It’s The Real Estate Tax Stupid!

There is an urgency to get this message out before the debates ensue over the Federal Economic Stimulus Plan. It is my proposal that the Federal money be used to replace the revenues of States that agree to abolish the property tax and substitute other revenue sources (increased sales tax, gross receipts tax, increased real estate transfer tax) along with budget cuts.

Citizens must contact all their political Representatives and urge the repeal of the real estate tax before it drags us into the worst period of depression and stagnation in our history.

If real estate taxes are abolished we will witness an immediate and dramatic turn-around in the residential and commercial real estate market. This turn around will quickly spread through all sectors of the economy. It will save the banking industry, it will bring support to and raise real estate values and will create permanent and meaningful job growth.

This is the first of a series of reports that establishes the case that the real estate tax is the fundamental source and the primary catalyst of the real estate/financial/economic catastrophe.

Even the President-Elect has stated that the housing crises is at the heart of our economic problem.

In Florida , Total State and Local Government spending rose from $54.3 billion in 1992 to $162.2  billion in 2007.

Florida collected $30.5 billion in property taxes in 2006, which is nearly twice the tax collected in 2000.

Between 2000 and 2006, State and Local Government spending grew from $84.3  billion to  $140.5 billion, an increase of $56.2 billion or  67%.

In the past six years, the average Floridian’s property taxes rose 100 percent, while their personal income growth was limited to 44 percent. 

Ask any buyer, owner or seller of real estate and they will tell you the problem is not the price of real estate, or the interest rates. It is the real estate tax: because you can own your property free and clear, or you can pay off or refinance a mortgage. But the real estate tax never goes away and usually keeps going up.

Although many causes of the crises have been given and solutions proposed, there are no members of Congress, no Mayors, no County Executives, Governors, nor public employees and their unions who will admit the real cause of this crises. Why? Because the real estate tax is the gravy train they have hitched a ride on since the early 1990′s during the unprecedented rise in real estate values.

Today there can be no effective economic stimulus plan that does not include the elimination of the real estate tax. The Government’s actions to stimulate the economy will be like having one foot on the accelerator while the other is on the brakes.

The Real Estate Tax Scam began in a subtle way. Prior to 1972 states and localities received categorical federal funding with its high overhead, many restrictions and reporting requirements. In 1972 Nixon and Congress implemented General Revenue Sharing with the States and localities who received funds with budgetary discretion. After fourteen years the Revenue Sharing legislation expired September 30, 1986, The Reagan Tax cuts gave rise to the economic boom and prosperity of the 1990s but by the late 1990′s these taxpayers gains were beginning to be slowly but steadily being taken away by the real estate tax.

State and local governments began to realize the real estate tax was the perfect scam. As real estate values began to rise, massive revenue windfalls were generated by real estate taxes based on rapidly increasing assessments. With no curbs on their appetite, State and local government expanded budgets to spend the windfall instead of reducing taxes and using realistic and conservative zero based budgeting.

The local political jurisdictions established “Just Values” on which taxes were based. But there was an inherent conflict of interest. They were also the direct beneficiaries of the revenues needed to maintain their own out of control public payrolls, rising salaries, benefits and pensions. They had the ultimate tool of coercion: the forced tax sale and loss of the property owner’s home or business property if the tax was not paid. The scam had the additional feature of being an increasing annuity in perpetuity or so it was assumed. State and local taxing and spending authorities have used the real estate tax to kill the goose that layed the golden egg.

As real estate taxes rose dramatically, pegged to rising market values and so called “Just Values” of the underlying real estate, knowledgeable prospective buyers were the first to question unconscionable and inequitable real estate taxes. When you buy a home and get a mortgage you can safely predict that your monthly costs will be fixed for the next 30 years. But the property tax is not fixed, is out of the property owners control and will likely escalate into the future.

As real estate taxes rose, new prospective buyers were turned off and turned away. Existing owners, with Homestead protection enjoyed the lower taxes and were discouraged from moving and exposing themselves to new higher taxes. The “move up market” slowed down. While the demand for real estate ebbed, the supply continued to grow. It was easy for new residential and commercial developments to get approved by fiscally liberal local governments with appetites for expanding the real estate tax base to support their  addiction for spending.

New prospective buyers were the first to become wary of out-of-control real estate taxes because the system was based on First In-Lowest Tax, and Last In-Highest Tax. In other words, the most recent buyers paid the highest tax based on the current market value while others were often protected by Homestead Laws and other exemptions which capped tax increases for owners who bought in prior years. Also, second-home owners usually from out-of-state or even out of the country, as non-residents, did not vote and did not qualify for the protection of Homestead Laws. As their real estate taxes escalated increasing numbers of these property owners chose to sell and cash in on the appreciation in their home values.

