OT: Horror Story from Illinois

You didn't know that Illinois was a leader in the socialist's race to the bottom? Illinois is just California with horrible weather and without a decent beach.

The California financial situation isn't nearly so bad; pols are fighting in Sacramento over what to do with this year's surplus revenue, 6 billion or so.

Prop 13 limited property taxes to about 1% of purchase price, which is a really good deal for old-timers like me.

Men will suffer evils as long as those evils are sufferable.

Luckily, they are getting to the point where people are going to wake up. A s I've told people who are lucky - it is coming to you. Eventually they wi ll piss off everyone. It is their nature, as long as they can operate with impunity they will go farther and farther until they put forth the illusion of utopia despite massive suffering, both financially and otherwise. The c riminal justice system is a joke, they make more money by locking up the in nocent and leaving criminals go free. I am not saying that they are doing t his intentionally, but I wouldn't put it past them. A high incarceration ra te justifies taxes to support it, and higher crime rates justify taxes to s upport law enforcement. One Ohio governor was known for signing just about any new law with stiff penalties, increasing penalties or mandatory minimum penalties. Ha has a close relative in the prison business. A judge was cau ght selling juveniles into a private reformatory for cash under the table,m the penalty for wrecking countless lives ? A couple years. the busted Mart ha Stewart for doing what is explicitly allowed for congressmen, which also includes trading in stocks using insider information in companies which wi ll be directly affected by legislation in front of them at the time. Theyt also busted KPMG for doing things that were legal when they did them, despi te the constitutional prohibition against retroactive laws. They also coerc ed the employees to give up all their rights, including attorney/client pri vilege by threatening them with outrageous sentences. I urge people to real ize that when they do that, they do it out of necessity. They very likely w ould have lost the case in a fair trial. They loathe fair trials. The trend is to coerce a plea bargain by trumping up the charges.

They can pretty much tax as high as they please. They can also steal all th e money by not revealing that their friends and relatives are the beneficia ries of lucrative government contracts. All this happening with those who a re not endowed with these connections nor benefit them in the know. Blissfu lly unaware why despite the great numbers put forth om the economy by pundi ts, their personal finances continue to degrade. And if they keep making mo re and more money to keep abreast of ever increasing costs, they never stop to wonder why. They think "inflation" is a natural occurrence and has noth ing to do with the fact that about half the money in this country is stolen . Through taxes, overcharging, middlemen and a few other ways, it really is that bad. Anytime anyone gets something without producing something, someo ne else must produce to pay for it. that is a tax, which by definition cove rs more than the amount demanded by the government at gunpoint, like you ca n "overtax" an engine. Well keep on increasing the amount and eventually th e engine bogs down, and that is where we are at right now. It is about to a ctually stall ,a decent analogy but is not the end of the world. I will be the end of most of the credit on which we all live. Even if you have the do llars in your pocket, they were borrowed. It is like having chips from a ca sino that is about to go out of business. They are sold cheap, if they are sold. Like stock in a company like Solyndra, which demonstrated the governm ent's expertise in economics. No professional investor would have gotten in volved, if they did they would get fired. Unfortunately we can't fire the government. Even by voting, the same type of scum runs. Look at our choices for President. Like always, many people did not vote FOR anyone, they vote d AGAINST the other. Really qualified people do not want to run because the y know the undue influences of big money, or are those influences.

There is so much more. It would take days just for a basic outline of what I know, and I don't really know all that much, butI do know a world more th an at least 90 % of the people about these things. I have had some particip ation in them actually and I can tell you those people are dirty. Filth per sonified. And people actually look up to them, and trust them. That is how gullible society and the schools have made them.

So they won't listen to anyone who tells them the truth, but they won't be able to escape it when their epiphany comes, and every time the government takes more that time draws closer.

The sooner people wake up and take matters in hand, the less severe the eff ects of our neglect will be to tolerate. So really, when the government doe s these things they are hastening the end of their gravy train.

So be happy. Get used to living on goods and maybe cash, cryptocurrrency or possibly gold. Maybe even unrefined salt, which was a lifesaver n the past , to the point that it was treated like money. How does something so common gain that status ? I could tell you but it wold take the fun out of findi ng out for yourself. If you can't find it, say so, I'll be here.

Butt he fat is, we will survive, we will just not enjoy the lifestyle like now. This will hurt those who have the most worst. You may see a class inve rsion where the pauper can outrank a millionaire. One depends on the econom y as it is, the other does not. the state of affairs is not sustainable for ever. Do the math. a million minus a million is zero, zero minus zero is ze ro. Class equality by nature, irrevocable and inevitable. We don't need gun s to defeat the government, they will defeat themselves like a small child with matches.

