Libertarians – those strange ducks who espouse the alarming-to-some idea that no one owes anyone else any portion of the money they worked for (among other strange and alarming-to-some ideas) – oppose forcing anyone to “contribute to Social Security for just that reason. On account of the being forced to, for openers. Their money is taken from them to finance retirement “benefits” for other people who – for just that reason – have no right to those “benefits.”
The government affirms this harsh fact.
Its high court has ruled – that is, decreed – that Social Security “benefits” are alms which no one has a right to – which is reasonable based on the fact that every cent of “benefits” paid out is not the “contributor’s” saved-up/invested/interest-accrued money but someone else’s money, extracted from them just as it was extracted from him. That is why Social Security is often referred to as a Ponzi scheme, named after a famous fraudster who lived 100 years ago. The difference now is that this fraud is both legal and compulsory.
It is also alms.
And yet, it also isn’t that in that alms, properly speaking, are freely given. You know of someone who has fallen upon hard times; or you know of a charity that aids people who have fallen upon hard times and you wish to help by donating money. This is a very different thing than being compelled to hand over money, which is what occurs when you are forced to “contribute” to Social Security.
Having got all of that out of the way, the question arises: Is it immoral to accept “benefits” derived from the government having forced someone else to finance them? This question seems to answer itself. Obviously, it would be immoral to walk next door to your neighbor’s home, knock on his door and demand that he hand over “benefits” because some other person had previously knocked on your door and demanded that you hand them over. It is an example of the old truism that two wrongs do not make a right.
It is the natural and normal desire of the victimized to be made whole. This desire is as understandable as it is legitimate. The illegitimate part intrudes when someone else who had nothing to do with the victimizing becomes the victim of the victimized.
Social Security victimizes all of us.
At least, all of us who have been forced to “contribute” into it. Which is everyone who has worked because everyone who has is forced to “contribute.” Our common victimizer is not each other but the government that set up this racket, this system of intergenerational robbery-parasitism. It has made the old predatorily dependent upon the young and it has made the young resentful of the old for depriving them, to a very great extent, of being able to save and provide for their own old age and for making them, in their turn, dependent upon the government for alms.
There is thus no easy way to break the chains that bind us. Many of the old who are dependent upon their “benefits” cannot reasonably – or even morally – be expected to do without them. Not because they are owed these benefits but because it would be wrong to deny them the alms they have been made dependent upon. But it is not necessary to force the young to become dependent – by forcing them to “contribute” to Social Security – because it is not necessary to force the young to finance the “benefits” paid to older people. All it would take is to divert some of the money that goes to support what is absurdly referred to as “defense” spending. Much of the latter having as much to do with the defense of the United States as the drugs that were pushed on 320 million Americans had to do with “stopping the spread.”
Both had – and have – much to do with something else.
“Defense” spending – much of it, probably two-thirds of it – has to do with projecting the power of the government of the United States and the lampreys that feed upon its leavings across the globe, a very different thing than “defense.” The actual defense of the United States could be paid for with far less of our money. Let Boeing, Raytheon, McDonnell Douglas and Blackrock, et al, earn an honest living. Let Israel, Ukraine, et al pay for their own defense.
If such a doctrine were to be implemented, the “benefits” paid out to the current generation of older people who depend upon them could be financed without having to force a single young worker to “contribute” toward the financing of them. And then the young workers could be freed from the chains that bind them to the older generation, thereby vitiating the natural and legitimate resentment that comes whenever anyone is chained to an obligation that is not rightly theirs. They – the younger crowd – would also likely be able to retire sooner rather than later, having been able to save and invest (and so multiply the fruits of their own labor).
This would work. This would be moral. This would greatly benefit everyone – except the predacious people who want us to be chained to one another, resentful of one another and – above all – dependent upon the government for alms in our old age.
. . .
If you like what you’ve found here please consider supporting EPautos.
We depend on you to keep the wheels turning!
Our donate button is here.
If you prefer not to use PayPal, our mailing address is:
EPautos
721 Hummingbird Lane SE
Copper Hill, VA 24079
PS: Get an EPautos magnet or sticker or coaster in return for a $20 or more one-time donation or a $10 or more monthly recurring donation. (Please be sure to tell us you want a magnet or sticker or coaster – and also, provide an address, so we know where to mail the thing!)
If you like items like the Baaaaaa! baseball cap pictured below, you can find that and more at the EPautos store!
Some of the comments on this threat are hilarious…I do admire Eric’s patience in continuing to debate the ‘I’m a Free Citizen’ trolls…
The problem – apart from being nonsense – with the psedo-legal arguments being wheeled out by them is very simple.
When the friendly mafia man comes to your business and tells you that you have a nice restaurant there, and it would be a shame it something were to happen to it, he does NOT compel anyone to hand over the protection payment.
He also does not get into any arguments whether what’s being proposed to you is legal, either – because of course it is. After all, you DON’T have to comply.
But then you only have yourself to blame if bad things DO happen to you, your family and your business.
You see, the mafia has the guns that’ are pointing at your head. Just like the government. And it is a BAD idea to argue with them, even if you think you’re right. Many people have been killed for just being annoying, both by the mafia AND the government.
They may even have been ‘right’, but now they are dead. Or in jail.
If you’re an insignificant individual with little wealth and/or income, they may even let it slide; at least for a while. It is, after all, too much of an effort to go after you, and as hardly anyone knows of you, convincing you of a crime and locking you up won’t even serve as a worthwhile deterrent and/or example for others.
On the other side of things, I have known expats who have lived outside of the USA for decades, yet they still ‘voluntarily’ – and the LODGEMENT itself is ‘voluntary; just read the relevant dot gov information – lodge their IRS return each year, because otherwise BAD things WILL happen. Because PAYING ‘your fair share’ is most certainly NOT voluntary.
These people are not poor. But they are also not stupid, and so they do not assume that some obscure pseudo-legal defense about ‘not having agreed to a contract’ will save them when the ‘Luca Brasi’ from the IRS comes to collect.
Morning, John!
Yup. Amen. And – of course – I am a “coward” for filing tax returns that are in fact unenforceable because they are only enforceable if you sign the contract, etc.
The thing is – and here I repeat myself – I sympathize with the principles espoused. Of course it is illegitimate to compel a man to witness against himself and to sign a “contract” under duress. Obviously, such things are at odds with the plain language and intent of the Bill of Rights. The point is none of that matters on a functional level. Just as telling a cop at a DUI checkpoint that the 4th Amendment protects you from “unreasonable” searches – those absent specific probable cause and a warrant based upon the same, etc. – will cut no ice insofar as being forced to stop and show your papers. The law is what those who control its enforcement say it is.
Eric, you’ve been convinced to enslave yourself and you’re closed minded, or just too lazy or fearful, to even try to be free.
Like I said before, A baby elephant is taught for months, with heavy chains, that it can’t move when it’s secured. As an adult, a small rope is sufficient to bind the mighty pachyderm.
The ubiquitous scare tactics repeated by most people are the thread you’re convinced can’t be broken. Wake up.
John Baley👌😂🤣 What’s really ‘hilarious’ is how transparently vacuous your cowardly rationalization is.
The self assuring circular reasoning of the craven obsequiois peasant: “…BAD things WILL happen. Because PAYING ‘your fair share’ is most certainly NOT voluntary.”
There’s no overestimating the fear mongering that you pseudo-Americans will contrive to whitewash your abject cowardice and ignorance of the simple facts that expose your hideously grotesque servile fecklessness. Anything to justify your complete capitulation to fear. 🤣
Your proof? There’s lots of other pseudo-Americans quivering in fear and living on their knees too, they point to each other as proof too. Great argument, Quisling.
I have 14 friends that have ALL been not filing/paying for longer than I haven’t, and I haven’t in over 30 years.
Some have their own businesses now, or are retired, but ALL of them have worked as employees of companies without filing/paying Income tax, like UPS, he received 100% of his paycheck, just one example.
And no, none of them live as hermits, withoit homes etc, as Eric desperately insists.
IRS has reached out to a few of them, but nothing of consequence materialized for ANY of them. IRS has only sent me notice to collect Covid stimulus money, never anything else.
That’s my proof that you’re full of cowards justifications and fools advice. Misery loves company and cowards despise the brave.
A baby elephant is taught for months, with heavy chains, that it can’t move when it’s secured. As an adult, a small rope is sufficient to bind the mighty pachyderm.
A single thread is plenty for you groveling toadies, apparently.
The worst thing isn’t your congenital self-abasing subservience to the IRS boogeyman, it’s the reflex regurgitation of their scaretactics that you fear mongers spread that’s so disappointing and disgusting.
I’ve had one argument; don’t use a SS# and IRS has no legal or lawful nexus to do anything to you. Empty threats, yes. Valid legal actions, no.
You see, for all of your condescending, ham-handed, bloviating novels of justification for your sycophant groveling, your propaganda vanishes like a fart in a windstorm.
Can you name anyone that didn’t use a SS# and was actually prosecuted by your masters at It’s Really Slavery? I’ll wait. 🤔
My boy Eric. Did you step in it. One thing you should never talk about in polite society is politics, and religion. It seems you tripped on both. Apparently a no no for a car site.
RE: “in polite society”?
Where is this, “polite society” which you write of?
Maybe, in 1979?
…Maybe. In small sections, here & there?
Agree, America is full of Jezebel Karens, can’t escape them.
Hi Daniel,
I don ‘t mind a good debate; its how we get at what’s true! Social Security – like property taxes – is one of these things that affects most of us and so most of us have a stake in it, one way or the other. I regard SS as vicious inter-generational grift that only serves the interests of the government and would therefore like to see it ended. I think this is possible, by continuing to pay benefits to those now dependent on it by diverting the necessary fun ding from obscene “defense” spending while discontinuing the forced “contributions” from younger workers – who’d be freed from that burden and so given back control over their own retirement planning.
Well, we all know why it was not set up to be actuarily sound.
Basically it was another bit of duplicity from FDR, who wanted enrollees to be able to collect “benefits” from a mythical “account” into which they had paid nothing. So, SS was set up to be a system of transfer payments, IOW just a government mandated redistribution of wealth to serve FDR’s political agenda.
Every once in awhile we hear noises about putting SS on a sound financial footing, but so far it has gone nowhere. I do not expect that to change. However, I do agree with your suggestion that the bloated military budget would be a prime candidate for a source of funds.
