Edited by Frederick Mann
Copyright © 1995, 1996, 1997 Build Freedom Holdings ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Introduction
This is the fifth in our series of 'Millionaire' reports. The first report dealt mainly with the Most Basic Wealth Principle: Produce more than you consume. The second was primarily devoted to clearing away certain Money Myths and learning the Infinite Bootstrap Principle. The third dealt mainly with Dr. Jeffrey Lant's analysis of 'Millionaire Methodologies' and with what you need to know about the danger of a Currency Collapse and what you can do about it. The fourth described how J. Paul Getty became the richest man in the world and what you can learn from him.
This report basically deals with how to make 'millionaire' decisions. The main difference between self-made millionaires and want-to-be millionaires is the quality of their respective decisions.
Second, Frederick Mann describes "power relationships" and their importance.
Third, foremost businessman and columnist Harvey Mackay tells us how to cut our losses.
Fourth, Frederick Mann tells us why now is the best time to take our lives and our fortunes into our own hands.
Finally, Frederick Mann reviews four books by Martin L. Gross and analyzes their profound significance:
and one book by James M. Collier and Kenneth F. Collier:
HOW TO MAKE 'MILLIONAIRE' DECISIONS
by Frederick Mann
Introduction
Your present life situation is largely the result of the series of decisions you've been
making since soon after birth and leading up to the present. Within a few months after
birth, you started making decisions about yourself, about your family members, other
humans, and the world in general.
When you discovered money, you also started making decisions about that. Whatever you now believe about money, are the result of decisions you made about money. Whatever you believe about your ability to make and keep money, and make it grow, are the result of decisions you made about yourself and about money.
Jacob Needleman has written a very important book about money called Money and the Meaning of Life. Although I disagree with many of his beliefs (decisions) about money, I highly recommend his book. He says, "The point I wish to make in this book is that money needs first to be understood - before we allow ourselves any moral stance at all. Surely a huge proportion of human unhappiness - in all aspects of our lives - comes from trying to know what we ought to do before we see clearly the forces that are at play. Most so-called moral dilemmas simply dissolve when one gathers all the knowledge that is actually available. We waste an immense amount of our precious energy trying to make decisions before we really have to or are able to. ... It may seem paradoxical, but what I'm saying is that our lives have become a hell not because money is too important to us, but because, in a certain sense, it is not important enough."
You may find it interesting - and useful! - to make a list of everything you believe about money. Now consider that everything you believe about money stems from your decisions.
You could extend the exercise by writing down the opposites of all your beliefs about money and considering the possibility that the opposite beliefs might be more useful!
Now consider that everything you know about everything stems from your decisions!
Do you get the idea that decisions can be pretty powerful?!
The greatest human power is the power of choice. We are not automatic stimulus-response machines! - at least, we needn't be! We have power of choice. We can pause, and instead of reacting automatically, we can calculate our best response or action. We can then learn from the results or consequences produced by our actions. We can use this experience to take superior actions in future.
All along, decisions are involved. We decide to pause, rather than react automatically. We decide to think and calculate. We decide on a particular action or course of actions. We decide to observe the consequences of our actions. We decide how we should apply what we learned to improve future actions.
Improving our decisions about money improves our beliefs and the way we think about money and thus our results with money. Beliefs about money are key to successful entrepreneurship. You may need to improve your beliefs and the way you think about money.
The Path of Least Resistance
This may be a good point at which to review the "Path of Least Resistance"
article in Special Report #TL13A: The Millionaire's Secret (I).
Robert Fritz identified three kinds of choices - or decisions:
1. Fundamental choices - these are choices or decisions regarding your basic life orientation or state of being, for example, "I choose to consistently produce more than I consume";
2. Primary choices - these are choices or decisions related to major results in life, for example, "I choose to be a millionaire by December 31, 1999." (It may be necessary to describe what you mean by "millionaire" more specifically - for example, "having $1,000,000 in the bank" or "owning assets worth $1,000,000."
3. Secondary choices - these are choices or decisions in support of primary choices - for example, "I choose to save $100 a month and to increase the amount I save by 20% every month."
