ATTENTION:
2/ 16 /10

The health care debate was raging with ferocity as tea parties took to the capitals and Congress wanted to pass a recklessly designed health care "reform" bill that dubiously exempted themselves. The real diagnosis on health care however is that there is no real free market for it. A truly free market would reflect a real price for health services and encourage them to stay as affordable as possible since the masses would put market pressure on providers to furnish quality care at the best prices. This is similar to what we have witnessed in other industries such as automobiles, televisions, microwaves, VCRs, DVD players, cell phones and computers. Many of these products started out as expensive novelties that only a few in the more aristocratic classes possessed. When the upper classes took the first hit by purchasing the initial expensive releases, it provided the capital and incentive to the producers to expand production and invest in refining their products' assembly & functionality which allowed the merchandise to be brought to the masses in more markets with more features at lower cost. Ease of production, accessibility and supply all increased while producers were encouraged by making more profit through greater volume at lower cost per item.

Society has flourished from the products brought forth by incentives of the free market system where governments' ideal role is to measuredly police against fraud, violation of contract, violation of patents and copyrights, to enforce reasonable safety laws, property rights and act as arbiter of last resort in contract, property and transaction disputes. In addition, government is authorized to apply some taxation which should be as low and predictable as possible in application. The federal government was intended to regulate interstate commerce only to provide a standard of ease through easily applicable standards. That is to allow products to transact or transport without a lot of hindrance, cost or complexity across state lines. For example, products can go cross country without a lot of differing taxes piling on as they go state-by-state. Also protectionist trade barriers and tariffs between the states are prevented and in effect the innards of the U.S. act as a free-trade zone. So here we witness that the Commerce Clause limits the power of the several states. Yet as well, those federal regulations on interstate commerce must meet the criteria of being within the enumerated powers set forth in the Constitution. This means only those regulations which qualify through the Necessary & Proper Clause.

Combining the principles of a truly free market and constitutional law, we see that governments should not grant corporate welfare, own part or whole of corporations, legislate favoritism or non-competitive protections for any particular industry or company. Neither should government overregulate businesses in order to manipulate the market in certain ways nor excessively tax or make for favoring, punishing or unintelligible tax code in order to do same. Tax credits which reward nonsense and redistribute wealth are also a no-no. And as long as big, unconstitutional government is allowed to exercise these powers, it will be too much the lobbyists who steer the successes, failures and practices of the markets instead of each of you. Some lobbying is understandable, especially lobbying for property rights or for protections against government manipulations in today's atmosphere.

To rid us of the undue reliance on lobbyists, government must be curtailed and its power to manipulate markets removed. This will eliminate the incentive towards reliance on lobbyists and return us to an economic dollar democracy. An economic dollar democracy is where you - the people as consumers - determine the flow, practices and enterprises of the economy by voting with your dollars everyday. Those who deliver the best products and services and provide the highest quality per dollar or those who simply cater accessibly to a particular demographic for a desirable price will find support from their patrons willingly and freely while being kept in check by the prospects of competition. In an economic dollar democracy, monopolies are more so determined by the people's satisfaction and are hence subject to threat of eventual competition in the open fields of the truly free market.

Now if some big conglomerate or a small enterprise engages in racketeering, embezzlement, fraud, rigged contract bids, other general underworld activities or violates reasonable safety or environmental law, then government has a role to intervene under due process. However, some today distrust the validity, application or intent of anti-trust laws bestowed by governments who concurrently own or control large public utilities and who cater legislation favoring the funding and strengths of certain large oppressive labor unions. When that's not the case it can be the corporatists who are pushing for manipulative protectionism against their competitors or even some political faction looking for entitlements. All in all, these are the same governments who now carry a big stick on behalf of lobby culture.

Note how the segments of our economy that function more like economic dollar democracies tend to lower costs or provide higher values per dollar. Grocery stores are always advertising sales and use lower prices to bring in volume. Similar for big box retailers, discount clothing, furniture and drug stores. Likewise for electronic and home improvement retailers. Restaurants are in on the game as well. All are relatively less government influenced to varying degrees as compared to the post office, public schools, mass transit, state colleges, public utilities and public services where costs & subsidies are going up and/or quality is more of an issue with less prospect of competition.

Again these arguments apply to today's health care as well. With Medicare, government has intruded and at least doubled medical costs to seniors since its establishment. Medicare also denies a greater proportion of services compared to private insurers. Meanwhile, its sibling Medicaid further bankrupts state governments through fraud and lax oversight. Government mandates on health insurance policies drive up premiums. The previous Pelosi/Reid Congress invoked more price pressures like forcing your insurer to accept pre-existing conditions, more taxes on policies and medical services and toying with cutting funds to an already under-reimbursing Medicare that shorts medical providers. Their fascist health care plan forces most to buy health insurance or pay a fine. This plan and all the other governmental interfences before it are an overall strategy to get enough people to support a public option which will undercut and eliminate private health insurance -- finally herding us into an expensive, highly unprofitable, government-run venture in socialized medicine at our liability.

