President Obama and other liberals want to limit your ability to save for retirement and perhaps loot your retirement account to pay for government programs. This sounds ridiculous, but even though the media has paid little attention to it, there seems to be a well-orchestrated drive on the left to loot retirement accounts to cover the increasing cost of government. Mr. Obama has made a budget proposal that would cap individual retirement accounts (IRAs) at $3 million and generate an additional $9 billion in federal revenues. This effort seems to be prompted by revelations that
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People across the globe are losing faith in traditional national currencies. In Europe, this spurred the creation of the Euro and now the popularity of digital currencies such as Bitcoin. In the United States, it is fueling renewed interest in the use of gold or silver coins as currency. The most interesting experiment is going on in Texas, where Governor Rick Perry (who is hardly a libertarian) is pushing an effort to create a Texas Gold Depository. This proposal wouldn’t create a gold currency; instead it would create what amounts to a sort of exchange-traded
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Have you ever wondered what you might do if your income suddenly disappeared? Maybe it’s happened to you. Our economy is volatile, folks, and hard times could very well be just around the corner. When it comes to making a living, hard times do present opportunities, and you don’t have to have a lot of money to start making money right now. After twenty-eight years in the newspaper business, my livelihood was taken away from me not long ago. Newspapers were dying everywhere, and the profession I gave my life to was no longer needed. Below
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Advocates of “civil liberties” are concerned because Reuters reported that the Obama administration is planning to give U.S. spy agencies full access to financial data about U.S. bank accounts. The problem with these concerns is that the spy agencies already have access to that data. All the administration is trying to do is make it official. As it so often happens, civil liberties advocates are ignoring massive holes in the Constitutional protections on privacy in the United States. No Privacy for Foreign Transactions The first is that the protections of the U.S. Constitution do not
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WASHINGTON, D.C. – In the same week the Obama administration is claiming a 2.5 percent reduction spending increases will result in laid off teachers, grounded planes, and furloughed janitors, Secretary of State John Kerry released $250 million in U.S. aid to Egypt. Kerry said the funds were part of a good faith effort to support “key engines of democratic change in Egypt, including Egypt’s entrepreneurs and its young people.” Apparently our new Secretary of State believes the Muslim Brotherhood is a force for democracy. But many in Congress aren’t as optimistic about Egypt’s new government,
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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Organizing for Action, President Obama‘s new nonprofit advocacy group, is looking for some of his top campaign bundlers to help finance its work, but some in the media (usually sympathetic to the President) are questioning the move. OFA officials have confirmed off the record that the group will have a finance committee similar to that of the campaign. Bundlers will be asked to raise $500,000 to be part of the committee. The nonprofit is not that unusual, but the perk being offered is what is raising eyebrows. One reward that has been
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When I was invited to write an article for people who wanted to prepare but felt unable to because of limited budgets, I was perplexed. Why, I wondered, would people assume that preparation was expensive? So far my forays into self-reliance and sustainability have cost very little and have enabled me to need less money
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In John Holt’s excellent book, Teach Your Own, he discusses the merits of real learning. He suggests that the most valuable kinds of learning experiences are those based on skills or products we actually need and want, rather than silly busywork. Mary Pride calls these frivolous projects “twaddle.” If you live on a homestead, you probably have no end of “real learning experiences” for your children. Kids can gather eggs, milk cows, tend a garden, or mend fences. If you live in the city or suburbs though, you might have to search a bit for
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While nothing will ever replace the printed page, avid readers know that e-books are a fun and convenient alternative. Digital books can also be much cheaper than printed books, cutting the costs of a serious reading habit. To cut the costs even more, you need to learn how to save money by using e-book libraries. E-book libraries work in much the same way as a traditional library, only there aren’t any physical books to re-shelve at the end of the day. There are e-book libraries that are 100 percent free and others that cost on
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The economy thrives on people buying things they don’t need. Why would anyone waste money like that? It’s not because we’re natural idiots – we’ve been programmed to think that we need the newest, latest, and greatest things around us, even if what we already own is just fine. You can call it upgrading – that’s what a lot of marketers do. Yet at the end of the day, the belief that you need a certain model of a given product is brainwashing – brainwashing that eats a hole in your wallet, wrecks your sense
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