Thus, the continuing increase in new supply and the real estate tax-induced decrease in demand from fewer buyers and more sellers, caused property values to flatten and then, ultimately, decline.

The fallacy of the real estate tax is that it is based on an Unrealized market value and assumes an ability and willingness to continue to pay the tax…forever. In reality today, the future value of the annual real estate tax invested at only 5%, in less than 25 years will exceed the value of the property. That means that a cash buyer with no mortgage payments, is merely renting the property from the local government and maintaining and improving it at their own expense. Because of the real estate tax, it is no longer economically rational for anyone to own residential, investment or commercial real estate.

The real estate tax has also had the negative consequence of discouraging property owners from improving their properties. Aggressive local governments promptly reassess properties for the value of improvements resulting in higher property taxes. This has significantly retarded consumer spending, job creation and retail sales.

The real estate tax has impeded the mobility of the population and the work force. Whenever a move is made it usually results in a new and higher tax assessment.

The real estate tax is dependent on an equitable, accurate and consistent system for assessing the market value of properties. Unfortunately, this is impossible. Only buyers and sellers in a free and open market can define a market value and this a dynamic constantly changing process. The futility of creating a rational system of annual property assessment has resulted in a huge and expanding dysfunctional bureaucracy throughout local government across the United States. The more the property assessment system has become filled with internal inconsistencies and contradictions the more taxpayers have been appealing their assessments. This has also led to an increase in the bureaucracy needed to process these appeals. There is now a valid argument that the entire system lacks due process and has raised numerous issues regarding the unconstitutionalilty of the system of real estate taxation.

The distinction created by the real estate tax assessment system between Homestead and non-Homestead property owners is fundamentally unconstitutional. It creates a separate class of taxpayers who are discriminated against. Also, the significant disparity in taxes paid by Homesteaded and non-Homesteaded owners of similar properties has encouraged the latter to attempt to gain Homestead status by falsification of Homestead status. This has led to a criminalization of otherwise law abiding taxpayers who are merely trying to keep from losing their properties to excessive and inequitable taxation. Property Assessors Offices have added significant numbers of staff to prosecute “Homestead Fraud” with fines, penalties and even threats of jail sentences.

The real estate tax has killed the “move up” market. A healthy dynamic housing market needs a move up mentality, i.e., “Keeping up with the Joneses”. Most of the few buyers that are now purchasing are moving laterally or downward to escape the dreaded increase in “Just Value”. WIth declining demand for higher end homes because of exorbidant taxes, the price of these homes drop. This drop in high end values compresses and puts downward pressure on the entire price structure.

Communities benefit from a healthy high end housing sector which anchors values, raises the bar of value and encourages people to improve their properties.

A tragic result of the real estae tax fiasco affected the first-time subprime buyers. Many who received mortgages were at least prepared to pay a mortgage with fixed payments. But what many low-income owners did not understand or plan for was rapidly increasing property taxes during the period of rapidly appreciating property values. This more than any other factor, was the straw the broke the camels back. Many first time low income buyers did not have their taxes escrowed. Once a year they were hit with a lump sum tax bill. If they didn’t have the savings cushion to pay the tax bill, this was enough to throw their property into a tax sale. Once this occurred there was no reason to pay the mortgage and foreclosure resulted.

Notes: Revenue sharing, which started in 1972, distributed $4.5 billion to 39,000 municipalities in the fiscal year 1986 when the program was terminated. It affected more local governments than any Federal program in history and was the only Federal assistance given to most cities with fewer than 10,000 residents. Since it was the only Federal disbursement without restrictions on the use of the money, it was also a small but key component of the budgets of middle- to large-size cities.

The Rich Are Investing…Should You?

The Rich Are Investing…Should You?

By Christopher Ruddy

The difference between the rich and the average investor often comes down to timing. Knowing when to invest and when to pull out of the market is key.

I was recently reading a book about Andrew Carnegie, the richest man in America in the late 1800s.

The book was “Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership that Transformed America.”

Carnegie’s rags-to-riches rise was remarkable. Today we remember Carnegie as a great steel magnate and philanthropist. But his early fortune was made in railroads and, according to biographer Les Standiford, during the country’s first Great Depression.

The year was 1873 and a financial panic swept through Europe. By September of that same year, the U.S. markets were hit, and railroads, then the boom investment of the time, were struck. Railroad companies had overleveraged and were decimated as credit lines evaporated.