Fundamental Decisions
There are a number of areas where you may want to make fundamental choices or decisions:
1. Service to humanity - do you want your life to be of service to humanity? This decision will influence the kinds of things you do and don't do in your pursuit of a fortune. You're much more likely to succeed if your purpose is to do something useful to humanity and become a millionaire doing it, rather than if your purpose is just making a million. In other words, service to humanity should come first and making a million second. (J. Paul Getty, as described in Special Report #TL13D: The Millionaire's Secret (IV), put humanity first and making a million second. It seemed to work for him - he became the richest man in the world!)
2. Appropriate means - should you start your own business? If so, what kind of business? I strongly suggest that you seriously consider the companies which we promote as a starting point. In the process of promoting these companies you will learn a great many of the skills necessary to become a millionaire. You'll also assist others to do the same. Furthermore, the programs and companies which we promote are beneficial to humanity.
3. Health - making and having a fortune is much more worthwhile if you also enjoy good health. So you may want to make the fundamental choice or decision to be healthy, and the appropriate primary and secondary choices or decisions in support of the fundamental decision. (See Special Report #TL13A: The Millionaire's Secret (I).)
4. Competence - whatever you want to achieve in life, you'll be more successful if you increase your competence in certain areas. You may have to improve your thinking and planning skills; your ability to recognize opportunities; your ability to market yourself, your ideas, your products and services; and your ability to work with other people. Reading publications by Build Freedom is a good way to increase your competence. One specific area you may want to concentrate on is the way you think about money. Becoming more involved with Build Freedom is an excellent way to increase your competence in many crucial areas - like networking, marketing, and handling money. In any case, you may want to make a fundamental decision to continuously increase your competence in one or more areas of life, supported by the necessary primary and secondary decisions.
5. Personal growth and development - humans are different from animals. As indicated in Special Report #TL13B: The Millionaire's Secret (II), animals naturally mature and achieve their full potential. We humans have to make a sustained, conscious effort to mature toward our full potential. One of the techniques I highly recommend in this respect is called "Idenics" - for more information call Michael Goldstein at 1-800-IDENICS (1-800-433-6427), or write to him at Survival Services Intnl., 1670 S. Elkhart St, Aurora, CO 80012. Or, visit the Idenics website at http://shell.rmi.net/~idenics/index.html. Tell him Build Freedom referred you.
You can do several things to grow and develop: read, attend seminars and workshops, create new experiences for yourself, do things you usually find difficult to do (more on this topic in Special Report #TL13F: The Millionaire's Secret (VI)). Here again, you may want to make fundamental, primary, and secondary decisions.
6. Consciousness - in Money and the Meaning of Life Jacob Needleman says that a conscious life is the highest value. In his book From Freedom to Slavery: The Rebirth of Tyranny in America, Gerry Spence uses the term "the breathing dead." You may think that when people walk around with open eyes, they're conscious. You may think in terms of two states: sleep and consciousness. You may think that when you walk around with your eyes open, or watch TV, you're conscious.
Don't deceive yourself! Most people are pretty unconscious during their supposedly "awake" hours. You see, our ordinary everyday consciousness resembles a hypnotic trance more than real consciousness. During our ordinary everyday consciousness, we are little more than robots or machines - stimulus-response robots. When, however, our awareness approaches real consciousness, we acquire much more freedom, power, and control. We are in control of our consciousness, rather than functioning as stimulus-response machines.
Compared to real consciousness, our ordinary consciousness is much more like a state of sleep. In this sense, most humans are like sleepwalkers - the "breathing dead," as Gerry Spence describes them. Fortunately, we can make the fundamental choice to become more conscious and spend some time every day becoming a little more conscious.
A key realization here is that real consciousness is intentional. It's not something that just happens or something we have automatically. For there to be real consciousness, we have to direct our consciousness. We have to will consciousness. Real consciousness is active. Sleepwalkers have "passive consciousness" - Gerry Spence's "breathing dead."
In his book On Disobedience and Other Essays, psychologist Erich Fromm indicates why disobedience is the first step toward developing real consciousness. When you obey others, you're like a puppet sleepwalker on a string. Through making your own decisions you develop real consciousness.
