"Imagine a world where many of your daily activities are constantly monitored and evaluated: what you buy at the shops and online; where you are at any given time; who your friends are and how you interact with them; how many hours you spend watching content or playing video games; and what bills and taxes you pay... Most of that already happens...but now imagine a system where all these behaviours are rated as either 'positive' or 'negative' and distilled into a single number, according to rules set by the government. That would create your 'Citizen Score'...and used to determine your eligibility for a mortgage or a job, where your children can go to school, etc..."

"For now, participating in China's 'Citizen Score' system is voluntary. But by 2020 it will be mandatory. The behaviour of every single citizen and 'legal entity' in China will be rated and ranked, whether they like it or not... The government [is now using] private companies to come up with systems and algorithms for social credit scores... It will result in private platforms acting essentially as spy agencies for the government..." [Just like Google, Amazon, and Facebook. --ed]

"Sharing what Sesame Credit refers to as 'positive energy' online, [such as] nice messages about the government or how well the country's economy is doing, will make your score go up... A person's own score will also be affected by what their online friends say and do, beyond their own contact with them. If someone they are connected to online posts a negative comment, their own score will also be dragged down... Higher scores have already become a 'status symbol', with almost 100,000 people bragging [on social media] about their scores..."

"Sesame Credit is basically a big data, 'gamified' version of the Communist Party's surveillance methods... The regime kept a dossier on every individual that tracked political and personal transgressions [which] followed them for life, from schools to jobs. People started reporting on friends and even family members... It is a method of social control dressed up in some points-reward system. It's gamified obedience... Penalties are set to change dramatically when the government system becomes mandatory in 2020..."

"[In the USA], we already live in a world of [pervasive data collection and] predictive algorithms that determine if we are a threat, a risk, a good citizen and even if we are trustworthy. We're getting closer to the Chinese system - the expansion of credit scoring into life scoring - even if we don't realize it... We are entering an age where an individual's actions will be judged by standards they can't control and where that judgement can't be erased. The consequences are not only troubling; they're permanent."

-- Rachel Botsman article, Wired magazine

For decades, China has been a crucial component of the so-called "liberal world order" promoted by the likes of David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, George Soros and their fellow globalists at the CFR, Brookings, Aspen, Davos, etc. Remember the brutal Chinese suppression of the student movement in 1989? President George H.W. Bush, former CFR director, first U.S. Ambassdor to the "People's Republic" of China, and promoter of the "new world order" offered only token support for the liberal protestors.

Now the iron fist is back in the velvet glove, and the grand "social experiment" under the Chinese socialist dictatorshp continues according to plan. See our previous comments on the recent U.N. "Smart Cities" conference hosted by China. Forward, comrades! And don't forget to "like" us on Facebook. *

"Whatever the price of the Chinese Revolution, it has obviously succeeded, not only in producing more efficient and dedicated administration, but also in fostering a high morale and community purpose. The social experiment in China under Chairman Mao's leadership is one of the most important and successful in human history.”

-- David Rockefeller, CFR chairman, article in the New York Times, 1973-08-10

When CFR godfather David Rockefeller made those remarks, the "cultural revolution" in China was still in progress. That disastrous program killed over 1.5 million Chinese citizens, including vast numbers of "intellectuals" who opposed the collectivist dictatorship. Evidently, "whatever the "price" in terms of the death and suffering of others is acceptable, if it advances the Rockefeller / CFR / U.N. one world program towards its objective.

"Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure -- one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it."

-- David Rockefeller, "Memoirs", 2002

* Facebook and Google are CFR corporate sponsors. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Google chairman Eric Schmidt are CFR members. Sandberg, a protege of CFR member and future Harvard president Larry Summers, was his assistant at the World Bank and the Treasury Dept. She was then an executive at Google before moving to Facebook, and is now a billionaire thanks to her stock options.

UPDATE: The BBC recently produced this short video exploring the latest in Chinese video surveillance technology, currently being rolled out as part of the "Smart City" initiative.

The latest revelations regarding Hillary Clinton's illicit activities as Obama's Secretary of State, including her attempt to conceal and destroy official records stored illegally on her unsecured personal computer system, should be sufficient to disqualify her from public office. This is just the latest episode in her long career of unethical, self-serving behavior.