Substitute “housing” for “railroad” and we might see parallels between then and now.

But while others acted in fear, Carnegie was bold. He had not over-leveraged his own railroad properties. “For Carnegie, it was another invaluable business lesson; the best time to expand was when no one else dared to take the risks,” Standiford wrote.

Carnegie knew railroads would continue to prosper and were, at the time, the best form of overland transportation. The depression had lowered costs. Now was the time to strike and invest. His decisions in those bleak depression years would lay the groundwork for his later stake in U.S. Steel.

Today, investors are wise to remember Carnegie’s advice.

His advice does not mean that one should invest in any vehicle just because the price is low. But rather, to look for investments that will certainly rise as the economy turns around.

Surely, Warren Buffett is following the same path by purchasing companies when nobody else wants them. As he so famously stated, “We attempt to be greedy when others are fearful, and fearful when others are greedy.”

Savvy investors buy while the masses retreat to the sidelines.

Like Carnegie and Buffett, we at Moneynews and Newsmax believe the best time to invest is in a depressed market.

We also believe the best way to invest is privately. Why? Because studies show that private investments perform better than public investments.

Signs of a Bottom!

Signs of a Bottom!

Buyers closed on 1,623 condos and houses in Miami-Dade and Broward counties in November, compared to 1,391 transactions a year earlier.

Foreign Buyers Primed for Real Estate Spree

Tuesday, January 13, 2009 9:50 AMBy: Dan Weil

Is this what a real estate bottom looks like? Maybe. Foreign investors say they are bullish and ready to buy, particularly U.S. real estate, according to a new study. A poll conducted by the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate of 100 of its members shows that 54 percent of lenders and 40 percent of equity investors intend to boost their global real estate activity this year.   The numbers are even higher for the United States. A whopping 73 percent of equity investors intend to allocate more money to U.S. real estate this year, and 58 percent of lenders plan to lift their activity here.   New York and Washington, D.C. — in that order — topped the city popularity chart for the respondents. That’s worldwide, not just in the United States.   Everyone knows what happened to the U.S. real estate market last year.   As credit flow halted, commercial property sales naturally fell.   But some now say the worst is over and believe the U.S. real estate market will rebound first, just as it fell first. The fact that it’s the world’s biggest property market doesn’t hurt either.   Accordingly, real estate has officially entered the financial lexicon as a value investment. It may be time to climb aboard.   “If you are going to be an international investor you’ll want a significant part of your portfolio in the largest market,” Jim Fetgatter, the association’s chief executive, told Reuters.   The United States took first place by a huge margin as the country offering the most stable and secure real estate investments, with 53 percent of respondents’ votes.   Germany and Switzerland tied for second with 11.3 percent of the vote, while Australia and Canada tied for fourth with 4.8 percent.   The association’s members named multifamily residential real estate as their top choice in the United States, followed by office properties, industrial, retail and hotel.   Foreign investors and lenders aren’t the only ones to turn bullish on U.S. real estate. Distressed asset investors all over the country are snapping up properties at bargain prices.   For example, sales of Southeast Florida condominiums and single-family houses jumped 17 percent in November from a year earlier, according to the Florida Association of Realtors.   Buyers snagged bank-owned properties, foreclosures and homes from owners willing to sell at deeply discounted prices.   “We have been predicting for some time that the number of South Florida residential transactions would surprise most people,” Peter Zalewski, principal of Condo Vultures, a real estate consulting firm in Bal Harbour, Fla., said in a statement.   “Early indications are that the December closed sales numbers will be just as strong as November’s if not stronger. We are getting reports that many all-cash buyers are moving into the market.”

Obama, Pelosi and Reid Opposed to Offshore Drilling Now?

Will Obama Let Russia, China and Venezuela Eat Our Lunch?

The United States needs to drill here and now and drive the price of oil into the ground, become oil and energy independent and, in so doing, bankrupt Russia and Venezuela.  Then, they will never be able to afford to drill anywhere, especially in our back yard. 

In mid July, President Bush, by executive order, repealed the three decade  ban on offshore drilling.  This began the four month plunge in oil prices.   In August, Pelosi and Reid,  behind closed doors, tried briefly to push through a bill to extend the ban on offshore drilling to 2022.  When they realized this would fly in the face of publc opinion and could become a campaign issue, they withdrew the bill and allowed the Ban to expire September 30, 2008.  

Now Democrates  are again planning to propose a renewal of the ban.   Democrats and radical elements of the environmental  movement want oil prices to go back up.   Ironically, Democrat’s policy has the effect of hurting the poor whose votes they wooed with promises of change and economic betterment. 