Another important way to develop real consciousness is to question everything. Don't take anything for granted. Whatever you accept blindly from others, tends to make you a stimulus-response robot. Question all your past knowledge. Accept all new knowledge only after your own evaluation - and accept it only as provisional knowledge.
And in Special Report #TL13A: The Millionaire's Secret (I) we talked viewing from different perspectives. Remember the "clouds covering the sun?" From an earthbound perspective this seems reasonable. From an outer-space perspective the phrase becomes absurd. Developing the ability to shift perspectives is an important way to raise your consciousness.
When we reach "real consciousness" we are reflectively conscious on a continual basis. "Reflective" is the key word - it implies observing how you think and act - awareness of your consciousness, if you like. We can make a list of aspects of "real consciousness," that would include all the things we suggest you do to raise consciousness. The list would include "apperception" (perceiving what goes on in your mind); "proprioception" (perceiving what goes on in your body); perception of the process whereby you trigger your emotions; awareness of your habits as habits; the ability to distinguish between (a) reality, (b) your perception of reality, and (c) your reaction/response to your perception of reality; and several other aspects that are beyond the scope of this report.
When we are in control, as opposed to being stimulus-response machines, we use our cognitive intermediary ability to be in control. In a stimulus-response orientation people react to input from the environment automatically and produce output without the use of their cognitive systems (consciousness). An example of this is Ted. When Ted's girlfriend told him she didn't want to go out, he automatically (unconsciously) got upset because he thought she was mad at him. Ted never bothered to use his cognitive ability (consciousness) to either realize that there are legitimate reasons why she does not want to go, or to control his own emotional reaction.
Another example is Thom. When Thom's girlfriend tells him she does not want to go out he uses his cognitive ability (consciousness) to consider alternative possibilities as to why she does not what to go out, such as the fact that she had a long day and is tired. He then controls his emotions and consciously creates an appropriate response, rather than an automatic unconscious emotional reaction.
7. Freedom - there are some fundamental choices or decisions to make in this area:
(a) Do you own your life, mind, and body - or do the government bureaucrats own you? Do you own your life and have the right to commit suicide? Do the government bureaucrats own you so they have the right to draft you into their army? Do your children own their minds, or do the government bureaucrats own them so they can force your children into "schools" where they decide how to indoctrinate them? Do you own your body, or do the government bureaucrats own it so they decide what you may or may not put into your body?
(b) Do you own the fruit of your labor - your production - or do the government bureaucrats own it so they may take whatever portion of your production they want?
(c) Do you respect other people and their property, and do you wish them to respect you and your property?
(d) If you think violence must be initiated to enforce your will upon others, are you willing to personally perpetrate this violence? For example, if you think your neighbor should be taxed, are you willing to take your gun, go to your neighbor, collect the taxes, and shoot him if he refuses to pay?
If - like Rush Limbaugh - you think that democracy is compatible with freedom, then you have more to learn about freedom. Democracy is tyranny by special interests who pretend they represent the majority.
If you think that taxes are compatible with freedom, then you have more to learn about freedom. Taxation is a disguised form of slavery. If you think that America has a free-enterprise system, or has had one during the past 200 years, then you have more to learn about freedom. In a true free-enterprise system all transactions are voluntary - there are no coerced transactions. Review the article "The Principles of Real Free Enterprise" in Special Report #TL13B: The Millionaire's Secret (II).
The decisions or choices you make about freedom are very important to your wealth. The freer you are, the more options you have, the wider is the range of things you can do to make your fortune. What you decide about freedom will also affect the means you use to make your fortune; for example, whether or not you'll accept subsidies from government bureaucrats.
Most people know little or nothing about freedom. It may be necessary for you to make the decision to learn more about freedom. The "Annotated Bibliography" in Special Report #TL13F: The Millionaire's Secret (VI) is a good place to start. You may also want to contact Build Freedom about our additional information about freedom; we have some of the most advanced freedom information available anywhere.
Some people know a great deal of freedom philosophy, but they still know little or nothing about practical freedom. One of the best ways to start learning about practical freedom - and being paid for learning! - is to participate in the real free-enterprise businesses such as World Trade Clearinghouse (see Special Report #TL13C: The Millionaire's Secret (III) for more information including WTC's website address).
