If We Can Keep It

 

About 235 years ago a deal was struck in Philadelphia. It was a compromise, an attempt to balance the sometimes conflicting interests of a sprawling new world.

Upon the conclusion of negotiations, Benjamin Franklin said of America’s not-yet-ratified Constitution:

“I confess that there are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them.” Yet Franklin was astonished that the Constitution, despite its various concessions and compromises, was a document “approaching so near to perfection” as it did.

Franklin understood that, despite differences of opinion even on significant matters, people could share a common goal sufficiently worthy to compel them to make sacrifices in pursuit of their common interests.

We are in a kind of revolution today. The founding principles of free speech, individual liberty, limited government, due process, and rule of law are all under assault from a grasping and relentless progressive left that would abandon our nation’s very framework if it advanced their radical agenda. All that holds them in check is the fear that they will push too fast and too far, overplay their hand, and awaken resistance.

Conservatives — those of us who cherish the nation born in Philadelphia and bequeathed to us through the sweat and blood and striving of our ancestors — should take a lesson from the hard-headed realists of the Constitutional Convention. We have to unite around our common interests, around that free speech, individual liberty, limited government, due process, and rule of law, and work with people who may not agree with us in every particular, but who do agree that those things are essential and non-negotiable.

Other things, we can fix.

We speak of “infrastructure bills,” but that’s just concrete and cable and so much cronyism. America’s infrastructure is an idea, an idea of the relationship between the citizen and the state. That, more than any bridge or railway or pipeline or digital superhighway, must be maintained and preserved.

Everyone who shares that view should join together, acknowledging but agreeing to overlook other disagreements so long as the preservation of that system of government of, for, and by the people is preserved. The rest we can debate in the public square, and reach whatever agreements are possible in a large and diverse population.

It’s time to take this seriously, and to set aside differences that don’t rise to the level of safeguarding the work done more than two centuries ago by the men who shaped the greatest nation on Earth.

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  1. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    The Communists have won. 

    Once at the forefront of production, human capital is phasing out in the economic machine. Viktor Shvets, global strategist at Macquarie Group and author of “The Great Rupture: Three Empires, Four Turning Points, and the Future of Humanity”, joins Michael Green to discuss the devolving nature of capitalistic societies as the demand for an augmented scope of human rights storms capitalism. Shvets also examines the disruption to factors of production in the Information Age. Filmed on September 21, 2021. Special thanks to Albert Bozsó for reaching out to suggest Mike Green interview Viktor Shvets.

    https://www.realvision.com/shows/mike-green-in-conversation/videos/is-the-golden-age-of-liberal-capitalism-over?source_collection=b8bd9d62c77143f7a39513e85d310b11

    You can get the transcript for a dollar if you give them your name. 

    I keep telling you guys, we The whole West did every single thing wrong in the face of the wage deflation and job destruction from automation and global labor. It stole peoples agency and it favored capital over people. The way this guy describes it even worse than I thought. 

    The right has never been very serious about any of this, so now everybody is going to pay. 

    • #1
  2. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    The Communists have won.

    Once at the forefront of production, human capital is phasing out in the economic machine. Viktor Shvets, global strategist at Macquarie Group and author of “The Great Rupture: Three Empires, Four Turning Points, and the Future of Humanity”, joins Michael Green to discuss the devolving nature of capitalistic societies as the demand for an augmented scope of human rights storms capitalism. Shvets also examines the disruption to factors of production in the Information Age. Filmed on September 21, 2021. Special thanks to Albert Bozsó for reaching out to suggest Mike Green interview Viktor Shvets.

    https://www.realvision.com/shows/mike-green-in-conversation/videos/is-the-golden-age-of-liberal-capitalism-over?source_collection=b8bd9d62c77143f7a39513e85d310b11

    You can get the transcript for a dollar if you give them your name.

    I keep telling you guys, we The whole West did every single thing wrong in the face of the wage deflation and job destruction from automation and global labor. It stole peoples agency and it favored capital over people. The way this guy describes it even worse than I thought.

    The right has never been very serious about any of this, so now everybody is going to pay.

    So you surrender. Fine. Go away.

    • #2
  3. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    But today, we don’t have that. Again, this refrain of where you go indicates that there hasbeen a substantial rebalancing of that negotiating leverage. So, effectively, labor has no realrecourse against the elites.

     

    In information age, labor is suffering from what I describe is declining marginal utility and declining marginal pricing power. Every day, you sit in that chair, your marginal pricing power declines, and you know. You feel it no matter what your profession is, you feel it. Now, with COVID right now, there is huge dislocations, perhaps you don’t feel that as much as you did 18 months ago. But as soon as COVID is out of the way, you will feel it again, that you’re becoming less valuable. Now, the first people to feel it is anybody who is dealing with digits of information.

