[OT]America. The land of the not-so-free (economy)

[Fred]

On Sun, 2005-01-09 at 01:42 -0500, Derek Martin wrote:
...
> Our society has this idea that, because we are "civilized" (whatever
> that means) and "intelligent" (for some definition thereof), and our
> civilization is wealthy, we have a moral obligation to care for those
> who need it.  We can not allow people to die just because they have
> made bad choices in life, or are much less fortunate than some.

I have no problem with that. What I *do* have a problem with is how it's
done. Government should not be in the business of "compassion" -- it
gets it wrong every time. Non-government charitable organizations have
been doing this in the past and should continue to do so. Individuals,
if they so wish, can help out their fellow individuals in distress.
Government should be out of this business altogether.

> This is an idealism which I think nearly everyone agrees with, at
> least in some capacity.  However, idealism aside, there are practical
> issues to contend with.

The devil is always in the details.

> In today's modern world, there are an abundance jobs which don't pay
> enough that those doing them can actually afford to feed and house
> themselves.  These people absolutely CAN'T manage their own
> retimrement -- they can't even eat dinner some days.  Someone who
> cleans toilets at McDonalds in Boston probably falls into this
> category.  But we need people to do these jobs, too.

Do these people spend their entire lives scrubbing toilets at McDonalds?
I would think not.

And isn't it funny how these people manage to have cars, TV, and the
like? Many smoke cigarettes, no? If they have enough money to buy non-
essentials, they have enough money to start taking some measures at
investing or saving.

It's all a matter of priorities.

> In the old days, things were a lot different.  All you needed to do
> was find a plot of land which no one had claimed already, build a
> little house there from the abundant forestation, and grow stuff.
> Life was relatively easy.  If you ran into trouble, your neighbors
> would probably help you out.  More of that "moral obligation" idea at
> work.

Yes, at an individual level, not at a hugh institutional level.

>   These days, people are too busy working 12 hours a day to feed
> their families (and their excesses) to hve time to help you.

Not true, but I'll let that slide.

> So instead we collect taxes, and redistribute the money in as fair a
> manner as we can manage.

Except it doesn't work that way. Taxes are collected to pay the interest
on an ever-growing debt, at least at the federal level. If the
government were not spending so much more than it collects in taxes, you
may have an argument. But what we have today is a certifiable mess. A
mess our kids and grandkids will have to pick up the tab on, and that's
not fair to them.

> It's not a perfect system, by any means, but most people (even many
> people who call themselves libertarians) find this preferable to
> letting people starve to death on account of some misfortune.

I will personally help out someone if I think they need help. I don't
need mommy government taking my money and making those decisions for me.

> > Libertarians and Socialists. Libertarians feel that everyone should be
> > responsible for their decisions -- and live and die by the results.
> > Socialists feel that everyone "must be protected from themselves". Even
> 
> I don't think people should be protected from themselves; but at the
> same time, I don't think it's unreasonable to be compassionate to
> people who have experienced hardship.  If you've ever collected
> unemployment, you'd probably have starved to death if this extreme
> libertarianism that you're describing ever had come to pass.

> Which raises an interesting point.  Have you ever collected
> unemployment?  If so, one might go so far as to suggest that you are
> being hypocritical...

> [This is rhetoric.  I'm not really interested in the answer, just
> making a point.]

I'll give you an answer anyway.

Only once in my life did I ever collect unemployment, and it was barely
enough to cover anything. I considered it a way to get back some of the
taxes that had been extracted from me. Even at that, it was only for a
few weeks. It was a joke to the extreme. But that was a long time ago.

Had not the money been taken from me in the first place I would've had
it. Besides, there were other things going in in my life at the time
that was a drain on resources -- government related, as usual. Had that
not been going on, I would not have needed the unemployment in the first
place.

> > at gunpoint, which brings a supreme irony to that view. "I will protect
> > you from yourself, even if I have to kill you to do it!"
> > 
> > > The other fact is, even smart invenstors screw up -- big time.
> > 
> > So what?
> 
> So, most people aren't smart investors.  Left to their own devices,
> most people WILL lose their nest egg.  I can't see any way in which
> this is good for society.

What is this nebulous "society" of which you speak?

Many loose their nest eggs anyway. It happens. Anyone who does not spend
the time learning about investing and how that game goes should not be
investing, period. 