Just try getting it past the Senators from Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop, et. al. GFL on that.
WELL, Freedom Loving American basically has it correct Eric. Sorry man but you do not understand the Law, especially contract law. IT’S ALL CONTRACT LAW and you have accepted it by your ‘Implied Consent’ and your use of ‘Compelled Benefits’. I don’t feel like writing an essay to explain it all, but you need to study the matter at a much deeper level.
Your ‘social security’ account agreement makes you ‘federal personnel’ and your bank account agreement makes you a ‘U.S. person’ – read it for yourself. It’s ALL about custom definitions for ‘legal’ words that normally mean something entirely different. Look up ‘person’ or ‘citizen’ or ‘United States’ or ‘legal title’ vs ‘equitable title’ in Blacks Law or the definition sections of the US Codes.
NO, you can’t just walk into a ‘court’ and claim you are a ‘sovereign citizen’ and the law does not apply to you. It starts with your ‘Name’ and other custom definitions like ‘Resident’ but that is only the tip of the ice BERG.
http://billsropesupply.com/do-you-know-where-you-really-live.pdf
Study what the following statement made ON THE RECORD means while NOT accepting the ‘Full Name’ or ‘First, Middle, Last Name’ CORPORATE LEGAL FICTION AS YOURSELF.
“I HEREBY RESERVE THE RIGHT NOT TO BE COMPELLED TO PERFORM UNDER ANY CONTRACT OR AGREEMENT THAT I HAVE NOT ENTERED KNOWINGLY, INTENTIONALLY, AND VOLUNTARILY. FURTHER, I REFUSE THE LIABILITY ASSOCIATED WITH THE USE OF ANY COMPELLED BENEFIT OR UNREVEALED CONTRACT OR COMMERCIAL AGREEMENT.”
Read the political status document at the bottom that I have carefully compiled that addresses most or all of the elements that MAKE YOU A SLAVE. Be innocent as a dove and sly as a fox and hungry as a wolf in court (I raised wolves for over 20 years). DO NOT get arrogant, demanding, and uppity against an attorner-judge who is only a fucking lawyer and think a document will protect you if you do not know exactly what it means and how to defend and explain it.
You can do MANY things ‘legally’ that NO lawyer/attorney can or will do for you ever.
There’s a reason for this and when you hire an attorney you are now a Ward of the Court because you are INCOMPETENT to present your case and defend your Rights. Do that and it is 3 fucking lawyers, all members of the BAR and strictly shit-birds of a feather conspiring to decide your fate. The only way is to learn what these jokers learn in 3 years of law school is to STUDY THE LAW and LEARN TO USE IT FOR YOURSELF.
THE BELLIGERENT CLAIMANT
http://billsropesupply.com/belligerent-claimant.pdf
Your Real ‘name’ is NOT what you think it is! YOUR TWO NAMES: Given Name AND Family Name. NO Such thing as ‘full name’ or ‘first, middle, last name’ and NO ‘sir/sur’ name– NEVER ACCEPT THIS. ‘FULL NAME’ IS A CORPORATE LEGAL FICTION AND IT’S A FRAUD!
“If you don’t know your Rights you don’t have any. Further, if you don’t assert your Rights you don’t have any.” -Some ‘Supreme’ Court ‘Justice’s Documented Statement
Declare your true political status Americans. If you were born on the land of one of the states of the Union and you are not employed by the District of Columbia corporation you are American state nationals. You are not U.S. Citizens. You are not Federal citizens of the District of Columbia. Only U.S. Citizens under the 14th Amendment of their corporate constitution can vote in their so called elections. Establish jural assemblies in the land jurisdiction of each of the sovereign states. Take back America from the Democrats and the Republicans. The unincorporated United States of America is our lawful government-intended and originally based on Common Law. Learn Status, Standing, Agency. Learn your real names: Given name; Family name. Persons have ‘full names’ or first, middle, last names, or ‘sur’ names, not people.
Your ‘Name’ Under the ‘Law’.pdf
http://billsropesupply.com/Your-Name-Under-the-Law.pdf
Affidavit of Truth-Declaration of Political Status.doc
http://billsropesupply.com/Affidavit%20of%20Truth-Declaration%20of%20Political%20Status.doc
-Hope this helps somebody (Eric, you seem interested to know about the law so here it is).
I guess it turned into an essay after all
Bill,
I’m always grateful to know there are others that have the courage to pursue the truth. Hopefully Eric will join us one day. God bless Eric. I think he means well, but he’s so trapped in propaganda and fear that he can’t see the truth in what we’re sharing. Eric’s nonstop assumptions and projections make it impossible to converse meaningfully. He probably thinks he has an open mind, but it’s as closed as a tomb.
What a bizarre thread you’ve woven.
“Eric’s nonstop assumptions and projections make it impossible to converse meaningfully. He probably thinks he has an open mind, but it’s as closed as a tomb.”
…Truly, quite bizarre. Planet X level stuff.
Bot, or PAID? …Can’t no body really be that obtuse, yet so full of words, without being either one or the other.
helot, Yes, Eric’s mental gymnastics to straw man were ‘quite bizarre’.
Like your vacuous comment that really didn’t make any coherent claims. Quite bizarre.
The “Immorality” lay in the taxing of someone strictly for the personal benefit of someone else. Trying to spread that theft of income by making it a “collective” obligation was the EPITOME of Socialism. Yes, I get what the idea WAS, or at least how it was SOLD. A good deal of old folks were hurting during the Depression, like MANY, but their ability to relocate, or, if available, engage in back-breaking labor, was limited, which, again, is simply a part of becoming OLD, and has been since the dawn of time. This was one of the MAIN reasons for FAMILIES.
Look no further than the fictional example of one Anthony Soprano of Bergen, NJ, in the “Waste Management” business, and doing quite well. Being the scion of a notorious Mafioso, one “Johnny Boy” Soprano, and not having the “makings of a varsity athlete”, Tony, or “T”, engages in various enterprises, like a “Gentlemen’s Club” known as “Bada-Bing”! His wife, high school sweetheart Carmella, and his two spoiled brats, Meadow and AJ, attend a prominent Catholic High School. Certainly his accountant has had Tony report a certain fairly robust income, to show to the IRS a credible means to support that lifestyle, which would include the payment of Social Security taxes, and likely, at least until his Dad, “Johnny Boy”, succumbed to cancer, the old man had done the same. Therefore, although his cranky, crazy mother, “Livia”, probably remained a homemaker all her adult life, she was certainly eligible for Social Security as his widow. Did she “collect”? I’ll wager she most certainly did, if, for nothing else, to have some spending money w/o having to bother her son about it. But, although Tony can hardly stand his “Ma”, he’s still devoted to her, and when it’s obvious the old bat really can’t make it on her own, living in that well-kept but modest home in Newark, he shops around for rather expensive, fashionable “retirement communities” (which Tony tries in vain to sell her on as she professes to not want to go to an “Old Folks ‘home’ “). The cost, of course, well exceeds her SS check, which Tony doesn’t even begin to discuss at least having her contribute. As far as Tony’s concerned, his mother’s comfort in her dotage is HIS responsibility.
Legally, ALL benefits from the US Government derive from CURRENT taxation; that’s the way it’s ALWAYS been since one Ida Fuller applied for and got her benefits, a grand amount of $22.54 per month, back in late 1939. To keep this in perspective, a US Army private was paid $21/month. Certainly Ms. Fuller, who was past 65 and had “paid into” Social Security for the three years since its enactment, hadn’t herself contributed enough to sustain a $22.54 per month annuity, and even then insurance salesmen would point out she was perfectly capable of, from the point she began working, presumably after her children were at least independent enough to not require constant supervision, of paying into a whole life insurance policy, which, after a certain point, in the decades, of course, had enough cash value that the entire point of life insurance, i.e., to fund an estate that she could pass on to her heirs, was met, and all or part of it could be used to then fund an annuity, which the risk of her passing on flip-flopped from the insurance company to the policy holder. Of course, on the principle, of “selling ‘sizzle’, not ‘steak’ “, there were financial options, including a refund certain, or a sliding depreciation of that refund, of premium paid, which affected the annuity paid out. To make a long story short (too late!), Ms. Fuller had the means all along to provide a perpetual income that’d last her lifetime. Now, folks might have, in apparent jealousy, pointed out the considerable payments to the annuity/insurance salesman, and, of course, the gi-normous PROFITS and ASSETS of the insurance company, but, really, were these outfits supposed to provide their financial products and/or assume risk for FREE? Be assured the Congress and the bureaucracy at the Social Security Administration don’t work for “free” either!
So, I no more see any “immorality” in getting back at least SOME of the monies that were TAKEN from yours truly, via FICA taxes, both what’s out of my portion ALSO TAXED for Federal and, where applicable, State income taxes, and the “Employer Contribution” (another LIE, as to the Employer, the FICA and Medicare taxes are simply appended onto my salary, as our “resident” account person that regularly contributes can attest). Never mind that, at least if the “coercion” had been limited to diverting a certain portion of my wages and salary to a mandated investment account (which, on its own, the financial services industry would ignore, but packed together with MILLIONS of “contributors”, they’d be in a mad scramble, lobbying their asses off to get those accounts), and I’d been able to CHOOSE where those monies were investment, I’d likely have two things I’ll never have with the current Social Security Ponzi scheme: Much MORE money, and OWNERSHIP.
It should also be kept in mind that there’s no more “immorality” for a Social Security recipient to accept his/her benefits than, say, a Federal military and/or civil service retiree, as long as said retiree rendered honest service to earn it. It’s perfectly debatable whether that Federal activity should have been funded at all, and certainly whether “Uncle” ought to continue funding them, starting with scrutiny as to whether or not the Constitution authorizes it. That’s another fundamental thing lost: The Congress and the POTUS both treat the Constitution as a scrap of paper when its strictures no longer suit them. It’s easy for the author Robert Ringer to pontificate about how HE won’t file for his SS cheques, but not so for most who frequent this web site.
“Social security victimizes all of us”, says Eric, correctly so.
But “(((US FEDGOV))) victimizes all of us” is more precise, FIFY.
The US dollar is controlled by the Federal Reserve, a Jewish controlled private bank that’s neither federal agency or a legal bank of the US government.