"This current flap over Hillary’s email use and abuse while at the State Department is merely one more wrong in a very long line of wrongdoings going back at least 35 to 40 years... [For example,] President Jimmy Carter appointed Hillary Clinton to the LSC, Legal Services Corporation, Washington DC... Over time Hillary became the chairwoman of LSC and then directly violated federal law in doling out over $360 million of funds -- intended for legal representation of the poor -- to the political activism that she, her husband, and their flock of socialist comrades believe in..."

-- Karl W.B. Schwarz article

See our previous comments on Hillary's fawning relationship with Jewish socialist Saul Alinsky, who hated the American system and wanted to see it destroyed from within. His manual, "Rules for Radicals" provides the socialist tactics used by both Hillary and Obama. Hillary was installed as Senator from New York, just as Obama was installed in Illinois, with support from Jewish oligarchs including George Soros (CFR), Haim Saban (Brookings), Lynn Forrester de Rothschild (CFR) and Penny Pritzker (CFR).

Within days after Hillary's official State visit to Libya in 2011, president Muammar Gaddafi was brutally murdered by the mob. Watch this video of her obscene gloating over the assassination. Another job well done for her masters at the CFR! But she dropped the ball in the subsequent arms smuggling operation which led to the murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi, Libya and she again attempted to conceal the facts.

Compare this with the case of Sandy Berger, the Clinton official and Jewish CFR member, convicted of stealing and destroying documents from the National Archives to hide them from the 9/11 Commission, led by Bush official and Jewish CFR member Philip Zelikow -- an expert on creation of "public myths". Evidently, the Bush/Clinton dynasty still has a lot of covering up to do.

Does anyone remember the 1993 Waco Massacre and the murder of Vince Foster a few months later? Hillary tried to destroy the evidence of that affair also by removing files from Foster's White House office. For a review of the Clinton era and a discussion of Hillary's latest scandal, see this article by Mike Rivero:

"What if, behind the public story we are being told is the focus of the [private email server] scandal, there lies some deeper and darker secrets that must, under no circumstances, be allowed to escape? Secrets that could destroy, not just a candidate, but an entire government? With clues provided by some obvious gaps in the public story, here is what is being hidden behind the 'limited hangout' of the server... "

-- Mike Rivero article1, and article2

"At Columbia University, sociologist professors Richard Cloward and Francis Fox Piven introduced a political strategy in 1966 in an article entitled 'The Weight Of The Poor: A Strategy To End Poverty', a plan that they believed would eventually lead to the total transmutation of America into a full-fledged centralized welfare state... A condition of overwhelming tension and strain could be engineered through the [intentional] overloading of American welfare rolls...creating a financial crisis that would lead to an even greater cycle of demand for a fully socialized system... In the past decade alone, the number of people dependent on food stamps and EBT for their survival in the U.S. has doubled from 25 million people to nearly 50 million people. Those who receive some kind of payment from the government, including those on social security, disability, and veterans benefits, are approximately 100 million...

It is the Federal Government itself that is most vulnerable to the Cloward-Piven Strategy, and I believe the goal is to set fire to ALL social structures in the U.S., then assimilate them into a new globalist system...the otherwise insane policy actions of the Obama Administration and preceding puppet presidents now become perfectly logical. Obama, after all, has been a long time proponent of the methods of Saul Alinsky... Cloward and Piven were also both avid followers of Alinsky, who promoted lies, misdirection, subversion, and abandonment of conscience in order to win social power at any cost.

[It appears] that Obamacare was actually designed to fail, and that the bumbling of the Obama White House when dealing with the program was purely deliberate. When coupled with Obama's handling of the current illegal immigration conflict, I would say that the Cloward-Piven Strategy is in full force... The president does not wish to stop the flood of immigrants exactly because Cloward-Piven requires their presence."

-- Brandon Smith article

Same program, different decade. Way back in 1934, during FDR's socialist "New Deal" program, the Chigago Tribune printed a cartoon showing the central planners "from Columbia and Harvard" shovelling the nation's wealth out the back of a wagon, led by Columbia economist Rexford Tugwell and Agriculture secretary (and future Vice President) Henry Wallace. Off to the left side, the figure of Jewish revolutionary Leon Trotsky is shown printing a sign which sums up the strategy:

Plan of Action for U.S. :

Spend! Spend! Spend! Under the guise of recovery, bust the government, blame the capitalists for the failure, junk the Constitution, and declare a dictatorship.