And if we are talking about investing in the stock market, no one who
does not understand the nature of THAT game should be in it at all,
period. Better off sticking the money in a interest - bearing savings
account or a CD.

> > > How many people committed suicide after losing all their money in the
> > > financial markets during the Great Depression?
> > 
> > So what?
> 
> So, if you get rid of SS, and force people to fend for themselves, a
> lot of them will starve to death when they get to retimrement age.  It
> already happens more often than it probably should...  I don't believe
> you're so callous that you think nothing of that.

So what happens when SS goes insolvent? People will have to fend for
themselves and a lot of them will starve to death.

The only difference is that it would happen today rather than tomorrow,
where it'll be far worse. 

It is not that I am callous; I am, however, very pragmatic.

> > If you go about "protecting" people from themselves, they never learn
> > how to live. Trump was able to recover *because* he learned a valuable
> > lesson from having been at the top before and failing. Now, he knows not
> > to repeat the same mistakes again.
> 
> Nonsense.  Trump was able to recover because he had rich friends who
> had enough confidence in him that they were willing to lend him
> millions of dollars (at a profit, of course) to effect his recovery.
> And because he is (and always was) extremely business-savvy.  I doubt
> he learned anything from his bankruptcy, other than PERHAPS some small
> measure of humility.

That may be; I have not followed Trump much. Even still, I don't think
his friends would've given him money if he were going to make the same
mistakes with it.

> > We all must be allowed to fail and fall flat on our faces. Only through
> > that do we learn to become more efficient at how we handle our affairs.
> 
> I think that's nonsense too.  Most people who are rich today got that
> way because daddy and mommy were rich. 

I don't think that's correct. Of course, it depends on how you define
"rich". The 90s produced lots of millionaires.

>  They never had a chance to fail.

If failure can be avoided, all the better. Certainly, I do not want my
own kids to fail, and will do everything in my power to protect them
from that.

>   Granted, the modern markets and the technology boom made more
> new millionaires than in any other period in history; but if you
> researched it I bet youd find that it also had one of the highest
> rates of financial ruin, too.  A lot of people who invested in
> Internet start-ups, and many of the millionaires who were made that
> way, went bankrupt after the bubble burst.

It was the tulip trade all over again. If you look at the charts -- the
DOW, the NASDAQ, etc., you'll see an exponential increase in the "value"
of the market up till March of 2000. 

Anyone with an ounce of commonsense would realize such explosive growths
can't continue forever.

The stock market *is* a zero-sum game. For that reason, it *had* to
fail, and many *had* to loose their shirts.

Sometimes I feel guilty about that, because I made a killing on that
market -- which came out of the pockets of others. Then again,
participants should know what they are up against. Alas, there is much
ignorance out there.

> Donald Trump is an exception; I think you'll find that most
> millionaires who go bankrupt tend to stay that way.

Perhaps. I don't know. Not that I think it's relevant, anyway.

> > > > government, sometimes a bad solution in theory turns out to be in
> > > > practice much better (in terms of workability) than the others.
> > > 
> > > What we need is for the government to stop playing card tricks with
> > > people's money...  I'm not going to hold my breath waiting though.
> > 
> > Yes, they should return the money back to the people from whence they
> > stole it. Let the people deal with their own money and do their own
> > planning, investing, saving, etc. 
> 
> You obviously do your own investing, and have had pretty good luck
> with your investments. 

Good luck with some, bad luck with others. But I learned -- the hard
way, I might add -- what the market *really* is.

You are not told the *real* story up front, unfortunately. And that's a
problem. Everyone is fed myths about the stock market; only after they
are in does the *reality* of the market comes into play.

>  I think your story would be a lot different if
> you'd had a lot of bad investments... 

Nope. And yes, I did have a lot of bad investments as well as good ones.

>  Doing well at investing takes a
> lot of time and energy spent on education about mone and the markets,
> and research of companies and other investment devices (or just being
> plain lucky).  Financial markets are also heavily influenced by the
> actions of large institutional investors who typically control
> millions of shares in the companies in which they invest.  If you're
> on the wrong side of their trades often enough, that alone could make
> you broke fast.

Yep. Know all about that.

> Investing is a complicated game.  Even if most people WERE smart
> enough to be good at it, most people don't have the time to put into
> it, because their too busy dealing with their already too hectic
> every-day lives.  As a result, they lose their shirts.