The US federal reserve act of 1913 was the beginning of the end of the citizens influence in the US FEDGOV. It’s been 112 years of fake fiat money destroying our economy like cancer.
How much longer will citizens tolerate such criminals???
YMMV….
Hi Saxons,
It is fair to say, I think, that up through the ’90s, the system was such that whatever they stole from you was counterbalanced by being able, through hard work, to make up enough for it as to make it worth playing the game. As an example, I’ve mentioned before that when I was a young guy back in the ’90s, I was able to buy a small single family house in the Northern Va ‘burbs for $150k. That same house, today, would sell for $600k. How many young guys could afford that? How many guys my age could?
No wonder so many young guys just stay at home with mom and dad.
I lot of commentary on this article by Eric. Let me throw my two cents into the SS ring:
FICA takes approximately 7.5% paid by the employee and 7.5% paid by the employer for a total of 15%. Rather than the government extract this as tax and you invested this privately you would have at the end of 45years of working: assuming a lower wage average annual amount of $50,000.00 without increases and a market average return of 5.9% which covers booms and busts:
Year 45 $1,549,859.71
In today’s dollars that would be a nice nest egg to live off which the money would have been in productive private sector rather than spent by Nancy and Chuckie. In Sweden, they saw this Ponzi scheme at face value and knew it was destined to fail. There privatized their social security. So, any Bernie supporters out there who think Sweden is the example for socialism we should copy then you must be supporting privatizing social security.
Another point for what it is worth: In 1968, the Johnson administration shifted Social Security to “on-budget”. This meant that Social Security transactions were included in the unified budget. Not to say government was not raiding the overage of payments before Johnson, (they were) it was Johnson who made the surplus income from SS part of the general treasury to which lessened the political impact of deficit spending. So, today we print ourselves the money we supposed paid into a retirement account that our grandchildren will have a day of reckoning to deal with.
I’m in my mid seventies and don’t collect Social Security payments. Reason is that I don’t qualify as I only have 35 out of the 40 necessary credits. Besides if I did work enough to qualify my monthly SS payments would only be about $600 minus of course the Medicare deduction for part B of roughly $185.
The average SS monthly payment is about $2,400. This is enough to pay most bills and keep one from starving. I suppose there are some people who only rely on SS. Those are people who probably spent all their working lives income on stuff and never giving old age a thought.
America is changing and there is nothing we can do about it except escape to some rural area. The Communists(Socialists) here are taking over with their numbers. After all itz a democracy where the 51% tell the other 49% what to do. Itz way bigger problem than we can imagine with more and more Communists being hatched and indoctrinated into the Socialist lifestyle. Our population in 1950 was 150 million. Today itz about 330 million and growing. If it stops growing there will be a financial collapse. Itz a huge Ponzi scheme and either we dance to the music or drop out. And eventually we will drop out(die) and the new Communist Americans will deal with whatever happens. In the meantime live, eat, and be merry. Our government used to warn us about a Communist invasion via landing craft or paratroop drop like in that movie “Red Dawn” but the truth is that the Communists have infiltrated the US via immigration and schooled propaganda.
Hi Euro –
Yup. We live in the dwindling warmth of the embers of Western civilization and soon it will be cold again. I am stoic about this. I grew up in the years just after the apogee of the postwar world. A childhood that was free of “safety” and full of fun. A young adulthood that enjoyed a degree of freedom – economic as well as social and intellectual – unimaginable today. I find myself now, in middle age, coming to terms with the decline. And being grateful for what I got to experience, while it existed.
Eric,
Dream on when it comes to reducing Defense spending! You, as a former resident of NoVA, know better than most about the gleaming glass and metal cathedrals of the MIC in Tyson’s Corner and lining VA-28 near Dulles Airport. They have too much pull with Congress that what you wish for will never be enacted; Raytheon, Boeing, et al, will never allow it.
Morning, Mark!
That’s true, of course. Especially with Trump the head of the rotting fish. The Party of Lincoln loves war and war spending. They just love to call it “defense.”
If our country were engaged in true national defense, our true defense needs would be a lot less, and they’d be more affordable.
Hi Mark,
Yup. And the great tragedy is that it is chiefly “freedom loving” conservative Republicans who get indignant when anyone suggests the “defense” budget be cut.
I’ve never seen it discussed, but what would true national defense look like in terms of force size, equipment, aircraft types, number of aircraft, types of ships, number of ships, troops, and so on? I supposed Switzerland could be used as a model, while adjusting our force sizes in proportion to our population and land area.
All the Swiss needed to make Herr Hitler think twice about invading them was a few flakkannonen, a few Me109s, and some panzerjagerkannonen, all situated in their MOUNTAINS which would have made any attack nearly suicidal. FWIW, virtually all their weapons, aside from the same Bofors AAA pieces they had, were GERMAN.
Didn’t hurt that a lot of the “Nazi” gold and other confiscated wealth was laundered by Swiss banks.
Hi Mark,
David Stockman wrote an excellent article about that, pointing out that we have an ocean on each side where any invading force would be seen approaching and destroyed before they got anywhere near our coast, plus friendly nations (so far, despite Trumpy’s tariffs) on our northern and southern borders. Fortress America.
Do you have a link to the article, or do you at least remember the site that published it?
https://internationalman.com/articles/authors/david-stockman/
You never saw the 1984 version of Red Dawn, did you? Although some of the Soviet attack on the USA is laughable (three ARMY GROUPS massed in NE Siberia, and easily able to make landfall in AK? Maybe during the lull after the initial nuclear exchange, in which both sides were spending their efforts to lick their chops and recover, but not as part of the initial attack, as some 1.5 million Soviet Army troops and equipment simply can’t be hidden). The idea was that the USSR, thanks to its footholds in Cuba and Nicaragua, spread communism to the rest of Latin America, a de facto “checkmate” on the US anyway! This notion that the oceans protect the USA from attack and/or invasion are as foolish and wishful as the French with their 1930s-era Maginot Line, in a vain attempt to refight WWI.
It is absolutely moral to take the money. Every dollar we deny to the federal government is a dollar they don’t have to put towards all the usual nefarious BS, like bombs, bullets and drones. They are going to take the kids money anyway, so let me do something useful.
Last year for my birthday to took all my kids a d grandchildren on a Caribbean cruise for my 70th birthday. It took 18 months of SS payments but it was worth it, basically giving it back, her kids we are using your FICA money for a kick ass family vacation.
That being said I would support their efforts to free themselves of the tyranny and theft.
On another note Harry Browns during his campaign came up with liquidation plan for federal properties with the proceeds going to buy everyone dependent on Social Security a lifetime annuity worth double whatever SS was sending them with enough left over to partially rebate everyone’s FICA taxes. And yes, the numbers were realistic.
“Every dollar we deny to the federal government is a dollar they don’t have to put towards all the usual nefarious BS, like bombs, bullets and drones”
What you said doesn’t work that way because that missing dollar, they just as easily print one more. Gold Standard?
Trump can place a 145 percent tariff on the 38 trillion dollars of national debt.
You’re looking like 38 trillion plus 17.1 trillion, total is 55.1 trillion.
Pay the 38 trillion of national debt and have a surplus of 17.1 trillion. Kind of like what he is doing anyway.
Easy to solve monetary problems, money does the job.
Nothing else is going to work.
You voted for GODvernment. Shouldn’t SS be voluntary? With guidance and recommendations from your GODvernment about the pros and cons of saving? You wouldn’t want it so they FORCE it on you and many people have been saved by it, probably. You KNOW yourself. Now, about tobacco….
Well-said, Dodoboi –
Us crazy libertarian weirdos subscribe to this idea that human interactions ought to be voluntary rather than coercive. Crazy, I know.
[ Is it immoral to accept “benefits” derived from the government having forced someone else to finance them? ]-Eric Aren’t all taxes forced (stolen) in one matter or another?
Incredibly he slyly asks if the victim is immoral for actually taking the payoff in an attempt to recover some of the stolen money putting the thief and the victim in the same boat. Personally I’d agree the thief is immoral taking money without a signed contract,,, but the victim??? Gov gets a pass because its government? Come on…..
Today the USA gives billion$ of dollars to Ukraine and Israhell to fight their stupid wars that is none of our business,,, we even assist in their genocidal murders. Next we’re bragging about our trillion dollar military “budgets”. If one looks close one could see the Chinese and Ruskies shaking in their boots. Not a peep from Mericanos. But in three days 2 articles on the horrors of SS. One hates it so bad he wants to eliminate it even as he is drawing it. Me… I’ll take it until death.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/05/charles-hugh-smith/boomers-lets-face-it-the-math-doesnt-work/
Just so you know,,, I am all for buyouts as long as the citizen agrees to use NO government assistance forever forward. No whining for help if things go south.
Hey Eric, a little off topic, aren’t we? Considering they took that money at the point of a gun? Of course it’s moral to take social security. Especially if you survived their attempt to kill you with the vax. In fact, you should be able to sue the difference between what the market would’ve paid in that time.
Social Security may not be *immoral*, but it is *immortal* – SSA has been paying ‘people’ on record as being 120+ years old! Some 150+ !!!
Give the government money and get some of it back. That’s better than letting the government keep all of it which seems to be what you propose. That’s just another tax.
Hi Woodrow,
We don’t give the government money; the government takes our money. I advocate that the taking stop.
That’s like saying, “The mafia forced me to pay ‘protection money’ for years, so it’s only right that they steal from some other schlub and give me some of it as a compensation.” Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Socialism puts people in a trap. Yes, it’s immoral to take money that the government hijacked from younger workers. The temptation is strong, and it’s easy to rationalize because you are disconnected from the victims of the Ponzi scheme. And oh yes, you were yourself a victim of the Ponzi scheme the entire time money was taken out of your paycheck – so now it’s almost like getting revenge – but not on the real thieves.
Social Security is a pernicious generational embezzlement. We all have an obligation to care for our elderly family members. Sloughing it off the to government is easy, casual wrongdoing.
Amen, Enword!
The key thing I think is understanding that we’re all put in the position of preying upon each other. I say let’s deal with the real predator.
Rep Thomas Massie (R-KY) was one of two R-party ‘no’ votes against the Big, Butt-Ugly Bill
Here is his 90-second speech on the House floor:
https://youtu.be/R-QMfzXwz4g
As background, his brilliant, talented wife died last year. Then the traitorous, foreign Israel lobby declared war on him.
