Recep Erdogan Proves Trump’s Point

President of Turkey Recep Erdogan confessed that the only reason for being in the Paris Climate Treaty was to receive more funds from the U.S. and other more wealthy nations. Of course with Trump pulling the United States out of the treaty, there’s no reason to expect the financial benefits. --Proving yet again, for the millionth time, that the whole build of the Paris Climate Treaty had absolutely nothing to do with the fake news climate change. It was completely about redistributing the funds of the nations involved.

Read more at WorldNewsPolitics

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Bombshell Investigation Delivers Big Blow to Book on Rising ‘Wealth Inequality’ Hailed by the Left as a ‘Game-Changer’

An investigation conducted by the Financial Times reportedly revealed a “series of errors” that “skew” the findings outlined in Thomas Piketty’s best seller “Capital in the 21st Century” on income inequality. The book has been hailed by the left as a “game-changer,” and compared to Karl Marx’s “Das Kapital” by critics.

However, FT economics editor Chris Giles claims to have found serious errors in Piketty’s data, which likely undermine his findings.

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Charles Murray: The New Upper Class and the Real Reason We Dislike Them

The Pew Foundation discovered in a recent poll that tensions over inequality in wealth now outrank tensions over race and immigration. But income inequality isn’t really the problem. A new upper class is the problem. And their wealth isn’t what sets them apart or creates so much animosity toward them. ✧ Let’s take a guy — call him Hank — who built a successful auto-repair business and expanded it to 30 locations, and now his stake in the business is worth $100 million. He is not just in the 1%; he’s in the top fraction of the 1% — but he’s not part of the new upper class…

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Samuelson: Here comes the spoils society

By Robert J. Saluelson (Hat tip: John H. Detweiler)
We are, I fear, slowly moving from “the affluent society” toward a “spoils society.” In 1958, Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith published his bestseller, “The Affluent Society,” which profoundly influenced national thinking for decades. To the Great Depression’s survivors, post-World War II prosperity dazzled. Suburbia offered a quiet alternative to crowded and noisy cities. New technologies impressed — television, frozen foods, automatic washers and dryers. Never, it seemed, had so much been enjoyed by so many.

This explosive abundance, Galbraith argued, meant the country could afford both private wants and public needs. It could devote more to schools, roads, parks and pollution control. Economic growth became the holy grail of government policy. Production was paramount. It muted social conflict.

The “spoils society” reverses this logic. It de-emphasizes production and fuels conflict. Here’s why:

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The Educated Socialism of Obama

We generally do not post advertisements but I am doing so now, not for any financial recommendation, but for the historical and analogous information regarding our economy.  On 2/16/2013, Steve Sjuggerud's DailyWealth, a free email subscription, contained an article by Porter Stansberry, who did an excellent job of describing the perils of the economy and social ills we have been experiencing and are experiencing even more so now under President Obama. --bc

In Wednesday's essay, I laid out the "great lie" that is bankrupting America. ✧ At the heart of this lie – told by so many of our political leaders and believed by so many of my fellow citizens – is a horrifying turn of events. As I mentioned, the drive for freedom and a better life through hard work, saving, and independence has been replaced by a craven need for the illusion of security. ✧ Rather than trying to leave our children in possession of a better world – with more financial security – political leaders around the world now bicker about how to change the rules so that still more debt can be stacked upon their grandchildren. ✧ For an idea on how things will turn out, a few lessons from history are instructive...

The Spanish Empire destroyed itself by "finding" money, rather than by building industries. And the key to its temporary wealth was a single mountain in Bolivia, "Cerro Rico" – the Mountain of Riches.

At least, that's what the Conquistadors named it. In Bolivia, they call it "the mountain that eats people." Thousands of slaves died trying to satisfy Spain's lust for treasure.

In Cerro Rico today, silver is still mined by people making a few dollars a day using pickaxes in dust-filled shafts with no ventilation, no light, and no safety features of any kind. The 10,000 miners who work there every day toil under the constant fear that the entire mountain could collapse on them. After 400 years of unregulated mining, it's like Swiss cheese.

Bolivia's politicians use these conditions to demand more power and implement more socialism. Of course, it's the poverty caused by decades of socialism that actually prevents modern mines from being built.

