Would you like to have a digital identity card that is automatically issued to you at birth? In one European nation, residents use such a card when they go to the hospital, when they do their banking, when they go shopping and even when they vote. This card has become so popular that this particular European country actually plans to start issuing them to millions of non-citizens all over the planet who request them. Never heard about this? Neither had I before this week. The Economist, a well-known mouthpiece for the global elite, is calling for the entire planet to adopt this “national identification system” that the little nation of Estonia has adopted. The Economist is touting all of the “benefits” of a “national identification card”, but are there dangers as well? Could adopting such a system potentially open the door for greater government tyranny than we have ever known before? (Read More...)
Shopping
The Real Obama Budget Deficit For 2011: 5 Trillion Dollars
If the U.S. government used the same accounting methods that most U.S. businesses use, the real federal budget deficit for last year would have been 5 trillion dollars instead of 1.3 trillion dollars. So where does the huge difference come from? I think a simple illustration would be helpful here. When you go shopping, do you only count the transactions where you use cash, or do you also count the transactions where you signed on the dotted line and promised to pay later? Of course you count both of them. Well, the U.S. government does not count promises to pay later when calculating budget deficits. The “official” Obama budget deficit for 2011 was 1.3 trillion dollars, but according to USA Today when you add in the rise in liabilities for Social Security, Medicare and other retirement programs that adds another 3.7 trillion dollars to the total. Those are future financial promises that we have made that future taxes are not expected to cover. This analysis by USA Today squares very well with what analysts such as John Williams of shadowstats.com have been saying for years. The truth is that our federal budget deficits have actually been far worse than we have been told. (Read More...)
24 Facts That Prove That America Is A Nation Of Slobs
What would our founders say if they could see us now? Americans like to believe that the rest of the world looks up to us, but the truth is that the rest of the world is laughing at us. It may be very difficult for us to admit, but the reality is that America has become a nation of slobs. And I am not just talking about being overweight. Today, Americans are physical, mental, emotional, moral, financial and political slobs. We are addicted to entertainment, we are addicted to shopping, we are addicted to food, we are addicted to prescription drugs, and we are addicted to anything else that gives us the pleasure that we crave. We allow our televisions to do our thinking for us and our families are falling apart. Our lives center around pleasing ourselves, and we have become one of the most narcissistic societies in the history of the world. We are like a middle-aged man that has totally let himself go. You know the guy who shows up for an important event in sandals, sweatpants and a stained t-shirt? That is us. We are only a shadow of what we once were as a nation, and we desperately need to change course. (Read More...)
How Will History Remember You?
How are you going to spend your life? When it is all said and done, how will history remember you? Unfortunately, these days most people do not spend much time thinking about those kinds of questions. Most people just kind of stumble through life without any clear direction or meaning. Sadly, our society makes it far too easy to remain “comfortably numb” the vast majority of the time. We are absolutely addicted to entertainment and there is more of it available today than ever before – television, movies, music, video games, sports events, food, gambling, shopping – the outlets for feeding our addictions are seemingly endless. But do you really want to spend your life feeding your addictions and keeping yourself entertained as much as possible? The following is a saying that has stayed with me my entire life: “Life is like a coin – you can spend it any way that you want, but you can only spend it once.” If the fact that we are all hurtling through space on this giant rock is just some kind of cosmic accident and life really does not have any meaning, then yes it would make sense to fill up our lives with as much pleasure as possible before we die. But if life really does have meaning and the things that we do today can have a permanent impact on the future, then perhaps many of us need to start thinking about what kind of legacy we are going to leave behind once we are gone. (Read More...)