     

    And at the same time, because we financialized, and we financialized because we felt we deserved wealth that we don’t deserve. In other words, despite our declining productivity, societies insisted that we must maintain economic growth rates and we must maintain wealth creation. When people say who is to blame for what happened, my answer is when you shave in the morning, if you’re a man, look yourself in the mirror, it’s you. It’s no central bank. You asked, and the politics delivered exactly on what you ask. And what you ask is a perpetual wealth creation.

    So, as we financialize, what actually happened is that we’re creating more capital than we need. So, for the first time in human history, we are plotting a [?]. We have at least 5, 10 times more capital than we need. It is not evenly distributed. It is not fairly distributed, but there’s plenty of it. And so, the result is that what you have is a cost of capital must continue to fall. And if cost of capital falls, technology accelerates even more as you go forward.

     

     

    • #3
  4. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

     And so, the idea of deleveraging is very bad. In fact, it can’t be done without very serious consequences. And so, what central banks certainly for the last 10 years, I want to argue in the case of Japan for more than 25 years, what they were doing is threading the needle between trying to avoid compression of debt and credit, compression of liquidity and asset prices on the one side and trying to minimize or at least modulate the credit risks that arise. So, nobody is deleveraging. Nobody is trying to return back to normality.

    Everybody is trying to minimize the risk while recognizing that we must continue to financialize, we must continue to leverage, we must continue to lubricate the system as we go forward. Now, a lot of people say how do we break it? How do we break the cycle? Well, the only way, first of all, you can’t break it. But the only way you can try to make it less impactful is by introducing fiscal policies. In other words, if you just rely on monetary levels, capital stays in a cloud of finance. It doesn’t actually go down to the ground where people live.

    And so, we’ve created two very distinct universe. One is the financial economy, and the other one is real. Financial economy demands more and more capital insatiably. Real economy has problems digesting all of this debt and capital. And so, the central banks are the linchpin between the two very different economies responding to very different signals. And so, one way of trying to reconcile that to some extent or to minimize the negative impact is for fiscal policy. And fiscal policy basically reflects desire of societies to put capital exactly where people want it to be. Not in Picasso paintings, not in Hamptons mansions, not in speculating on various financial instruments, but exactly where people would likely to see.

    And that’s what the government have been increasingly doing. Now, a lot of people say that’s interfering with free market signals. What free market signals? Central banks are now determining costs and volume of money. If they don’t like the price, they create the price, they control the yield curve. Bank of Japan, Reserve Bank of Australia, the ECB now control the yield curve. If they don’t like the volume, they create volume. And if they don’t like how it’s multiplied, they’re even now increasingly lending directly to the mainstream, and therefore bypassing the banking system altogether.

     

     

    • #4
  5. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    And when central bank digital coin comes in, which will happen at the end of this year, early next year in China, but over the next two or three years, everywhere, the capabilities that central banks will have will be even greater. So, the only way to reduce the negative impacts, not eliminate them, you can’t eliminate them, but to reduce them is through fiscal policies. And the key areas clearly are the areas that society demands are human race.

     

    In case you haven’t figured it out, fiscal policies means communism. lol 

     

    Here is the other article I keep posting. Voting plus discretionary central banking equals doom.

    http://financialrepressionauthority.com/2017/07/26/the-roundtable-insight-george-bragues-on-how-the-financial-markets-are-influenced-by-politics/

    • #5
  6. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    The Communists have won.

    Once at the forefront of production, human capital is phasing out in the economic machine. Viktor Shvets, global strategist at Macquarie Group and author of “The Great Rupture: Three Empires, Four Turning Points, and the Future of Humanity”, joins Michael Green to discuss the devolving nature of capitalistic societies as the demand for an augmented scope of human rights storms capitalism. Shvets also examines the disruption to factors of production in the Information Age. Filmed on September 21, 2021. Special thanks to Albert Bozsó for reaching out to suggest Mike Green interview Viktor Shvets.

    https://www.realvision.com/shows/mike-green-in-conversation/videos/is-the-golden-age-of-liberal-capitalism-over?source_collection=b8bd9d62c77143f7a39513e85d310b11

    You can get the transcript for a dollar if you give them your name.

    I keep telling you guys, we The whole West did every single thing wrong in the face of the wage deflation and job destruction from automation and global labor. It stole peoples agency and it favored capital over people. The way this guy describes it even worse than I thought.

    The right has never been very serious about any of this, so now everybody is going to pay.

    So you surrender. Fine. Go away.

    Get the transcript and then tell me what to do. 