8. Taxes - obviously, the extent to which you pay taxes has a lot to do with your wealth. In the book The Rape of the Taxpayer by Philip M. Stern, you'll find that one of J. Paul Getty's wealth secrets was that he paid practically no taxes. One of the first things you need to decide is whether it's moral or immoral - good or evil - to pay taxes. And you may need to improve your ability to deal with government bureaucrats on tax matters. Then you need to make decisions regarding the lawfulness and practicality of paying or not, and what to pay and what not.
You also may need to learn a great deal about how to organize your affairs so as to minimize taxes and reduce the risk of your income and assets being seized by government bureaucrats and other marauders. Most of all, if you have a "victim-mentality" in relation to the tax thieves, you need to grow, develop, and mature beyond that. For many people, this "victim-mentality" is the biggest obstacle to accumulating wealth. (As we shall see in Special Report #TL13F: The Millionaire's Secret (VI), a person with a "victim-mentality" suffers from "psychological reversal" as opposed to "psychological alignment." If you feel you suffer from "victim-mentality," you may want to read the book Learned Helplessness by Martin Seligman.)
The article below on "How to Cut Your Losses" may give you some additional insights if you think of taxes as losses you need not necessarily suffer. Evaluate tax payments as investments. Are they good investments or bad investments? What kind of dividends do they pay? What's the prospect for capital gains? If you decide that taxes are bad investments that are guaranteed losers, then maybe you should consider cutting your losses.
Another way you could look at the money you pay to government bureaucrats (instead of just as an investment - or "protection money!") is to think of it as money paid for services rendered. Would you voluntarily pay for the services you get from government bureaucrats? Do you feel you get your money's worth from government bureaucrats?
The article below titled "Now Is the Best Time to Take Your Life into Your Own Hands" may indicate to you that the risk of "cutting your tax losses" is far smaller than most people think. It's like being scared of flying but not scared of driving. The risk of being killed in a car accident greatly exceeds the risk of being killed in a plane crash. The ability to assess risks accurately is an important element of how to make 'millionaire' decisions.
A primary reason people are afraid of flying and not afraid of driving is that flying is more unfamiliar to them, but driving is very familiar to them. It could be said that the unknown = risk. In a similar way, most people are unfamiliar with the possibility of severely reducing their taxes, so they perceive it as risky to pay less taxes. One way for people to overcome this is to get to know the unknown. If you were to become very familiar with the information on how to pay extremely lower taxes, you would no longer fear it.
In any case, you need to make a fundamental decision regarding taxes, supported by primary and secondary decisions. One of these decisions might be to spend 100 or 200 hours learning about the tax system. Suppose you could save $10,000 a year if you knew more about the tax system. Suppose you value your time at $50 per hour. Given these assumptions, it would be worth your while to spend 200 hours learning about the tax system, in order to save $10,000. (By the way, this is a typical methodology for making 'millionaire' decisions.)
9. Decisions - in his book Living Life as a Super Achiever, Bernhard Dohrman writes: "There is only one factor about a Super Achiever that is different - the process the Super Achiever uses to make a decision, a choice, to set a priority. The Super Achiever's DECISION PROCESS is more awake than a non-Super Achiever."
It was Mr. Dohrman's book that first made me realize how important it is to become more conscious of my decision-making processes and the need to improve them. His book is "must" reading - contact IBI Publishing, PO Box 173, Madison, AL 35758. It contains a wealth of information on improving your decision-making ability.
You probably should make the fundamental decision to improve your decision-making skills. And you need to support this choice by making the necessary primary and secondary choices. The first step to making better decisions is to recognize the decisions you do make. We are constantly making decisions about all our thoughts, emotions, and actions whether we know it or not. You can't improve your decisions if you're not aware of them.
By the way, A DECISION WITHOUT ACTION IS A NON-DECISION! (Exception: A conscious, careful decision to not take any action is sometimes the best decision.)
10. Personal power - In Living Life as a Super Achiever, Bernhard Dohrman also writes: "Power is a funny thing. For those in the know, power is really only a decision. Make the right decision and you possess power! Most individuals let others make their decisions for them ...... resulting in power-LESS life-styles."