The drop in oil prices since mid-July has already created several hundred billion dollars in annual savings to American households.  These savings exceed what Obama said the middle class would receive  from tax cuts  promised during the campaign.   The difference is that the benefits have been immediate with no bureacratic and political fumbling and bungling.    This market based “tax cut” is the best economic stimulus we could ask for.  And, we don’t have to wait until January 20, 2009 for Obama’s magical two year economic stimulus plan.

RESTRICTING OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING CANNOT BE ALLOWED!  THIS IS WHY…

Official: Russians want to search for oil off Cuba

Reuters –  …

HAVANA – Russian oil companies could soon begin searching for oil in deep Gulf of Mexico waters off Cuba, a top diplomat said just days before Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visits the island.

Russian oil companies have “concrete projects” for drilling in Cuba’s part of the gulf, said Mijail Kamynin, Russia’s ambassador to Cuba, to the state-run business magazine Opciones.

Kamynin also said Russian companies would like to help build storage tanks for crude oil and to modernize Cuban pipelines, as well as play a role in Venezuelan efforts to refurbish a Soviet-era refinery in the port city of Cienfuegos, according the article published this weekend.

Medvedev comes to former Cold War ally Cuba on Thursday, part of a tour of Latin America to strengthen his country’s economic and political ties in the region. Kamynin said trade between Russia and the island would top $400 million this year.

Washington’s nearly 50-year-old trade embargo prohibits U.S. companies from investing on the island. But Cuba’s state-run oil concern has signed joint operating agreements with companies from several countries to explore waters that Cuban scientists claim could contain reserves of up to 20 billion barrels of oil.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva visited Cuba in October for the signing of agreements allowing state-run Petroleo Brasileiro SA to invest $8 million initially for a seven-year, deep-water exploration project north of the famed beach resort of Varadero. If reserves are confirmed, Brazil would produce oil and natural gas recovered there over the next 25 years.

Opciones did not give details on what the Russian proposals would entail.

The Soviet Union was communist Cuba’s chief economic benefactor until it disbanded, throwing the island’s economy into disarray. Cuba-Russia relations soured after that, but warmed when President Vladimir Putin visited in 2000.

 

The Emporer Obama’s New Clothes?…But He Has Nothing On!

Ecstacy:  “A state of emotion so intense that one is carried beyond rational thought and self-control;  the trance, frenzy, or rapture associated with mystic or prophetic exaltation.”

The world is in a state of ecstacy over the election of the first Black U.S. President-elect.  As a result the world is in denial.  No one seems to understand, or is willing to admit, that Barack Obama’s policy pronouncements for “CHANGE” during the campaign, in fact, have been the cause of  the world-wide financial panic and melt-down.   In today’s world of instantaneous communication the effects of policies occur before they can be implemented.   

The President-elect should have studied Economics 101 instead of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals and Marx’s Communist Manifesto.  He would have known that as soon as it was clear on June 3, 2008 that Obama could be elected President, investors would begin liquidating stocks and bonds and employers would start laying off employees.  (U.S. Department of Labor reported  October’s drop in payroll employment of 240,000 followed declines of 127,000 in August and 284,000 in September.  Employment has fallen by 1.2 million in the first 10 months of 2008; over half of the decrease has occurred in the past 3 months.)

In his first press conference Friday, President-elect Obama made it clear that there can only be one President at a time and he said “immediately after I become President on January 20, I will  confront the crises in the economy….”  

With all due respect Mr. President-elect, on January 20, 2009 it will be too late to confront the crises you created.  We all want our first Black President to succeed and everyone wants to blame the current condition on others…certainly not him.  But the reality is that the President-elect has created a problem which his promised policies cannot solve.

The question, and problem, is what will the world look like on January 20, 2009?  Because the world will not be the same as it is today.   This is not a normal Presidential transition because the psychology of the world’s financial and labor markets is already reacting to policies long before they are even implemented.  The prophesy has become self-fulfilling. 

The solution to the problems we now face can not be the policies Barack Obama advocates and promised to the electorate because the threat of those policies is what caused the crises.    Imagine what the policies themselves will cause if they are actually implemented. 

With 72 days until his inauguration, there is no time to wait for the President-elect’s solutions.  The solutions will be the antithesis of his proposals.   What will the consequence (synthesis) look like?

There is no precedent for the condition we now face.

As can be seen from the chart below, the fundamentals of our economy were sound. The stock market rose to all time highs at the end of 2007.  But beginning in 2008 the volume of selling (bottom row) began to accelerate reaching climatic proportions in October.