-- Chicago Tribune, 1934-04-21

There is also a cultural and religious aspect of this onslaught. Jewish socialist Saul Alinsky, who dedicated his book "Rules for Radicals" to Lucifer, was a role model for both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton -- an avid disciple whose college thesis was based on his work. Alinsky was supported by the Campaign for Human Development -- a Roman Catholic organization which also sponsors the "Justice for Immigrants" program. This thinly disguised Judeo-Roman plan for the reconquista of America will be complete when the "latinos" comprise a majority in a few more decades, and the old Anglo-American traditions of self-government and individual liberty have been forgotten completely.

"Between Dec 2010 and Nov 2013, the Catholic Charities Diocese of Galveston received $15,549,078 in Federal grants from the Health & Human Services Dept. for the “Unaccompanied Alien Children Project” with a program description of “Refugee and Entry Assistance.”

-- Liberty News

"Organizers [in Los Angeles] say they are seeking a private audience with Pope Francis (of Argentina), to deliver hundreds of letters from children whose families face the threat of deportation. They want to ask him to address the question of immigration with U.S. president Barack Obama when the two leaders meet later this month... 'César Chavez was a man of prayer and man of peace. Learning about his life tells me that he had a deep devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe', Archbishop Gomez said. 'He fought for justice for his people... I've been also thinking a lot about César Chavez these days, as we continue to struggle for immigration reform. To me, justice for immigrants is one of the great human rights issues of our time."

-- Catholic Online

Recently, the Knights of Columbus held a massive "Guadalupe Celebration" in Los Angeles where Carl Anderson, leader of the Knights, was a featured speaker. He refers to the Americas as "the Catholic hemisphere" and has written a book praising "Our Lady of Guadalupe" who was proclaimed "Empress of the Americas" by Pope Pius XII.

"Calling the orchestrated deluge of aliens invading the nation 'refugees' simply obscures the fact that all are engaged in illegal entry... How many are actually children and how many are much older is unknown, but we do know that many are arriving with criminal intent. The children are merely pawns. The question that has yet to have been answered is how did the Obama administration know in January that the “children” would be arriving later in the year? What Americans are witnessing is a planned illegal alien invasion of the nation, orchestrated by Obama."

-- Alan Caruba article

"The inflow of youths and children traveling without parents has doubled since 2013, to 57,525 in the nine months up to July 2014. But the number of migrants who cross the border in so-called “family units” (including parents) has spiked five-fold to 55,420, according to the border patrol’s data..."

-- Daily Caller

According to Gen. John Kelly USMC, head of the U.S. Southern Command, this lack of effective immigration control is also creating an immediate security threat as drug smugglers, violent gang members and other political terrorists are allowed to infiltrate using the wave of "refugees" as cover.

"The recent surge in illegal immigration is more than just a “humanitarian crisis,” claims the top U.S. general in charge of Central and South America, it’s a threat to the United States’ very existence... 'Many argue these threats are not existential and do not challenge our national security. I disagree.' ... Gen. Kelly is also warning that the recent spike in illegal immigrants moving from countries like Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras across the U.S. border presents another level of threat. Those three countries, he noted, are all among the top 5 nations worldwide in homicide rates, in part because of their rampant gang activity."

-- World Net Daily

Those three nations, where illiteracy, crime and poverty are rampant, are also overwhelmingly Roman Catholic. According to the "CIA World Factbook":

"Guatemala is the most populous country in Central America and has the highest fertility rate in Latin America. It also has the highest population growth rate in Latin America... Almost half of Guatemala's population is under age 19, making it the youngest population in Latin America. The majority are Roman Catholic." -- World Factbook, Guatemala

"Honduras is one of the poorest countries in Latin America and has the world's highest murder rate. More than half of the population lives in poverty and per capita income is one of the lowest in the region. The country is 97% Roman Catholic." -- World Factbook, Honduras

"El Salvador is the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America... At least 20% of El Salvador's population lives abroad. The 'remittances' they send home account for close to 20% of GDP [sic]. The country is 57% Roman Catholic." -- World Factbook, El Salvador

America is a country which was built by immigrants and their descendents. However, such immigration has always been selective and restricted -- until recently.

