Every "debt" is someone else's "asset". Your liability is their wealth. Period. There is ALWAYS someone on the other side of the trade! If you buy a can of soda, you have, in fact, gone long soda and short the cash you paid for the soda (although not a perfect analogy... after all, you can't get much for used soda...).
All the screaming by certain groups that "the rich have only gotten richer while the poor have only increased their debt" is a f***ing mathematical necessity! Our banking and financial system operates on a fractional-reserve system! On the other hand, as the debts are either a: paid off, or b: defaulted on, this phenomenon will reverse (again, by mathematical necessity).
Since the process of wealth concentration will absolutely, positively reverse itself in the natural order of things, and since you can be certain that TPTB on the Left know this too... why do they moan so lugubriously about wealth distribution? And why is a Liberal Administration so concerned with the redistribution of wealth attempting to support the housing market (supplier of the greatest amount of credit that becomes the wealth of others)?
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Libertarians can only be embarrassed at the primary victory of Delaware's Christine O'Donnell. The last thing the country needs is a Senator concerned with the level of masturbation in our society. This kind of candidate is exactly what the 2h1p needs to torpedo what was a Libertarian insurgency in the Republican party. Delaware, what have you done?
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Here is fairly perfect example by Michael Yates of an excellent observation and description of a problematic issue, followed by a silly, politically motivated explanation. Yates accurately recounts the sad fact that Americans in fly-over-land WERE a proud people that have morphed over the past 30 years into blubberously over-medicated zombies.
Let me end this essay with a provocation. There is a dirty little secret of life in the United States. We hear from politicians and pundits in the media that there is a “real America” out there, of small towns in the “heartland” of the country full of hardworking and God-fearing men and women with the same heroic qualities as the founding fathers. But when you go to these places, you find something different: dead and ugly downtowns, empty streets, shabby houses, limited job opportunities, poor services and social amenities, pathetic newspapers, and second-rate schools. Such towns stifle creativity and broadmindedness. For many people, life in the heartland is harsh and boring. They compensate with alcohol, drugs, and food. The food available to them, in both grocery stores and restaurants, is of generally poor quality. Alice Waters, the famous Berkeley chef and fresh-food guru, claims that anyone can eat good food, anywhere in the country. I’d like to see her do this while living in Ely, Nevada, with a crappy job and not enough money. There is one grocery store, and what is available in it won’t tickle Alice’s palate. We did see organic red peppers in the produce section; they were $6.99 apiece. What would you do if you were a mother with three kids and a husband—feed the family red peppers or the forty-four servings of Kraft macaroni and cheese she could buy for the price of a single pepper? There is a good chance that, given the poor education she likely endured, she might not know how to shop efficiently by comparing unit prices. She might not know which ingredients in what she buys are good for her and which are not. She and her family have been subjected to such massive amounts of advertising for fast food (and this is what is probably served in the school cafeterias) that it is not surprising that they eat many meals at McDonalds and Taco Bell. When she is at home or at her low-wage, stressful job while the children area in school, would it be surprising if she eats too much? That she and her husband drink too much? Or take prescription painkillers or antidepressants, both of which will slow their metabolisms and make them more likely to gain weight? Will stress, strain, and boredom make them rush to the gym to exercise, or take a long hike?
Got that? Politically incorrect but not inaccurate.
The problem with people like Yates is that they somehow believe that life can somehow be made entirely fair - and that the effort to do so must come from The State.
U.S. capitalism is vicious and inhumane. It is the model of a dog-eat-dog world, nasty and brutish. It produces physically and mentally unhealthy human beings. No wonder we are fat. As the country enters a prolonged period of economic and political stagnation, look for matters to get worse.
See? All we gotta do is get rid of smart people, lucky people, good looking people, talented people, motivated people, frugal and thrifty people.... and all of our problems will be solved. Life will be fair, people won't be fat, stressed, depressed... if we would just fund a program for the "Fairness Police". Oddly enough, I found this article on ENergybulletin.net, the Peak Oil's communist wing and blog.
I have a question of the nice folks at and contributing to that August body: Why is it you folks publish article after article favorably reviewing the lifestyles of the Old Order Amish and Mennonites? These groups reject government intervention and DO NOT pay into the U.S. Social Security and Medicare systems, they are Pro-Life in the extreme, they take Libertarianism to the out- limits, breed like rabbits, are Patriarchal (their women wear the equivalent of head scarves for pete's sake), believe the earth is 4,000 years old and creationism to the letter...
I must say, I admire them to. All except for their idea of hygiene, heavy clothing during heat waves, and very dirty bare feet (when its hot, they go barefoot...).
So how is it that that the Amish gain the approval of the "Yates Political Spectrum" and any and all of their compatriots on the Left, but the elephantine dolts do not earn their disapproval? Did we go from "The Devil made me do it" to "the Corporation made me do it"? Is ANYBODY responsible for ANYTHING? (Well, other than corporate men and their "unending sexual harassment" of those poor women at the Anti-Christ, er, Goldman Sachs?)