The other day there was a credit card dead-beat encouraging others to default of their credit card debt...I could hardly believe my eyes. This irresponsible assh@le  would dump his debt on US and this STINKING so-called government of ours is helping him do it. 098uq4380934omijutpomi GDFB!!!!!

This Congress and President need to go to HELL as soon as possible. We need a revolution as this government who is supposed to serve We-The-People are helping these Big Banks and little deadbeats ROB US BLIND!

I CANT WAIT TILL WE CAN PULL THE LEVER AND BLOW THE ROOF OFF THIS CONGRESS AND PRESIDENT!.

All Congress representitives who are helping these THEIVES need to have their term in office ended as soon as possible as this is TREASON.

The "stick" is getting bigger ....pain.

There are so many more of "them" (deadbeats & government backers) than "us" (workers who have lived within their means and pay their debts). Given that there are more of "them", how can we ever hope to win by "pulling the lever"? By shear numbers, we don't have enough levers to pull (even if we were given one lever for each arm to giving them one lever per person) to change the outcome. That is how skewed the population has become...and it will continue to grow worse (meaning against the working man paying his debts).

So what to do? If we can't win at the polls, then how can we "make a difference"? I can think of some ways - VERY tough ways (and I do NOT mean anything illegal). Anyone have ideas they'd like to share?

I have learned there is no negociating with the liberal. And, there is no way to change their minds. Believe me, I have tried. It is as if history is meaningless to these "statists". For them, government is the solution for all their problems and the more they can take from those filthy rich, the better off everyone is...and so they continue to live beyond their means (because the government supports them) and don't pay their bills (because it is their "right" to be taken care of completely).

In their minds, if something hurts - time to make a freebie call to the emergency room! And we just continue on...and I guess we will continue on until it really hurts "us"...right now it is the future generations that will pay dearly.

[There are so many more of "them" (deadbeats & government backers) than "us" (workers who have lived within their means and pay their debts).]

Your gift is found in "the carrot" ...... gold.  Take the carrot because if not, the government is sure to give you the stick.

Gold payment processors are our levers. Gold now has instant liquidity as a form of money.

We have bankruptcy laws that allow the individual, organization, corporation, etc. who are overwhelmed by debt to use the legal system to get out from under the debt burden.

And the organization that lent the money was the one that took the risk from losses occurred in the nonpayment of debt. Now our government is borrowing money from wherever to bail out the institutions that don’t have adequate capital to cover loses. Obviously, we cannot allow these lending institutions to go broke and have who ever is responsible take the lose.

But don’t despair, our Federal Reserve policy wonks have developed a process called: quantitative easing, that allows them to issue as much currency as needed to restore these institutions to financial health.

Since the dollar is a reserve currency, meaning that it is accepted as legal tender in most countries, central banks will be the store house of excess dollars; meaning that there will be no hyperinflation in the near future.

So don’t fret, be happy and enjoy the day.

I have if you can believe this a 0% C. Card on purchases with kick back of at least 2% on those purchases for five years.  Been kinda like a revesre CD.  Let your money draw % and pay the C. Card off when due, like a year from now.  One has to spend a certain amount of money each year on food and etc.   I will be paying all my gains back to the TARP via taxes, ain't Voodoo Economics full of BS.  Maybe I will break even, hopefully.

Banks offered credit cards. Perfectly legal. Consumers used them. Perfectly understandable. Today, with unemployment rising, the balances on these cards are rising as well. Whether these increasing credit card balances are the result of "deadbeats" purchasing second HDTV's, or the recently unemployed and over-extended using whatever means they have to bridge from this month to next month, is open to speculation. Unfortunately, a lot of that speculation is emotion-laden.

TARP is responsible for that. TARP is what makes the credit card situation directly affect those of us who played by the rules and did things right. If, back in October, the House Republicans  had quashed the bank bailout a second time, as they had done a few days earlier, Jim's post would not have been written. Instead, banks would be taking the huge write-offs themselves and going bankrupt, interest rates on non-collateralized loans would be so high as to make credit cards unusable, and personal bankruptcies would be soaring. But the ground would be clearing for a faster recovery on a firmer foundation.

Instead the House Democrat leadership bought off the waverers with pork and earmarks and the House Republicans got rolled.

This is a political problem. It will only be solved through the political process. Denying that fact means denying the history of this republic, as well as the ability of free men and women to work out their own destinies, in spite of the challenges. 

Talk of revolution may be salutary to the ego, but it does not obviate the need for hard work and organization. Tea parties may make news, but they must progress past one-day demonstrations of outrage to constructive, grass-roots networking and education. Posts and discussions like this one are necessary, but not sufficient.

I have said it before and I will say it again: if you want smaller, less-obtrusive government you must get 51% of the voting electorate to vote for a national political party that advocates smaller, less obtrusive government. There is no other way. It is my conviction that the base of the Republican Party - warts and all - gives partisans of smaller government the biggest headstart to that 51%.

Statements that are weighed down with contempt for the American people, rather than buoyed with sympathy and the vision of a brighter future, will only work to sink the ideals we should be engaged in floating.

[TARP is responsible for that. TARP is what makes the credit card situation directly affect those of us who played by the rules and did things right. If, back in October, the House Republicans  had quashed the bank bailout a second time, as they had done a few days earlier, Jim's post would not have been written.]

Put a TARP name to it if you like. I'll go broader than that with my brushstrokes and say "money from nothing" (inflation) is the culprit. It just keeps changing its clothes everytime you turn on the news.

Both the return to a gold standard and the abolition of the Federal Reserve are perfectly legitimate political points of view.

If you want them to be something more than figurative holes in the air poked by your upraised finger, however, you have to have those positions accepted in a viable political party's platform.

And then you have convince that stubborn 51% of the voters that it is the right thing to do.

