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21 April 2005
In case a recent suggestion that most Americans are exempt from income tax failed to solidify this writer’s reputation as one of the world’s great Liberty Lunatics, I will now moveon to the voluntary nature of the national Ponzi Scheme, Social Security, in an effort to cinch the title.
Voluntary? It’s a tax, right?
Well, sort of.
It’s a tax for which you volunteer. No law requires you to volunteer. But SS has been made out to be a compulsory sweet deal, a wonderful act of both compassion and . . . → Read More: Tax Me, Please!
8 February 2005
President Bush in his recent State of the Union address called the U.S. Social Security System “…a great moral success of the 20th Century.” Mr. Bush is the leader of an immeasurably powerful government. The president’s assessment of Social Security’s moral achievement must be that of a man who believes, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, that government is an agent of moral good. Otherwise he must assume the role of villain in his own life’s story, a role no one willingly accepts.
In the 20th Century governments of all flavors, democracies, dictatorships and otherwise together murdered . . . → Read More: George II Defines Moral Success
12 January 2005
The pyramid scheme is the most enduring of thousands of tricks, buncos, fiddles and stings that con artists throughout history have used to relieve suckers of their cash. The two undisputed masters of the pyramid scheme are Charles Ponzi and Franklin D. Roosevelt. For his accomplishments the intellectual left has canonized FDR. Ponzi is immortalized in the American vernacular.
Charles Ponzi was a charming, dapper Italian immigrant who, in the summer of 1920, pulled in a million dollars a week with his “postal reply coupon” investment scheme. Promising a 50% return on your money in 90 days, he . . . → Read More: Delusions of Legitimacy
29 August 2004
Alan “Bubbles” Greenspan made some unusually candid public remarks last week at a Federal Reserve clam bake in Jackson, Wyoming. The central bankers were there to talk about what the 77 million baby boomers can expect when we belly up to the public trough for our comfy retirements, “free” medical care and cheap drugs.
The world’s most famous economist had some bad news. It looks like a few promises will be broken. The news is no surprise to him. In his idealistic youth, before he became the overseer of the destruction of the world’s economy, Mr. Greenspan explained . . . → Read More: Promises, Promises
5 May 2004
Charles Ponzi was a charming, dapper Italian immigrant who became the world’s most famous investment swindler. At his peak in the summer of 1920, when you could buy a house by mail from Sears for $495 and hire skilled labor to assemble it for $1 and hour, Ponzi pulled in a million dollars a week with his “postal reply coupon” investment scheme.
Ponzi promised a 50% return on your money in 90 days. He paid out as promised after just 45 days. Word spread like an e-mail virus. New investors flocked to his offices at locations from . . . → Read More: Charles Ponzi and the New Economy
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