In From Freedom to Slavery: The Rebirth of Tyranny in America, Gerry Spence writes:
"We, the people, already have the power. We, the people, have always had the power. We need no leaders to achieve it, no religions to claim it, no politics to express it. Our power does not come from our spouses or employers or the block captain or the priest or from God. If I understand that simple proposition I have changed, the change is mammoth. The change is explosive. The change is freedom.
"I remember when I began to feel my own power. Somehow I had discovered the King within - the King of the self. I was fearful of the King, in awe of him. Yet in his presence I felt no servitude to man, to government, to law or to God. I felt as if I could conquer any obstacle, win any case. ... My exuberance merely paid homage to my newly discovered kingdom of the self. I shudder to think what might occur if all the earth's people awakened their own inner Kings. This much I can predict: Magically, overnight, the world would be free."
I invite you to make a fundamental decision about your personal power, about waking up your personal "kingdom of the self." Then make the supporting primary and secondary decisions. This is also what millionaires did in order to create their fortunes. Most people tend to operate at around the 1% level of their potential. Millionaires, however, become rich by raising themselves above the 1% level. To become a millionaire you may have to increase your personal power.
In Special Report #TL13A: The Millionaire's Secret (I) Mr. Penn told us how his boat with all his possessions burnt to the waterline. Some people, after such an experience, would feel so depressed that they would decide to kill themselves and commit suicide. Mr. Penn, on the other hand, almost certainly made some decision about creating a great business and/or a fortune. Sometimes a major setback can inspire someone to make a powerful decision.
Refer to Special Report #TL13A: The Millionaire's Secret (I) to determine what steps to take in making fundamental, primary, and secondary decisions.
Making Your Own Decisions
Making your own decisions equals personal power and freedom. I don't know if anyone has
done a scientific survey to determine this, but I'm willing to bet dollars against
doughnuts that the vast majority of millionaires make their own decisions. Furthermore,
what got them into positions that made it possible to become millionaires, is that they
organized their lives and affairs so they could make their own decisions.
If you work for someone else - and even if you work as a consultant or independent contractor, essentially selling your time - others own your time and make decisions for you. And to the extent that others make decisions for you, you give up personal power and freedom.
If currently you're in such a position, you could start participating in the programs which we promote in your spare time as a means to get yourself into a position where you make your own decisions.
POWER RELATIONSHIPS
by Frederick Mann
In his book Living Life as a Super Achiever, Bernhard Dohrman uses the acronym "SNAP" to stand for "Super Networking Accelerates Potential." The two skills Mr. Dohrman emphasizes most in his book are decision-making and networking.
Networking involves the creation of mutually-beneficial relationships. I have certain talents, skills, resources, and interests. But they're relatively limited, restricting what I can achieve by myself. You have a different set of talents, skills, and resources - and possibly some interests compatible with mine. Maybe we can assist each other in ways that make each of us more effective and productive.
By "power relationship" I mean a relationship where each party becomes greatly more effective and productive as a result of the relationship. We at Build Freedom have such a relationship with "Wealth Accumulation Company" (name changed for security).
We provided "Wealth Accumulation Company" with certain information that enables them to conduct their businesses in much freer and profitable ways - particularly freedom from government bureaucrats. For about two years we also provided WAC with ongoing marketing. In return we receive a steadily-growing monthly flow of earnings from WAC. In addition, WAC provides considerable credibility to our reports because they have demonstrated in practice how to apply the principles expounded here to grow the assets of their businesses from $285,000 to over $20,000,000 in less than three years!
One of our claims from the outset has been that you can live your life and conduct your business largely free from government bureaucrats. If anybody says, "Well, show me," then the answer is, "Look there, WAC is doing it exactly as we say it can be done!"
Another of our claims from the outset has been that you can make a fortune selling freedom. Again, we can point at WAC and say, "Look at WAC; they're doing it!" In about 30 months WAC's assets have increased from $285,000 to over $20 million, to a considerable degree as a result of the power relationship with Build Freedom.
HOW TO CUT YOUR LOSSES
by Harvey Mackay
[The following article by Harvey Mackay appeared in The Arizona Republic of May 21, 1995 under the title, "Key to success is learning ways to cut your losses."]