So they should not invest in the stock market, and find safer venues for
their money.

> > build their own base. The government's only role should be in protecting
> > our boarders and protecting us from each other (though it currently
> > carries that way too far).
> 
> If you honestly believe that absolutely no social programs shold
> exist, you're in the minority.

Well, it seems I always am. All social programs I've looked at to date
are ill-fated -- predicated on certain assumptions that are blatantly
false. Paying for these programs means causing hardship elsewhere -- it
is just a transfer of misery; not an elimination of it.

If you have to rob Peter to pay Paul, something is wrong. Not that I
have much against social programs per se -- it's just that I want a
*choice* as to whether or not I have to pay for them. And if I need that
money for my family *first*, I should be able to keep that money for my
own family, no? Why should my family starve just so some other family
somewhere gets a chance to eat? Does not make sense to me.

> > > Someone rightly pointed out that the SS fund operated at  a surplus
> > > until congress, in all its wisdom, decided it would be a good idea to
> > > borrow the money from the fund.  This is just like paying off your
> > > credit card debt with other credit cards...
> > 
> > Well, to expect the fox to keep the chickens and not eat them is a
> > fool's dream.
> 
> Indeed; but we elect officials with some idea that they will look out
> for the best interest of the population in mind.

But don't hold them accountable when they fail to do so.

>   Many people naively
> believe this, even if you and I don't.  You'll be hard-pressed to
> convince many of them otherwise.

Mindless Vessels of Beliefs.

> > SS is *not* an insurance; it is a welfare state program. In a real
> > insurance, one has the *choice* on whether or not to participate. 
> 
> In Massachusetts, and many other states, you are required to have
> automobile insurance if you own a car.  I have to disagree with you.
> SS is just like mandatory insurance.

With a real insurance you get a policy of what to expect when something
happens, and the insurance company *must* make good on its promises. Do
you really think SS is held to the same standards? Where is my SS
policy? Did you get one? I never did.

Insurance should never be compulsory. Just because many states err in
this capacity does not make it right -- nor does it make SS an
"insurance" -- especially since you and I *have no assurance* it will be
there in our golden age of retirement!!!!!

Also, real Insurances typically do their payoffs in one lump sum. SS
does not.

> > If there were individual choice in whether or not to participate, do you
> > think the powercrats would be able to get away with raiding the SS
> > coffers? People would simply stop participating and choose something
> > better!!!!!!!!
> 
> No they wouldn't, because they don't have a clue what's better. 

Seems I, as a Libertarian, have greater faith in people in general than
you do. I'm not saying this to pick a fight -- just an observation which
I find ironic.

>  And no, I don't believe for a second they'd learn if they had no choice.
> They never had before; that was the whole reason SS and welfare
> programs were created in the first place.  You seem to have lost sight
> of that. 

Well, that's where you and I differ. I do think, if given the choice,
many if not most would make the correct choices for themselves. And be
able to hold SS's feet to the fire, as they'd pay more attention to
what's going on with SS.

> Incidentally, the need for these kinds of programs seems to be tied to
> modernization.  For example, in recent years South Korea has
> instituted its own mandatory retirement programs.  The reasons are the
> same; as younger citizens run off to find work in the city, and as few
> elderly people can do many jobs of modern society, many people were
> starving to death, and there is no one at home to care for older or
> infirm family members.  The citizens cried out for something to be
> done.

Perhaps "modern society" is moving in the wrong direction. I have known
of many who came to this country to work and send money back home to
their folks.

If these "young people" are letting their parents starve, that is a
problem they have to address individually.

> However, income taxes in SK are still amazingly low, at a paltry 3% or
> so.

Personally, I would not have a problem with income tax capped at 10%
across the board -- including all the hidden taxes. I do have a problem
with being taxed at a 50% rate, which is probably close to reality once
you add all the taxes up.

Of course, I know our government would have to operate very efficiently
to work and function at a 10% tax rate. No room for pork barrelling. No
room for hugh "black budgets". Notta for corporate welfare. Notta for
expensive military deployments in 100+ countries around the world.

Hell, I could finally be *proud* of my government!!!!!!!

> > I hate being harsh here, but it is simply wishful thinking to assume
> > it is possible for the fox to not eat the chickens it holds captive.
> > If the chickens were free, fewer would be eaten by the fox.
> 
> But a lot more people would starve, for lack of ability to catch
> chickens...