Last month, Bolivia's current socialist strongman, Evo Morales, published his Ten Commandments Against Capitalism. He starts out broadly with No. 10…

Economic development must not be oriented to the market, to capital and to profit; development must be comprehensive and be oriented to human happiness, harmony and equilibrium with Mother Earth.

Then he gets to the real point…

We must free ourselves from that colonial bond called the External Debt, which serves only to blackmail us, to oblige us to hand over our assets and privatize our natural resources, and to destroy the sovereignty of peoples and states.

The colonial External Debt is the mechanism of exaction and impoverishment that afflicts the developing countries and limits their access to development. We call for canceling this unjust External Debt. No more inequality. No more poverty. It is time to distribute the wealth.

 These aren't just empty words, either. In June 2011, Morales nationalized the Toronto-listed South American Silver exploration firm, promising only compensation "later." Six weeks later, Bolivia decided that the compensation paid to the Canadians would be zero. Nada, zilch, nothing. Apparently, it was time to seize their wealth.

The people of Bolivia cheered this madness. As their reward… Bolivians will continue to work in some of the most dangerous and least-efficient mines in the world. Their real wages will continue to fall. That's because without capital investment, without savings, without property rights… without the responsibilities of capitalism… there will be no increase in wealth.

Bolivia's socialist policies will have the same economic effect as similar activities in Venezuela and Argentina… The black market rate for dollars in Venezuela is three to four times higher than the official exchange rate. In Argentina, the "blue" dollar rate is 50% more than the official rate.

The looming crisis in these countries interests us in two ways… First, because so much of the world's raw materials (including food and hard commodities, like metals) come from countries like these, a return to socialism will undoubtedly cause shortages and price spikes around the world.

But on a more important and deeper level, ask yourself, what's the real difference between Evo Morales and our current American political leaders?

President Obama and his puppet at the central bank, Federal Reserve Chief Ben Bernanke, are also calling for us to cancel our external debt. They're just saying it in a smarter way, calling it "quantitative easing."

And what's the real difference between what Morales advocates in his Ten Commandments Against Capitalism and what's happened in the U.S. over the past decade? First, President Bush granted free medicine to every retired American. Then, Obama pushed through "free" health care for everyone. In his State of the Union address, he labeled these benefits, plus Social Security payments, "civil rights."

That's pure madness. Rights are something you're born with as a human being. They describe what people can't do to you or take from you.

The government cannot guarantee you any benefit or service without first taking it from someone else. That's why the promise of socialism is merely the promise of plunder. Whether it will benefit you depends on where you stand. However, the nation as a whole cannot become wealthy through the plunder of its own citizens. This one fact explains why Argentina – which was the fifth-wealthiest nation in the world 100 years ago – now ranks 50th.

That's where we're headed. Make no mistake. By 2020, the costs of Social Security and Medicare alone will reach $2.5 trillion a year. That's more than the U.S. federal government collects in all forms of tax ($2.4 trillion) today.

The only things funding these programs are lies and taxes. We've been paying for these programs out of current revenues all along – just like convicted hedge-fund scammer Bernie Madoff used new money to create the illusion of returns for existing clients. There is no way we can afford these obligations without making them far more redistributive and increasing payroll taxes enormously. Obama says "of course" we need more taxes. And he's going to do everything in his power to levy them.

It's time to distribute the wealth, all around the world.

AT THIS POINT THE ARTICLE TURNS INTO A FINANCIAL RECOMMENDATION BUT THE INFORMATION IS STILL WORTHWHILE READING. --bc

The true costs of the world's return to socialism will strike the mining industry first. That's because mining requires immense capital investments over long periods of time. These mines are sitting ducks for politicians, who can tax them or nationalize them easily… all while the public cheers them on…

TAKE NOTE THAT STANSBERRY WRITES, "...THE WORLD'S RETURN TO SOCIALISM WILL STRIKE THE MINING INDUSTRY FIRST." OTHER INDUSTRIES WILL FOLLOW. --bc

But that greatly reduces existing supply and makes new supplies incredibly difficult to procure. In short, you can print money, but you can't print metals. And this explains the price spike in gold and silver over the last four years.

