I've Said It Before

And I will say it again. Government regulation is the reason we have illegal immigrants.

I am SICK and TIRED of ignorant dumbasses (conservatives) saying that the government needs to crackdown on illegals and keep them out of the country, without even realizing that it is the government itself that has created the problem in the first place! They bitch and moan about how illegals and mexicans are taking their jobs, and then expect the GOD DAMN GOVERNMENT to be able to fix their problems. They are the problem!

The American worker is, studies have shown, getting older and smarter. The low-level labor jobs that used to be filled by American workers are no longer needed by them. They are moving into better, higher paying jobs that usually require education and experience. You know who is filling those jobs that we've left (like construction and other blue-collar jobs)? IMMIGRANTS! Without them, we'd have a serious economic problem!

But, the god damn government and these conservative - and some liberal - assholes keep passing laws that RESTRICT immigration. In order to fill those jobs that the average American worker is leaving, people - mostly hispanics - have to become "illegal immigrants" because the government has made it damn near impossible to get here in the first place! By restricting it, you have not reduced the amount of illegals, you've actually introduced illegality to it!

But they still don't fucking get it. They preach limited government, and then when it actually comes down to it, they want to make it bigger. As a libertarian, let me be the first to tell you: limited government does not only apply to the economy, it applies to society AS A WHOLE! A free market requires a free supply of labor. Otherwise, you could have severe shortages or surpluses of labor. Labor, like any good or service, is governed by the laws of supply and demand. By restricting labor, the government has fucked too much with the system.

Get it through your heads. Immigrants have every right to live and work here, just as much as we do.

Google and the Government

http://www.google.com/governmentrequests/

Just take a look at this bullshit. Google has posted numbers telling us how much data is being asked for by the governments of the world. In this case, my beef isn't with Google - they actually did a good thing with this - but the god damn governments.

Who do they think they are requesting all this data from private sources. In 2009, the US government requested information about 3580 people, and asked to have 123 items removed from their site. That's just the US government. If you think that is bad, take a look at Brazil. They've had 291 removal requests and 3663 data requests.

The government has been forcing Google to reveal information about its users and censor blogs, youtube accounts, and even Gmail accounts. This is ridiculous - who gave them this right?

A Funny Thing About Freedom

I've been thinking a lot today, as I often do when I'm tired and not paying attention to what's ACTUALLY happening, about immigration. Why is it that some people are so afraid of immigrants? What gives people this idea that freedom only applies to us, the legal American citizens? Because it most certainly doesn't matter whether you are legal or illegal.

Those immigrants that cross the border have as much right to freedom as any other person in the world. The ability to seek opportunity and ensure your own prosperity is a natural right, one that is not determined by citizenship but by existence. There is no difference, on a human level, between me, you, and that man who just crossed over so that he could make money for his famiy. That man, like any of us, is just trying to make his life better. What's so evil about this?

Then you get these nutjobs, both liberal and conservative, who feel that the border is not tight enough and that we need to do shit like build fences and send in the national guard. How could the answer to this situation be anything close to that? These immigrants are people like us just trying to survive. America is the one place in the world that gives them the freedom to do so and you want to do what? Arrest them, or deport them as if they are bad people? These immigrants have as much right to the freedom of opportunity that we do, and it is high time we realize that and stop treating them as invaders.

It's a funny thing about freedom: it doesn't end at the border.

Social Insecurity

Social Security was established in 1935 as a part of President Roosevelt's "New Deal" program. With it's passage came the promise of a secure financial future for America's retired workers. It promised them respite from the financial hardships associated with reaching old age and being disabled.

And thus America was saved by Social Security - the promise of a better retirement for all Americans.

Yeah, more like Social INsecurity.

Every American is entitled to a retirement, there's no doubt about it. There are many people who simply can't work when they get to be older, and need that income in order to survive. So, isn't it the governments job to provide that? Is a public system the best system?

Not only are public systems inefficient but they cheat us, taxpayers, out of huge chunks of our paychecks and ultimately do not provide the money necessary for people to truly live out their golden years.

Social Security is a pay-as-you-go system, wherein the taxpayers pay the tax and then it is used to pay the retirees. Any left over tax is reinvested in government bonds, which is then matured until the next year and then brought back into the social security fund. The system used to work, back when the ratio of workers to retirees was about 16:1 (circa 1950). Now, the ratio is closer to 3:1, and is ever closing in on 2:1. This system is not sustainable, it will not have the funds necessary to keep paying out benefits. Inversely proportional to the ratio of workers to retirees is the the SS tax rate, which used to be 2% back when that ratio was sustainable. Now it's 12.4%, and it is very likely that it will increase again sometime soon.

