Cash For Clunkers Is Ridiculous!

Once I’d finished writing this post, I looked around for a good video to go along with it.  This is what I found:

How the CARS System Works

The Car Allowance Rebate System or “CARS” to give it its catchy MARKETING name, seems to me to be little more than a poor attempt at giving even MORE money to the failing American auto industry, albeit a mere $3 BILLION (which is chump-change compared to what’s already been given).

If this wasn’t the case, then the politicians in charge of us (not working FOR us as they’d have you believe) would simply GIVE each person $4,50o.

Who Can Afford A New Car?

Let’s face it, anybody who can afford $20,000 for a car, can afford $24,500, besides which, the gov. would get a good portion of it back in taxes (sales tax, tag/license plate etc.).  So, other than the car manufacturers, who is benefiting from our politicians amazing generosity?

According to the Federal Trade Commission, the AVERAGE price that people pay for a new car in the United States is $28,400.  Let’s say you cannot afford the payments on a new $20,000 car; how can you possibly benefit from the cash for clunkers progam?

So let’s now assume you’re pretty well-off and that you CAN afford a new $20,000 car but you just bought one, so you don’t need a newer one.  You don’t buy one!

Now, let’s say, you can afford a new car and were just about to buy a new car because your current one is all beaten-up and costing you a fortune to maintain.  Well, you either get a slightly cheaper car or, more likely, simply UPGRADE the car you were thinking of buying to something a little nicer.

“You Asked, We Listened”

That’s what it states on the official CARS Website.  Instead of asking “where are all my tax dollars going?”, perhaps you should start asking “where are they getting all this money to give to the auto manufacturers?”.  Click this link for the answer to that question.

Democracy At Risk?

Here’s what Alexander Fraser Tyler had to say about Democracy when writing “The Fall of the Athenian Republic”:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the Public Treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the Public Treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy always followed by dictatorship.”

Is Democracy at risk?  Of course it is.  It always HAS BEEN, it’s just that things are finally coming to a head.  What follows all democracies is very scary.  We are raised to believe that Democracy is the best system.  Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t, I don’t know.  What I DO know is that it’s all about to come to an end.

I would not write about this in my blog if I wasn’t concerned.  If I wasn’t concerned, I’d simply write about nice fluffy things such as how you can easily make money online with little or no money invested.  While this can and DOES happen to people, there are sometimes bigger things that you should think about.

Political Atheist

I am a political atheist.  I don’t believe in any party or system. What I DO believe is that the best analogy for ALL SUCCESSFUL politicians is that they are like Mosquitoes (or any other parasite).  They live OFF OF a host.  In a politician’s case, the hosts are the people within the same nation that they live.

Ron Paul (in the video above) is not a successful politician.  He tells the truth, and everything I’ve heard him say so far has been factually accurate. This is probably why he isn’t successful; he’s too willing to be honest.

How Can You Fix Things?

I can’t see any way to fix what is happening in the world, but history shows us that when politicians have messed things up so badly that they are almost out of options, they usually invent some reason to take the people of their nation to war.  It’s happened recently and may well happen again, but this time on an even bigger scale.

The BEST THING you can do is to learn how to protect yourself, your family and your loved-ones on a PERSONAL level.  Don’t think about fixing the world.  Learn how to stop demanding that OTHERS fix things for you.  Become as self-sufficient as possible.  This can only happen by reading and then applying what you’ve learned.

Knowledge is NOT power.  APPLIED KNOWLEDGE is power.  You CAN have that power, but it all starts with learning and ends with applying.

Luke.