We're surrounded by winners. Advertisers flood us with images of winners. Winners guzzling soda pop, winners munching burgers, winners strutting around in their underwear. Winners, winners everywhere.
Business columns like these are with the program, full of well-meaning advice on how to act like, think like, dress like and be a winner.
But there's very little out there about how to be a loser. And there should be, because most of us are losers most of the time. The highest lifetime batting average in baseball history, Ty Cobb's .367, represents a failure rate of nearly two out of every three times at bat. Even the biggest and best companies are aced out by their competitors on more than half of their potential sales, unless they're Microsoft, in which case, they have the Justice Department screaming "unfair competition."
It's easy. Just learn how to cut your losses.
That's what Coca-Cola did when it realized the mistake in abandoning the company's classic formula. That's what Intel did - finally - when it realized it couldn't stonewall its way out of a problem with the faulty Pentium chip.
That's what we all have to learn, sooner or later.
A large number of turkeys
Eighty percent of new products vanish from the marketplace within two years. Eighty
percent of movies fail to earn back their costs. How do companies that launch so many
turkeys stay in business?
Repeat after me: "They cut their losses." They didn't bet the farm on any single product. They diversified. They kept refilling the pipeline. They lived to sell another day.
The 3M Co. maintains that 25 percent of its sales five years from now will come from products that have not yet been invented. That implies that a significant amount of current sales is coming from products that will be dropped within five years.
What separates the winners from the losers is that winners realize they can't always win. 3M officials know there will be losers.
They plan for them. They control them. They contain them.
A business or an individual can survive any number of bad decisions if they have the courage and wisdom and discipline to accept them as part of life and abandon those positions when they become untenable.
How do you know when to jump?
If you cannot trust your instincts, adopt a formula and stick to it.
In the stock market, when a position moves against you by a preset amount, don't hold it, don't chase it, don't double up, get out.
In life, it's two years, three max. If the job doesn't work out, if the product doesn't sell, if the company doesn't turn around, find something else to do.
Rules for abandoning ship
Isn't that a tad arbitrary? Isn't the world full of examples of investments and products
and experiments that took a lot more than three years to pan out? Yes, but that's not what
we're talking about.
If you're making real progress, if the ship is turning around, if you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, then no matter how long it takes, it's worth it.
What I'm talking about is a situation where there is no marked progress, or even a decline, after two years. Then it's time to start drafting your good-byes.
A case in point: Michael Jordan.
What makes him one of the greatest athletes of all time is that he also is one of the smartest. He has always known how to win. By leaving baseball after 18 months, he proved he knows how to lose, too. He took a hard look at where he started, and where he was, told himself the truth, and headed back to basketball. That was an act of real courage and self-knowledge.
Mackay's Moral: It doesn't matter how much milk you spill, as long as you don't lose the cow.
[Harvey Mackay is the author of such books as Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive and Sharkproof. He resides part of the year in Paradise Valley, AZ. Write to him in care of United Feature Syndicate, 200 Park Ave., New York, NY 10166.]
Editor: One of the qualities of the person with a "millionaire-mentality" is being an expert at learning from the experience of losing. You have to know how to lose, when to cut your losses, and how to learn from them. Dr. Robert T. Lewis has written a book on the subject: Taking Chances: The Psychology of Losing & How to Profit from It. Dr. Lewis is also co-author (with Herb Goldberg, Ph.D.) of Money Madness: The Psychology of Saving, Spending, Loving, and Hating Money.
NOW IS THE BEST TIME TO TAKE YOUR LIFE INTO YOUR OWN HANDS
by Frederick Mann
Introduction
The power of government bureaucrats depends on the support they receive from their
victims. That support is becoming very tenuous or fragile. It can disappear quickly. It
was the withdrawal of support that collapsed the Berlin Wall and evaporated the Soviet
Union.
The IRS is an important vehicle used by government bureaucrats to terrorize, subjugate, control, and impoverish their victims. Below, we'll see that the IRS's days may be numbered. We'll also see that they cannot monitor or track transactions in the emerging information/electronic economy.