SS is doomed to fail. It has always been on a downward spiral when it comes to benefits and taxes. Soon, the SS will not take in enough taxes to pay those in the system. You know what's going to happen? Higher taxes: someone is going to have to cover those losses. Of course, poor people don't pay taxes, so the middle class will have to bear most of that weight (which, if you aren't retarded, is most of us). Now, you may say that the rich pay the most in taxes, but I say nay. The maximum taxable amount for SS is $62,700. Nothing over that has the SS tax applied to it. Rich people won't even feel the sting, nor will the poor, but the largest class of Americans will.

In reality, SS also doesn't actually pay out much in benefits. All in all, if you made an average earning while you worked (about $50,000), you will get roughly 1300 a month in benefits. Great, hope you don't have a fucking mortgage. Oh, and God forbid you want to eat. 1300 a month is not a whole lot for many people to live off of (Though, for some it's WAY too much. The government is real good about "waste management", catch my sarcasm?).

What is the solution to the problem of Social Security? Privatization.

Galveston County, Texas (which I normally can't stand), is an excellent case study. In 1979, county workers saw that the SS system was not sustainable and thus set out to fix it. What did they come up with?

A banking model, rather than an investment model. You see, normally with an investment model of retirement funding (like a 401K) fluctuates with the market, and clouds the future for many workers.

A banking model using IRA's, however, are not subject to the fluctuations of the market. Worker's contributions in Galveston County were put into a conservative, fixed-rate annuity, with impressive results: a steady 6.5% annual return over the last 30 years.

So, under this system, that same person who made 50,000 dollars a year will not make $1,300 a month, but rather $6,843. That's about 3 times the payout of the SS system. The best part about this system? You can opt out, you don't have to use it.

That's the biggest problem I think with SS: it gives us no choice. Whether or not I use it when I retire doesn't mean jack shit when I get paid. I should have the freedom to opt out of the public system and move my 12.4% into a private IRA. I can make more money, decide how much I save, and have a better retirement.

Social Security is not a bad idea, it just doesn't work; it is not sustainable. I can earn more monthly, and have the freedom to save whatever I want for my retirement if I was allowed to invest that 12.4% on my own.

The government should be focusing on letting its citizens opt out of the tax and let them invest in IRAs. Can anyone give me a rational reason for not doing this?

Wait, the U.S. is Fining Toyota?

Okay, Toyota fucked up, we get it. They should have fixed those cars, they should have stopped selling them, and they shouldn't have "hidden" any of the problems, but this is not an issue for the federal government to handle. Of course, it has been made into one.

16.4 million dollars is the total damage done by the Federal government. That's only the fine; just think about how much Toyota is going to have to shell out to fix those thousands of cars as well as handle other lawsuits. I doubt that we will lose the auto company, but you have to wonder: when does it become too much.

Oh jeez, and then Congress had to question the company's management, in order to find out what happened and where new regulation is needed because, for some reason, the current paradigm at play here in America subconsciously forces us to regulate everything. Even though these things are none of the governments damn business.

And now this. The company is being fined a huge amount of money, in addition to the mounting number of lawsuits it's going to have to settle and the millions that will be spent fixing the damn cars. It is not officially too much.

Since when did it become necessary for the federal government to step in on behalf of us? All that we are going to get out of this is regulation, which does nothing to fix the original problem and in fact, worsens it in the long run. You know what would have fixed it though? The free market. If the GD federal government would have just let us, the citizens, deal with the company, this problem could have been solved quickly and painlessly. The people who had problems with the product can sue, the company can pay for damages and repairs, it can learn from its mistakes, and then take the steps to ensure that it won't happen again. This is how it works; we don't need the government to step in on our part. When did we lose the ability to handle things for ourselves, and become weak?

This is what the U.S. has devolved to. Soon as something goes even moderately wrong, the damn government has to get involved and regulate it to ensure our "safety". And of course, the people allow it to happen by complaining and electing others who think this regulation is necessary. We've totally forgotten what made us a powerful nation in the first place: the measure of a nation's status is not in the power, strength, or compassion of its government, but in the strength and prosperity of its people.

We are not weak.

We do not need help.

We don't need protection from ourselves.

We, the people, are the best insurers of our "safety", thank you very much.