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The Road Ahead, 1.2

I’ve pretty well settled on the 1.X series of “The Road Ahead” posts dealing with simple things the average Joe and Josephine can do to deal with the financial impact of rule by the Trimvirate of Greed and Envy. Now, a disclaimer: I’m not a financial expert, and anything I suggest is simply common sense, not advice from a competent financial advisor. If you can find some such person and are able to afford consulting with them, you might be well served to do so.

How to cushion the blows of a government ruled by he Trimvirate of Greed and Envy? One obvious route for common folks is to focus on real wealth: precious metals, ones home, etc. If you’ve already been setting aside resources in precious metals, good on you. Gold is good, but perhaps significant investment in gold is a bit beyond your means. If you need to start really small and build up, try collecting–or even small-time buying–pre-1964 US silver coins as a decent place to start. Even if all you do is keep an eye out for them in your nightly change, pretty soon you’ll have a small collection of coins that are worth more for their metal than for their face value. You might even find a few collectables that are worth more to a collector than their silver content. Cash those in for more silver–or even gold–coinage that’s not worth as much to collectors and keep on growing your precious metals pot. Silver and gold aren’t the only choices for precious metals, but they’re a very smart place to start as you climb the learning curve.

Another obvious place to build and/or protect real wealth is your home. Look around. Are there maintenance things that you’ve put off? Do them as soon as possible! Any capital improvements that have a good ROI prospect? Do them as well, as soon as you are able. Money–and especially sweat–spent here are better than money in the bank, even in a market of housing price downturn, especially if you intend to make your home yours for a long time. (Here at twc central, for example,we don’t plan on moving, and the bank won’t even own a piece of us after next year–but our “payments” will mostly continue in maintenance and improvements that have good ROI prospects.) Even at “depressed” real estate pricing, compared with other homes in our area that are selling, our investment in this house has a value that well exceeds inflation over the term of our nearly-retired loan. But do look very, very closely at potential ROI on further investments in your home.

Another way to improve your home investment is to accelerate your loan payoff. Look at how your loan is structured and find a way to pay a little extra on the principal with each house payment. Really own your home sooner. Sure, you’ll lose an interest deduction on your income taxes when you pay your home off early, but there are ways to deal with that, too, and if the SHTF and a really big financial collapse hits, you’d have only maintenance and property taxes to deal with–a Good Thing.

What? You don’t “own” your home (aren’t buying it)? If you’re single, consider this: we “talked” our single adult children into moving back in and saving the money they were throwing away every month on rent, etc. But do NOT just spend any money saved. If your parents are amenable to the idea, use the opportunity wisely. Learn what it is to truly live frugally. Become a tightwad and ELIMINATE every single solitary luxury item you can. SAVE every single penny you can and put it to work making money, so you can pay OFF any debt you may have accumulated, save for a home of your own, emergencies, etc. Learn to forgo that cuppa humongously overpriced Starbucks coffee, etc., and really save every red cent you can against future need. Learn to effect delayed gratification.

Of course, those same principles can be wisely applied by anyone.

Married and renting. Learn to live cheaply and save for a wise investment in a home you can afford. Dream home? Don’t count on it, and DO NOT PUSH YOURSELF into a home you cannot REALLY afford.

Simple things, eh? I’ll talk further on things like this as time goes on, but for a tip to a frugal living blog, just CLICK HERE. You’ll find further links there. Start your research going for tips, tweaks and principles of the tightwad living style. Prepare for the worst in the coming days of rule by the Trimvirate of Greed and Envy, or be expect to be caught with your pants around your ankles right when you need to move quickly.

Not a happy thought.

Do note: my lil automated “scripture of the day” feature on my right sidebar notes Matthew 6:19-21 today. Ironic? Not really. I’m not advocating, here, “lay[ing] up treasures on earth” but simply taking prudent steps to protect ones finances and provide for ones family, instead of relying on a fickle government run by people who do not know you and do not give a fig for you and yours. Do what you will.

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The Road Ahead, 1.1

I’m going to try to nibble away at dealing with a nation “ruled” by a Pelosi-Reid-Obama Trumvirate of Greed and Envy. Yes, I may settle on that label or another similar label that’s descriptive of the fundamental governmental policies of the Dhimmicrappic rule. Think about it: their base is founded upon class envy and stealing from workers to give to drones. Between them, they’ll run the two houses of Congress and the bureaucrappic nightmare that is the Executive branch of government–giving them full power to pack the judiciary with like-minded Cupidic Envycrats, so “Trumvirate of Greed and Envy” seems appropriate.

