by Jeff Berwick
The Fascist conception of the State is all embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism, is totalitarian, and the Fascist State – a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values – interprets, develops, and potentates the whole life of a people. – Benito Mussolini, 1932
I never watch the State of the Union in the US. I just can't stand someone looking into my eyes and lying to me for an hour. But I sometimes like to skim the transcripts after, mostly for entertainment, to see how they spin everything.
But the one thing I've noticed is there are never any tangible plans or strategies laid out. It's pure demagoguery. But, behind the scenes, the US Government is working to transform the country in leaps and bounds... and not for the better.
Buried deep in Barack O'Bomber's 2013 budget is actually a plan to all but outright nationalize the US Economy.
THE DE FACTO NATIONALIZATION OF THE US ECONOMY
In the budget it proposes to raise the dividend tax rate to the higher personal income tax rate of 39.6% that will kick in next year. Add in the planned phase-out of deductions and exemptions, and the rate hits 41%. Then add the 3.8% investment tax surcharge in ObamaCare, and the new dividend tax rate in 2013 would be 44.8%... nearly three times today's 15% rate.
But that's just what dividend recipients have to pay. Before they even see a penny the corporations have to pay taxes on their profit. Assuming a maximum 35% corporate tax rate and a 44.8% dividend tax, the total tax on corporate earnings passed through as dividends would be 64.1%.
You read that right. The only way as an investor to take profits out of US corporations next year will be after the US Government takes 64.1% of the profit. Think you can avoid it by keeping your gains via capital gains? The top rate for capital gains will be 39.6% in 2013 also, effectively the same rate as the dividend rate.
In other words, nearly 2/3rds of all productive gains will be expropriated by the state.
NEO-NATIONAL SOCIALISM
Barack O'Bomber, and all but one member of the US Congress are socialists. The lesson learned with the fall of the Soviet Union was that Socialism of the "Russian Pattern" simply could not function.
What was made clear to those in control, was that the path ahead in the 21st century was to be modeled on the "German Pattern" as Ludwig von Mises termed it:
An economic system completely planned and controlled by the government while retaining many of the labels and nominal forms of capitalism. A form of socialism (q.v.) which retains the appearance and terminology of the market economy while in fact private ownership of the means of production, real buying and selling, and real market prices, wages and interest rates no longer exist because all production activities and product allocations are directed and controlled by government orders which all participants are bound to obey unconditionally. This form of socialism was put into operation in Germany during the Nazi regime (1933-1945) but collapsed with the German defeat in World War II. The German term is Zwangswirtschaft (q.v.), a compulsory economic system.
Adolf Hitler made clear how this insidious system differed from the overt Socialism of the Soviet Union when he stated:
"Each activity and each need of the individual will thereby be regulated by the party as the representative of the general good. There will be no license, no free space, in which the individual belongs to himself. This is socialism — not such trifles as the private possession of the means of production. Of what importance is that if I range men firmly within a discipline they cannot escape? Let them then own land or factories as much as they please. The decisive factor is that the State, through the party, is supreme over them, regardless whether they are owners or workers. All that, you see, is unessential. Our socialism goes far deeper."
Today's US Government is following in Hitler's footsteps, still allowing the nominal ownership of the means of production, but remaining "supreme over them". Supreme to the tune of 64.1% of all profits!
Of course the Neo-National Socialism being practiced by the beltway goes much deeper than merely expropriating wealth – the US Federal Government is currently attempting to codify into law every conceivable aspect of its "citizens" lives.
The Federal Register, created in 1935, is only the tip of the iceberg. In 2002 the Register contained 75,606 pages delineating everything from street signs to the armaments of the military industrial complex. On top of that, as George Reisman points out: "there are presently fifteen federal cabinet departments, nine of which exist for the very purpose of respectively interfering with housing, transportation, healthcare, education, energy, mining, agriculture, labor, and commerce"
Each one of these federal departments has a multitude of sub-departments that employ thousands upon thousands of bureaucrats. In total there are over 1,300 federal government agencies, employing over 1,774,000 people whose sole purpose is to extend Federal Power over the lives of those who happen to have the misfortune of living within the territorial boundaries of the USSA.
Now of course, what use are laws, if you aren't enforcing them? According to Harvey A. Silverglate, the average American commits three felonies a day.
It is only a slight exaggeration to say that the average busy professional in this country wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, takes care of personal and family obligations, and then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she likely committed several federal crimes that day. Why? The answer lies in the very nature of modern federal criminal laws, which have become not only exceedingly numerous and broad, but also impossibly vague. As the Morissette scenario indicated, federal criminal laws have become dangerously disconnected from the English common law tradition and its insistence on fair notice, so prosecutors can find some arguable federal crime to apply to just about any one of us, even for the most seemingly innocuous conduct (and since the mid-1980s have done so increasingly).
ENTER THE JACKBOOTS
So with so many laws being broken, and the just nature of these laws unquestionable (this being the land of the free), it is absolutely necessary that the state prosecute them to their fullest extent. Currently there are over 800,000 federal, state and local law enforcement personnel employed to apprehend those guilty of these "crimes". You know, selling milk, organic vegetables, bits of mildly psychoactive plants, "insider" trading, not showing proper respect to an agent of the state, producing coins, dancing in Washington Monument, or even celebrating with your fellow students:
The 2011 annual Wheeler Block Party at Western Illinois University (WIU) was met with brute force this year as a "multi-jurisdictional task force" was sent in to intimidate students with long-range acoustic device (LRAD) sound weapons, tear gas, riot gear, dogs, and even physical assaults – all for no apparent reason.
The US Federal government is currently militarizing the Local and State police forces – SWAT teams have become ubiquitous even in small towns, with armoured cars being granted to all:
Despite tight budgets at entirely levels of government, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is still giving local law enforcement agencies military vehicles. According to a report in The Huffington Post, a small town in New Hampshire was set to receive an armored personnel vehicle before one local resident launched a petition drive to block the acquisition.
And to top it all off, the Federal Government, under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security has created 72 Threat Fusion Centers to coordinate the enforcement arm of the Neo-National Socialist state. And who is in their sights? According to the 2009 MIAC report, those who desire freedom:
The MIAC report specifically describes supporters of presidential candidates Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, and Bob Barr as "militia" influenced terrorists and instructs the Missouri police to be on the lookout for supporters displaying bumper stickers and other paraphernalia associated with the Constitutional, Campaign for Liberty, and Libertarian parties.
LAST CHANCE TO STOP THIS?
As I alluded to in the beginning of this article, there is one man who not only recognizes all of this for what it is, but is brave enough to speak the truth to power.
Here is Ron Paul speaking in Kansas City Missouri four days ago:
"We've slipped away from a true Republic," Paul said. "Now we're slipping into a fascist system where it's a combination of government and big business and authoritarian rule and the suppression of the individual rights of each and every American citizen."
Link:
http://lewrockwell.com/berwick/berwick36.1.html
No comments:
Post a Comment