He grew out his beard. He does not give a shit anymore what anyone thinks. He will speak his mind, and let the chips fall where they may.
Jim Traficant did the same, knew some info on the JFK murder, believed to be so.
The tractor accident didn’t help him in his quest.
Have to question everything now.
From Politico:
“I forfeited my future, and I didn’t give a damn what they did to me. And from this day forward, I don’t give a damn what anybody does to me. I’m going to say what I think is right; I’m going to do what I think is right,” a defiant Traficant told Fox News after his release from prison in 2009. “And if it offends some people, then so be it. You see, because I’m still, I guess, the same jackass I was.”
I’d be happy to forfeit all my “contributions” to Medicare and SS on one condition: All government pensions and lifetime Cadillac health care retirement plans go bye-bye.
Government paychecks have been a drain on the public treasury their entire careers. It’s completely unreasonable to have to continue to pay taxes to fund government retirements that will just bid up prices on those of us having to make it on our own when it’s government profligacy that spent everything in the first place.
Once they stole it during your working years it’s theirs not yours. I want the “yours” money back now as long as I can. Started collecting at 62. Most gets passed on to the daughter and family – the moral thing to do since once I’m gone there is no more SS money coming in. That’s the biggest scam of all, it’s not inherit-able. So, let it be a running inheritance if you don’t need all of it during retirement.
Amen, Sparkey!
When I am old enough to collect, I will – and I will use the money to pay the property taxes on the land/house. The government can pay itself, in other words.
tell you what eric. if the communists steal the next election you won’t have a house and land..they will, and ain’t nothing you can do about it…
That’s true, libby – and I expect something like that to happen. And I can and will do something about it.
What is over-the-top immoral is you getting any remuneration for writing this horrible article.
Hi Nacho,
It’s easy to do a drive-by criticism without explaining why you think the article is “horrible.” Care to explain why you think it is?
I’ll explain, if Nacho won’t.
Sadly, most people are easily deceived and driven by fear into believing nonsense.
The federal FICA law requires a percentage be taken from the “income” of employees.
Income is legally NOT defined in federal law.
Exchange of labor for pay is NOT income.
Federal definition: “Income: all income from whatever source derived’, is NOT a definition, it’s circular reasoning bc a word cannot logically be used to define itself. I.E. ‘Cow: a cow is a cow, wherever it is found’. Total nonsense, only morons agree this defines what a cow is.
Subsequently, this is an ignorant article, presenting a false premise. People are NOT FORCED to pay into Social Security, they are deceived into believing they have to, just like filing and paying Income Tax.
A W4 is also VOLUNTARY, employers are required to ask new employees if they want the employer to withhold money from their pay. Employees can say NO and receive 100% of their pay. Employers cannot retaliate, legally.
Having to overcome the ignorance of fear driven morons is difficult and an inconvenience, but, it is not MANDATORY to submit to their ignorance.
I think we have a pretty good idea who demonstrates a high level of ignorance.
Yes, James N, your vacuous retort is a good example of ignorance, I agree.
So, how many years have you been eagerly trampling your 5th Amendment right to freedom from self incrimination to file income tax returns and make your fealty payments to your masters at IRS?🤔
Freedom,
The thing you appear to have difficulty understanding is that the plain language and meaning of the 4th and 5th amendments are not relevant. What is relevant is what the government says they mean – because it is government that will enforce its meaning.
Eric, agreed, so why target yourself by entering gov contract? That was my point, thx. 😉
Otherwise, your comment is irrelevant if one doesn’t use a SS#. Totally moot. The gov can do nothing without it re fica and income tax.
Eric, you are long on submission to tyranny and short on knowledge of freedom. Yet, you eagerly parrot gov slavery talking points. You regurgitate it on command, apparently.
Q
It’s very clear that you are in complete submission to the gov via propaganda. It’s quit sad, actually.
Freedom,
I am – like everyone else who isn’t living in a tent and being paid in cash only and paying cash only – compelled to “enter into contracts” in the sense that if I do not, I will be living in a tent and on whatever cash I am able to persuade people to pay me. I doubt very much you are living that life, which is why I doubt very seriously you aren’t living “under contract” just like the rest of us. And if you aren’t, somehow, then you are living in such a way as to risk ending up in a cage. That’s reality. It isn’t “save mentality” to acknowledge the fact.
Hi Freedom,
People aren’t forced? Really? Tell that to the IRS. Tell it to your employer; ask him not to hand over FICA deducted from your paycheck. Are you one of those people that believes there are magic words that can be spoken – or some such – that will cause the IRS to leave you alone? “Admiralty law”? “Sovereign citizen”?
Mind: I agree with you in principle; what matters is what is enforced.
Eric, I covered this already, to wit: “Sadly, most people are easily deceived and driven by fear into believing nonsense.”
I work like anyone. I don’t enter gov contracts. I haven’t filed income tax returns, paid income tax nor had anything withheld from my paychecks in decades. Not word one from It’s Really Slavery and they know where I am. IRS notifies me via US mail to claim Covid relief funds, I refuse.
I don’t care if your fear driven cognitive dissonance prevents you from believing me.
Living free requires knowledge, effort and courage. I had to overcome fear to get where I am. You can too.
I think Irwin Schiff might have spent his last moments on Earth in jail for such free living, no?
Mister Liberty, Neverending, the numbers of people easily deceived by vague information. Laws are specific. NO, IRS sending someone to prison doesn’t mean whatever YOU think it means. Irwin Schiff went to prison bc of the consequences of ENTERING GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS, i.e. signing under oath andbletting the government decide if he violated that oath. He was also disregarding his 5th Amendment right of freedom from self incrimination. Don’t enter their contracts, you don’t have to, they’re voluntary, aa any and all VALID contracts must be.
Freedom,
You have no realistic choice but to “enter into” these “contracts.” That is, unless you wish to live in a tent somewhere in the woods. Then you do not have to have a government ID and you do not have to pay taxes.
Eric, It’s all very simple. You don’t have to use a SS# for employment, as the SCOTUS has ruled. Employers can’t discriminate for not providing one.
The SS# belongs to the SS Administration.
Employers can’t withhold FICA if they don’t have a SS# and IRS can’t legally/lawfully take action against you without the SS# on a signed gov contract.
In short: don’t use the SS#.
Hi Freedom,
No employer is going to hire you without an SS number. The only way to avoid paying SS is to work for cash and get paid by someone who will pay you in cash and not send you a 1099 at the end of the year.
Eric, you keep insisting nonsense is true. 😂🤣
Employers have no choice about the SS#. Like I said, SCOTUS ruled, do you know what SCOTUS means?
Tacos Bell learned that the hard way and put SS# OPTIONAL on their applications as agreed in their settlement.
Please provide us the SCOTUS ruling/case that states an employer will employ you without a SSN or ITIN.
I didn’t say SCOTUS said that. Law doesn’t work that way.
Show me the law that requires you obtain a SS# and the law that requires you provide one in order to work to make money to feed your family. Good luck. 🤣
You said SCOTUS ruled. Provide the ruling.
Here are the sections that require an employee to report their SSN to their employer for tax reporting.
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-wd/01-0293.pdf
I showed you mine, now show me yours.
Raider Girl, Your constant prevarications and straw man arguments make it clear that you are only arguing to defend your deeply ingrained slave mentality. Why should I bother to show you how to live free when you insist on being a slave?
You do know that contract must be voluntary to be valid, don’t you? That’s well settled law. If you disagree, I’ll point a gun at you and make you sign over your house, cars, etc.
First, you misquoted me and asked me to prove something I never claimed was true.
Second, you dodge my clear questions to provide a link to a typical propaganda letter by It’s Really Slavery that uses half truths and circular reasoning, that doesn’t address my questions. That diatribe refers to conditions in law AFTER other conditions have been introduced. It does not address the initial action that I addressed in my questions that you dodged. You are making a huge leap based on assumptions.
IRS’ circular reasoning is very effective of scared people, like you, apparently.
You’re desperate to prove that your choice to live as a slave is the right one.
Answer my questions, there is a point to asking them. If not, it’s clear you just want to prove you’re a victim of willing enslavement.
Again: ‘Show me the law that requires you obtain a SS# and the law that requires you provide one in order to work to make money to feed your family.’
It is obvious you are an empty suit.
Your words in the post above, “Like I said, SCOTUS ruled.”
If they did rule I am asking you to share the ruling. Since you refuse I can only conclude that ruling does not exist.
I provided you the Sections of Code that requires employers to obtain SSNs.
Morning, RG –
I am pretty sure we have a “sovereign citizen” among us. I sympathize with these people’s views but that does not make those views sound. I do consider the individual to be sovereign. But the government disagrees – and that’s what matters.
Freedom,
When pulled over by a cop, and presented with a “contract” if you decline to sign it, you will be arrested and taken to jail. It does not matter that the “contract” is forced upon you, that you are under duress. Just the same as regards the document/contract you are required to sign every April if you wish to avoid consequences.
You ask: “Show me the law that requires you obtain a SS# and the law that requires you provide one in order to work to make money to feed your family.”
The right question is: Show me the employer who will hire you without an SS number. Show me the DMV that will issue you a license without one. Show me the bank that will do business with you without a government ID that is tied to SS.
Your assertions are just that. Assertions. Dangerous ones, too.
I know. That makes me a person with a “slave mentality.”
Slave Girl, 😂🤣 you keep believing transparent gov propaganda, you can’t stop. Your reading comprehension is terrible, you’re a moron or you’re just lying to justify your cowardice.
You refuse to answer direct questions, you timid little peasant. And have the gall to say you did; liar or moron?
I already exposed your slave mentality. Now, you’re triggered. 😅 You provided no such requirements of employees to obtain a SS# or provide one to be employed, you’re too stupid to even understand the difference or youre a liar.
You provided a letter referencing vague statutes predicated upon an endless line of other statutes that IRS always uses circular reasoning to justify, typical IRS tactic that you petrified peasant gobble up, so predictable.
I bet you don’t even know what circular reasoning is, do you?
You’re so stupid, you can’t even comprehend your own stupidity.
Like I said, no point trying to open your jail cell when you’ll just close it and criticize me for opening it.
Hi Freedom,
Calling people “stupid” and “slaves” is not a persuasive argument, so please stop doing it here.