Allowing government to regulate and control our health care to the point where half the dollars circulated in it are government dollars has not brought prices down or quality up. Instead, that has only made it easier for middlemen to bid up the price while simultaneously eliminating other providers or competitors. An economic (sound) dollar democracy would do the opposite to our medical system and provide a robust insurance industry to help cover the more catastrophic costs at a more reasonable premium price with the more common medical procedures being less expensive and coverable out of pocket. Let us choose that path as opposed to the example of government-run entities that run themselves into the ground by subsidizing false bargains which then threaten our whole economic infrastructure just as the likes of Chris * Dodd , Barney* Frank and Charles* Schumer did with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac! Why put up with the politicians' bribed bailouts and phony stimulus plans that use your money to "fix" problems that their meddling enabled or caused in the first place?

So the politicians who have led our nation to economic ruin are going to put a plan together to save us which entails more of what they have done all along -- subsidize bad economic behaviors. Two of the key enablers who insulated the failing Fannie & Freddie that subsequently messed up the mortgage markets -- Chris * Dodd and Barney* Frank -- fancy themselves as wise market consultants. They are responsible for impeding the Bush administration efforts to remedy the reckless reserve and lending policies of Fannie Mae & Freddy Mac. Where are the congressional tribunals compelling Frank & Dodd to testify about their roles in this debacle?

And while the Bush administration gets credit for trying to fix Fannie & Freddie a few years ago despite the other party's impedance, they too have contributed to our economic downfall. We remember the reckless spending and entitlement policies such as the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan, the housing of Katrina "refugees" for months after the storm using hotel rooms in fully functioning job markets plus allowing illegal aliens to infiltrate and take advantage of government health and welfare programs. Nearing the end of his term, Bush and his cohorts herded bank CEOs into a conference and demanded that they take government bailout money as a stipend with some executive pay conditions. Do we want officeholders of such incompetence imposing corporate welfare and control?

Well now after Bush nearly doubled the national debt, had the largest growth in the federal government since F.D.R. and borrowed more than any previous president, Obama wins an election on change from Bush policy. Obama can easily deflect some criticism of his economic policies by pointing to Bush's vast lack of accounting discipline which appears to give Obama an air of credibility. But wait, Obama is just more of the same in particular regard to a stimulus package filled with pork for government bureaucrats and spending programs to ensure support from various Democrat factions. Obama supporters complain about Bush indebtedness while Obama takes a similar course promising more spending packages with future "trillion-dollar deficits for years to come ". Yes, Bush really spent like an L.B.J. Democrat but now that the Democrats are back in power, they aren't going to be outdone by the 'opposition' party concerning the tenets of big government & big spending. So Obama is promising to out due Bush, while the Obama sheep (O-baahahahaha-ma) praise him as a more efficient & fiscally responsible president.

Meanwhile the banks, automakers, mortgage lenders, UAW, Fannie & Freddie have all become beneficiaries of the government's subsidized bubble over the years and are labeled as being too big to fail. The media and politicians blame economic woes on the failure of the free markets and lack of government regulation. Now does any of what has been going on sound like a truly free market considering all the subsidization, accommodating monetary policies, protectionism, coercive taxation, entitlements, bailouts and stimulus packages? No. So it's really the government and all its interference in the markets in so many ways through overregulation, misregulation and absence of limits and oversight on government itself that causes the economy to malfunction.

It is big government with unyielding power that creates the incentive for lobbyists of undue special interests to profligate interference in the economy for their own benefit and it is they who support and perpetuate the campaigns of politicians who will work in their favor. But wait, power-hungry politicians in big government will seek to make deals and legislate on behalf of or threaten to legislate against certain industries or corporations in order to obtain campaign support from particular pools of lobbyists. A truly free market with limited government protects against both scenarios because politicians lack the power to interfere or manipulate in the marketplace and therefore lobbyists do not have great incentive to petition such a properly checked and limited legislature in order to obtain inappropriate favors.

This truly free market within a system of adequate government with proper powers is much less prone to suffering corporate (or general) favoritism, protectionism or predation on behalf of swarms of lobbying locusts. Instead, such a market allows the consumer to determine the winners and losers by allowing the people to vote with their dollars for the companies that provide the best prices or highest quality per dollar. Big business will have to focus on satisfying the consumer instead of relying on protectionism or subsidization to survive against lower-priced competitors. Within such a system it is easier to spot corruption or violation of safety laws since the government is more impartial without the seas of lobbyists and it is less bogged down by having to concern itself with providing advantages, goodies or protectionisms to various industries (or factions).

