less for your opinion, on your blog or in the editorials in the newspapers or in the voting booth.  Nobody willingly votes for more taxes for themselves and the level we now face is proof positive our votes don’t mean dingus.  I barely remember the thirty year old numbers, but it was insane the amount of taxes we paid on everyday items.  Taxes on cigarettes were 50%, alcohol about the same.  A loaf of bread was around 30%.  I think a take-out pizza was even more.  Everything is taxed at astonishingly high levels.  Take your 30% direct paycheck withholding, and then take most likely half of the remainder as hidden and indirect taxes just on consumer items.  Add in the recently doubled or tripled property tax.  Now the increased medical care costs that are a direct result of the Obammy UnAffordable Health UnCare Act.  Do you really think you get to keep more than about a fifth of your gross pay? 

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We think we are free because we get to pick which babbles to purchase with our remaining pay?  30% direct payroll withholding.  At least 50% of the remaining 70% in taxes on hidden fees and levies and taxes ( what, you don’t think your house cost has hidden taxes? How much do you think a raw lot of land is in building permits?  Hook-up fees? Not to mention materials and labor AND the extra you pay the banker monopoly AND the mandatory insurance ).  That is 65% right there.  Now add the increased property taxes and medical costs.  EASY another 15%.  80% might even be low-balling.  Here we are in the Oil Age which allowed the Industrial Age to take over the world, and we can’t keep more than 20% of our already low Stagnant-Since-The-70’s wages?  Where is the surplus going ( I could say it evaporated in our too low EROI current economy but I don’t want anyone blowing an ass gasket because I brought up Peak Oil )?

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Rome too increased taxes to an unbearable level, even as their currency decreased to near zero value, its military was stripped down to an ineffective force even as mercenaries were bribed to fight and it started to see environmental collapse leading to the inability to feed its overpopulated lands.  Slaves and serfs might not have even gotten 20% of their wages ( there were none to start-enough gruel to just barely replace the expended calories obviously doesn’t count ), but they also were not living off of an incredible oil bonanza that was an incomprehensible amount of surplus energy ( if I’m not mistaken, the figure I remember is one solitary barrel of oil is worth TEN YEARS of a mans labor in kilocalorie energy.  All the more astounding the world pumps 700 million man years of labor EVERY DAY.  How much of that is simply wasted to no good end?  You might burn a years worth of man labor just to run down to the store to buy a snack, which results in mere pennies of profits for all those benefiting from our system.  Think about that for more than two seconds.  Now multiply that to fit our population ).

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With a Niagara Falls of oil spewing from the ground constantly, it is still necessary to take 80% of the slaves wages JUST in taxes?  How much more obvious does it have to be that, one, not only are we in the End Days of collapse, but, two, it can only get worse as the oil pressure and volume fall?  Come on folks, you can’t Happy Optimism Glittery Unicorn Flatulence wish the obvious away.  We are just like Rome in the end times, WAY at the wrong end of the super long slow collapse certain someone’s can’t help but hawk as snake oil balm to the book buying public that shan’t be stampeded by Super UnHappy news.  Huge taxes and collapsing efficiency aren’t because we didn’t vote for Rush Limbaugh’s favorite politician, it is because the whole system cannot be saved and is in the last phase of collapse.  I understand that the band on the deck of the USS Titanic is taking requests, but you’ve heard the song enough times already.  Push that old fat bitch out of the lifeboat and start rowing.

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18 comments:

  1. Seeking clarification on the anthropology libertarian wet blanket. I'm still trying to figure out how the libertarian's got high jacked buy the guzillionairs.

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    1. Funny, I just wrote an article on the Libertarians. They were never hijacked, they serve the system of the gazillionaires by endorsing "free Market". That is money in the bankers pockets, without those pesky social obligation costs.

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    2. Nah, the gazillionaires like corporations so that they are responsible for the abuse they do to others for their money ("it's not my fault, I was just following orders of my higher-ups!" is nearly the definition of the corporate structure PLUS only the corporation can be sued not the employees (even CEO's and boards of directors) for what the fictional Corporation does.
      There is no free market, only a corporate market, fascist market, and communist market, in existence in the world today.
      Free markets have little to no regulations- maybe some against fraud, or pointing out individual responsibility, but not much more in the way or regulations, and NO CORPORATIONS only individuals who are responsible for their actions.
      Admittedly that is the hijacking the gazilionaires have done. They have polluted the term free markets with the thought everything about that refers to corporations...

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    3. Right, "free market" is just a religious icon used for fleecing the congregation.

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    4. Depends on who is discussing it, but in general yes, that is how the republicrats use it.
      A free market occurs between tribes - tribe A has fleece, tribe B has pork, neither is strong enough to just take the trade goods of the other so they voluntarily trade their excess with each other to their profit.
      Note that equivalent strength and roughly equivalent value is necessary for free trade, as is individual responsibility - if either tribe committed fraud they might well end up in a ruinous fight against the other.

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  2. I believe that the smart qualified people don't run for office, simply because they can foresee that train wreck a coming. No one with intelligence wants to captain the Titanic.

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    1. Plenty of smart, greedy people run for office to pillage prior to the ship sinking.

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  3. Fred On Everything wrote an excellent article on how to stick it to the leaching PTB. You might have already read it James, but if not, it's a must read. Won't help much in the area of PODA, but the advice will help to improve the time that you still have left.