    • #6
  7. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    If you get the transcript or watch the video, be sure to watch the long interview of David Stockman. It’s the 90 minute one. 

    • #7
  8. Brian Watt Inactive
    Brian Watt
    @BrianWatt

    We have to unite around our common interests, around that free speech, individual liberty, limited government, due process, and rule of law, and work with people who may not agree with us in every particular, but who do agree that those things are essential and non-negotiable.

    And Mickey and Judy will put on a show in their own backyard with all the neighborhood kids. 

    Let’s have a dose of reality, shall we? The DOJ, FBI, NSA, CIA, and DHS are thoroughly corrupt. The top-level officers and managers who run these agencies are corrupt and happy to not simply spy on Americans but label law abiding citizens as domestic terrorists. Many of the senior officers in the Pentagon need to be court-martialed for gross incompetence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is happy to commit treason by informing an enemy combatant of our intentions before we act. He is lauded by the leftist news media and the White House as heroic. The US military is following the orders of a dishonest and deceitful president and violating standing federal immigration law to transport and relocate tens of thousands of illegal aliens around the country…and Congress and the courts do nothing.

    The major tech firms that own and control virtually all of social media are also militant socialists who think nothing of destroying a subscriber’s career without giving subscribers a way to defend themselves. Banks are shutting down accounts for customers who speak openly against woke groups or agendas. Schools and universities across the nation are Marxist brainwashing centers and have been for decades. So-call reputed scientists and medical professionals lie about medications and therapies that can treat COVID and the honest medical professionals who do speak up are cancelled. Woke activists have taken up positions and control corporate HR departments so employees who are still lucky enough to be employed are frightened to say anything that runs counter to the woke agenda.

    The IRS will soon have upwards of 80,000 new agents so the agency can monitor your private bank transactions starting at $600. But once the IRS has the ability to view your bank activities, you think that a $600 transaction threshold will be respected? Where is the outrage on this initiative? The news media doesn’t give a damn. They’re in lockstep with the Democrats. A good portion of the national news media were former officials in Democrat and Republican administrations.

    District attorneys are releasing felons and not bothering to arrest or incarcerate shoplifters and looters. Meanwhile, people who happened to be in the general vicinity of the US Capitol building on January 6th are still being hunted down and arrested. Have an idea that the 2020 presidential election was stolen? What are you – a conspiracy nutcase? How can you believe that lie? You may have to be watched closely.

    But let’s have a dialogue with neighbors about freedom and the republic. Should we invite the FBI?

    • #8
  9. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    My three youngest kids participated in high school sports, pretty much everything: football, basketball, soccer, softball, baseball, tennis, track. Ours was a tiny little Catholic school, too small to field a strong team in most sports. We lost a lot of games, though we had some strong seasons and surprising wins.

    One thing I love about the kids, about our little school, about my children, and most recently about my young cousin Grace, is that no matter how many goals they are down, no matter how late in the game, they play as if they can still win.

    Never surrender. And if you must, do it somewhere else.

    We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old. — Winston Churchill

    • #9
  10. Brian Watt Inactive
    Brian Watt
    @BrianWatt

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    My three youngest kids participated in high school sports, pretty much everything: football, basketball, soccer, softball, baseball, tennis, track. Ours was a tiny little Catholic school, too small to field a strong team in most sports. We lost a lot of games, though we had some strong seasons and surprising wins.

    One thing I love about the kids, about our little school, about my children, and most recently about my young cousin Grace, is that no matter how many goals they are down, no matter how late in the game, they play as if they can still win.

    Never surrender. And if you must, do it somewhere else.

    We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old. — Winston Churchill

    Because Ricochet, where those who challenged the fraudulent results of the 2020 election, were condescendingly treated as conspiracy theorists, is the one place on the Internet that will ultimately prove to be the site where the socialist juggernaut will finally be stopped. Yeah, okay. Good luck with that. What does Joe Scarborough think?

    • #10
  11. CRD Member
    CRD
    @CRD

    Brian Watt (View Comment):

    And Mickey and Judy will put on a show in their own backyard with all the neighborhood kids.

    Let’s have a dose of reality, shall we? The DOJ, FBI, NSA, CIA, and DHS are thoroughly corrupt. The top-level officers and managers who run these agencies are corrupt and happy to not simply spy on Americans but label law abiding citizens as domestic terrorists. Many of the senior officers in the Pentagon need to be court-martialed for gross incompetence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is happy to commit treason by informing an enemy combatant of our intentions before we act. He is lauded by the leftist news media and the White House as heroic. The US military is following the orders of a dishonest and deceitful president and violating standing federal immigration law to transport and relocate tens of thousands of illegal aliens around the country…and Congress and the courts do nothing.