Shouldn't all of you as consumers keep check on the corporations instead of the lobbyists and politicians? Similar can be said for a vastly simplified tax code that does not create battles for loop holes. Can you imagine as well if the courts were free of ravenous, sue-crazy, ambulance-chasing lawyers?

While we are at it, vilification of big business becomes less applicable since a truly free market encourages more competition amongst more companies which will cater to potentially smaller market shares and yields greater attention towards the consumer. And why does the current climate vilify corporations but not small businesses in general? Is there not corruption in small business as well? You have heard all those stories concerning fraudulent, small-time mechanics haven't you? Doesn't small business account for something like 80% of America's economy? Maybe the effort to vilify just big business is the socialists' ploy to hide their overall true intentions. They employ a psychology by creating distrust to big business -- easier since big business appears to be more of a threat. Its names are fewer in number but provides a channel to quicker control of a noticeable portion of the economy . However, you can be sure they will do to much of small business what they claim they will do to big business in order to rein (reign?) everyone in. They are counting on the envy or fear of big business in order to subjugate all businesses in the end.

The Commonwealth would not tolerate such things. We will provide a truly free market where the people themselves determine who will provide more goods & services at more affordable prices amongst everyone while offering better employment opportunities and wages. We will allow your current gross pay to provide you with the living wage you seek. Just look at the gross amount on your paystub. This is what you would get under the Commonwealth since we would rid you of the income tax and instead have the FairTax.

This living wage FairTax system is hidden from you by the politicians who are throwing the TARP over it. Their TARP is woefully inferior as an economic stimulus and it will cost you more in the future. It makes you pay to bail out banks, mortgage lenders and such that actually contribute noticeable sums of campaign money to the members of the congressional House Financial Services Committee that recently held a hearing on the TARP recipients. And some of those committee members invest in some of those companies.

Similar argument can also be made against the the latest stimulus plan. While pushed as immediate relief, it won't even spend much of the money until a few years down the road and even then it goes to dodgy pork projects. Why not instead bail yourselves out with the FairTax? It just doesn't make sense for the politicians to take money from you, red-tape it and push it through all kinds of inefficiencies and then promise to save you from ruin by bailing out all their undue interests.

Ponder how they have taken hundreds of dollars out of your paycheck all these years while promising to provide you with retirement, health care and good education. Well, where did all that money go? A lot of it has been wasted while leaving a bankrupt Social Security scheme, worsening schools and more expensive health care & insurance. Health care and insurance cost increases were brought about by the government's mandates on policies, establishment of rationed HMOs, wasteful and bureaucratic Medicaid & Medicare programs and now the Prescription Drug Plan boondoggle. Think of all that money wasted and they still haven't provided you with anything but empty promises election after election.

Accounting for stuff like that, a general way to save our whole economic system would be an Economic Reconfiguration Plan (ERP) which includes the FairTax. See if you don't think that this would be a much better method to reverse our broad economic problems by saving your personal finances, the money supply and auditing the government while keeping it in check.

In closing, we advocate Austrian economics. As an aftermarket indicator, we would utilize thermoeconomic-inspired econometrics in order to interpret and gauge the economic engine which enables America to KOT (Keep On Trucking).

'The fact is that George W. Bush has presided over the largest expansion of government since Lyndon Johnson, who was no piker. Spending under Bush doubled the national debt to $10 trillion (which doesn\92t count such things as the unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare).'

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0811i.asp

Overall Bush budgets

http://www.capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/stan-collender/725/bush-budget-legacy-isnt-pretty

Greatest increase in gv't since WWII & New Deal under Bush

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/16/spending-soars-25-before-bailout/

Biggest increase in debt was under Bush as compared to any president.

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/09/29/couricandco/entry4486228.shtml

'The National Debt has gone up more on his [Bush] watch than under any other president. '

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/06/16/politics/main2939036.shtml

Obama: "trillion-dollar deficits for years to come."

http://rightcuz.com/2009/01/06/trillion-dollar-deficits-as-far-as-the-eye-can-see.aspx

'The final [stimulus] bill included billions in outright pork and wasteful spending.'

http://www.nostimulus.com/?q=facts

Stimulus not immediate in sum, breakdown of distribution:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2009/02/01/GR2009020100154.html

Bank CEOs told they must accept gv't stock purchases of their companies.

http://cbs5.com/national/bush.financial.bailout.2.840104.html

TARP loans to banks but banks not loaning to public.

http://www.propublica.org/article/savings-and-no-loan-tarp-recipients-lending-less-090126

'Nearly every member of the committee received contributions associated with these financial institutions during the 2008 election cycle, for a total of $1.8 million.'

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/02/financial-services-members-to.html

'The companies that have been awarded taxpayers' money from Congress's bailout bill spent $77 million on lobbying and $37 million on federal campaign contributions, Center finds. The return on investment: 258,449 percent.'

