Why Americans are so Angry

Here's a deep insight from the comment thread on an article in the Economist...

J. Kemp Dec 7th, 19:32

There is an apparent lack of understanding among many in this thread about the nature of America's unique flavor of, and recipe for, corruption.

The way corruption works in America is through the providing of morally corrupt laws to those who purchase laws from federal and state legislatures. The purchasing is done most often through campaign finance transactions.
In other less developed countries, corruption is quite straightforward and easy to see as such. Old fashioned cash-for-deeds bribery is more prevalent in less developed nations.

In America corruption is a much more insidious game, which is worse because (i) it is almost always plausibly deniable by virtue of being cloaked in "laws", and (ii) it is impossible for the citizens to escape.

The American banking sector, telecoms companies, insurance companies, America's multiple for-profit prison industries and the major licensed professions: attorneys, physicians, financial services "professionals" (sic) and accountants are all major spenders on the purchasing of legislation which creates and protects their selfish economic opportunities at the expense of normal Americans who are not members of these law-buying clubs. America passes secret laws enabling its NSA to violate its citizens constitutional rights and has secret courts to approve these violations. America uses drones to murder targets -- but many innocents -- in ways which are clear violations of easily understood Geneva conventions on warfare and prohibiting crimes against humanity.

There is, in fact, a high level of cash-for-deeds corruption in America, for example, as set forth by the Yale Law Journal which formulates and estimate of over 1 million bribery transactions per year in the American judicial branch of government. There are also abundant indications of a high level of arrogance towards the citizens by members of government from local police and other local government employees, all the way up to national office holders in federal legislatures and other branches of government.

However the worst and most inescapable and deleterious form of corruption going on in America is when private interests (or certain parts of government) get deals from legislatures and get the laws they want so that they can economically enslave -- and/or imprison -- American citizens.

Americans are being bled out by these custom, gov-for-sale laws like animals at a slaughterhouse. This is angering Americans as well it should.

The key to understanding the uniquely American flavor of corruption is to understand that is most often WRAPPED IN LAWS which laws seek to legitimize morally corrupt treatment of America's citizens, often under the further cover of some noble motive.

American corruption is unique and innovative in its many disguises, but it is worse for the citizens than the forms of corruption found in other nations due to the fact that American corruption is, by design, inescapable for its citizens, a large portion of whom are exploited as economic slaves by those privileged industries and professions who are holding all the cards in the form of laws they purchased from America's corrupt legislatures.

Texas Governor Jolts Maryland’s Anti-Business Politicians

Texas has been airing radio and TV adds in CA, IL, etc...on Wednesday, on the way back from installing some millwork in Charlottesville, VA, I heard the radio advertisement.  I thought it was great!  Now I get this from a friend:

For immediate release:

David Craig Campaign releases business climate data showing dismal contrast

Contact: Jim Pettit

301.704.1363

@jamesmpettit

Maryland Lt. Governor candidate and state delegate Jeannie Haddaway said Texas Governor Rick Perry’s media onslaught of the state’s business climate and job growth potential is well-deserved as the David Craig campaign for Governor released today a comparison of the two states’ business climates according to third-party sources.

Maryland’s average ranking is 32 compared to Texas’s 4 when compared to other states. Preventing Maryland’s free fall to the bottom quintile overall in the national business climate comparisons are factors including quality of life, education attainment levels and proximity to research and development facilities such as universities and federal government installations.

“Texas Governor Rick Perry understands something that the O'Malley-Brown Administration is in denial about -states compete with one another for jobs and economic development,” said Haddaway. “Raising taxes, fees and tolls 40 times that will remove an additional $9.5 billion out of the private sector economy by 2014 sends a loud message to other governors who are concerned about job growth that Maryland is easy pickings.”

The O’Malley – Brown Administration frequently cite narrow metrics in categories other than tax burdens in order to avoid responsibility for the damage they have caused in driving away small businesses at rates that are among the highest in the region and have left the state with just three Fortune 500 companies. These other metrics are largely based on benefits derived from world-class universities and a high concentration of research and development activity stemming from the post-World War II expansion of the federal government.

“Martin O’Malley and Anthony Brown have absolutely nothing to do with the number of PHD’s living in Maryland nor the federal government and university-sector involvement in medical research, cyber-security and information technology that has been going on for years. Yet they take credit for it every day as if they created Johns Hopkins, the National Institutes of Health and Fort Meade,” said Haddaway. “I am very concerned that as the federal government downsizes due to record debt, that ever-increasing numbers of working Marylanders are going to be left behind.”