    The major tech firms that own and control virtually all of social media are also militant socialists who think nothing of destroying a subscriber’s career without giving subscribers a way to defend themselves. Banks are shutting down accounts for customers who speak openly against woke groups or agendas. Schools and universities across the nation are Marxist brainwashing centers and have been for decades. So-call reputed scientists and medical professionals lie about medications and therapies that can treat COVID and the honest medical professionals who do speak up are cancelled. Woke activists have taken up positions and control corporate HR departments so employees who are still lucky enough to be employed are frightened to say anything that runs counter to the woke agenda.

    The IRS will soon have upwards of 80,000 new agents so the agency can monitor your private bank transactions starting at $600. But once the IRS has the ability to view your bank activities, you think that a $600 transaction threshold will be respected? Where is the outrage on this initiative? The news media doesn’t give a damn. They’re in lockstep with the Democrats. A good portion of the national news media were former officials in Democrat and Republican administrations.

    District attorneys are releasing felons and not bothering to arrest or incarcerate shoplifters and looters. Meanwhile, people who happened to be in the general vicinity of the US Capitol building on January 6th are still being hunted down and arrested. Have an idea that the 2020 presidential election was stolen? What are you – a conspiracy nutcase? How can you believe that lie? You may have to be watched closely.

    But let’s have a dialogue with neighbors about freedom and the republic. Should we invite the FBI?

    Ok, now that I have had a dose of reality, what do you think we should do?

    • #11
  12. Nohaaj Coolidge
    Nohaaj
    @Nohaaj

    Brian Watt (View Comment):
    And Mickey and Judy will put on a show in their own backyard with all the neighborhood kids. 

    In a related issue, I created a post a few weeks ago about who are these protestors on the left, and what should be also considered is where are the equivalent protestors on the right? Brian, you mock the idea of conservative protestors, and rightly so.  They don’t exist, and where they do attempt to assemble, they are infiltrated and perverted by the FBI, ATF, and all the other corrupt alphabet agencies.  

    We are the enemy in the eyes and hearts of the liberal, socialist, marxist  government, maybe we should start acting more like we understand that.  

    • #12
  13. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    I guess it’s not a very good post if you have to explain it. But I’ll explain it.

    The post actually had a really specific point to it. It isn’t a generic rah rah thing exhorting conservatives to just go out there and win. Rather, it’s a specific recommendation that conservatives start putting aside relatively minor differences and pull together and work with each other, so that we can win more elections and start directing the country in a more promising direction.

    That’s all it is.

    • #13
  14. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Henry was asking for something practical versus what I was saying. This is what I think. Somebody like Chris Christie needs to get schooled on that stuff. He is a pretty good candidate in most ways. The other thing is, I don’t understand at all, but I think Steve Bannon is right about most things. He had a great speech about the financial markets, the fed, international trade, and so forth with the Manhattan Republican group. It’s not up anymore for some reason. That stuff is so hard to fix now. 

    • #14
  15. DaveSchmidt Coolidge
    DaveSchmidt
    @DaveSchmidt

    CRD (View Comment):

    Brian Watt (View Comment):

    And Mickey and Judy will put on a show in their own backyard with all the neighborhood kids.

    Let’s have a dose of reality, shall we? The DOJ, FBI, NSA, CIA, and DHS are thoroughly corrupt. The top-level officers and managers who run these agencies are corrupt and happy to not simply spy on Americans but label law abiding citizens as domestic terrorists. Many of the senior officers in the Pentagon need to be court-martialed for gross incompetence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is happy to commit treason by informing an enemy combatant of our intentions before we act. He is lauded by the leftist news media and the White House as heroic. The US military is following the orders of a dishonest and deceitful president and violating standing federal immigration law to transport and relocate tens of thousands of illegal aliens around the country…and Congress and the courts do nothing.

    The major tech firms that own and control virtually all of social media are also militant socialists who think nothing of destroying a subscriber’s career without giving subscribers a way to defend themselves. Banks are shutting down accounts for customers who speak openly against woke groups or agendas. Schools and universities across the nation are Marxist brainwashing centers and have been for decades. So-call reputed scientists and medical professionals lie about medications and therapies that can treat COVID and the honest medical professionals who do speak up are cancelled. Woke activists have taken up positions and control corporate HR departments so employees who are still lucky enough to be employed are frightened to say anything that runs counter to the woke agenda.

    The IRS will soon have upwards of 80,000 new agents so the agency can monitor your private bank transactions starting at $600. But once the IRS has the ability to view your bank activities, you think that a $600 transaction threshold will be respected? Where is the outrage on this initiative? The news media doesn’t give a damn. They’re in lockstep with the Democrats. A good portion of the national news media were former officials in Democrat and Republican administrations.