But enough of that. First nibble: suppose the “chicken in every pot” promise of Obama to take from the rich and give to the, well, not “poor” because there are too few really poor folk in America. Let’s say, “Give to folks who haven’t actually earned it.” How to deal with that?

OK, suppose you are someone who pays no federal income taxes, because your earnings are too low to have to. One can survive on such income but only by living very frugally. So, that’s the first thing you must do: live frugally. Do without convenience items. Do without luxury items. Redefine “essentials” to real esentials and live within your means. It can be done, and I know it can, because I and many millions of others have done so. Don’t whine, gripe and complain about “doing without” when you are fully capable of stocking your larder with decent food, putting clothes on your family’s backs, keeping a roof over your head. Just do it.

Then, suppose you do get one of those government welfare tax checks of money stolen from “the rich” (as redefined by the Trumvirate of Greed and Envy), what do you do? You can’t do the absolutely right and just and moral thing and track down the person the Trumvirate of Greed and Envy stole it from and give it back. Spend it on some of those luxury items you’ve been foregoing because they are outside your “pay as you go” frugal lifetyle (you have avoided credit card debt, etc., haven’t you? hmmm?)? That wouldn’t be right, and it would set the tone for other bad behaviors down the road.

How about this? Put that money to work doing the things it might well have been doing had the “rich” person(s) it was stolen from had it to work with: invest it in the economy in such a way as to encourage business/job growth. Find a well-performing mutual fund that focuses on areas of the stock market that have both done well–even through the current financial woes–and that create jobs through business growth. Look back over a five-ten year period or more. Learn ehat and where and how these funds have achieved their success. Avoid companies that participated heavily in the mortgage immorality of the past couple of decades. Put the money in where it can help create jobs, reap what rewards it offers and reinvest those as you can.

Take that general idea, and become a vest-pocket capitalist. Since you’ll be unable to return the wallet from the mugged “rich” person, stick it in the eye of the Trumvirate of Greed and Envy by chosing to do this for the good of the economy and for the poor souls whose finances have been raped by the Trumvirate of Greed and Envy–both the genuinely poor (who will be paying much higher hidden taxes as businesses are forced to pass increasing government-mandated expenses on in end-user pricing) and the “rich” who have been stolen from.

A well-performing mutual fund isn’t the only road to giving the stolen monies back to the economy, and there are other obvious ways to put the money where it will do some good for others, but it’s probably the easiest way with the pittance the Trumvirate of Greed and Envy may vomit up.

More to come as The Road Ahead continues…

Trackposted to The Pink Flamingo, Rosemary’s Thoughts, and The World According to Carl, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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The “Hissy Fit, Toddler Tantrum” Vote

The analysis of this year’s election will continue for some time to come, but last night on FoxNews channel (Yeh, I tuned in for election coverage sporadically), Juan Williams (Juan Williams!?! Yeh, I know. I was shocked. *heh* ) commented on something from the exit polls that caught my ear. He noted that among those who voted for Obama, when issues were examined granularly (my short hand for his long-winded explanation) there was a strong evidence that the vast majority of folks who voted for Obama didn’t actually agree with him on the issues.

Williams attributed this to an anti-Bush, anti-Republican protest vote, and I agree that it looks that way. There is probably also an element of flat-out ignorance of the candidates’ stands, their histories and records involved as well. Put together, these elements spell voters voting against McCain for irrational reasons: ignorant mental/emotional toddlers having a hissy fit with the power of the vote in their hands. Dumbasses.

THIS is why democratic governance is so dangerous, as yesterday demonstrated so graphically. Putting the power of governance in the hands of the ignorant, immature, venal, self-lobotomized masses is no improvement over rule by an aristocracy. Let me remind you once again of the central danger of democracy (and one of the reasons the Founders eschewed such a thing in favor of a representative republic):

“In a democracy (”rule by mob”), those who refuse to learn from history are in the majority and dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance.”-third world county’s corollary to Santayana’s Axiom

If it’d help you remember, have it tattooed backwards on your forehead. *heh* I may have to have T-Shirts made of it subtitled, “Welcome to The Obamanation.”

Trackposted to The Pink Flamingo, Leaning Straight Up, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Democrat=Socialist, and The World According to Carl, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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Break Out the Black Arm Bands?

It seems my dystopian view of our society is warranted. I said,

“…since the vast lot of folks going to the polls today are exceedingly stupid, lazy and greedy sheeple who have cheerfully given their minds over to Academia Nut Fruitcakes to be lobotomized and souls over to the Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind to be posessed, we may well see a super majority of socialist tyrants in Congress and a flat-out corrupt Chicago machine Marxist in the Oval office.”