It is not about “presenting statutes” or pedantic legal arguments that claim there is no requirement to obtain or present SS or to pay FICA. The thing that’s determinative is that the system forces you to play by its rules and the system makes those rules. If you don’t play them, you may “get away” with it. But you may also end up in prison or have your assets seized. To try to make the point: The 4th Amendment’s plain language clearly states that we are to be free from searches absent specific probable cause or warrant. And yet there are random DUI checkpoints and the TSA. Tell them the 4th Amendment says these are not permitted. See how far it gets you.
Slave Girl, I’m an expert on this topic. Over 30 years of NOT WORD ONE from IRS, while I work, receive paychecks, don’t file returns etc, is solid proof.
You’re an expert at being a slave and regurgitating transparently deceitful propaganda to convince yourself that you’re not a coward and slavery is impossible to escape. 😅
Hi Freedom,
Do you have a bank account? A mortgage? Are you issued paychecks by anyone? If you are claiming you have these things and do not have an SS number, have FICA taxes deducted (or pay them directly, as self-employed/1099 people do) then prove it. I have to provide government ID such as a driver’s license just to transact business at my bank. How do you get a driver’s license or open a bank account or get a paycheck or a mortgage without an SS number? How do you just decide to not pay income taxes?
Until you can substantiate your claims, I regard them as preposterous – like those made by people who claim that by using ALL CAPS on documents you evade “admiralty law” and that you do not have to get a driver’s license or plates for your car because “sovereign citizens” are exempt.
Hi RG,
This guy appears to be one of those people who believes you can be a “free man” just by deciding to be one. No worries about taxes – you don’t really have to pay them! You have a right to travel, so no worries about having a driver’s license or displaying a license plate. You are John Freeman and unbound by such things!
Freedom,
You keep bringing up Taco Bell – i.e., menial employment. Perhaps illegals can work at Taco Bell without providing SS. Good luck working anywhere in a position not menial without providing SS. All I can tell you is that when I write articles for magazines they require me to give them a SS number and 1099 in order to get paid.
Eric, your many desperate, incoherent rantings do not create a valid argument bc you make lots of them. 🤣😅
Your belligerent misrepresentation of my reference to the Taco Bell settlement re the unlawful discrimination for not providing a SS# for employment, shows how ignorant and desperate you are to sink to such tactics or you’re a moron, not understanding it, which it?
Your red herrings and straw man arguments are pathetic. Can you read? Context is what matters. I said don’t enter gov contracts regarding SS and income tax. I write VOID across signature lines when coerced, such as hand pays at casinos or traffic tickets.
You do know that the use of a SS# is a ‘benefit of the Social Security Administration”, as ruled by SCOTUS, don’t you? Bc it belongs to the SSA, not you.
Your desperation to pigeon hole me are juvenile. I’m not one of those sovereign citizens, I know all about that. Their magic bullets are silly. Logic, law and knowledge about law are all that’s needed. Something you clearly don’t have.
Banks don’t take out taxes and paychecks only require names, not SS#’s. Your looney ramblings are insane and desperate, let’s not pretend you’re not desperate. 😅
Btw, if your manacles fit, that answers the question. 😉
Did you get the clot shot too?
Freedom,
Calling me “desperate” is not an argument. Writing “void” on income taxes does not cause the IRS to relent and say: Ok, we’ll leave him alone. If you are living in a home with your name on the mortgage and title, have a bank account and are being paid by employers via other than cash and doing all that without providing an SS number and not paying SS and income taxes then God bless you. I am just not buying it.
I suppose that makes me a “moron.”
You wrote: ” I write VOID across signature lines when coerced, such as hand pays at casinos or traffic tickets.” I added the italics. If you did that, you’d have been arrested on the spot.
What you are suggesting people do is foolishness.
Eric, calling you desperate was stating a plain fact, not an argument. For instance, you use straw man arguments, just like Raider Girl. That’s a clear sign of desperation.
You not wanting to accept the facts I’ve stated, accompanied by nonsense excuses of ignorance, also exposes your desperation.
Can you read? Where did I state I write void “on income taxes”?
You don’t realize that you are very ignorant about the intricacies of law, apparently. Writing ‘VOID’ across a signature line satisfies the person asking for a ‘signature’ bc that acts as my signature. But, IRS can’t use that document bc it states VOID on its face. Try to drag me before a jury using ‘VOID’. I’ve used it for decades. Not a peep from IRS.
Having a house, as I do, bank accounts etc has NOTHING to do with income tax and fica withholding. That’s more ignorant desperation on your part, trying to find something to stick, well, it’s non sequitur.
Simple trusts resolve lots of issues you think are impossible to avoid. But, not using a SS# on IRS income tax forms prevents any legal action. ZERO nexus to me without it. You can’t get past all the scare tactics to understand this basic concept. The SS# is everything to them, without it, they have nothing. Wake up.
You are so brainwashed, you think people go straight to prison 1 week after not filing a tax return. You’re not unique. Most people believe the same scare tactics you regurgitate so eagerly.
You probably think Al Capone went to prison bc of income tax too. Admit it, you do. Bc you gobble up gov propaganda like Rosie O’Donnell and a plate of lasagna.
Your ignorance of traffic law enforcement doesn’t change reality either. Your need to believe it’s true is yet again more desperation.
None are so blind as those that refuse to see.
Freedom writes:
“Banks don’t take out taxes and paychecks only require names, not SS#’s. Your looney ramblings are insane and desperate, let’s not pretend you’re not desperate.”
Really? What bank does not require government ID to open an account? And how do you get a government ID (as a citizen) without SS? Paychecks only require names? Yes. But the writer of those checks – the employer – will only issue the check to an employee who has filled out the required tax forms. If you are a W2 employee, SS will be automatically deducted. If you are a 1099 employee, you get to cut the check yourself.
I know. These are “loony ramblings” and I am “insane and desperate.”
Eric, more circular reasoning.🤣
I’ve been 100% honest about everything I’ve stated. That’s why it’s so clear that you desperately don’t want to believe me. It’s not surprising. Millions of Americsns believe the 9/11 fairytale too. It’s all fear driven. Fear is the greatest enslaver of all. You need to get over your fear.
Do you work for IRS? Do you know what a straw man argument is and why it makes you look desperate and ignorant for using them?
I use a SS# when needed and not connected to IRS. I.E. credit. Your desperately ignorant argument re bank accounts, homes etc falls flat. Non sequitur.
You keep believing what the government and other sheeple tell you, you’re quite content with that, apparently. 😉
Freedom –
Put up – or shut up. You have yet to directly answer any of my questions. Show proof you are employed by an employer who agreed to employ (and pay) you without your providing an SS number. Show me that you have a bank account without having had to show government ID. Show me your mortgage that you got without showing the lender a SS number.
My bet is you won’t. Because you can’t.
Because it isn’t possible.
More circular fact, Freedom –
Your argument is one I have heard many times before from “sovereign citizen” types who assert we’re not bound by the laws, that the laws aren’t legitimate (which is true but irrelevant) and the money shot – that they will not be enforced on us if only we know how to play the game. We just have to know the secret code words.
I see zero evidentiary support from you or anyone else who purveys this stuff. We’re just supposed to believe everything’s voluntary and that cops won’t arrest us and judges won’t jail us if we utter the magic word “void.”
I doubt you have ever written “void” on a traffic ticket – and if you have then you got arrested. If so, I laud your principled stand. But you got arrested – which is the point. Same goes for all the rest. Bullshit, I say, that you avoid filing taxes by writing “void” on the forms. Or just not filing them. Bullshit, I say, that you get paid by checks cut by employers who did not require you to provide SS. Bullshit, I say, that you were able to open a bank account without a government-issued ID that you got by providing your SS number.
It’s all bullshit. Of the worst sort – because it encourages good (freedom minded) people to make stupid decisions that are likely to get them into the kind of trouble that can be ruinous.
To be clear, I vehemently oppose SS and all taxation. But that is neither here nor there as regards the power of the government to compel payment.
Eric, your need to put words in my mouth and argue against your words, aka straw man argument, is juvenile, dishonest and lame.
It’s really simple, don’t use the SS# issued to you on IRS forms or let others. Without that, IRS has no way to pursue action bc the SS# is your identity to them. Don’t enter IRS contracts, that’s all i’ve been saying.
Like I said before, you want to name call and pigeon hole me as a crazy ‘sovereign’, bc you can’t argue against my facts. 😅🤣
Where did I say laws don’t apply to me, LIAR?
You want me to send you pictures of my paychecks bc you believe people are required by a law, that you can’t provide, to apply for, obtain and supply a SS# to be able to work.
Even if I could never be an ’employee’ of a company, bc I won’t provide a SS#, isn’t that price small enough to live free by being self employed? Not to you, you’re trapped in the minnutia of perfectionism.
Being an employee is generally a position of exploitation anyway. Why do you hold the status of ’employee’ as sacred?
No amount of proof from me will assuage your fear of government, obviously, you’ll doubt it all to keep your shackles.
Eric, your passion to defend the false constructs that allow you to remain in denial is off the charts.
You’re a petulant child. You whine, moan and bich about tyranny and oppression but fight tooth and nail to defend the corruption when simple truths are shared with you.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.
You can lead a Freedom Loving American Slave to the think tank, but you can’t make him think.
You can lead a bull to the whatchamacallit, but you can’t make him shit.
All you really do, might as well quit while you are behind.
Freaking dumbass.
LOL… We’re sorry. You are way over qualified. I hear ABC Techno is hiring.
Ken, and your point is?
Try NOT “Volunteering” and see how long you retain your home, your car, your savings and investments, and, most important, your FREEDOM.
You, sir, are DELUSIONAL.
Douglas, 👌🤣 you’re trapped in propaganda and fear.
I work and make money like anyone and I haven’t filed/paid income taxes in decades. Not word one from IRS about it.
IRS knows where I am, they’ve notified me repeatedly to collect Covid stimulus money, I won’t.
So, you see, I’m right, not delusional. You’re just like other cowards, you need to believe I’ll get in trouble to justify your cowardice.
You’re not an American, you’re a United Statesian.