Still, all these precious metals do come from somewhere…

While we don't believe that mining companies are a good investment in the long run, they can be incredibly lucrative as short-term speculations. Politically driven market disruptions make mining stocks soar. That's why gold- and silver-mining companies have also long been thought of as crisis hedges – just like refined metal. And we're about to enter an extended – perhaps decades-long – period of unprecedented, politically caused market disruption.

That's why I'm encouraging my readers to buy precious metals like gold, silver, and platinum. Although these metals have appreciated in value over the past 12 years, they have much further to run.

Good investing,

Porter Stansberry

Further Reading: "The world's markets are beginning to go haywire," Porter wrote Wednesday. "You can see the signs everywhere… And the best way to protect yourself from catastrophe is to benefit from the same policies that are causing it." Get the details here: The Great Lie That Will Bankrupt America.

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Pravda: The global crisis and the appropriation of wealth

PRAVDA, 2/12/2013 - Reading articles published by Pravda, are interesting in that they let us know how others see us. "The global crisis and the appropriation of wealth" by Gelio Fregapani (translated from the Portuguese version of Pravda/RU) is such an article. Read it here... Read More......

'Boomtown' Special Assails D.C. for 'Extracting' Wealth from Taxpayers

BREITBART: BIG GOVERNMENT - In a blockbuster one-hour investigative special that aired on Fox News' "Hannity" on Friday, Peter Schweizer, Steve Bannon, and Sean Hannity exposed how Washington, D.C. has extracted power and money from the United States into a centralized location to become the country's greatest "boomtown," despite not creating anything. ✧ Schweizer, the president of the nonpartisan Government Accountability Institute, highlighted how the permanent political class that relies on lobbying and influence peddling makes more money by "growing the size of government," which leaves no incentive on either side of the aisle to limit government. ✧ As a result, he noted the three richest counties and seven of the top ten wealthiest counties in the nation are in the Washington, D.C. region. The District also consumes the most fine wine in the nation. He asserted the business in Washington is now "not politics" but "money."

Video: Watch Hannity's BoomTown... Read More......

Sowell: Two Different Worlds

Excerpt from Thomas Sowell's article, Two Different Worlds: Wealth is ultimately the only thing that can reduce poverty. The most dramatic reductions in poverty, in countries around the world, have come from increasing the amount of wealth, rather than from a redistribution of existing wealth. Read the full article at Townhall.com... Read More......

VDH: Behind the D.C. Slugfest

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE/CORNER, Victor Davis Hanson - "Barack Obama will be remembered not so much for being the nation’s first African-American president, or even the man who ordered the killing of Osama bin Laden, or even for his Obamacare, but as the president who grew government the largest, ran up the largest deficits during any presidential tenure, and laid out most candidly and confidently the argument of why the United States is an intrinsically unfair society and how that must be remedied by government."

Read more at the Corner

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Gallup Poll: Americans Divided on Taxing the Rich to Redistribute Wealth

GALLUP, 6/2/2011 by Lydia Saad - Americans Divided on Taxing the Rich to Redistribute Wealth. Public is split over enacting heavy taxes on the rich to redistribute wealth.

PRINCETON, NJ -- Americans break into two roughly evenly matched camps on the question of whether the government should enact heavy taxes on the rich to redistribute wealth in the U.S. Forty-seven percent believe the government should redistribute wealth in this way, while 49% disagree, similar to views Gallup found four years ago. Read more at Gallup...

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IPCC Official: “Climate Policy Is Redistributing The World’s Wealth”

WATTS UP WITH THAT, 11/18/2010 by Anthony Watts - Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 14 November 2010

"Climate policy has almost nothing to do anymore with environmental protection, says the German economist and IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer. The next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world’s resources will be negotiated." – Ottmar Edenhofer

For those who may not know, Ottmar Edenhofer is the co-chair of the IPCC Working Group III. Read more at WUWT... Read More......

Fat Cats, pay your fair share

The top 1% of income earners in this country pay 40% of the total tax burden and they have 18% of the wealth. These facts will be footnoted (proof) in Glenn Beck's new book, Arguing with Idiots. This is not an advertisement... we just want you to win the argument when someone says, "The rich should pay their fair share!" Doesn't it seem that they're helping out quite a bit already? Read More......