And indeed, it appears that, despite a Dhimmicrappic controlled Congress with the lowest approval rating in my lifetime, Dhimmicrappic policies that directly led to the recent financial burnout and a presidential candidate that exit polls in critical “battleground” states indicated is NOT in agreement with the professed values of voters, exceedingly stupid, lazy and greedy sheeple have given nearly complete control of the federal reins of power to a bunch of socialists and outright Marxists to work their magic destruction powers upon American society.

Can America survive four years of such a combo? Yes. But can it survive and then regain its strength? Maybe not. No wonder so many of our “not-friends” among foreign powers have been so elated at the prospect of surrender monkeys throwing their wrenches in the works of the American engine.

Buy gold. Learn Polish. Stockpile food (until the commisars send troops to make you share your cookies with the grasshoppers). This can’t be good. No matter how much I appreciate being proven right about the outright stupidity and cupidity of the American sheeple, it’s a bitter pill to swallow just to realize that so very many fellow citizens are so utterly stupid and venal.

There is one ray of hope here, maybe two. Given the political situation to come in Washington, even with the cover of the Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind, it will be difficult to completely obscure the disasters that will ensue from the policies Obama and Pelosi and Reid have advocated, should they make any real attempt to implement them (and why would they not, given the successes of their lies to date?).

Oh, well. Life goes on. Until it sto

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What Today May Bring

When we went to vote at 6:00 this a.m., our polling place was more crowded than at any other time I’ve voted here in America’s Third World County. I could hope other polling places around the country were as crowded… and crowded with about the same pecentage voting against Marxism. Here in twc-land, I doubt The Obamassiah will get even a tithe of the votes.

I have come to doubt that Americans as a whole are as good or smart or honorable as the folks who inhabit America’s Third World County, where honor, duty and hard work seem to be held in higher esteem than elsewhere. Oh, you may think your community is a model of American goodness, but I’ve likely seen more of America than most of the readers of this blog (OK, I’ve not spent time in Hawaii or Alaska), and after having lived and worked in nearly every kind of community in America–from major urban areas to places so far back in the piney woods you just can’t get there from here–I can confidently say that if America as a whole were as good or smart or honorable as America’s Third World County, Barack Hussein Obama wouldn’t even be on the ballot today. Heck, Juan Mexicain wouldn’t be either, but that’s another story. *sigh*

But since the vast lot of folks going to the polls today are exceedingly stupid, lazy and greedy sheeple who have cheerfully given their minds over to Academia Nut Fruitcakes to be lobotomized and souls over to the Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind to be posessed, we may well see a super majority of socialist tyrants in Congress and a flat-out corrupt Chicago machine Marxist in the Oval office.

Could be. We’ll see. There are some intriguing possibilities, IF the Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind doesn’t manage to suppress opposition votes by proclaiming an early victory for The Obamassiah.

Some threads pulled from a lot of different analyses:

1. It’s been blantantly obvious that most pollsters (I say “most” only because there is ONE I know of that hasn’t done so… very much) have greatly weighted polling in favor of a Dhimmicrappic vote. Up by an average of over 10 points (some figures show 13) more than previous years. The “big lead” for The One going in could be a myth… one the Hivemind wants to be a self-fullfilling myth.
2. There’s some small evidence that non-responders in political polls (as opposed to so-called undecideds–more on them later) are high this year. Non-responders typically vote more heavily Repugnican’t than Dhimmicrap. When they vote at all (another reason for the Hivemind attempts–even this early in the day–to suppress the Repugnican’t vote).
3. So-called “undecideds” have remained high up to the last minute. These so-called “undecideds” who do end up voting usually break conservative.

Possibly overbalancing these things are the, by now, traditional Dhimmicappic vote fraud efforts. Who can forget Claire McCaskill’s “win” that resulted from illegally keeping the polls open re-opening the polls in St. Louis so Dhimmicrappic workers could sweep the “hiways and byways” for more votes? Or the outright, in your face fraud in Washington and Ohio and Pennsylvania? And with ACORN and others flooding individual precincts nationwide with obvious voter registration fraud aimed at vote fraud for socialist candidates, legitimate voters can easily find themselves flooded with and washed away by the fraudulent Left. (Yeh, I know all the memes of the left decrying vote fraud by the right. Almost all lies told by people well-practiced in The Big Lie Repeated Often. The actual record is a far different thing. But then, if the leftards had to deal with facts, we’d HAVE no leftards to deal with.)