    District attorneys are releasing felons and not bothering to arrest or incarcerate shoplifters and looters. Meanwhile, people who happened to be in the general vicinity of the US Capitol building on January 6th are still being hunted down and arrested. Have an idea that the 2020 presidential election was stolen? What are you – a conspiracy nutcase? How can you believe that lie? You may have to be watched closely.

    But let’s have a dialogue with neighbors about freedom and the republic. Should we invite the FBI?

    Ok, now that I have had a dose of reality, what do you think we should do?

    School boards, city and county elections.  

    • #15
  16. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    On #14 I showed that speech to a guy that was a hell of a lot smarter than me. A professional investor from way back. He said it was a good speech, too.

    • #16
  17. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patriot) Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patriot)
    @ArizonaPatriot

    Brian Watt (View Comment):
    The IRS will soon have upwards of 80,000 new agents so the agency can monitor your private bank transactions starting at $600. But once the IRS has the ability to view your bank activities, you think that a $600 transaction threshold will be respected? Where is the outrage on this initiative? The news media doesn’t give a damn.

    Brian, this is an incorrect characterization of the proposal, with respect to the proposed new rules on reporting of bank transactions.  (I don’t know if you’re correct about the number of agents.)

    The proposal is not to monitor all transactions.  It is to require banks to report two total numbers each year for each bank account — the total amount deposited, and the total amount withdrawn.  It is not about individual transactions.

    • #17
  18. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patriot) Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patriot)
    @ArizonaPatriot

    Hank, great post.  I have a concern, or maybe just a follow-up, on one part.  You wrote:

    Henry Racette: Conservatives — those of us who cherish the nation born in Philadelphia and bequeathed to us through the sweat and blood and striving of our ancestors — should take a lesson from the hard-headed realists of the Constitutional Convention. We have to unite around our common interests, around that free speech, individual liberty, limited government, due process, and rule of law, and work with people who may not agree with us in every particular, but who do agree that those things are essential and non-negotiable.

    I don’t know if we can treat the things that you list as non-negotiable.

    I’m more inclined to agree that free speech, due process, and rule of law are non-negotiable in principle, though the devil’s in the details, so there might have to be compromise in practice.  As a couple of examples: (1) I think that free speech is consistent with many reasonable regulations on such speech — defamation, fraud, actual extortion, and some time-place-manner restrictions; (2) I think that due process is non-negotiable, but we might disagree about what it entails — e.g. you might think that the government should be required to bring a lawsuit for a civil asset forfeiture, while I might think that it’s acceptable for the seizure to occur administratively, as long as the affected individual has a right to bring a lawsuit and, in such a suit, the burden of proof would remain on the government by a preponderance of the evidence.

    I find it more difficult to agree that individual liberty and limited government are non-negotiable in principle.  I don’t support a liberty uber alles approach, and different liberty interests merit different treatment.  Your liberty to have a gun, or send your kids to the school of your choice, are very important.  Your liberty to drive on the left side of the road is not.  Similarly, on the limited government issue, I would not agree that all expansions of government power, or continuation of current government power, are necessarily wrong.

    It’s complicated, in my view.  By declaring certain things to be non-negotiable, you are necessarily undermining our ability to make the practical compromises that you also advocate.

    I also realize that I may merely be raising an issue of insufficient elaboration on your part, and that you are assuming that there would be exceptions like those that I outlined.  You need to be able to present a general program, and I’m in strong accord with your general program, and there’s limited space.  When you say that you support “free speech” as non-negotiable, you shouldn’t have to provide all of the details and exception that would be presented in a semester-long First Amendment course.

    • #18
  19. Brian Watt Inactive
    Brian Watt
    @BrianWatt

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    Brian Watt (View Comment):
    The IRS will soon have upwards of 80,000 new agents so the agency can monitor your private bank transactions starting at $600. But once the IRS has the ability to view your bank activities, you think that a $600 transaction threshold will be respected? Where is the outrage on this initiative? The news media doesn’t give a damn.

    Brian, this is an incorrect characterization of the proposal, with respect to the proposed new rules on reporting of bank transactions. (I don’t know if you’re correct about the number of agents.)

    The proposal is not to monitor all transactions. It is to require banks to report two total numbers each year for each bank account — the total amount deposited, and the total amount withdrawn. It is not about individual transactions.