Financial service firms, business media outlets, think tanks and site selection consultants routinely rank states’ economic development potential according to a variety of factors. The Craig campaign released the most recent annual business climate studies from Chief Executive Magazine, CNBC, Forbes, Moody’s and the Tax Foundation. Averaged together, Maryland falls 28 notches below Texas.

In some cases a comparison is not even possible, since Maryland is not included in top-performing states in two reports issued this summer. According to corporate relocation industry media outlets Area Development Online and Site Selection magazine, Texas ranks number one in the country.

Harford County Executive David Craig said the Lt. Governor will have a meaningful role in his Administration with economic development being a much-needed focus.

“Governor Perry’s visit to Maryland is a wake-up call to every anti-business politician in the state,” said Craig. “The rain tax alone has become a national embarrassment and one of the most blatant anti-business policies Marylanders have ever seen. My Administration will review, reduce or repeal any tax, fee and toll that impede job growth."

Chief Executive Magazine “Best and Worst States for Business”
1 Texas
41 Maryland
http://chiefexecutive.net/best-worst-states-for-business-2013

CNBC “America’s Top States for Business”
2 Texas
40 Maryland
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100824779

Forbes Best States for Business
7 Texas
16 Maryland
http://www.forbes.com/best-states-for-business/list/

Moody’s Analytics State Economic Outlook
2 Texas
21 Maryland
http://www.economy.com/state/precis-snapshot.aspx?g=TX&src=medc-ppstatehttp://www.economy.com/state/precis-snapshot.aspx?g=MD&src=medc-ppstate

Tax Foundation State Business Tax Climate Index
9 Texas
41 Maryland
http://taxfoundation.org/article/2013-state-business-tax-climate-index

Mr.Obama We Built This Country, Not The Government!

Here's an excellent commentary on Obama's "You Didn't Build It."

129 As a small business owner all I can say is that I think the current sentiment in the small business community is that we didn't sign up for this shit. Y'all can vote for whatever the hell you want but we are not going to be a part of it.

I have seen more owners get out of the business or retire in the past couple of years than ever before and with the ACA on the horizon the jobs these businesses produced will not be replaced. The economics no longer work. This is why unemployment is always so high in socialist countries. What you have to go through to have employees is just brutal.
But here's the thing about what Obama said --- he has it exactly backwards. The government didn't build any of that shit he is talking about --- we built it. We are the ones who paid for it. Not only did we build our businesses we built the schools and the roads and everything else he thinks was generated out of thin air. If you want to get technical about it the businesses and taxpayers that came along before we did built it all and now we are building what comes next.

And not only that, but we did it with the albatross of a predatory, corrupt and overbearing government hanging around our necks at every juncture.
And now we have had enough.

I haven't made more than $50k from my business but one or two years of the past 15. But now that it is time to cash out after providing literally hundreds of jobs I get the stink eye and get castigated for being a member of the 1%. Even though I can remember sitting on the edge of the bed and holding my head in my hands wondering what I had done risking everything I had to create a business and wondering how it would all work out when I had just finished working several days in a row with no sleep... I am the enemy. Even though I didn't take a paycheck for the first year of the business and later skipped other paychecks to meet payroll or to pay taxes I am somehow at fault for the fact that all of these people sitting on their asses or working their cushy government jobs with the large pensions funded by armies of tax collectors and regulators may have to go without.

Well, I already went without so they can bloody well shut the fuck up and take their turn in the barrel! If they want to risk everything they have or work their asses off with no guarantee of success only to be told at the end that they were not responsible for their own success and don't deserve their rewards then they are welcome to go down that path and see what it is like. But the number of people who will pursue the American dream and build the economy from the roots up will be greatly decreased in the current atmosphere and all of these self-entitled idiots will sit around wondering why the government is still going broke and why no one is hiring.

No country can survive socialism. It just doesn't happen. Sooner or later the bill comes due. But before it does you always get demagogic idiots like Obama, or Chavez who try to blame their failures on the only people who are keeping everything afloat. It is not enough they sank the damn ship... they have to come after the people in the life boats too.

That is the sort of mentality we are dealing with.
Posted by: Voluble at August 18, 2012 12:58 PM (qYvEa)

Via Ed Driscoll

Bureaucracy Wins: San Francisco Edition

San Francisco is not business friendly...and here's a video BY A CITY EMPLOYEE showing just how FUBAR the "system" is there.



This is what happens when people make rules, who have absolutely no concept of what sort of impact those bullshit rules do to people who actually want to create wealth and jobs.