Throughout the two years of the longest primary in history the stock market traded in the 12000 -14000 range.   President-elect Obama won the Democratic nomination on June 3, 2008.   The Chart below shows that the market decline began around June 3 and continued downward until the middle of July.  On July 15 oil reached a high of $147 a barrel and the market  bounced after President Bush’s Executive Order lifted  the moratorium on off-shore drilling and oil prices began to plummet.  The market remained stable through the end of August with the naming of Sarah Palin.  

Beginning on September 11, 2008 (coincidence?) the stock market suddenly declined below 11,000 as shown on the chart below.  The cascading stock market,  and the spreading financial crises accelerated as polls showed Presidential-elect Obama widening his margin of victory.  The selling volume was unprecedented.   The Presidential Debates of September 25 and October 15 brought into public focus what the markets understood months before:  that the President-elect’s plans to increase corporate taxes, capital gains taxes and the top marginal income tax rates would cause a selloff in the stock market as investors ran for cover.   As the public came to this realization more selling ensued.   There was a short-lived bounce in the market just before the election when some polls showed McCain gaining in the final days after Barack Obama’s Spread the Wealth run-in with Joe the Plumber and the hoped for release by the L.A. Times of the tape of the Obama, Ayers, PLO supporters event for Khalidi.   The Chart below also shows the drop of 900 points following the election, the largest two day drop in history.

President-elect Obama will become our President on January 20, 2009, and we all must give him our support to help him succeed.  If he is successful our Country will be successful.   (Too bad he and his fellow Democrats did not give President Bush and the Office of President, the same respect when he was elected.)

In keeping with giving the President-elect all our support and respect, that, by definition, includes helping him see when he may be making a mistake that will hurt his (and our) chances for success.  President-elect Obama is  making such a mistake.    

The decline of the stock market and the increase in unemploment is a direct result of the economic policy that Obama has been espousing during the campaign. 

Markets do not like uncertainty which has been caused by the President-elects failure to quickly appoint a Treasury Secretary, promises to increase corporate taxes, capital gains taxes, the top marginal income tax rate, a massive new energy tax that’ll bankrupt coal and talk about a government takeover of 401(k) plans.”

In Capital, Marx had the following to say about this dialectical methodology:

“In its rational form it is a scandal and abomination to bourgeoisdom and its doctrinaire professors, because it includes in its comprehension an affirmative recognition of the existing state of things, at the same time also, the recognition of the negation of that state, of its inevitable breaking up; because it regards every historically developed social form as in fluid movement, and therefore takes into account its transient nature not less than its momentary existence; because it lets nothing impose upon it, and is in its essence critical and revolutionary.”

In this Tract Book Essay, Anthony J. Fejfar argues that the Marxian notion of dialectical materialism is really a flawed theory.

2 Pages

Marx’s Dialectical Materialism and Capitalism

Welcome to Obama Land

McCain Pre-Election Bounce

Obama Reality Sinks In:  Worst Post Election Market Response in History

Look for Massive Moves in the Market This Week…

Common sense predicted that Oil would go down and with it interest rates.  This has huge ramifications for the US economy going forward.   The overblown economic “crises” was either manufactured or the biggest coincidence ever in election year politics.   The Democrats have been the major cause of our housing and economic problems, not the Bush policies.   It is assumed that the Wall Street interests that contributed to the “crises” are Republican, but if you look at Obama supporters from the financial world and overseas you will see that this is not necessarily true.   Only the smooth Obama rhetoric could cover this up.  Remember Saul Alinsky’s Rules:  Target, Isolate and Polarize.  This has been Obama’s strategy.  But the market will prevail and so will the U.S.

Existing Home Sales Up Most in 5 Years

Friday, October 24, 2008 10:46 AM

WASHINGTON — Sales of previously owned U.S. homes rose 5.5 percent last month, the biggest gain since July 2003, and the inventory of unsold homes fell, a hopeful sign for a housing market mired in a long slump.

The National Association of Realtors said on Friday that sales of existing homes rose to a 5.18 million-unit annual rate from the 4.91 million unit pace set in August. Economists had expected sales to rise to only a 4.93 million unit rate.

It was the first time the sales pace had risen above its year ago level in three years, a sign the market could be stabilizing.

The surprisingly large jump in sales pushed the inventory of unsold homes down by 1.6 percent to 4.27 million, or a 9.9 months’ supply at the current pace. While the inventory is still uncomfortably high, the decline is welcome news for a housing market mired in a deep slump.