The evils of government bureaucrats are getting enormous publicity. Rush Limbaugh has an audience of tens of millions. Government atrocities are widely reported over the Internet. There are probably more than 10,000 organizations in America teaching people about freedom and how to defend their businesses, income, and assets from rapacious government bureaucrats.
As a result of these factors, the real free-enterprise sector is growing rapidly. The pioneers have already started making fortunes. One of the best ways for you to "get in on the act" is to participate in money-making programs which we promote.
Consider carefully the significance that the two articles from which extracts are given below, appeared in "mainstream" publications. What used to be denounced and rejected outright as the "crazy ravings and rantings of the loony fringe," is now beginning to appear in the "mainstream" media.
We have here a shift of consciousness, one of the implications of which is that ever larger numbers of people will withdraw their support from the government bureaucrats and will opt out of the corrupt, collapsing tax system. And "there is safety in numbers!"
Support for Government Bureaucrats is Dwindling
Following are some extracts from the "Cover Story" article by Joe Urschel in USA
TODAY of May 16, 1995, under the title, "Sentiments not held only by the
fringe - Even George McGovern says he's felt the burden of too much regulation":
"Investigations into the bombing in Oklahoma City have produced an almost inexplicable byproduct - sobering details of how much, and how extensively, some Americans have come to fear their government. From extremist militia groups on the right, to environmentalists and civil libertarians on the left, to workaday citizens in the middle, the lament is the same: Government has grown too big, too intrusive, too powerful, too imperious, and it must be reined in.
While Americans live in fear of random acts of terrorist violence like the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, which they condemn almost universally, a large segment also harbors deep fears of what they see as the calculated attempts by government to control and regulate. These actions they also condemn - whether smoking bans, gun regulations, seat belt requirements or efforts to restrict abortion and restore school prayer. And it's this condemnation that is growing into a heightened sense of civil unrest that some believe is approaching the flashpoint. [emphasis added]
An April 23-24 national poll by Gallup for USA TODAY and CNN asked, "Do you think the federal government has become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens?" Thirty-nine percent said "yes." Surprised by the response, CNN asked the question again, dropping only the word "immediate." To that, 52% said "yes." The Los Angeles Times later asked a similar question; 45% said "yes."
Ed Crane, Founder of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, thinks the "poll is very much in tune with the times. In fact, I suspect the response would have been higher if it wasn't asked so close to the bombing in Oklahoma."
"Suspicion and distrust of the federal government goes all the way back to the antifederalists," says David Mason, a political analyst with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. "The difference now is that the government is so much larger and more involved in the details of everyday life."
Whatever corner you're in, its critics say, the government has an agency or set of regulations that can be used against you. It is the actions of OSHA inspectors, IRS auditors and the EPA, as much as the so-called "storm-trooper tactics" of the FBI and ATF, that make these Americans fear their personal liberties are being stripped away.
The anxiety is widespread
Drew Hiatt, executive vice president of the National Business Owners Association, says his
membership, which provides jobs for 6 of every 10 workers, wages a constant battle with
government. "Our members spend 2-3 hours of every work day just dealing with
government regulations and paperwork," he says. Those are the regulations they are
aware of. They live in fear, he says, of running afoul of some rule they don't know about.
"There are over 132,000 pages of government regulations on the books," he says.
"The books themselves" - the 202-volume Code of Federal Regulations -
"take up over 19 feet of shelf space. How is a small business owner with two or three
employees supposed to keep track of all that? I worked it out once - it's like trying to
read War and Peace 115 times." He says his membership has become "very
anti-government."
Former senator George McGovern, who ran for president as a liberal Democrat in 1972, says, "I do a lot of speaking and traveling, and it is definitely out there." McGovern felt the burden of government regulation himself, when he went into the hotel business after retiring from politics. "I may not have empathized if I had not gone through it myself," says McGovern, who eventually went out of business, in part, he says, because of regulations. "I wish I had had the experience of running a hotel before I went into the Senate."
Earlier this year, the House approved a plan to put a moratorium on increased federal regulations as part of the Republican Contract with America, but it was scuttled by the Senate, which favors a less sweeping approach...
... [A]nxiety about government is widespread. The profile of the fearful American in the Gallup poll is far broader than the "patriots" and militia members of the far right - though it certainly includes them. The poll shows equal or greater fear of government among women and minorities, liberals and Democrats, as it did among conservative white men...