Remember real Americans like me every year when you eagerly trample the 5th Amendment to file your self incrimination tax returns to your masters at It’s Really Slavery, slave. 🤣
Hi Freedom,
I am interested to know – precisely – how you manage to “get away” with this. I place “get away” in air fingers quote marks because I think it absurd and evil to style keeping what’s yours by preventing it from being taken from you “getting away” with something. Anyhow, are you willing to explain – to substantiate – how you get an employer to pay you without W2 or 1099? Without providing an SS number? How you are able to “get away” with not paying taxes? Please be specific.
Inquiring minds want to know.
Hi Eric,
There are a few ways one can get “away with this” 1. The worker is a subcontractor for a business that does not collect W9s or send out 1099s. This can go on for years until the state audits the business. If the business does not hire employees and only hires subs they may be able to get away with this forever, but there is hell to pay if the “employer” gets caught. 2. The sub is a foreign agent and is not required to file a US tax return, but a tax return for their resident country must still be filed.
My guess is Scenario #1. To pull this off though you need two companies who are willing to ignore filing requirements.
It will work for the time being until the IRS starts tracking bank accounts and wondering why $200k of deposits are flowing through annually while the owner of said account has not reported income. AI and digital currency will nip this in the bud fast, but there will always be those that will not get caught.
If the IRS is sending out letters to apply for COVID funds he/she is already on the radar. They know he/she exists.
But, what do I know I only do this for a living. 🤫
Good stuff, RG!
As you say, what do you know. You only do this for a living….!
>there is hell to pay if the “employer” gets caught.
Yep. 🙁
Morning, Douglas –
I’d like to believe in this stuff; how nice it would be if we could just not agree to pay taxes! Decline to participate in Social Security. Get paid by employers without being obliged to fill out the requisite forms – with the requisite numbers demanded, provided. Etc. Yet I see no evidence this is possible; only assertions that it is. And perhaps it is. Perhaps the whole thing really is … voluntary. But as with all extraordinary claims, such a claim requires evidence to substantiate it. And some guy online saying he lives a normal life – earns income (reported by his employer via 1099 and W2) but doesn’t pay taxes (including SS) and the government just leaves him (and his bank account/assets) alone isn’t that.
Eric,
👌🤣 There you go again, with your lies, straw man arguments, wilfull assumptions and projections. 1099’s and W2’s can’t be reported WITHOUT A SS#, duh.
Maybe try freedom for yourself then?🤔
Instead of expecting people to convince you with mere words online what freedom actually tastes like.
“…doesn’t pay taxes…”, another lie. I pay over 90 different taxes. Just not income and SS taxes.
Btw, my bank accountS, are just fine. Bc I don’t use THEIR SS# on Fed gov contracts or let others. Just that simple.
Being jealous can be resolved, do it yourself and find out.
Freedom –
What “lies, straw man arguments, wilfull assumptions and projections”? Instead of making assertions – and calling names – how about some specific facts to substantiate your claims? These claims come across as not credible. I don’t mean this as an insult. I mean it because they are not credible. I have worked for dozens of media outlets over the past 30-plus years and every single one has required me to fill out tax forms that have the SS number (EIN) and if I had refused to provide this info, I would not have been paid. RG – who is an account/tax professional – has disputed your claims with facts. She is credible. Your credibility has yet to be established. I wish you would do so.
PS: jealous is the last thing I am. Your money is yours – and I defend your right to it absolutely.
Well, Freedom, you have not as yet replied to my request that you substantiate the claims you have made about not paying income or Social Security (FICA) taxes, which I dismiss as not credible in the absence of evidence to establish the credibility of these claims. Your saying you do not pay them is not evidence.
If you are paid income by a company, that company will report this paying of income to the IRS. You are required to report it via the filing of taxes. If you are a salaried employee, a portion of your income will be withheld for federal taxes and FICA. Neither you nor your employer has any choice about this. You do have the choice to not file a tax return, of course. But that choice is likely to have consequences.
The bottom line here – absent evidence to the contrary – is that anyone who earns other-than-cash income (and has a bank account) either pays taxes (including FICA) or risks prosecution for tax evasion. I despise the fact. Because I despise strong-armed robbery. But my liking it is neither here nor there – and I do not believe you can just decide not to pay income or SS taxes (by not signing “contracts” and so on) and then you are free to not pay them and nothing bad will happen to you.
Eric, And you haven’t apologized, much less owned your nefarious and empty false attacks on me, are you a girl? That’s what they do.
Please, on this internet comment thread, prove to me that you don’t have terminal cancer and that you’re not a coward. 👌😂
You perpetually make up bullshit to justify your previous bullshit. I.E. you claiming I pay NO TAXES (impossible, unless im a hermit), you claiming that I said ‘laws don’t apply to me’, you claiming I’m one of those ‘sovereigns’ even after I denounced that nonsense, and whatever else straw man arguments pathetic cowards like you use to desperately further their losing arguments to justify feckless cowardice.
You make no sense. Your brain is stuck in the circular reasoning loop, apparently. It can’t be reported without the SS#. The form is LEGALLY considered blank without either the SS# OR a signature, under oath. Your ignorance of law is the issue here, not just that I can’t prove a negative.
Can I send you a picture of a document that was never filled out? Or a picture of my paychecks? And what would that prove? Maybe a picture of no IRS letters or of no IRS investigations? 👌😂
The fact still remains; I live free of income and SS taxes with my job, bank accounts, house, cars etc, regardless of your insistence that it’s not possible. Been doing it for decades, even during your incredulousness.
Whatever excuse you need to justify your cowardice, please continue, I’m sure you desperately will.
Eric, you deleted this👆 comment. I posted it again. Shame on you. Are you a democrat too?
Man, Eric. Your tolerance level is incredible & your patience is almost beyond measure.
Impressive.
“Freedom Loving American”, – Ha! You crack me up, Dweeb.
…Robot?
Morning, Helot!
When an audacious claim is made that on the face of it runs contrary to the evidence in front of our lying eyes, it requires extremely compelling evidence to override it. Has our friend who claims he does not pay income taxes substantiated his claims by showing how he actually “gets away” with it? Not that I have seen. Maybe he manages to fly under the radar; if so, good for him. Maybe he has found employers who are willing to pay him without requiring him to fill out/file W2/1099 forms; if so, good for him. I also have “gotten away with” eluding cops who were trying to catch me for “speeding.” It is possible. But there are consequences if you get caught!
Harl0t, your typical female passive aggressive shaming tactics are 4th grade quality.
If you could actually debate, you wouldn’t need those juvenile stunts to vent your pathetic ego, insecurities and man hatred. 🤔
Eric, I can’t prove a negative, are you dense? 🤣
Can you prove Big Foot DOESN’T exist?
I’ll say it again:
And you haven’t apologized, much less owned your nefarious and empty false attacks on me, are you a girl? That’s what they do.
Please, on this internet comment thread, prove to me that you don’t have terminal cancer and that you’re not a coward. 👌😂
You perpetually make up bullshit to justify your previous bullshit. I.E. you claiming I pay NO TAXES (impossible, unless im a hermit), you claiming that I said ‘laws don’t apply to me’, you claiming I’m one of those ‘sovereigns’ even after I denounced that nonsense, and whatever else straw man arguments pathetic cowards like you use to desperately further their losing arguments to justify feckless cowardice.
You make no sense. Your brain is stuck in the circular reasoning loop, apparently. It can’t be reported without the SS#. The form is LEGALLY considered blank without either the SS# OR a signature, under oath. Your ignorance of law is the issue here, not just that I can’t prove a negative.
Can I send you a picture of a document that was never filled out? Or a picture of my paychecks? And what would that prove? Maybe a picture of no IRS letters or of no IRS investigations? 👌😂
The fact still remains; I live free of income and SS taxes with my job, bank accounts, house, cars etc, regardless of your insistence that it’s not possible. Been doing it for decades, even during your incredulousness.
Whatever excuse you need to justify your cowardice, please continue, I’m sure you desperately will.
I’m guessing “Nacho” is a dole recipient himself. You hit the target with this one, Eric.
Thanks, Jason!
My intention was only to hit the target – the government – not those victimized by it.
I receive a military retirement. I’m now 3.5 years away from 62. I will collect then.
There’s no telling how long i’m going to live. I’m seeing other Marines that I’ve known come down with cancers, and tumors. Some not even making it to the age of 60.
Yes, SDG, my uncle is one of them. It was the damn burn pits during Desert Storm, but apparently, we are not supposed to say that out loud. Add in the forced “vaccination” and now we have a rapid rise in tumor growth that has been in remission for years/decades. Damn government.
The other day, through no fault of my own I was in a car accident. I had insurance, which I was forced to have to license the car, but since I had the money to pay for the damages on my own I did. I believe it is immoral to take charity. Last year, my home was damaged by a tornado, but since I had the money to repair it myself, I did so. I was forced to have home owners insurance by the bank to cover the full replacement cost of the property, but I believe it is immoral to take charity. Yesterday, I walked into the store and they were giving free samples of a new product in the frozen food aisle. I was AGHAST as I watched people accept free samples. I pay $500 a month for health insurance. It’s a struggle saving extra money in the event I get ill so I don’t have to use it. But I manage somehow. So, yes. OF COURSE I believe it is immoral to accept gifts from the taxpayers in the form of Social Security payments – even after having been forced to pay several thousand dollars every working year of my life into the system. BTW, just so you know, I am a certified moron.
Hi Dalton,
I do not say it is immoral to accept charity. I say it is immoral to force anyone to provide it.
Agree, you are a moron. Thx for admitting it. 😂
Freedom Loving American (Slave): You’re not the only moron here, well, maybe.
TDS sufferer, so witty and profound. How long did it take you to trigger out that vacuos ad hominem attack? 😅
Freedom Loving American (Slave), Eric is a moron, Slave Girl is stupid and a moron.
Looks like ad hominem to me, you stupid moron who is certainly an idiot with no clue.
Get some kind of life.
You are a slave to your body, you stupid idiot.
You are the one who did the ad hominem, dumbass.
Attacking everybody and blaming the victim is not that cool.
Fuck fucking you.
Get lost.
I’m then supposed to swallow your complete bullshit and then you want me to agree you are right about it all?
Fuck you!
Your epistle is imposing, evil in nature.
So, fuck you and the horse you rode in on.
God Almighty, so full of shit right up to your ears.
Stick around, you’ve got a lot to learn.
Stay seated in your outhouse, so full of shit that you are.