Looking at history should give you hope. Both a gold standard and opposition to a central bank have been accepted by mainstream American parties in the nineteenth century. They can be again.

Are you up to the hard work that will accomplish that acceptance, or would you rather stay in the corner sucking your gold thumb?

These LoanSharks Credit card institutions jacked up interest rates to obscene levels, tightened up the bankrupcy laws, push credit cards to any bone head who could fog a mirror, and now it blows up in their face.

It should have resulted in good case of WGACA, but they have "friends" in high places, so they don't have to pay the price of their foolishness, WE DO. Our....r..rrr....Representitives!!! have "represented" us. They have taken Public Service to a new and exciting level! I find it absolutely invigorating!

Dan H

"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance." (Wendell Phillips)

I don't disagree with much of what you wrote, just like I don't disagree with a lot of the sentiments that I read on this web-site and in the comments.

What I do disagree with - and I hope you concur - is with the whining, "we-can't-win-so-I'm-going-to-pick-up-my-marbles-and-leave" mentality that so many of the posters feel free to voice. That and the anger. Perhaps it's my age, and perhaps it's having an 18-year-old in the house, but that kind of negativity and emotionality strikes me as profoundly adolescent and facile.

I don't buy conspiracies. I don't buy cabals. Think about this: No one was on the other side of the rock, pushing against Sisyphus. It is the nature of rocks to fall back down the hill. It is the nature of man to screw himself up.

You say the Constitution is the contract with America, and you're right. But surely you're old enough to understand that the Constitution, like other contracts, is open to interpretation. Different people can have different understandings about the same text, the same law. That's why we have judges for the Constitution and for contracts. Don't make the mistake of thinking that your interpretation is unassailable. Don't make the mistake of thinking that those who view things in ways you disagree with are traitors, scum, thieves, etc. 

But it is also our nature - and our duty as free men - to struggle. To me that means when the Republican juggernaut of 1994 had run out of gas and became fouled with the eternal desire to self-deal - see Jack Abramoff and others - it was time to start again, to purge the motor and tune it up, even if by doing so the machine had to sit on the blocks for a while, out of power.

What it didn't mean was that I could throw up my hands, curse and walk away from the race. Or that I could indulge in devising intricate plans, hidden motives and quasi-supernatural powers on behalf of secret groups who were bent on keeping me down. That would be a real failure - a failure of heart and a failure of nerve.

To those who counsel such nonsense I have my own two-word answer - "Man up!"

Of course, Thomas Paine said it better, in "The American Crisis #4" (1777):

"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."

In our case the fatigue Paine refers to comes from work - organizing, educating, knocking on doors - the little things that build coalitions, parties and movements.

That 51%.

Freesmith,

Your posts make perfect sense...all this carping and tea partying are good starts but if all we do is write memos to each other and carry a sign, we will get nowhere.  All you say is true, but any movement requires leadership and political movements seem to require charismatic leadership.  We have none and until we do, I don`t believe orgainizing and educating will yield much.

Well, Salty3, here's where I get a little quasi-supernatural. I have faith that the man or the woman will arise to meet the moment, if we can bring the moment into being.

I do not know who that person is yet, but I believe he's out there. Maybe a doctor, returning from 3 tours in Iraq. Perhaps a cancer-survivor, who has cast aside the detritus of the live-for-today, short-term thinking she used to profess. It could be an actor, who has decided to break away from the mold and to speak for himself.

Question: Who Is John Galt?

Answer: "Meet John Doe." (Frank Capra, 1941)

But there's one thing that we know about the Road to Damascus, Salty3, where Saul of Tarsus became the Apostle Paul.

It was a road.

Let's get moving.

 Yes, I am a TEA Partier, and my sign said:

"FIRE THE FED; THEY CREATED THIS CRISIS.

LET THEM PAY FOR IT; NOT ON OUR CREDIT

CARD !!!"

I have a suggestion for continuing the momentum of the tea parties. It's something which all of you who read my words and who occasionally write your own can do to communicate the ideas of liberty and small government outside of this circle of the like-minded.

Call it a "Conversion Chart."

Make a list of five people you know. Maybe you've argued with them about politics; maybe you don't know where they stand on the issues. Perhaps they're relatives; perhaps you only see them at work.

Establish for yourself the goal of bringing these five people around to your point of view concerning taxes, spending, the role of government in causing the current economic crisis, etc. If you want to further cement this "Conversion Chart" as a real target, put a date next to each person's name, the date by which time you hope to have them agreeing with you.

Then, get to work.

One thing will quickly become clear: Preaching, augumentativeness and wacky theories will not get you very far with most people. As a matter of fact, you will find such attitudes are counter-productive.

But calm reasonableness, a sense of humor and the willingness to treat an opposing point of view seriously will pay off in the long run. 

Precisely what changes would yall make?  What would winning look like?

Here a graph of US National Debt as a percentage of GDP over time:-

http://zfacts.com/p/318.html

It is likely that personal/business/government debt will continue to rise because for a huge majority of Americans most things are too expensive for them to pay cash.  Add this to the psychological problem of gluttonous consumption, ignorance, and carelessness in managing our lives and businesses, and this spells disaster! 

The federal government is the worst offender of debt spending, followed by state and local governments.  Everything these governments wish to do, or are required to do, costs far more than the currently available funds.

Like it or not, we are in a society in which 95% cannot afford to pay for the actual costs of health care, cannot pay cash for a house or new car, cannot pay cash to have a baby, cannot pay cash for vacations, cannot pay cash for higher education...and the list goes on and on and on.  And since most of us feel entitled to these products and services, having no cash and using available credit allows this lifestyle.  It's somewhat heinous that government not only encourages this but also is creating policy to perpetuate this facade of an economy at the expense of it's citizens...