We’ll see what today b rings in votes. But mark my words: if the vote doesn’t turn out the way the Hivemind and its co-conspirators in the Dhimmicrappic Party want, look to the example Obama’s cousin from Kenya proffers. He lost the vote but won the presidency of Kenya on riots and insurrection by his supporters.

It could happen here, too. If it does, look for “sugar won’t melt in his mouth” plausible deniability from Obama. It’ll be another lie, of course, but he’ll have some sort of cover, and the Hivemind will lap it up and vomit it right back into the mouths of receptive sheeple.

Trackposted to The Pink Flamingo, Big Dog’s Weblog, Democrat=Socialist, A Newt One, nn&v, and Stageleft, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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Kipling Tuesday Returns

It’s been a couple of years since Kipling Tuesday was a regular feature here at twc. Methinks Election Day is a good time for…

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Be careful what you vote for…

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For Those Last-Minute “Undecideds”–a Word

That word is: genocide.

IF we manage to survive–as a species–the attempts of accolytes of The Church of Anthropogenic Global Warming to kill off humanity, then

…what historians will definitely wonder about in future centuries is how deeply flawed logic, obscured by shrewd and unrelenting propaganda, actually enabled a coalition of powerful special interests to convince nearly everyone in the world that CO2 from human industry was a dangerous, planet destroying toxin. It will be remembered as the greatest mass delusion in the history of the world – that CO2, the life of plants, was considered for a time to be a deadly poison.

Thus speaks a prophet. The problems that accolytes of The Church of Anthropogenic Global Warming seek to introduce into the world economy and into the biosphere in general are manifold. If their efforts continue to be successful, not only would they contribute to global cooling–a disaster waiting to happen… that seems to “want” to happen anyway–but worldwide famine, a disaster for humanity, if not of the extinction magnitude some eco-freaks seem to desire, at least dire indeed.

And the Obamassiah wants to declare CO2–essential to plant growth–a “Dangerous Pollutant”. The first, most obvious, result would of course be economic devastation of coal producers (any voters in Pennsylvania paying attention?), but not end there by a long shot.

“I (Obama) was the first to call for a 100% auction on the cap and trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases emitted would be charged to the polluter. That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants that are being built, that they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted down caps that are being placed, imposed every year.

“So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”

Bankrupt plants using coal to produce energy in order to cut down on releasing a gas that–IF the Anthropogenic Global Warmists are right (and there’s little evidence they are)–may help avert or ameliorate a coming ice age and that is essential to plant growth. Smart. Real smart. If your goal is the short term economic devastation of our society and your long term goal is poverty, famine and disease.

Just one more piece of the puzzle that reveals anyone who would vote for Obama to be a short-sighted idiot, fool, slacker, poltroon or thief. Or all the above.

*feh*

“In a democracy (“rule by mob”), those who refuse to learn from history are in the majority and dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance.”-third world county’s corollary to Santayana’s Axiom

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“At least half the sense God gave a head of cabbage…”

Well, all the inhabitants of twc central who’re qualified to vote have voted*. If you have at least half the sense God gave a head of cabbage, then I encourage you to go vote, because anyone with more intelligence than a vegetable, more foresight than a rock, will vote for Palin and McWhatsisname, and very likely vote against the commie wannabes running for Congress and state and local offices as well.

I voted for three Democrats who’ve proven themselves in the past to be seriously OUT of step with the Dhimmicrappic Party–one for State office and two locals. The rest were either real or country club Republicans (and one genuine Repugnican’t who was the lesser devil among a field of really bad options). Voted for two State initiatives and against all the others (including one designed to lift a state-imposed limit on gambling debts to aid in financing public schools. Seems that thinking things through isn’t a strong suit for the folks who proposed that one).

Before you vote, READ THIS. Seriously, folks, if you know someone who’s too stupid to vote, take ’em to Dairy Queen and tell ’em to vote by choosing their favorite Dilly Bar.

*”qualified to vote”–frankly, our dogs and cats here at twc central are more mentally and morally qualified to vote than this piece of dreck and others of her ilk whose idea of good governance involves stealing from some to enable sloth in others.

Trackposted to , Right Truth, The World According to Carl, The Pink Flamingo, , Cao’s Blog, Big Dog’s Weblog, nn&v, CORSARI D’ITALIA, A Newt One, Conservative Cat, Right Voices, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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Vote Today…

…unless you’re a clueless, idiot sheeple, in which case, please stay home and drool on your couch instead of on the voting booth.

Thank you.

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Slandering the Greats…

No, not Obama, Reid and Pelosi. I’m stumped for anything that would be slander of those three.

Larry, Cury and Moe would be a major improvement over Pelosi, Reid and Obama. The video is a slur on three great men.