Any individual who attempts to bypass the normal immigration procedure (including requirements for literacy, job skills, criminal record, financial resources, etc.) should be immediately deported, along with a hefty bill for all expenses sent to the home country government. Those governments should not be allowed to continue using the U.S. as a no-cost "dumping ground" for their unwanted populations, including criminals and freeloaders. No social benefits of any kind should be provided to illegal migrants or their children, especially at taxpayer expense. All "remittances" sent to support foreign citizens should be taxed at a 50% rate.

Any employer who hires illegal migrants is an accessory to criminal activity, and should have its business license revoked, its assets seized, and its officers prosecuted. Any other organization that promotes or assists illegal migrants should also have its assets seized, including Roman Catholic "charity" groups and racist groups such as "La Raza".

Today was the day of the "fast food worker walkout" in New York, with similar events in several other major cities around the U.S. The organizers would like to form a union, and their primary demand is to double the minimum wage to $15 per hour.

"The fast food workers' movement was born in New York less than two years ago, when a couple of hundred workers from 30 franchises across the city walked off their jobs — a bold move in an industry with no unions... Workers decided that they were fed up with being paid poverty wages, the disrespect that would happen in their stores, the irregular hours, and they just went on strike"

-- Vice News article

In the typical fast food business, labor accounts for about 30% of the cost of the product. If the labor cost doubles, the $6 lunch will then become an $8 lunch. But what about the working-class customers that these places depend on, whose wages are not going up? Can they afford a 30% increase in the price? The operating cost goes up, the sales volume goes down, the store becomes unprofitable, and the owner goes out of business.

To avoid this outcome, restaurant owners are likely to accelerate the use of technology to replace demanding and unreliable workers instead. Customers already place orders using tablets and smartphones, and machines already do most of the cooking. As trends continue and the technology advances, how much longer will it be until McDonald's opens its first fully-automated restaurant? For example, here's a video from China demonstrating a low-cost robot preparing fresh noodles in a small restaurant. This is considered cost-effective even in China, where the wages are closer to $1.50 per hour.

Either way, these low-skilled workers are not likely to get paid $15/hr for flipping burgers or pouring coffee; they will probably wind up with EBT cards instead. At least they won't have to worry about "disrespect" from managers or customers anymore -- and vice versa.

The exorbitant salaries and benefits enjoyed by corporate executives, hundreds of times greater than those of the workers, are not justified by "market forces" either. However, the attempt to artificially inflate the minimum wage level will not solve the problem. It will only result in less employment, higher taxes, higher prices, and the elimination of many smaller businesses -- all of which favor the corporatists that the "workers movement" claims to oppose.

"The advocates of minimum wage rates, whether decreed and enforced by the government or by violent union action, contend that they are fighting for the improvement of the conditions of the working masses. They do not permit anyone to question their dogma that minimum wage rates are the only appropriate means of raising wage rates permanently and for all those eager to earn wages. They pride themselves on being the only true friends of "labor," of the "common man," of "progress," and of the eternal principles of "social justice."...

If the government or the unions succeed in enforcing wage rates which are higher than those the unhampered labor market would have determined, the supply of labor exceeds the demand for labor. Institutional unemployment emerges. Firmly committed to the principles of interventionism, governments try to check this undesired result of their interference by resorting to those measures which are nowadays called full-employment policy: unemployment doles, arbitration of labor disputes, public works by means of lavish public spending, inflation, and credit expansion. All these remedies are worse than the evil they are designed to remove...

What matters is not whether wages are "fair" or "unfair" by some arbitrary standard, but whether they do or do not bring about an excess of supply of labor over demand for labor. It may seem fair to some people to fix wage rates at such a height that a great part of the potential labor force is doomed to lasting unemployment. But nobody can [honestly] assert that it is expedient and beneficial to society."

-- Ludwig von Mises, "Minimum Wage Rates" (1949)

"Convicted felon Robert Creamer is now credited for writing 628 pages of 'Obamacare' while he was in prison. Creamer is a senior Democratic operative who defrauded banks in order to keep his Marxist/Communist community organization (Citizen Action) afloat by engaging in 16 counts of banking and tax fraud. Creamer's book is entitled, "Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win".

Many left-wingers say that Creamer's book has inspired them in their progressive fight to turn America into socialist Europe. [It] has received support and garnered an endorsement from...former White House Senior Adviser, David Axelrod, [who] described Creamer's book as a "blueprint" for future progressive victories. Creamer has stated that in order to impose socialist healthcare on an unwilling nation, it is necessary to deceive the people.

