Double Birds

1st Amendment be damned .   Michael Moore wants Obama to imprison those pesky critics at S&P who dared suggest that the U.S. might not have the best credit score . "Kill the rich, and Utopia will follow!" —Michael Moore (edited by Double Birds) Truth be damned .  Politicians should be able to spend all they want, whether they have the means or not.  If they lack money, their buddies at the Federal Reserve can just print it.  How can they not pay their debts with that kind of power? Unfortunately, you can't give something you don't have.  Money is not wealth, nor is it magic unicorn piss that we can sprinkle on all our problems to make them go away.  Printing money and throwing it at our debts will merely make our creditors angrier, as the inflated money we give them becomes worthless in their hands. Moore seems to think the economy has a joystick that the rich can jerk around to make it do what they want.  Unfortunately, it's a bit more compli...

Jack Balkin, A Yale law professor,  suggested that the Treasury mint two $1,000,000,000,000 coins , and toss those coins at the national debt to make it go away. Apparently you can believe  King Midas  exists and still teach at Yale. All of us want money, but most of us don't understand how it works. Money is basically an IOU.  It is evidence that you have done something for someone.  If you have it, it proves that you are a helpful member of society.  And you can pass it on to other people who do something for you. You can't give something you don't have. Most of us get money every two weeks in the form of a paycheck.  It is proof that we have worked forty hours a week for our employer.  It's a certificate of performance . How did your employer get that money?  The same way you did.  He traded goods or services with someone else, in exchange for these certificates of performance. If we keep tracing money to its source, we find a...

Why don't people stop whining and pay their taxes?  Aren't taxes the price we pay for civilization ? And yet many people we consider heroes have been willing to die, rather than pay taxes. Jefferson wrote that " a two-penny duty on tea, unjustly imposed " was enough to spark the American Revolution. The irony pisses Jefferson off. Many of the rebellions you read about in history were tax revolts.  Freedom was equivalent with not paying taxes.  In ancient Rome, free citizens were exempt from most taxes, while their conquered subjects paid them.  The early Islamic empires exempted fellow Muslims from taxes, while their subjects paid. Jesus equated tax-exemption with freedom when he said that the children of kings are free .  Everyone else is subject to the king.  Or, rather, subjected by the king.  Alexander the Great conquered the world, and subjected its inhabitants.  Their subjugation meant that they would pay him taxes, or tribute. ...

By Matt Taibbi A merica has two national budgets, one official, one unofficial. The official budget is public record and hotly debated: Money comes in as taxes and goes out as jet fighters, DEA agents, wheat subsidies and Medicare, plus pensions and bennies for that great untamed socialist menace called a unionized public-sector workforce that Republicans are always complaining about. According to popular legend, we're broke and in so much debt that 40 years from now our granddaughters will still be hooking on weekends to pay the medical bills of this year's retirees from the IRS, the SEC and the Department of Energy. Most Americans know about that budget. What they don't know is that there is another budget of roughly equal heft, traditionally maintained in complete secrecy . After the financial crash of 2008, it grew to monstrous dimensions, as the government attempted to unfreeze the credit markets by handing out trillions to banks and hedge funds. And thanks to a whole...

Find out why money is good over at FilmEcon . (Edited by Double Birds) "It is difficult to dispute that, in the real Star Trek future, all thirty-year-old males may well be living in their mothers' basements, enjoying an endless orgy in their holodecks. If you dispute this, consider how many thirty-year-olds are at this moment living in their mothers' basements so they can play MMOs and watch Star Trek. Now imagine what would happen to those young men if they could bang a virtual Uhura three times a day."

Paul: "You believe in the income tax?"  Colbert: "Hell no!" I was reading The Teachings of The Prophet Joseph Smith and came across this quote: "The Constitution tells us what shall not be a lawful tender.  Art. I, Section 10 declares that nothing else except gold and silver shall be lawful tender." (p.279) I know of no other potential presidential candidate who holds this view, other than Ron Paul .

A chemist explains why gold is the best choice for money:

I PITY THE FOOL who doesn't understand the economic implications of money production.  Via FilmEcon . Invest in gold , fool.