When you die and you die intestate, dotgobblemint will take what you never had.
Dumbass, you are that and more.
Make a will, which means the state will be involved to settle affairs.
Freaking dumbass.
I get your cosmic reality, but real life is entirely different.
You will die and you will be interred.
No escape from that.
You are not free to decide how it all ends.
Fuck you, asshole.
This is a minor issue that should not be discussed…. if you continue you will be ‘locked down’ and ‘forced to mask’ your face. Compliance is always the best path. NOTE: You are not living in a free country, don’t expect much. Signed, Government
Go on take the money and run, yeah, yeah, hoo, hoo, hoo!
Since Social Security taxes were stolen from me my entire working career I am absolutely going to collect every last cent until I croak. Funny how Trumpenstein’s proposal to stop taxing Social Security benefits didn’t make it into his his Big Bullsh*t Bill, so we’re getting taxed twice on the same income. Eric is spot on about taking money from the Pentagram, it’s nothing but fraud and corruption. David Stockman wrote an excellent piece about what it would cost to actually “defend” the country instead of meddling in every other country’s business. Take that money to pay us retirees our benefits and phase out SS taxes for younger generations.
That will happen when pigs fly.
I find it hilarious that democrats hand wring that social security is going to run out of funds, but most liberal financial advisers recently waiting until age 70 to start taking it. Next year when I turn 62, I’m going to start drawing just out of spite, since who knows it may run out or I could die before 70. Don’t really need the 2900 a month as I have good retirement and investments that net me just over 12k a month, so will allow for a couple more cruises a year.
I’m with you, Mike. I wish I could identify as old enough to collect – but I’m not quite there yet!
It was not sold as something that the young would pay for to support the elderly, it was sold as an account you would contribute into, a trust account, through your SSI taxes, that you would pay for, in my case, that started with my first job at Burger King in the early 80’s and through all my work since. This wasn’t to be paid for by anyone but me, myself and I. However, the government raided these accounts, because they couldn’t help themselves and now it had become exactly what you said it is, an account funded by the young. Please remember, that I’ve paid into this for over 40 years, with money that I wasn’t able to use and was told it would be there for me as I got older. Now, of course, we all figured the government would be broke when that came to be, and they are, and many of us figured we would never see a dime of what we contributed to. But please remember, it was not set up the way you said. The money I gave, was stolen, by the very people who said they would have the funds available for me. So they should try to find a way to make this right, not because of socialism but because it’s what they said they would do and if they want to earn back the trust of the people, which has been completely lost at this point, they need to fix this situation, and of course, many, many others. I’d like to leave my daughter with a free and prosperous country. I have some hope with Trump in charge, but it’s a long path back to prosperity, and the GOP is almost completely worthless, the judiciary is attempting a coup and Trump, up to this point, is allowing it to happen.
Perhaps we conservatives and Christians all need to move to Russia. Meanwhile, let’s hope they fix what they have broken.
Hi Bryan,
If it only it had been sold – as in people were free to buy it, if they thought it worth buying into. Or not, if they didn’t think it was worth buying into. Instead, it was imposed on people. I think the distinction is important.
I guess all that I meant was that it was represented that way when it was a bill for passing through Congress and the Senate. They did have to “sell” it to some degree to the public at the time. Had I been around at the time, and of voting age, I would’ve told my congressman not to vote for it. Because anybody that knew the government knew that eventually they would not honor their word to create a trust account and would spend it. There have been four evil presidents in the last 100 years. One was FDR who forced through many communistic ideas and created a presidential office that grabbed a lot of power. The other three were LBJ who forced all this mass migration upon us, and who also forced the great society upon us which destroyed the black community and continues to do so to this day. And you have George Bush in 2000 who I at the time supported and of course Barry Soetoro who has been in office three times thanks to Biden. Hopefully America will be smarter going forward.
Amen, Bryan –
All of us alive today are bound what another (prior) generation went along with. It’s a shame such “contracts” are enforceable, isn’t it?
Sorry pal, but I am ABSOLUTELY “owed” my social Security retirement INSURANCE (FICA…Federal “Insurance…”) just as much as you or your loved ones are owed life insurance and health care payouts that you paid premiums into all your life. The government may play all kinds of games with my premiums. The courts may deny the facts and pretend it’s welfare so they can use retirement funds just like many cities wasted contributors pension funds. But like car insurance is now mandatory for driving, FICA is mandatory for wage earners. Both are still insurance payouts, and nobody calls life insurance and car insurance “welfare.” And it’s insulting to seniors to do so!
Hi Glee,
The Supreme Court disagrees. I think you missed the entire point of my article – which is that you and others were robbed and now depend on robbery. That’s ugly – but it’s also true.
I personally support paying current older people who got robbed for the bulk of their working lives – using “defense” money for that purpose. But I also say young people should be freed from the shackles of being forced to “contribute.” People in the middle ought to be given the choice of accepting a one-time/lump sum payment equivalent to what they have been forced to “contribute” thus far (plus interest) in exchange for agreeing to forfeit future “benefits” and for no longer being obliged to “contribute,” going forward.
This would end SS after the current generation of people at or close to retirement age passes and we could be free again. Well, once we get rid of property and income taxes..
Well, taking SS isn’t required like Medicare. Man Up! Don’t take it.
Gotta chuckle when I read its immoral when one tries to recover funds stolen as taxes using color of law during their entire lifetime but carving up children because you have convinced them they were born the wrong sex is perfectly fine….
I got an email from Social Security this year telling me congratulations, I’ve fulfilled 40 years of employment making me eligible for full benefits. When I get to 64 or 67, what will I be able to get? A system whose Ponzi scheme has run full course and has collapsed or a system still limping along paying out Dollars that that has the value of Confederate currency? I have a pension locked in before my employer stopped it 10 years ago and a 401k that’s better than average. My worry is next election a communist/democrat gets back in by hook or crook and proposes the government takes over private pensions and 401k’s to “shore up” government pensions and Social Security. I had this discussion with a co-worker about that possibility several years ago. She was saying that they (government) couldn’t do that. I said they damn well do what they wanted and I could prove it. She asked what was my proof? I said you know that strip of mountain range known as the Shenandoah National Park? She replied yes. I said I had ancestors that had homes, farms and apple & cherry orchards there. The government condemned their land and offered pennies on the dollar for it. Many refused and they were set out and burned out. When it comes to monopolies and theft, the U.S. government is second to none.
How about we just import infinity bamalians to pay for it? Surely that will make this better.
The predacious people”- EXACTLY WHO ARE THESE ‘people’?
Who exactly are the entities ‘we’ supposedly owe Trillions to?
Why not just print up a few more trillions and be done with it?
Why not just default, call it a jubilee, and tell them to fuck off?
Because sheep are addicted to ‘jewish’ tv networks and LIES.
Because these same creatures control the district of columbia utterly infested with ‘dual-citizen’ pedopols / so-called ‘jews’.
Because the same creatures that control ALL the tv networks, internet sites, publishing houses, radio stations, newspapers, movie industry, etc. also control the money and the ‘banks’.
Honestly, the only way out of this is MASS ‘jew’ EXPULSION!
Anyone ever add up all their ‘contributions’ to social security?
In any case, get ALL the SS money you can NOW…because the ‘jewish’ ‘federal’ ‘reserve’ notes will soon be worthless and then it won’t matter. Buy Gold and Silver.
Get all the SS money you can! Yes, Yes, Yes. Gold and Silver,,, another scam.
My thoughts precisely Bill. It is immoral NOT to take money from the biggest thief in the land, and to take all you can.
sorry about the double post. I’m old, I get confused sometimes.
This article is a great example of why I keep tuning out a lot of media.
So as to not seem critical of Eric per se, I will grind me gears about XM Radio, specifically the stand up comedy channels.
I am a musician but I also get tired of music and like to listen to comedy. It usually will lighten my day because ha ha. Lately it has become obvious that they are intentionally programming acts that talk about covid, lockdowns, etc as if it were a perfectly normal thing that happened. I’m supposed to laugh at whatever joke they are about to tell but I can’t because they reminded me yet again of something that pisses me off. My father is dead. I never spoke to him again after the 2nd clot shot which I told him not to get.
Which brings me to my point, I am tired of being reminded of the recent and continuing holocaust It is impossible not to be reminded but it is possible to cut down some of the static.
As far as XM is concerned, I have to listen to the Comedy Greats channel as those comedians likely died before the scamdemic and thus have no material that reminds me when I am not in the mood to be reminded.
The great thing about Eric’s articles is that he is not trying to make it seem good and normal, however, I cannot seemingly read an article by Eric, short of a car review, that no matter the subject, mentions the scamdemic and thus reminds me.
So here I am reading about SS and defense spending and then in the middle, a quick reference to the scam. I know it was to make a point, but it is the same point being made over and over again. Can the point be made with another example? Absolutely.
And thus I am about to quit regularly reading Eric’s articles except car reviews and diaper reports. Why diaper reports you may ask? Because not only is the scam THE TOPIC, I am also ok with being reminded because the title of the article let’s me know what I am about to read. But I think it is a bit off-putting to be reading about air bags and saaaafety only to get a quick jab of trannies and clot shots that have nothing to do with the article. And it is absolutely fine to use trannies and clot shots to make a point, but does it have to be in every article?
I’ll be turning 62 in a few months, my current debate is whether or not to go ahead and start collecting SS. My doctor said the other day that it makes sense to go ahead and start at 62 if you only live to be 80, after that you’ll lose money. I don’t particularly need the extra money at the moment, but would like to get back everything I had to pay in.
TIME VALUE of Money. I’ve waited thus far as I’m still working full-time. My “FRA” (Full Retirement Age) for Social Security purposes is 66 years and ten months, so as of 2/17/2026, my annuity, which has been increasing since my 62nd birthday, isn’t offset by whatever I bring in in excess of what reduces SS benefits at the rate of 50 cents on the dollar. The “plan” is to continue with my present employer, as long as He’ll have me, until next February, and likely continue to the end of the 2026; but as other options become viable, be prepared to “punch out” and call it a career. Doesn’t mean I won’t work (and pay SS taxes on THAT), just means I’m freed from the “Golden Handcuffs” of confiscatory taxation on what were falsely alleged to be MY earned benefits.