Here is where we disagree. The food production in this country has
become so efficient *the government* has to *pay* farmers to plow their
crops under just to keep prices up!!!!!!

No, no one would starve. Trust me.

> If we look at this situation without emotion, it is easy to say that
> this is for the best.  It weeds out those unfit to participate in
> society, and reduces pollution and the burden on our limited natural
> resource pool.

You are thinking of the problem in terms of the current learned
dependency. I am thinking in terms of everyone acting without
expectation of mommy government holding out its hand.

Obviously there will be the issue of transition. But if we don't do it
now, it will be *far worse* when the system collapses under its own
weight.

> But with no heart, our leaders might just as easily decide that the
> world would be a lot better off if they reduced the population by
> about 80% (it absolutely would), and killed us off with some
> well-engineered or well-deployed bio weapon.  Fortunately, people do
> have heart, at least most of us...

Alas, the dynamics of the economic markets have no heart. In zero-sum
situations you depend on "greater fools" to keep the system propped up.
When you run out of "greater fools", then the shit hits the fan.

Now, we have a chance to begin the transition. Later, it'll be too late.

> > > I had a really long, cynical, and dpressing answer for this, but I
> > > decided to spare you.  ;-)  In short, I think Marx was right; in the
> > > long run, capitalism robs the working people of their value in order
> > > to reassign it to the capitalist.
> > 
> > I would have to disagree with that. Working people are free to
> > participate in capitalism. They too can benefit just like the rest of
> > us, and I've actually seen it.
> 
> Sure, but if it were easy, we'd all be rich, and no one would be
> having this conversation.  

If we were all rich, none of us would be. This is inescapable. Think
about this for a moment. This also means that any attempts to
redistribute the wealth will also have the side effect of reducing the
*value* of that wealth overall.

Whoops.

> > > I'm not trying to be the poster boy for communism, here...  As an
> > > ideal, people working together to ensure the common good of all is
> > > hard to beat; only in practice it suffers far worse than capitalism
> > > from the greed and corruption of individuals.  Until we find a way to
> > > stifle those urges in people, communism can't work.
> > 
> > And just how do you "stifle these urges" in people? Drug them? Feed them
> > propaganda? Use gunpoint? Put their first born in escrow?
> 
> As I said, the way to do it remains undiscovered.  But I do have hope
> that we will someday achieve such enlightenment, though I'm reasonably
> sure I'll never see it in my lifetime.

Well, if we could just change human nature, we could do all sorts of
wonderful things!

We have to deal with human nature as it is.

> > You need a system that works well with human nature *as it is*, now what
> 
> Indeed.  And your plan of making everyone do their own retirement
> planning has already failed big time.  

I'm not into *making* anyone do anything. They should have *the choice*
on how to setup their own affairs. And success and failure will be at an
individual level, not a "societal" one.

> > > If a behavior is bad for a population, then its practice amongst the
> > > population is detrimental to the population.  Period.  Only the scale
> > > is flexible.
> > 
> > Your "Period." statement would seem to indicate, on your part, an
> > unwillingness to acknowledge that there is more to this than meets the
> > eye. 
> 
> No, it doesn't.  I never said no one should eat meat, nor did I
> suggest that everyone should follow the same diet.  I do think that
> everyone should eat as healthy as possible, and should be *encouraged*
> (but not *forced*) to do so.  Campainging for such ideas as "fat is
> beautiful" goes very obviously in the opposite direction, and in my
> opinion are practically and morally wrong.  

I'm not sure if I follow what you mean here. Some of us are *fat*, and
it is next to impossible to undo that condition, so we have to accept
ourselves for what we are. Why should those of us who are "fat" go about
depressed about it all the time?

It's easy for those who are not obese to criticise those of us who are,
without understanding the metabolism of obesity and why it manifests
itself the way it does. It's a complicated issue and NOT as simple as
"just don't eat".

In fact, dieting is probably one of the leading causes of obesity. An
understanding of human metabolism and how it works -- especially from an
evolutionary standpoint -- would explain why.

> > maybe that would be true in the abstract. But we are *individuals*; we
> > are not stamped out of a mold. Even our metabolisms differ. 
> 
> This is all true, but does nothing to address the fact that large
> percentages of people eat large quantities of foods that they KNOW
> will kill them, eventually.