    I believe you are incorrect but your confidence in the altruistic intent of the Democrat Party and that this proposed legislation is relatively benign is duly noted. From Congressman Drew Ferguson (emphasis from his website):

    “We should not allow the IRS to invade the privacy of Americans by snooping into their bank accounts,” Congressman Ferguson said. “The Biden Administration and Congressional Democrats have clearly demonstrated their intent to instate a broad financial surveillance regime using Americans’ private financial information. In an attempt to chase down an ill-defined “tax gap” that may not even exist, Democrats are willing to throw caution to the wind, put secure information at risk, and further inflate the unchecked power of the IRS. This IRS surveillance is an invasion of individual’s privacy and with Democrats’ history of weaponizing the IRS for their own political gain, it’s in every American’s best interest that we prevent the use of private financial information for this type of egregious power play.”

    “The IRS bank surveillance scheme in the Democrats’ ‘reconciliation’ bill is a dangerous threat to our privacy that targets farmers, families and small businesses,” House Ways and MeansRepublican LeaderKevin Brady said. “Americans should not accept this, nor Speaker Pelosi’s demand to unleash 80,000 more IRS agents on hardworking taxpayers.”

    • #19
  20. Brian Watt Inactive
    Brian Watt
    @BrianWatt

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    I guess it’s not a very good post if you have to explain it. But I’ll explain it.

    The post actually had a really specific point to it. It isn’t a generic rah rah thing exhorting conservatives to just go out there and win. Rather, it’s a specific recommendation that conservatives start putting aside relatively minor differences and pull together and work with each other, so that we can win more elections and start directing the country in a more promising direction.

    That’s all it is.

    So, it’s really directed to folks like Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, and Mona Charen and not necessarily the majority of members here on Ricochet who already agree with the sentiment?

    • #20
  21. Brian Watt Inactive
    Brian Watt
    @BrianWatt

    Nohaaj (View Comment):

    Brian Watt (View Comment):
    And Mickey and Judy will put on a show in their own backyard with all the neighborhood kids.

    In a related issue, I created a post a few weeks ago about who are these protestors on the left, and what should be also considered is where are the equivalent protestors on the right? Brian, you mock the idea of conservative protestors, and rightly so. They don’t exist, and where they do attempt to assemble, they are infiltrated and perverted by the FBI, ATF, and all the other corrupt alphabet agencies.

    We are the enemy in the eyes and hearts of the liberal, socialist, marxist government, maybe we should start acting more like we understand that.

    I don’t mock the idea of conservative protesters. Conservative protests are fine. Raising one’s voice at a school board meeting or city council meeting should happen. As you note, the risk-to-reward ratio is different for conservative protesters versus leftist protesters because of the subversion of our institutions. So, that should be front of mind to anyone before launching into any protest or any massive show of civil disobedience. 

    My objection was with the characterization that those in the GOP and the sympathetic GOP, Independent and even concerned Democrat electorate are quibbling about little things. The demonization of the former president and anyone associated with his administration is not a little thing. The castigation of anyone who questions the integrity of the 2020 election is not a little thing. The incarceration and treatment of January 6th protesters is not a little thing. But it’s okay, at least here on Ricochet we’re all agreed that Trump should have been impeached and never allowed to serve in government again and that he should be metaphorically tossed on an open fire to purify the GOP moving forward. But I quibble.

    • #21
  22. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patriot) Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patriot)
    @ArizonaPatriot

    Brian, I think that you’re incorrect, but it’s not your fault.  I think that that FoxNews segment that you linked is simply fake news.  I think that they are incorrect, either lying (if they know the truth) or engaging in negligent misrepresentation (if they haven’t bothered to learn the truth).  I only watched the opening moments, because the falsehood was, quite literally, in the first sentence.

    This is so troubling and frustrating.  I’ve thought that such misleading, and sometimes outright false, reporting has been pretty common on the Left for many years.  My own impression is that I’m seeing it more and more on the Right.  I’ve lost confidence in just about every news outlet.

    I could point you to a fact-check, like this one from USA Today, which concludes:

    We rate the claim that the Treasury Department ‘declares’ the IRS will monitor transactions in all U.S. bank accounts over $600 as PARTLY FALSE, based on our research. The Biden Administration has proposed monitoring accounts over $600, but the only figures reported to the government would be the total inflows and outflows for the year – not the size and nature of each transaction. 

    You could respond by saying that you don’t trust USA Today.  Fair enough.  I don’t trust them either.  But this doesn’t resolve the underlying question.

    Here is the actual Treasury Department report of the proposal.  It’s 24 pages long.  The relevant paragraph is on page 19, and it says (emphasis added):

    The new reporting regime would build from the framework of the Form 1099-INT reports that taxpayers already receive from financial institutions when they earn more than $10 in interest from a bank, brokerage, or other financial institution. Financial institutions would simply report additional data on the financial accounts of these existing information returns. Specifically, the annual return would report gross inflows and outflows on all business and personal accounts from financial institutions, including bank, loan, and investment accounts but carve out exceptions for accounts below a low de minimis gross flow threshold.