And I will gloat.

fighting in Sacramento over what to do with this year's surplus revenue, 6 billion or so. "

Maybe they should pay down their debt, which is higher than that of Russia. (and quite a few other countries)

without a decent beach."

If Obama is any indication of what comes out of there it is telling. Did an yone ever sell his senate seat ? I know they busted Blago, but how about th e next guy. They certainly didn't choose by merit (well Obama proves that a bout the voters as well but...) and they certainly would not consider a vot e. So who got the money ?

That doesn't even scratch their unfunded liabilities.

I would consider it unconstitutional but since I will never live in CA, I don't much care what you do.

Yes, it is.

He's another example of perfectly normal Illinois politics.

It seems they're a few governors behind in the IL Penitentiary, these days. Note that the current gov is a "Republican" (no normal Republican would claim him, though).

No biggy. Punish those who vote for cretins who establish pensions that are impossible to sustain. ...Jim Thompson

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Thinking outside the box... producing elegant solutions, by understanding what nature is hiding.

"It is not in doing what you like, but in liking what you do that is the secret of happiness." -James Barrie

Right it's almost like Illinois would prefer all the blacks and low-income old white people to leave and cater to people who a 10k bump in property taxes means like, they'll buy one fewer luxury sports sedan. No kidding? That's wild. Doesn't sound much like socialism to me tho that just sounds like business as usual.

This is total thievery. What they're doing is unloading the burden of nearl y 70 years of political corruption on homeowners. A lot of the debt was acc ured by corrupt politicians buying votes through excessive spending of mone y they did not have!

They cite fairness: "Fairness: Illinois residents who have benefited most f rom the past services of governmental employees are more likely to be homeo wners, so it seems reasonable that they should pay a larger share of the co sts." Someone needs to explain to me how services provided by the state are in an y way shape or form porportional to property value- because they are NOT!

Then this garbage about efficiency: "Efficiency: Standard economic theory p redicts that home values go down in response to new property taxes (that is , they are ?capitalized? into home values). Current homeown ers would not be happy about this, but it would be a good result for the Il linois economy. That?s because the new taxes wouldn?t affec t people thinking of moving to Illinois. While they would have to pay highe r property taxes, that would be offset by not having to pay as much for the ir new homes. In addition, current homeowners would not be able to avoid th e new tax by selling their homes and moving because home prices should refl ect the new tax burden quickly. (We included this ?tax penalty? ?? effect in our calculations below.)"

Did the morons mention anything about property taxes being reduced along wi th the resulting decrease in market value?!? Thereby eliminating the increa sed revenue from this taxation, and how could they possibly make that work!

U.S. is a failed political system, and the people authorized to make these decisions need to be voted out of office and back into the gutters they cra wled out of.

a."

It's WORSE! Your damned joke of a state has more employees than the entire federal government.

That doesn't affect me. This place is beautiful. I just ignore all those public employees. If things somehow got bad, I could legally move to Nevada.

Ignore politics and all that neurotic stuff. Just optimize what you have for maximum happiness. Look up "happiness" if you are unfamilar with the term.

And design some electronics. That's fun.

As long as they don't pull a "Seattle" on you. Personal moving is relatively painless. If they impose "severance" taxes or the like on company closings they might nail you massively. ...Jim Thompson

Keep checking on what California does with estate taxes. I am not up on wh at Calif does , but New York and Washington State are sneaky. I think both of them want to collect estate taxes on every thing you own, if you own pr operty in the state regardless of where you actually live.

My sister and late husband owned a vacation house in in upstate New York. When my BIL died , New York collected estate taxes not just on what they o wned in NY, but also on all their property. So the vacation house was mayb e $200,000. But my sister paid estate tax on property in Virginia. Not to Virginia , but to New York.

Dan

The ultimate freedom, what communist countries always had to deny, is the freedom to leave.

It's pretty much impossible to keep a privately-owned business from moving. Kill it here and be reborn somewhere else.

Not all of the U.S. is a failed system. Delaware recently repealed its estate tax. The reason was that people were leaving the state because of the estate tax. And that also reduced the income tax collected in the years before death.

Dan

Basically nobody paid the estate tax anyway, and I can safely say that you're as broke as a homeless person relatively speaking compared to the incomes of the people who did. I'm sure they appreciate you white-knighting for them though lol

It's not failed they just don't care about grumpy old long-term home owners who don't pay much taxes anyway, they'll be glad to be rid of 'em. Are you surprised?

Some of the least well-reviewed city nightclubs on the review sites are the ones that sell $2000 bottles of vodka to high-rollers. College students come in too and spend 50 bucks and complain that the staff treats them like shit. They seem surprised! They really do.