I don't know this is true. I personally have had the paradoxical effect
of losing weight by eating more, and gaining weight in the past by
dieting. This is not a simple issue at all. Nowadays I eat as much as I
can just to keep my weight *down*.

It is not so much how much you eat as *what* you eat.

>   Promoting the idea that "fat is
> beautiful", or more accurately undermining the idea that you should
> try to live a more healthy lifestyle, only serve to worsen the
> problem.

I sharply disagree, due to my own experiences.

> [I acknowledge the fact that many people treat overweight people as
> pariah, and assert that this is also wrong.]

There was a point in our history that fat was actually seen as a *good
thing*. Especially back in those days when food was much more scarce
than it is today.

...
> > >  But as a society, we should be nudging people in healthy
> > > directions (for themselves and for society), NOT justifying our vices.
> > 
> > People have to nudge themselves. You can lead a man to knowledge, but
> > you can't make them think.
> 
> I'm sorry, but that's so completely wrong.  People can easily be made
> to think almost whatever you want them to. 

You must have some special secret or some enchanting spells. It has been
my painful experience that I cannot get a person to think unless he or
she wishes to.

> Most people are sheep, for
> better or worse.  That's the main reason the Libertarians will never
> get anywhere. 

Obviously I sharply agree with that! Our success as Libertarians are not
dependent on what the "sheep" -- or Mindless Vessels of Beliefs as I
call them -- are doing.

>  Most people simply aren't independent enough for that
> kind of society to work.

We don't need them to be. We just need them to stay out of our way!

> > > Government should have a hand in this -- this is among the best
> > > reasons to have "leaders" rather than true representatives. And in
> > > this regard, our government has failed miserably.
> > 
> > Actually, it is Government's hand in this that is a large part of the
> > problem. It allows itself to be lobbied by all the special interests in
> > the food industry so that it enacts policies and so forth to favor
> > *their profits*, not our health concerns.
> 
> That's a side issue --  I'm talking idealism, and you're talking
> reality.  I think we should be striving to make society more like
> idealism, and less like reality.

Here is where we basically differ. I say we must live with the reality
of human nature and strive to make ourselves *individually* better, and
come together from that place. I don't think we can alter human nature
in our lifetimes apart, perhaps, from a massive genetic reengineering of
the human species. And we don't want to touch that can of worms, now do
we? ;-)

> > Politicians are controlled by money, not by votes. Elections in our
> > country are largely popularity contests. Corporations will fund both
> > parties just to make sure it has a foot in the door *no matter who
> > wins*. 
> 
> I'm getting that happy feeling again... ;-)
> 
> This is the main reason I don't bother to vote for my elected
> official.  It doesn't matter very much, really.  The people with the
> money get their way in the end anyway, regardless of who's running the
> show.

On that we agree.

...
> > > But the sad fact is that our government isn't interested in doing
> > > what's right; it's only interested in what keeps rich people rich,
> > > up to the point where public outcry is insufficiently great to
> > > distract them from that goal...
> > 
> > You and I differ sharply on what is "right" for our neighborhood
> > "friendly" government to do.
> 
> W/regard to SS, it would seem.  But your solution is not workable, and
> has already proven itself a failure.  The SS system we have is only
> broken because the politicians are asses.

It would be broken anyway -- just would've taken longer. But that's
besides the point. The reality is that politicians have raided the
system, bringing about its demise earlier than expected, and that's the
reality we have to deal with.

> There's nothing inherently
> wrong with it -- meaning, it would fulfil its purpose aptly were it
> not for the interference of the asses.

Keep in mind that the original premises of the SS system are no longer
the case. Distribution in the population demographics are shifting
towards a 1:1 ratio of retirees to workers; the population growths rates
are slowing to probably break even if not dip, the retirees are living
much longer than they did, and there are global economic issues to
consider as well that did not exist at the time of the inception of SS.

This is the reality we must deal with, and I don't see a way to save SS
without dire consequences somewhere. If you are correct that people
can't exist without SS, then we're doomed. I hope you are wrong.

>   I will not address ideas
> related to individual investors being able to get a better return on
> their money, because that isn't why it exists, nor should it, nor
> could it.

SS is *not* an investment. Money that goes into SS today pays people on
SS today. So, if an individual were to save the money or place it in a
CD or some other stable instrument, that person would have far more
assurance the money would be there later than trusting SS.