Creamer is the husband of Marxist congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (see photo), an Illinois Democrat who demands a "single payer" healthcare delivery system. Creamer's book calls for the "democratization of wealth", and the "progressive control of governments around the world". Creamer says that Democrats could win a permanent majority in Congress "by passing a national health care bill, turning more people into wards of government...and by giving amnesty to all illegals, thereby creating, virtually overnight, a large new constituency of Democratic voters".

With over half of the country on some form of welfare already, Creamer's plan has "progressed" at a very rapid pace. Creamer counseled Democrats that to win complete control of America, they must "not just generate understanding, but emotion--fear, revulsion, anger, disgust". He adds, "If the Democrats continue to stand firmly for immigrant rights, the issue will define immigrants' voting loyalties for a generation. If we're successful, we'll have a gigantic block of 'progressive' votes over the next 15 years, a block that could be decisive in the battle for the future."

-- Dave Hodges article

It seems that America is presently in the late stages of its "Weimar Republic" period, both economically and culturally, led by the same ideological forces. If the pattern holds, there will be an eventual backlash against the corruption and decadence, along with the rise of a totalitarian regime which promises to sweep it all away. The infrastructure needed to bypass representative government and enforce martial law is already in place. All that remains is a suitable trigger event for the rise of the charismatic "man on a white horse".

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

-- Alexander Tytler, 18th century

"Shortly after a congressional committee grilled her over problems related to the new [Obamacare] health insurance website, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was in Memphis, Tennessee flanked by defenders...[who had] invited Sebelius here to 'encourage participation' in an education and enrollment event... U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander called for her resignation prior to her visit, and released a statement saying, "The secretary is always welcome in Tennessee, but her time would be better spent in Washington fixing the Obamacare website."

At the event, Tennessee State Senator Brian Kelsey presented Sebelius with a copy of the how-to book 'Websites for Dummies' (see photo).

-- Memphis Daily News

Could it be that this system was designed to fail in order to make way for a pre-planned "crisis solution"?

"Ms. Sebelius oversaw numerous costly and disastrous government website projects during her six-year [Kansas] Governorship (2003-2009), including a failed update of the Department of Labor's program to provide unemployment pay and other services and similar updates pertaining to the Department of Administration and the state's Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) services...

"We pretty much expected HealthCare.gov to fail, because she has a pattern of failing on these big initiatives. We thought that was why she was not nominated originally," Schwab said. Whether or not President Obama knew about Sebelius' website track record when he put her in charge of overseeing the Obamacare website remains unclear."

-- Daily Caller

The Obamacare website and database system has been under development by CGI Federal and other contractors for the past 3 years at a cost of over $1 BILLION dollars. The President of the company, Donna Ryan, is "a graduate of Queen's University, Canada, holding both a Bachelors of Arts degree and a High School Teachers Certificate. She also received a Certificate in computer programming (!) from the Cambridge Institute in Boston". The VP, Toni Townes-Whitley, was a classmate of Obama's wife and a former Peace Corps volunteer who "promotes women's advancement". Apparently, the company has just the sort of credentials needed to land multi-million dollar, no-bid government contracts for complex IT projects, despite a track record of incompetence including a recent failure in Canada.

Another government subcontractor with similar qualifications, Quality Software Services, has now been given the lead role to try and repair the dysfunctional system they helped create. It was recently acquired by insurance giant UnitedHealth, whose board member Antony Welters is "a top campaign bundler for Obama and frequent White House guest".

But software problems and cronyism are not the only issue. This deceptive insurance scam has already caused millions of people to lose their existing coverage as insurance companies cancel lower-cost, "non-compliant" individual policies and small employers drop their group plans. Obama promised that "you can keep your plan" in dozens of public appearances (see video) before the misnamed "Affordable Care Act" was passed. This bait-and-switch program will result in a massive cost increase for anyone who is not already below the poverty line and thereby entitled to receive another government handout -- like the Obama voters in Memphis, Tennessee now being "encouraged to participate" at taxpayer expense.

"All these are yet more signs that Obamacare's socialist-inspired health care utopia is turning out to be a total nightmare... Employers have already begun slashing workforce hours in order to avoid the employer mandates [and penalties], and individuals who need health insurance are starting to freak out over the reality that their rates are going to double or triple once Obamacare fully kicks in... The idea is to destroy the private sector economy and make everyone completely dependent on the government for their food, incomes, housing, education and health care. Only then will the collectivist utopia be fully realized..."