Home prices, however, showed no signs of escaping their long, deep slide. The median national home price declined 9 percent from a year ago to $191,600, the lowest level since April 2004, the industry trade group said.

The increase in sales was spurred by a rise in foreclosure and other ‘distress sales’ in regions of the country hard-hit by the ongoing housing downturn, said the Realtors’ chief economist, Lawrence Yun.

“In some regions, the lower prices are seeing buyers return to the marketplace,” he said. “This was a nice jump and hopefully this trend can continue because the first step to stabilizing the market is an increase in home sales.”

Sales rose in three regions, with the West recording a 16.8 percent jump. The Midwest saw an increase of 4.4 percent and the South saw a 2.2 percent rise. In the Northeast, sales fell 1.2 percent.

These Are The Kind Of People Colin Powell Has Chosen

These Democrats are cowards, hypocrits and opportunists.   Bush and Cheney have been maliciously  targeted and attacked  for defending America.  If  we loose  the war against terrorism it will not be because of George Bush and these Democrats will be accountable.
http://www.bercasio.com/movies/dems-wmd-before-iraq.wmv

Obama Revealed: Spreading the Wealth Around and the Frog Theory

Obama to Joe the Plumber:  “It’s not that I want to punish your success, I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance at success too,” Obama told the plumber,  “My attitude is that…when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

 ”SPREADING THE WEALTH AROUND:”  What it means to the inventors of the idea, our enemies, in their own words, with no spin.  (These are not the kind of quotes our Founding Fathers are famous for).

Mikhail Gorbachev,  Former Prime Minister USSR
“Gentlemen, comrades, do not be concerned about all you hear about Glasnost and Perestroika and democracy in the coming years. They are primarily for outward consumption. There will be no significant internal changes in the Soviet Union, other than for cosmetic purposes. Our purpose is to disarm the Americans and let them fall asleep.”
Gus Hall,  Former President Communist Party USA  

“Socialism in America will come through the ballot box.”

Vladimir Lenin,  Led the Russian Revolution
“Destroy the family, you destroy the country.”
 
“The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.”
“Only an armed people can be the real bulwark of popular liberty.”
 
“A system of licensing and registration is the perfect device to deny gun ownership to the bourgeoisie.”
 
“To give the weapon of freedom of the press is to ease the enemy’s cause, to help the class enemy. We do not desire to end in suicide, so we will not do this.”
 
Karl Marx,   Founder of Marxist Communism
“The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to Socialism.”  
 
“My object in life is to dethrone God and destroy capitalism.”
 
“From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”   (Does this sound like “spreading the wealth around”?)
 
Karl Marx’s Goals of Communism
“1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools.”  (sounds good but what are they teaching for free…ask Bill Ayers)
 
Josef Stalin 
Dictator Communist Party & Soviet Union 1922-1953
“America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within.”
  
Nikita Khrushchev,  
Dictator Communist Party & USSR 1953-1964
“We can’t expect the American People to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of Socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have Communism.”
 
“Every collectivist revolution rides in on a Trojan horse of ‘emergency’. It was the tactic of Lenin, Hitler, and Mussolini. In the collectivist sweep over a dozen minor countries of Europe, it was the cry of men striving to get on horseback. And ‘emergency’ became the justification of the subsequent steps. This technique of creating emergency is the greatest achievement that demagoguery attains.”
 
Could it be more than a coincidence that the greatest economic crises since the 1929 crash and the great depression occured almost by surprise a month before the Presidential Election.  The “emergency” actually has distracted the public from other issues of the unknown candidate’s character, behavior, associations and basic philosophy,  The “emergency” even prompted his opponent to cease campaiging and return to Washington to help solve the crises while Obama artfully distanced himself from the crises as well as the causes and the solutions causes.   Senator Larry Patton McDonald
“The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies is to create a one-world government combining supercapitalism and Communism under the same tent, all under their control. … Do I mean conspiracy? Yes I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent.”  (A Conservative Democrat, he was known for his staunch opposition to communism and believed in long standing covert efforts by powerful US groups to bring about a socialist world government.  He was a passenger onboard Korean Air Flight 007 shot down by Soviet interceptors and presumed dead.)
Vladimir Lenin
…the concentration of capital and the growth of their turnover is radically challenging the significance of the banks. Scattered capitalists are transformed into a single collective capitalist. When carrying the current accounts of a few capitalists, the banks, as it were, transact a purely technical and exclusively auxiliary operation. When, however, these operations grow to enormous dimensions we find that a handful of monopolists control all the operations, both commercial and industrial, of capitalist society.
 