    A Matter Of Allegiance
    And Why One Might Wisely Withold It

    http://fredoneverything.net/LiveWell.shtml

    To continue on the point that I made yesterday about making yourself as invisible as possible, and avoiding gun battles, I thought that I would add the short 2:30 minute video below. This is what everyone should be striving for, and it was done on a budget too. The only problem that I can see is that wooded land of the quality that he has would be expensive today.

    Invisible House - an Oehler structure

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3TZijmwZsQ

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    1. Wooded land certainly doesn't come close in affordability to desert, but desert land easily hides an underground shelter and can be away from civilization if desired.

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    2. My biggest regret James was not getting a larger plot of desert land. I'm not sure if it's possible to fully hide a subterranean dwelling on 2.5 acres should it ever build up in the area. At the time that I purchased the land, I had just lost my job of 15 years, and wasn't sure if I would ever replace it ( I didn't, and gave up looking) so I took some of my savings and did what I thought was best at the time, sort of as a form of homeless insurance. It's in the same area as your hermitage property, and from what it sounds like, it's not likely to ever build up, but the possibility always concerns me. Most likely, some people will end up there, but they will not be legitimate families, but rather those seeking an out of the way place for nefarious activities; a whole different problem all together.

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    3. There's much less fuel on the ground in a low-precipitation area than a forest, in case of fire. Clearing tumbleweeds and maintaining rock cairn fences is easier than dropping trees, although you get to work in shade sometimes in the woods. Grandpa suggested that it's worth putting up shade if you are working in one place outside all day.

      pdxr13

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    4. 333-nobody wants land near you. Criminals are too lazy to go out that far, homesteaders too spoiled. Just weird ones like you:)
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      pdx-putting up shade=putting on a hat. And just working an hour at a time. If you need more than that you didn't plan good enough. Men are not mules and should know better.

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    5. Thanks James. That's actually the sort of comforting answer that I was hoping to hear. Makes me feel better about my purchase. Even though at the worst, I would only be out $2200 for 2.5 acres. That sounds like a good purchase to me, but admittedly, I know nothing about desert land or its value.

      @pdxr13; yes, that was a concern when considering wooded land. The only safe (and affordable) way to go about this in my opinion was to buy a wooded lot east of the Mississippi, where annual rainfalls typically keep things nice and green all summer. But as we all know, the population density in such areas makes them less desirable. Considered Oregon after taking a trip up there in 2014. Drove through a dandy little town by the name of Myrtle Creek, but the land was out of my price range.

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    6. Anything is possible, if not probable, but the odds are this local economy takes a big squishy dump. Soon. Odds are we lose a LOT of people. Forever progress and growth is a retarded illusion here.

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  4. Back in the 90's on G Gordon Liddy's radio show he had someone take the time to break it all down to the red cent level. He used a toaster as the victim. Starting with the raw materials he added in all the taxes at the various stages and costs for regulations, etc., and the sellers profit, etc., on a toaster that sold for $19.99 at a big box.

    I almost started crying.
    It's amazing that anyone except the gov't makes any money on the stuff.

    Then he broke it down the other way, from the consumers end, on how many hours and the various costs associated with purchasing that toaster.

    I cried.
    Again, it's astounding that anyone can afford to buy a toaster.

    That was almost 20 years ago and things have gotten exponentially worse.

    20 years into the future?
    The story will be all different by then, and we'll look back at days like today and reminisce them as the "good ol' daze".

    No matter how bad today is tomorrow will be much worse, thanks to the communist criminal politicians.

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    1. Or, conversely, 20 years from now the survivors will consider themselves lucky today doesn't exist anymore. Great, if you can be a survivor.

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  5. For the small solar application (15A charging), the best little controller for less than the cost of a 18 year old thrashed Saturn SL2 is the Morningstar SS-15L MPPT. I just ordered a 2nd one for $149 on Amazon.con, along with the (imho) mandatory-but-sold-seperately RTS battery temp sensor. This is the perfect size for an RV/Cabin-scale battery bank that has a genset to run big loads and charge during the winter clouds of Ireland or Willamette Valley (0-5% of June sun) 15A is a nice trickle on a 300A bank, either 12v or 24v. If you believe the Application Notes, these controllers can be parallelled and behave.

    If you like 12v best, Morningstar makes a Hut-Scale tough little 115v 60hz inverter that can output 300W continuously (600W for a few minutes) with convection cooling only. Having no fan adds immense reliability to electronics. Meter and comm are shared between the inverter and SS-15L, with announced (sept 2016) outboard network devices real-soon-now.

    My application for most of the DC Amp's is small refrigerator/freezers. 12/24v rocker-pump units are 1/3rd or less consumption of Energy Star household 120v models (4 cubic foot is 35W peak/200W/hrs per day, 2 cubic foot similar because of leaking gasket). I know, the old lady loves her double-wide SS 7 cubic foot freezer +12 cubic foot kitchen almost-walk-in cooler, but what about when it's warm and it's just a cupboard? 6 gallons a day on the zombie-attractor 3600 rpm genset? How many days of POL are you storing, along with filters?

    With the currency turning to crap, buying ahead portable valuable useful things, after securing enough food/water is okay. LED's for light, minimal refrigeration, 12v fans for ventilation, extra fuse blocks/fuses for safe circuits. LED's save people from fire. Wool blankets keep you warm while stories are told and books are read.

    If you order anything on Amazon, click on one of the sidebar links first to dump some pennies on Jim.

    pdxr13

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    1. Yes, thank you for all penny dumps. They add up to dollars and my book pile grows. A large book pile feeds my inner strength. Which feeds my ability to shovel blog BS. Don't extinguish my fire, bros!

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