June 1st, 2013 by Dissolving Dollars
This is a great summary exposing why democracy is so dumb. And it also is a great summary of why trying to change government is like running on a hamster wheel.
May 29th, 2013 by Dissolving Dollars
This is a good little article by Karl Denninger:
Folks, wake the hell up — you are being and have been scammed:
SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine — Dr. Michael Ciampi took a step this spring that many of his fellow physicians would describe as radical.
The family physician stopped accepting all forms of health insurance. In early 2013, Ciampi sent a letter to his patients informing them that he would no longer accept any kind of health coverage, both private and government-sponsored. Given that he was now asking patients to pay for his services out of pocket, he posted his prices on the practice’s website.
This would mean that prices would be beyond your ability to pay and thus you couldn’t get the health care you need, right?
Before, Ciampi charged $160 for an office visit with an existing patient facing one or more complicated health problems. Now, he charges $75.
Patients with an earache or strep throat can spend $300 at their local hospital emergency room, or promptly get an appointment at his office and pay $50, he said.
In other words the price for said care in point of fact is somewhere between about half and one sixth of what it was when “insurance” was involved.
Bluntly: You were being raped for anywhere between 200% and 600% of what the price of the actual service is between a willing buyer and seller.
Still think you couldn’t afford medical care without “insurance”?
You’re wrong. You could afford it.
You’re being lied to — systematically and intentionally.
The facts are that the current medical system steals somewhere between half and 80% of your money and since insurance must, on average, be a net lose to everyone who participates (otherwise the company goes under) the screwing is even worse than the math suggests.
May 25th, 2013 by Dissolving Dollars
A very good talk.
May 22nd, 2013 by Dissolving Dollars
May 22nd, 2013 by Dissolving Dollars
Two good, reasonable, insightful videos from Lorax2013.
May 21st, 2013 by Dissolving Dollars
Although I don’t expect any big moves back up anytime soon in gold and silver, this presentation by Mike Maloney does a good job at putting everything into the longer term big picture perspective.
May 15th, 2013 by Dissolving Dollars
Today gold and silver underwent another round of technical damage, thus reducing the probability of reversing the down move anytime soon. In the meantime, U.S. stocks continue to march higher, with nearly no pullbacks. The dollar keeps trying to go higher too. This is all part of setting up the next U.S. recession, which is still a few years down the road.
The danger going forward is hypertaxation not hyperinflation. Yes, hypertaxation will make things expensive, but that won’t be hyperinflation. With hypertaxation, the bond holders will get paid and the government will be able to maintain its obese figure for a little while longer without having to start its diet. I’ve heard chatter that a backup plan for dealing with the government debt when the day of high interest rates comes to the U.S. is to take over retirement funds. They will do it under the guise that the safest place for retirement funds is government bonds and thus they will force the $20 trillion or so in retirement funds into government debt at low or even no interest.
A recent example of the trend to hypertaxation is the internet sales tax. It hasn’t passed yet, but even if it doesn’t they’ll keep trying. The cry is that the lack of online sales tax isn’t fair for local brick and mortar stores…as if most truly local brick and mortar stores couldn’t engage in online sales themselves. But regardless, if it is unfair for brick and mortar stores, then get rid of sales tax altogether. That would be super fair. But of course that’s never even proposed as part of the dialogue. Ignoring the fact that taxation is the socialization of theft, taxes suck for doing business. Taxes are a layer of regulation that gives unfair advantage to those with the economies of scale to comply. Here’s a novel concept, instead of stealing money and spending it on stuff that is supposedly important, how about charge people money for stuff they actually want and use.
But no, taxation is a brutal political weapon that no government ever wants to give up. The recent IRS scandal involving discrimination of anti-tax political movements goes to show the power of the tax weapon. And I just love how these scandals are always blamed on some low level peons. But when there is something to brag about, it is the people at the top of the pyramids that take the credit (namely presidents). Tax is a weapon of control to force support of the government, and it has been and always will be used as such for as long as people accept the concept of government. That is why Bitcoin is another thing the government is starting to crack down on in preparation for hypertaxation.
Hypertaxation doesn’t mean gold and silver won’t still rise in price, it just means they won’t rise hyperinflation style. Nonetheless, in the hypertaxation environment, I could see something like junk silver being highly valued. People will sell things for junk silver and pay tax on the face value of the coins rather than the metal value. Just something to think about for anyone wanting to buy metals before they bottom out and in due time eventually start marching higher.