    Here is a YouTube video of Treasury Sec. Yellen explaining this, in Senate testimony:

    [I’ve clipped this one to start with Sec. Yellen’s statement.  You can back it up to see the questioning/grandstanding by the Senator at issue, who appears to have the same mistaken impression of the proposal as the FoxNews guy in the clip that you provided, Brian.]

    So we have the written proposal from the Treasury Department saying what I assert, and the sworn testimony of the Treasury Secretary saying the same thing.  

    • #22
  23. Lawst N. Thawt Inactive
    Lawst N. Thawt
    @LawstNThawt

    @henryracette I like the spirit of your post and wouldn’t necessarily agree with it lock, stock and barrel, but then you covered that too.

    • #23
  24. Brian Watt Inactive
    Brian Watt
    @BrianWatt

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    Brian, I think that you’re incorrect, but it’s not your fault. I think that that FoxNews segment that you linked is simply fake news. I think that they are incorrect, either lying (if they know the truth) or engaging in negligent misrepresentation (if they haven’t bothered to learn the truth). I only watched the opening moments, because the falsehood was, quite literally, in the first sentence.

    This is so troubling and frustrating. I’ve thought that such misleading, and sometimes outright false, reporting has been pretty common on the Left for many years. My own impression is that I’m seeing it more and more on the Right. I’ve lost confidence in just about every news outlet.

    I could point you to a fact-check, like this one from USA Today, which concludes:

    We rate the claim that the Treasury Department ‘declares’ the IRS will monitor transactions in all U.S. bank accounts over $600 as PARTLY FALSE, based on our research. The Biden Administration has proposed monitoring accounts over $600, but the only figures reported to the government would be the total inflows and outflows for the year – not the size and nature of each transaction.

    You could respond by saying that you don’t trust USA Today. Fair enough. I don’t trust them either. But this doesn’t resolve the underlying question.

    Here is the actual Treasury Department report of the proposal. It’s 24 pages long. The relevant paragraph is on page 19, and it says (emphasis added):

    The new reporting regime would build from the framework of the Form 1099-INT reports that taxpayers already receive from financial institutions when they earn more than $10 in interest from a bank, brokerage, or other financial institution. Financial institutions would simply report additional data on the financial accounts of these existing information returns. Specifically, the annual return would report gross inflows and outflows on all business and personal accounts from financial institutions, including bank, loan, and investment accounts but carve out exceptions for accounts below a low de minimis gross flow threshold.

    Here is a YouTube video of Treasury Sec. Yellen explaining this, in Senate testimony:

    [I’ve clipped this one to start with Sec. Yellen’s statement. You can back it up to see the questioning/grandstanding by the Senator at issue, who appears to have the same mistaken impression of the proposal as the FoxNews guy in the clip that you provided, Brian.]

    So we have the written proposal from the Treasury Department saying what I assert, and the sworn testimony of the Treasury Secretary saying the same thing.

    https://www.aba.com/advocacy/policy-analysis/coalition-letter-to-the-house-opposition-to-tax-information-reporting-proposal

    • #24
  25. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    Henry Racette: We have to unite around our common interests, around that free speech, individual liberty, limited government, due process, and rule of law, and work with people who may not agree with us in every particular, but who do agree that those things are essential and non-negotiable.

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    I don’t know if we can treat the things that you list as non-negotiable.

    Jerry, I’m not saying that we have to agree on the details. What seems essential to me is that we agree, in principle, that these are critical things that conservatives can unite around, even if we might have differences of opinion about one or another aspect.

    So, for example, if we get a fellow who believes that pornography should be illegal, and another who disagrees, they can both broadly support the principle of free speech even as they negotiate that point. In contrast, the new left sees speech as violence, arbitrarily censors content based on their opinions about its truth or usefulness, and considers silencing opposing viewpoints as an act of civic virtue.

    Yes, we’ll argue amongst ourselves about the proper scope of government. But those who subscribe to the idea of limited government we will never call for essentially unlimited government, and will not try to sweep away the checks and balances the Founders established to keep government constrained.

    Brian Watt (View Comment):
    So, it’s really directed to folks like Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, and Mona Charen and not necessarily the majority of members here on Ricochet who already agree with the sentiment?

    Brian, I honestly don’t know what the majority of members here on Ricochet think about compromise within our movement and our party. I know that you can toss out a name — Cruz, Rubio, McConnell … Trump — and get pretty emphatic blowback of the I-will-never-support-him variety. And you can find plenty of commentary about the two parties being “just the same,” nonsense like that.