J. Edgar Hoover  Former Head US FBI
 ”We must now face the harsh truth that the objectives of communism are being steadily advanced because many of us do not recognize the means used to advance them. … The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a Conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists. The American mind simply has not come to a realization of the evil which has been introduced into our midst.”
 
Since the 1930′s, critics of the Federal Reserve have claimed it was created and operated by European banking interests who conspired to economically control the United States.  The Federal Reserve has also been accused of deliberately causing the Great Depression.  Claims were also made that Wall Street bankers funded the Bolshevik Revolution through the Federal Reserve banks and the European central banks with which it cooperated.
 
Rep. Louis McFadden,
“Open the books … and you will be staggered to see how much American money has been taken from the United States Treasury for the benefit of Russia. Find out what business has been transacted for the State Bank of Soviet Russia, by its correspondent, the Chase Bank of New York.”
(There were two attempts on McFadden’s life, a failed shooting and an apparent poisoning that made him “violently ill” after attending a political banquet in Washington.  He died in 1936 on a visit to New York City.)
 
Oct. 18,2008 (Bloomberg) — The leaders of the U.S., France and the European Commission today agreed to ask other world leaders to take part in a series of summits on the global financial crisis….President George W. Bush, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and European Commission President Jose Barroso said in a joint statement after a three-hour meeting at Camp David, the presidential retreat, that they would maintain coordinated steps to solve the crisis in the global economy.  José Manuel Durão Barroso said, “We need more than ever, a GLOBAL FINANCIAL ORDER.”  (Barroso’s political activity began in his college days, before the Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974. He was one of the leaders of the underground Maoist MRPP (Reorganising Movement of the Proletariat Party, later PCTP/MRPP-Communist Party of the Portuguese Workers/Revolutionary Movement of the Portuguese Proletariat)
 
The US Economic Crises has been escalated to a Global Financial Crises.  What a great excuse to increase government intervention world-wide. 

What’s Next? Obama Advocates USA Joins European Union?
Then all Russia has to do is take over EU.  Watch Out!
 
My friends, This nails it ! Please keep this going.
God Bless America,     

THE FROG THEORY

  If you drop a frog in boiling water he will leap right out.  If you slowly heat the water he will be content until it’s too late to get out.  That is exactly how history works.  It moves slowly and we never really see any danger until it’s too late.

   Remember how suppressed workers were before unions came along?  The unions leveled the playing field.  Unfortunately, over a long period of time the pendulum swung too far.  Slowly, businesses and factories closed and jobs left the country.  We were comfortable and didn’t see the change coming.  We blamed everyone except ourselves for what happened.  We weren’t alert to how slow things change over time.

 World War II, and the Korean War, demonstrated how powerful a united nation could be.  Our nation, and our families, were united.  The father was the head of the family and the President was the head of the nation.  Both were highly respected.  We were content and happy. 

We were good at fighting a hot war but we were unprepared to fight a cold war with the communists in the 50′s. They knew they couldn’t change us but they didn’t care.  Their philosophy was to wait it out and capture the minds of our children.  They loaded our colleges with many of their professors and waited.  It didn’t take long to see the results. 

   The 60”s ushered in the radicals, drug culture, student protesters, and the Vietnam War.  The aim of the cold war was to divide and conquer. They divided our families and the nation.  The secret to defeating a polite and respectful people is to scream.  The louder and longer you scream the better your chance of winning.  Radicals are masters at this form of attack.  They know if you constantly scream and repeat a lie it will eventually become the truth. 

  The media, and Hollywood , hammered us with hate America themes and stories.  Our service men, and women, were jeered, cursed, and spit on.  Even the people, who latter wanted to become their President, thrashed them.  We lost our first War in history.  There was no hero’s homecoming for our fighting men and women. 

    The Reverend King, who was raised in the old school, peacefully changed the race issue and united the people.  When he died the new breed of leaders like the Jesse Jackson’s, Lewis Farakon,’s Al Sharpton’s, and Rev. Wright’s put a lid on his efforts and turned racism into a money making machine.

Corporations were green-mailed by threats of protests, product boycotts, or endless lawsuits.  Every issue, large or small, became a race issue.  The public recoiled in fear of being called a racist.  Their voices were silenced because one word could cost you a career, get you fired, or get you sued. 

  Even politicians buckled under to the pressure.  The Florida legislature issued a formal apology for having slavery 200 years ago.  They were thanked by being asked for compensation.  There is no end in sight for this kind of nonsense.  America didn’t capture slaves and bring them to America .  Their own people sold them to slave traders from several nations.  This knowledge doesn’t stop the screamers.  History is what it is and you can’t change it.  There have been many tragic events in history.  You acknowledge them and move on.