-- Mike Adams article

UPDATE: CGI Federal has recently been dismissed as prime contractor for the flawed Obamacare registration system -- after collecting some $300 million without actually producing anything of value. Socialism is wonderful, isn't it comrades?

Same story, different decade. The people lost hope, they voted for change, and they became slaves.

"In 1938, Austria was in deep depression. Nearly one-third of our workforce was unemployed. We had 25 percent inflation and 25 percent bank loan interest rates. Farmers and business people were declaring bankruptcy daily...

We looked to our neighbor on the north, Germany, where Hitler had been in power since 1933. We had been told that they didn't have unemployment or crime, and they had a high standard of living. Ninety-eight percent of the population voted to annex Austria to Germany and have Hitler for our ruler. After the election, German officials were appointed, and like a miracle, we suddenly had law and order. Three or four weeks later, everyone was employed. The government made sure that a lot of work was created through the Public Work Service...

When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child care centers. You could take your children ages four weeks old to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, seven days a week, under the total care of the government. The state raised a whole generation of children...

The population was predominantly Catholic, so we had religion in our schools. The day we elected Hitler (March 13, 1938), I walked into my schoolroom to find the [religious symbols] replaced by Hitler's picture hanging next to a Nazi flag... Sunday became National Youth Day with compulsory attendance... The first two hours consisted of political indoctrination. The rest of the day we had sports...

In 1939, the war started and a food bank was established. All food was rationed and could only be purchased using food stamps. At the same time, a full-employment law was passed which meant if you didn't work, you didn't get a ration card, and if you didn't have a card, you starved to death.

Soon after this, the draft was implemented. It was compulsory for young people, male and female, to give one year to the labor corps... After the labor corps, they were not discharged but were used in the front lines...

After Hitler, health care was socialized, free for everyone. Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything. When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8:00, 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full...

Our tax rates went up to 80 percent of our income... All day care and education were free. High schools were taken over by the government and college tuition was subsidized. Everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing...

My brother-in-law owned a restaurant that had square tables. Government officials told him he had to replace them with round tables because people might bump themselves on the corners... He couldn't meet all the demands. Soon, he went out of business...

Next came gun registration... Most citizens were law abiding and dutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms. Not long afterwards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn in their guns. The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futile not to comply voluntarily...

[There was] no more freedom of speech. Anyone who said something against the government was taken away. We knew many people who were arrested, not only Jews, but also priests and ministers who spoke up...

Totalitarianism didn't come quickly, it took 5 years from 1938 until 1943, to realize full dictatorship in Austria. Had it happened overnight, my countrymen would have fought to the last breath. Instead, we had creeping gradualism. By then, our only weapons were broom handles."

-- Kitty Werthmann article

All socialist systems are essentially identical, operating on the principle of "oligarchical collectivism". For background, see "Wall St. and the Rise of Hitler" by Antony Sutton.

"David Barr, [a restaurant owner]...has 23 stores with 421 employees, 109 of whom are full-time. Of those, he provides health insurance to 30. His total cost is $129,000 per year [about $4300 per employee], and his employees pay $995. Under 'Obamacare', he'll have to provide health insurance for all 109 full-time employees at a cost of $444,000 per year. The $315,000 increase is more than half his annual profit, after expenses. If he chose to pay the fine instead, his healthcare costs would still increase by $89,000 per year."

-- Bob Livingston article

The solution? Hours will be cut, workers will be laid off, small businesses will close, and consumer prices will go up. The ignorant and the unemployed will continue to vote for socialist politicians that promise the most "benefits", just like they did this time, which will only accelerate the collapse of the productive system.

Why is our so-called healthcare so expensive and inefficient to begin with? Why is everyone forced to buy "insurance" instead of a simple and affordable pay-as-you-go system? Because of government interference and protected cartels in every aspect of the business, from medical school to mortuary. Healthcare has been transformed from an honorable profession into a protection racket.

"When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion -- when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing -- when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors -- when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you -- when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice -- you may know that your society is doomed."

-- Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged", 1957

"During a private fundraiser earlier this year, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told a small group of wealthy contributors what he truly thinks of all the voters who support President Barack Obama. He dismissed them as freeloaders who pay no taxes, who don't assume responsibility for their lives, and who think government should take care of them:

"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president [Obama] no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are 'entitled' to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement, and the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what... My job is not to worry about those people [Obama voters]; I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives...

When you say, "Are you disappointed that his policies haven't worked?" they say yes. And because they voted for him, they don't want to be told that they were wrong, that he's a bad guy, that he did bad things, that he's corrupt... Fifty percent of kids coming out of school can't get a job... Fifty percent of the kids in high school in our 50 largest cities won't [even] graduate... What are they gonna do?"

-- Mother Jones Magazine

Romney is being attacked for calling a spade a spade, by the defenders of the bankrupt socialist system. Is America going to be a nation of workers and producers, or a nation of bureaucrats and freeloaders? That is the question.

"An estimated 45 million Americans received food stamps in 2011, at a cost of $78 billion. That's a twofold increase from just five years ago when 26 million people received benefits at a cost of $33 billion... The 2002 Farm Bill expanded eligibility to non-citizens, increased benefits for families with more children, adjusted benefits for inflation and made it easier to enroll."

-- Washington Examiner

"Food stamps for able-bodied adults without dependents were limited to three months in a 36-month period unless the participant in the program 'works at least 20 hours a week...' [but] President Obama suspended that rule when he signed his economic stimulus legislation into law, and the number of these adults on food stamps doubled, from 1.9 million in 2008 to 3.9 million in 2010

-- Washington Examiner

Here are some YouTube videos celebrating the hedonistic, dysfunctional entitlement culture and the magic EBT debit card. For these people, adolescence becomes permanent: no education, no job skills, no self-discipline required. Someone else does the work and pays the bills. Obama even gives them free cell phones!

The cost also includes the bloated bureaucracy required to service these "clients", starting with the failed public schools, the human services offices, the police forces, and the prisons. Throw in another half trillion for the annual interest payment and an additional trillion for the cost of socialist regulations.

This debt-based game cannot continue forever. What will happen in the "50 largest cities" when the $16 TRILLION dollar federal debt pyramid finally implodes?

UPDATE: Obama appeared on a popular TV show and dodged the question about how his administration has added $6,000,000,000,000 to the national debt in less than 4 years.

There may be no such thing as a "free lunch", but there is such a thing as making someone else pay for it. The question is, how long can the game continue before it finally collapses?

"Money taken from workers and investors* and transferred to the non-working spenders is not "income". It is [merely] redistribution from producers to non-producers... Government transfer payments have doubled as a proportion of "income" in the last forty years. The increase since 2000 has been accelerating, up 122% in 12 years versus the 55% increase in GDP. The slight drop since 2010 is the result of millions falling off the 99 week unemployment rolls [after living at taxpayer expense for two years].

Luckily, it is increasingly easy to leave unemployment and go on the dole for life. The number of people being added to the SSDI (disability) program has surged by 2.2 million since mid-2010, an 8.5% increase... Applications are swelling with disabilities like muscle pain, obesity, migraine headaches, mental illness (43% of all claims) and 'depression'... It's like hitting the jackpot, as 99% of those accepted into the SSDI program never go back to work... The SSDI program, costing $132,000,000,000 per year, is now projected to go broke in 2016."

-- Jim Quinn article

Note that the chronically unemployed and the marginally disabled are not the only freeloaders. The paper shuffling, gun-toting "workers" in government bureaucracies are entirely dependent upon transfer payments. Most "investors", bankers, brokers, lawyers, politicians, etc. likewise siphon off vast amounts of wealth without producing anything of real value.

The common factor in each case is government interference, enabling and protecting non-productive activity that would otherwise not be possible, and preventing the opportunity for productive activity that would otherwise be possible in a voluntary society.

UPDATE: In Britain, someone has figured out a simple scheme to reduce the welfare rolls and extract some "community service" labour at the same time. It's not exactly a free market solution, but better than the status quo.

"Unemployed benefit claimants will be forced to carry out unpaid work if they refuse to turn up for two interviews or drop out of work programmes... Those who refuse to take part, or agree but then fail to turn up, have their unemployment benefit stopped for a minimum of three months... Figures show that 20 per cent of those ordered to take part in four-week community projects stop claiming immediately and another 30 per cent are stripped of their benefits when they fail to turn up."

-- London Daily Mail