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/02/tarp-recipients-paid-out-114-m.html

Auto Bailout will fund lavish UAW benefits.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2135.cfm

'In addition, the UAW center offers 18 holes of great golf' The cost? The program, lodging and food are free. Transportation for people traveling over 1,000 miles round trip is partially subsidized.'

http://www.uaw.org/solidarity/02/0302/feature10.html

UAW strike on GM to prevent manufacture of cars overseas & ensure their job security. Unions support protectionist political candidates.

http://www.nysun.com/national/uaw-walkout-puts-democrats-in-a-jam/63302

'Right-to-work is the phrase union opponents use to describe what unions call open shops. Under such laws, union membership is not required to get a job, and workers can choose whether they want to be in a union.'

http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2007-07-25-uaw-open-shop-laws_N.htm

As the TASS and tabloid media attempt to cover up the success of the surge in Iraq, they also fail to fully question the self-perpetuating manipulation of the two-party state. The bipartisan media hardly gives indepth coverage of third-party options. Usually, only a third-party's spoiler status is mentioned. Intense coverage is given mostly to the entrenched bipoller candidates as if they are our only choices. (PBS, NPR have even less of an excuse for this in cases they come up short!) Unless numbers should occasionally swell for a third-party will the media even bother. Fully informing the public of other choices and questioning the exclusion of independents from debates are not top-priority, hot topics for the press. Thankfully, there are exceptions and the subject is sometimes brought up.

To compensate for a general lack of coverage maybe there should be some sort of big tent, swing voters convention. It would be nice to have various types of of unaffiliated voters assemble to hash out the issues with various third-party speakers, defeated primary contestants and not too entrenched think tanks. How about an impromptu late October rally in, say, Albuquerque NM perhaps?

Basically, haven't you asked yourself how we extract change or obtain a true maverick by settling yet again for another lifelong, grand old Democrat-Republican government?

A significant number of the founding fathers opposed the very notion of political parties. They felt parties fractured the country and denied choosing the best candidate as an individual. One of them was quoted as dreading a day when two parties exclusively fought for control of the nation. Another founder saw things from a slightly different perspective. James Madison said: "...when the variety and number of political parties increases, the chance for oppression, factionalism, and nonskeptical acceptance of [dangerous] ideas decreases ". All the founders' views together are in opposition to any 'traditionalist' claims of how a two-party system is a good option, even when it is not imposed as it is today.

The electoral college need for a majority is not an acceptable excuse for such affairs since some of our earliest presidential elections had electoral votes amongst several candidates. Following in that tradition we should let a greater spectrum of electors coalesce towards the better majority candidate like the party conventions usually do or otherwise settle it by the newly elected Congress. And besides, the electoral college deals with only one office.

Congress, the legislative body, could easily be made up of regional or national third-parties or independents that ideally would cooperatively govern and represent all parts/peoples of the country and not fracture for light and transient causes short of abuses and usurpations. Our nation and even the stalwart Democrats and Republicans would benefit on the issues with a greater spectrum of choice to leverage from instead of polarized politics which will eventually cathode towards a monopole dictatorship.

And with the economic failures of late stemming from the centralized mismanagement by the two-party occupation, we see the need for greater choice and more freedom in both politics and the markets. So as energy is to physics, capital is to economics and we will accordingly apply a wave-particle Austrian economic approach which entails the virtues of the Austrian school (about the minarchist and bounded classical liberal) along with mathematical and statistical analysis to measure the resulting economic enlightenment. Combining this with reservist government brought about by the Commonwealth party or similar would cure many of our ills.

Recent events do show that prosperity is not brought about by the centralized redistribution of honest wealth but instead by the redistribution of political power while preserving truly free and honest markets.

The TASS and tabloid media is now admitting some of the surge successes in Iraq and with the war in general. The drive-by journalists for a long time had continuosly pumped out a defeat mantra concerning Iraq. The domestic anti-victory faction has been having a field day over the domestic front's new tone paralysis. Obviously when it comes to the media we are force-fed propoganda.

Again, we cannot allow defeat in Iraq to the merciless Islamic savages, whose known Rule of Warfare is an undistinguished Destruction of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions worldwide. Yet neither can we allow defeat at our own ballot box by the two-party regime. There is still plenty of time to put together an indie/multi-party electoral force to literally save America.

If you still fear "wasting your vote" on third-party candidates more than you fear allowing the two-party regime to destroy America, then please roll over and yet again vote for the lifelong, grand old repeat failures. 2008 is the last major election of the naughts. Do not waste this opportunity to put real leaders and solutions in office instead of the same promise breakers and their two-party bipoller disorder.

Accordingly our electoral college plank can further real choice and balance in the presidential elections. It incorporates a 'house' and 'senate' structure to the electoral college just like we have in the Congress.