  They divided our nation into two separate Americas .  We now have Americans, and African-Americans, although Africa has nothing to do with being an American.  You can be one or the other but not both.  You are what you were born to be.  You do not subordinate our country to any foreign nation.  It’s equivalent to flying the African flag above the Stars and Stripes.  If you hyphenate two countries America always comes first. 

    This election year could be the turning point in our history because the frog theory has come into play.  It’s time to step back and look at how the country has slowly changed since the cold war started.  Don’t get caught up in all the hype. 

   George McGovern was the first Presidential candidate to test the waters with college students.  The Clinton ‘s played a big role in his campaign.  It was the worst campaign ever run.  He was crushed in the election.

    Step two was to infiltrate all the information vehicles such as radio, newspapers, magazines, TV and movies.  They were quite successful at that.  Jimmy Carter was the first President to demonstrate the leadership skills of the far left.  Weak military, high taxes, runaway inflation, 19% mortgage rates, and plain incompetence ended his career in Washington .  Iran , a small country at the time, took American hostages and kicked sand in our face.  By negotiating from weakness Carter could not get the hostages released. 

  The big benefit of the Carter years is that they were followed by the Reagan years.  The nation got a clear look at the difference between a weak nation and a strong nation.  Every student should know this difference.  When Ronald Reagan took over the hostages were quickly released, taxes were lowered, inflation dropped, mortgage rates dropped, and the military was strengthened.  Russia quickly waved the white flag and waited for another Democrat term. 

    Clinton took over Carters uncompleted social programs.  He weakened the military and tried to pass large government programs.  An Intern derailed his Presidency.  While he was tied up with his personal problems his lawyers ran the country.  He passed up three opportunities to take out Osama Bin Laden.  This eventually cost us the loss of our Twin Towers , thousands of American lives, and got us involved in a war with Iraq .

   By the end of his term the left had captured a large share of the media and it flexed its muscle in 2000.  The hate Bush campaign got off to a roaring start.  The brainwashing theory of repeating the same story over and over again was launched. 

   There were endless stories about our evil nation and its President.  Top-secret plans were leaked to the press and printed for the entire world to see.  Hollywood cranked out documentaries about the evil Bush administration and our evil military. They laid the groundwork for the next election.  The ACLU flooded the courts with lawsuits and the Democrat party became a law firm.  Almost every incumbent, or his or her spouse, is a lawyer.

  They now have the perfect candidate because they can squash criticism by playing the race card.  If you don’t like Obama, or criticize him, you are a racist.  They can hide his inexperience and background by turning him into a rock star and singing change and hope.  They don’t tell us what kind of change, or how it will be done, only that you should hope for the best.  By keeping the hype going they don’t have to put anything of substance on the table. 

    The only thing we really know about Obama is that his wife has never been proud to be an American.  They want us to believe that his liberal college professors, Rev. Pfleger, his ties to radicals Bill Ayer and Lewis Farakon, and listening to the Rev. Wright’s hate talks for 20 years, had no influence on his thinking.  If they didn’t, then who did?  He wasn’t in business and didn’t see fit to serve his country.  These people launched his political career and their organizations received earmarks in return for their campaign donations and political help. They must have had some influence.  Rev. Wright’s church received over $15 million.  That’s only one small local church.  Think on a national scale.

  The change being promoted is a change back to the Carter years.  It started in 2006 when the lawyer party took over.  There have been endless lawsuits and investigations in retaliation for the Clinton years.  It keeps the lawyers busy but does nothing for the economy.  The economy has been in a downward spiral since they took over.

  Returning to the Carter years of high taxes, high inflation, and a weak military is not the change we are looking for.  We cannot cower to a bunch of crazies whose only goal in life is to kill us.

   The old sage’s (over 50) will have to play a big role in this election.  The young people simply don’t know what the aged know.  The advantage of aging is the knowledge you accumulated.  You know what  United States means.  You know what the seldom-heard word respect means.  You know how wonderful freedom and independence is.  You know the difference between a strong and a weak nation; and you know what it takes to keep it strong.  You know history because you have lived it.

   Although the old guard is dying off, and getting to tired to fight, they have to muster one more charge.  If they don’t, our children, and grandchildren, will never know the joy and freedom that is the bedrock of our country.  The heat is slowly being turned up and the water is getting hot.  The old frogs better start jumping before it’s too late.