    Some people may claim to support those values I mentioned above but act in ways that betray that support. Bill Kristol is only the most obvious example: I think he actually is a conservative we can do without. But he’s an extreme case; most less-than-perfect conservatives aren’t that unreliable.

    Anyway, to answer your question: no, I wrote it for Ricochet, and for all those conservatives who are too quick to condemn fellow conservatives for their imperfections.

    • #25
  26. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    Lawst N. Thawt (View Comment):

    @ henryracette I like the spirit of your post and wouldn’t necessarily agree with it lock, stock and barrel, but then you covered that too.

    Then you are dead to me, you Soros-loving commie squish.

    Thank you, LNT. I appreciate the comment.

    • #26
  27. Brian Watt Inactive
    Brian Watt
    @BrianWatt

    https://gop-waysandmeans.house.gov/fact-check-bidens-supercharged-irs-includes-bank-reporting-hardships-for-taxpayers/

    https://www.kentucky.com/opinion/op-ed/article254779737.html

    https://www.fibt.com/livefirst/news/customer-alert-on-irs-reporting-proposal/

    https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/joe-bidens-permanent-irs-audit/

    https://www.alec.org/article/taxing-times-in-washington-what-every-state-legislator-needs-to-know/

    https://www.bankofthepacific.com/customer-support/quick-tips/consumer-new-irs-reporting-proposal/

    • #27
  28. Brian Watt Inactive
    Brian Watt
    @BrianWatt

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    Henry Racette: We have to unite around our common interests, around that free speech, individual liberty, limited government, due process, and rule of law, and work with people who may not agree with us in every particular, but who do agree that those things are essential and non-negotiable.

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    I don’t know if we can treat the things that you list as non-negotiable.

    Jerry, I’m not saying that we have to agree on the details. What seems essential to me is that we agree, in principle, that these are critical things that conservatives can unite around, even if we might have differences of opinion about one or another aspect.

    So, for example, if we get a fellow who believes that pornography should be illegal, and another who disagrees, they can both broadly support the principle of free speech even as they negotiate that point. In contrast, the new left sees speech as violence, arbitrarily censors content based on their opinions about its truth or usefulness, and considers silencing opposing viewpoints as an act of civic virtue.

    Yes, we’ll argue amongst ourselves about the proper scope of government. But those who subscribe to the idea of limited government we will never call for essentially unlimited government, and will not try to sweep away the checks and balances the Founders established to keep government constrained.

    Brian Watt (View Comment):
    So, it’s really directed to folks like Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, and Mona Charen and not necessarily the majority of members here on Ricochet who already agree with the sentiment?

    Brian, I honestly don’t know what the majority of members here on Ricochet think about compromise within our movement and our party. I know that you can toss out a name — Cruz, Rubio, McConnell … Trump — and get pretty emphatic blowback of the I-will-never-support-him variety. And you can find plenty of commentary about the two parties being “just the same,” nonsense like that.

    Some people may claim to support those values I mentioned above but act in ways that betray that support. Bill Kristol is only the most obvious example: I think he actually is a conservative we can do without. But he’s an extreme case; most less-than-perfect conservatives aren’t that unreliable.

    Anyway, to answer your question: no, I wrote it for Ricochet, and for all those conservatives who are too quick to condemn fellow conservatives for their imperfections.

    The problem with your post, IMHO, is the vagueness about the minor matters we are quibbling about. Thus, the takeaway is simply, “Can’t we all just get along for the good of the republic?” You’ve written better.

    • #28
  29. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    Brian Watt (View Comment):
    [T]he takeaway is simply, “Can’t we all just get along for the good of the republic?”

    I’m sure some will read it that way, Brian. Others will pick up on the idea that the Founders made hard compromises in order to create a functional society based on a core set of shared values, and will perhaps agree with me that we have to be better about compromising within our own movement and party on matters that don’t rise to the level of those core values, so that we can build a winning coalition that does share those core values.

     

    • #29
  30. Brian Watt Inactive
    Brian Watt
    @BrianWatt

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    Brian Watt (View Comment):
    [T]he takeaway is simply, “Can’t we all just get along for the good of the republic?”

    I’m sure some will read it that way, Brian. Others will pick up on the idea that the Founders made hard compromises in order to create a functional society based on a core set of shared values, and will perhaps agree with me that we have to be better about compromising within our own movement and party on matters that don’t rise to the level of those core values, so that we can build a winning coalition that does share those core values.

    Such as? You’re only proving my point about the vagueness of your post.

     

    • #30
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