> > > In large part, of course, you're buying health care for elderly and
> > > unusually sick people, in exchange for the promise to have it paid for
> > > when you're elderly or unusually sick.  But mostly, you're paying to
> > > line the pockets of the insurance people.
> > 
> > Well, here's a thorny issue for you -- healthcare of the elderly. I
> > don't think any other nation on this planet spends as much money per
> > capita on its elderly. 
> > 
> > Does it extends the life of the elderly? Not much. 
> 
> Then can you explain why the average life expectancy keeps going up?

Better health and nutrition? Healthcare probably plays a role *during
one's lifetime*; I am speaking of the inflated medical procedures *at
the end* of someone's natural life to keep them alive. Expenses go way
up near the end of someone's natural life, yet there is little ROI at
that point. If you're 96 years old and are spending thousands of dollars
fighting cancer, how many more years can you reasonably expect to live?

> > Is it really worth spending tens of thousands of dollars just to
> > live a few extra weeks?
> 
> It does more than that though.  Probably much more substantially, it
> improves the quality of their lives.  Of course, in general, living a
> healthier lifestyle would do a lot more in that regard...  But that's
> neither here nor there.

Sure it is, if you are interested in reducing costs. But that's a
decision that has to be made by the individual early on; it does little
to decide at 80 to now live healthy if one has lived to excesses the
time before.

Having said that, it could do some good anyway. But will it compensate
for decades of damage? Probably not.

> > > > The idea is to build cash flow, thus you do not deplete your savings
> > > > over time, but build them up. How to do this is an exercise for the
> > > > student. :-)
> > > 
> > > Right, an exercise that the vast majority of students aren't up for.
> > 
> > And why not?
> 
> I've already given lots of reasons, and there are plenty more that I
> didn't mention.

Cannot people learn? Or are they that hopeless?

> > Sounds like more excuses than anything else. Even a young person who
> > flips burgers for a living could put away *some* of the money. Perhaps
> > it means one less night out on the town, or one less pack of cigarettes.
> 
> Or one less meal for them and their 12 siblings.  Or one less medical
> treatment for their sick parent.  Or...

12 siblings? Well, why did they have so many kids if they could not
afford to care for them? Oh, right -- they expect mommy government to
make up for their irresponsible decisions.

Now you will probably say I'm heartless because I care not for the kids
of those who make irresponsible choices. That's not the case at all.
However, no learning will take place if the government keeps "jumping
right in".

> Life generally isn't that simple.  If it happens to be for you, you
> should consider yourself fortunate.

Excuse me? My life is *far* from simple. I could only wish. I won't get
into details here except to say that your "society" and *government*
keeps getting in my way and setting up road blocks that has made life
for me and my family much more difficult than it would've been
otherwise.

I keep hoping for the "simple life", but that's a fool's dream for me.

> > Will it? How so? Seems to me the country is pretty bad off as it is.
> 
> Ask your (grand)parents, or their friends who lived through the great
> depression.  I've zero doubt they'll tell you things are a lot better
> now.  Unless they happened to be rich...

It's all a matter of prospective and perception; the government is
simply better at *hiding* the problems now than it was back then. The
FOMC, for example, continues to play games to hide problems under the
rug. It creates a false sense of stability. But at the risk of sounding
almost mystical, the global economic system is seeking a state that the
FOMC cannot correct for. Once it hits that state, lookout. Already we
see extreme measures, such as the Iraq war, that is the result of trying
to stave off the inevitable -- recall that Iraq has some of the largest
oil fields in the middle east! I know you have not been taken in by the
lies of the Bush Administration about "terrorism". 

It stinks, it stinks to the high heavens. Thousands being killed in Iraq
just to maintain our way of life. And the reality is all that is
accomplished is that the problems are pushed downstream a bit. Long
enough, perhaps, for this current crop of powercrats to live out their
terms. Then the next cadre of powercrats will step in and do something
else...

We've got problems, dude. If the dam breaks, the "Great Depression" of
the past may not seem so great. Nobody -- me included -- wants the dam
to break, but at the same time I don't like what the government is doing
to keep the dam from breaking. SS is just the tip of the iceberg.

I'd be VERY happy if someone can prove I'm wrong. That's I'm just crazy.
That I'm just a conspiracy nut or a doomsayer. The deeper I look, the
more frightened I become.

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