At least the orange-haired One’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” carried forth with a better tax situation for seniors, and while taxation on ALL my SS benefits wasn’t done away with (I never seriously believed OM would get even his own party to go along with wholescale elimination of SS taxation), it’s been greatly reduced. So there’s progress made.
However, the REALITY is that today’s seniors, some of whom have little to show for their trouble, and are far more dependent on SS than I, and others DO have OTHER means, can’t expect the status quo to endure. The younger generation is being hit with a “Triple Whammy” of high real estate costs (meaning they’re finding it quite difficult to afford even a modest home), stagnant wages, and taxation schemes at all levels of Government which are grabbing ever more out of their means. Simply put, they CAN’T AFFORD TO SUPPORT US. And SHOULD they? In the end, WHOSE responsibility is it for the old, if not the old themselves, or at least their families? It’s not as if “Manuel Labor” is the only way to make a living these days, and with more “Telework” and “Work from Home” opportunities, the elderly can at least make SOMETHING to supplement their meager retirement. It’s not a “zero sum” game, anyway! The contributions of the elderly are a huge, poorly managed resource. It makes no sense for those that can work, regardless of age, to sit idle. Y’know, the “Devil’s Workshop?”
I reached “full retirement age” a month ago, and turned on the spigot.
I don’t need it, thank God — still working.
So maybe I’ll buy a gold coin with each monthly payment … something to pass on someday to my kids or grandkids.
I figured not taking SS payments would only allow the beast to live longer.
“Pedal to the metal!” — let’s hasten the inevitable bankruptcy!
Once it’s burned to the ground, let’s hope and pray something better will rise from the ashes.
My thoughts precisely Bill. It is immoral NOT to take money from the biggest thief in the land, and to take all you can.
The time for buying Gold coins was last decade. Platinum will be the undervalued star of the show going forward.
We should all be thinking of ways to Cloward and Pivin this bitch into the ground. The thing to remember, once the mathematically certain inevitability occurs is, never again. Anyone stepping forward that was in any way associated with any level of Govco in the past, should feel lucky to get out of town alive. Any, and I mean any, former officials trying to pass themselves off as leaders, their skulls should be made into soup bowls for the homeless.
Amen, Norman!
I’d make make sure you have arable land, farming tools, seed, and WATER, let alone the skills to plant, cultivate, and preserve your own produce. Last I knew, while Platinum or Star Trek’s Latinum are (or will be) valuable, there’s not EDIBLE.
‘All it would take [to break the chains that bind us] is to divert some of the money that goes to support what is absurdly referred to as “defense” spending.’ — eric
Thank you. This is why I so adamantly oppose the Big, Butt-Ugly Bill: it arbitrarily adds $150 billion to an already bloated ‘defense’ baseline. This then becomes the NEW baseline, meaning trillion-dollar ‘defense’ appropriations forevermore, whether in war or peace.
No case was made for this egregious $150 billion hike for a ‘Defense’ Department that fails its audit every year. No debate took place. This is just what Republicans reflexively do — they luuvvvvv our troops fighting foreign forever wars. That’s the background of my Iraq veteran Freedom Caucus representative.
The Senate may yet sink the BBB. If it doesn’t, the BBB is a milestone in the decline and fall of the US empire. Interest on fedgov debt already is over $1 trillion a year out of this year’s $7.5 trillion in outlays. It’s headed to $2 trillion, as higher interest rates work their way into the mountain of Treasury debt, whose average maturity is almost six years.
As the world’s most indebted country, Japan is the canary in the coal mine. It’s in big trouble, now that its long JGBs yield 3 percent, not zero percent. But the US faces the same dilemma. When debt service starts eating it alive, the easy way out for a dishonest clowngov is to have its central bank counterfeiters just ‘print’ the debt payments.
Eclownomists call this soft default.
Lendersvictims still receive their interest payments, but in devalued dollars that don’t buy much. Then America’s overseas military empire collapses like Britain’s did in the five tumultuous years after WW II. 🙁‘I have watched this famous island descending incontinently, fecklessly the stairway which leads to a dark gulf. It is a fine broad stairway at the beginning, but after a bit the carpet ends. A little further on there are only flagstones, and a little further on still these break beneath your feet.’ — Winston Churchill, House of Commons, 24 March 1938
There’s nothing immoral about getting every single penny you can from the government. Every single thing in this country is a grift. If you don’t get a piece of the action, someone else will. It’s that simple.
The other problem is that even so-called “free market” investments are also controlled by the government, either directly or indirectly. The Federal reserve sets interest rates, which have a direct impact on “investments” and stock prices. IRAs and 401(k)s are simply tax-advantaged loopholes created by the government. Stock prices are also affected by other government policies like tariffs, debt, taxes, and EV/energy credits. Housing prices are directly related to interest rates and to government tax write-offs. Companies that fail like GM can be bailed out by the government instead of going bankrupt in the “free market.”
Like it or not, all roads lead to Washington. We do not live in a “free” economy, we live in a corporatist/neo-socialist economy where the vast majority of financial “success” comes from gaming some kind of government policy.
The hard part X will be fixing this permanently without bankrupting the country or leaving our elderly living on the street. Sadly it will only benefit the special interest groups when it fails. B*stards.
‘all roads lead to Warshington [sic]. We do not live in a “free” economy’ — X
Yes. It is a command economy, having much in common with fascism. By ‘fascism’ I do not mean right or left wing politics, but Mussolini’s succinct definition: “Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.”
Vast amounts of funds that should be reinvested to raise living standards are siphoned off by the parasitic US fedgov for foreign windmill tilts, boodling contractors and NGOs, and social benefits for the large underclass which resemble the bread ration in ancient Rome.
Yesterday I saw a chart showing that since the Renaissance, most global reserve currency regimes lasted about a century: Italy; Portugal; Spain; Netherlands; France; Britain; US. Britain’s ran from 1815 (the Duke of Wellington’s victory at Waterloo) to 1914, when Britain had to suspend sterling convertibility as it entered WW I.
The US global reserve currency regime is ten years past its sell-by date. The Big, Butt-Ugly Bill looks set to finish it off, especially if the US enmeshes itself in yet another idiotic foreign war against, say, Iran or Russia or China.
As the Orange Emperor is fond of saying within the watered-silk walls of his marble palace, Death to the dollar!
The Pentagram is the enforcement arm of Treasury.
You can ask Saddam Hussein, Col Gadaffi and Manny Noriega about it.
USD hegemony depends upon it.
Recall history of when Social Security began during the Lesser Depression and FDR was facing the actual threat of communism growing inside the United States and worked to mitigate their influence. Makes sense that much of the New Deal helped to placate commies (or would-be commies) and avoid a takeover similar to Russia.
All this SS junk is socialism.
Socialism doesn’t never gets legislated or vote away. It only can end in bankruptcy.
What grinds my gears are the people who work for dotgov, retire after 20 years of service or working in government, salaries are paid for by citizens who pay the taxes.
They have pensions, social security, all of the money didn’t come from them in any productive way, always from the tax system.
Where I grew up, the zoo was about a mile away, every morning, the lions would roar and roar, close to 6:00 am. An empty lion’s stomach makes them cry out loud. Feed them horse meat, tastes like zebra.
Didn’t need an alarm clock, you knew it was time to wake up and see what’s going on.
It is immoral to remove funds from the Social Security Trust Fund and transfer funds to the general fund. What you call theft, robbery, criminal. All your money to us belong.
If the Internal Revenue Service didn’t exist, you would be able to keep what you earn.
The IRS be de-funded? Fat chance!
In ca. 1961 in Chicago, mechanics were paid in cash at the end of each day. There was another job up the street, the mechanics got paid.
Don’t know, my friend the mechanic worked at a dealership in Chicago for 20 years.
What he said was what it was like, then withholding and paper checks came along.
.Gov union goons are some of the biggest welfare queens around.
I know of a retired NYS Trooper (they do the 20 & out retirement) who pulls down an $80k/yr state pension and then went and got a job doing security in a Federal building.
So now he can collect one pension, collect another paycheck and work on a second federal pension.
And guess what his kid does for a living? Is a NYS Trooper.
These gov goons like to keep their closed shop, lavish, taxpayer funded lifestyles all to themselves.
The NYS Police don’t have the “Twenty and Out” (I’ll guess a higher-ranking trooper whose “beat” is a desk can work longer and fatten that pension even more) due to any uncommon generosity. Yes, it’s a bit of a “Racket”, but the nature of the work requires that young, fit MEN (I’ll leave aside my contention that women are generally unsuitable as beat cops) perform it, then are replaced by the next generation. Hence the deferred compensation of 80 percent of one’s salary at retirement in order to induce a steady, LOYAL work force of State troopers.
Ok, so, due to his being career law enforcement (leaving aside that he may have put in a four or five-year stint straight out of HS in the military, and therefore is a veteran), he’s quite eligible to work essentially the same job as a Federal civilian, and in a “security” capacity, implying that hes a “Special Agent” with his agency? Again, his Federal pension, which would be FERS, that also dovetails with Social Security, is EARNED if he puts in enough service (five years and 62, twenty years and 60, or thirty years and minimum retirement age, which likely for him is 56 or 57). The main question would be, insofar as the employing Federal Agency is concerned, is, he the best candidate for the job, and is his performance satisfactory? Or, for that matter, is the mission of the employing agency even needed and to be funded? All legitimate questions. IDK if Elon Musk’s “DOGE” will answer them, but SOMEONE needs to.
To ask the question is to answer it. But as has been pointed out, Social Security is just another tax upon the people who if they had received some financial education might well have invested that money that was taken from and had a higher retirement income.
If I remember correctly, Brazil did away with their state run pension plan and returned the funds to the people based on the money going into certain classes of investments with a withdrawal date roughly the same as the old system.
The problem we face is that many people for whatever reason that worked their whole life never saved enough to have a large enough financial reserve to finance their retirement. Whether medical debts, bad investments or divorce; eliminating Social Security may well kill them off.
My advise is to convert it to a private system but financed by deductions because when you’re young you don’t save anything for retirement because you don’t believe you’ll ever become old. Financing the changeover could be done by using the money we send to foreign countries that secretly hate us but stick their hands out. I won’t list them but to state the obvious they’re all the usual suspects.
Either way this is a sh*tty stick combined with a third rail no one will want to touch but it will have to be dealt with sooner rather than later.