'Grievances ... are real'
"I'm probably a composite of the lower-income, white middle-American," says Mike
Houston, 42. Houston is a gun dealer and member of an Indiana militia. He's convinced that
government agencies monitor his every move and watch his gun shop. "They just keep
harassing me and harassing me," he says. "The federal government needs to get
its nose out of people's lives."
Rep. Charles Schumer of New York, a Democrat on the House Crime subcommittee, finds sentiments like these unnerving. "When you see Americans running around in the woods preparing to defend themselves against their own government," he says, "that is a danger signal."
The greater impact, however, may come from the much larger group of political malcontents who are not in militias and have no intention of joining one. If nearly 1 of every 2 Americans fears the government, that is a potent force.
"Let's face it," says conservative analyst William Kristol. "The '94 elections were a referendum on government and government lost. "That doesn't mean people are paranoid or homicidal. But one argument for cutting back on size and scope of government is that it would restore respect and trust. It does so many things, and does them so foolishly and poorly, that it creates an unhealthy tear and loathing of one's government."
How unhealthy? Some analysts suggest parallels with the Weimar Republic in Germany. "For the first time in my life, those thoughts have gone through my mind," says McGovern, likening the current mood of the country with that of pre-World War II Germany...
'There is just a plain fear'
... In the mid-1980s, he [Tom Baker, 47, of Plano, Texas] was a construction contractor
and claimed a $300 tax deduction for a truck camper shell he'd bought to protect his
tools. That started a battle with the IRS. After years of fighting, auditors prepared to
seize his truck and garnishee his wages. He went bankrupt. "It totally ruined
me," he says. Since then, Baker sees the federal government as an enemy of freedom,
and a threat to his liberty. "I'm just a middle-aged family man," he says.
"I'm part of the heartbeat of America. "Today, my knees are bothering me and I'm
walking on a cane. And somebody's going to come by and regulate canes, tell me what color
and how long it has to be."
David Lyall is a bartender at Jimmy Mac's in Buffalo, N.Y. "I'm the angry white male you hear so much about these days," he says. "Tell big government to get out of my face. They've made it so it's socially unacceptable to drink anymore. They've told the smokers to take it outside. The government is making moral codes for people and that is not its job. "I've been audited four of the last five years. They always want to say I must have made more tip money. They take away the (tax break for) three-martini lunches and business goes down and then they want to know why I didn't make more tips."
"There is just a plain fear of intrusive government," says Mason. "So many agencies and activities where the average citizen comes in contact with the federal government. Twenty years ago that wasn't the case." It is the frequency of government's very specific and methodical involvements in their lives that opens many citizens to more radical anti-government attitudes.
It happened to Sherry Carr, 61, in Stuart, Fla., when she tried to put a second trailer on her lot. Her 15-year battle has turned her into Martin County's most famous property rights advocate. "I've been fighting these idiots for years," she says. "If you pay taxes, who has the right to come and tell you what you can do on your property? I'm not afraid of Janet Reno. She doesn't worry me."
Doug Anderson, 64, had a TV repair shop in the late 1950s. "We didn't have as much intrusion by the federal government," he says. "You know, the government can't take care of everybody, and they can't protect people from themselves. People have to take responsibility." Anderson opposes drug seizure laws, no knock police entries, racketeering statutes, federal welfare, hate-crime legislation, consumer-protection regulations...
Kim Raby, 30, a lawyer who helps with her family's landscaping business in Indianapolis, sees the economic injustices a different way. "It seems like an oxymoron," she says, "when (Congress) talks about all these cuts while they are all pulling down six-figure salaries."
Says Jerry Hecko, 52, of Greencastle, Ind.: "I'm sick and tired of hearing about politicians who are worried more about their own interests than they are about the country as a whole. I don't blame the militias and I am not that radical."
'Government is like a cancer'
While the current political debate tries to tie the bombing in Oklahoma to the
anti-government rhetoric of the extreme right, the three polls do not necessarily link
anti-government attitudes with any particular political stance. It comes from the liberal
left just as vehemently. "I was appalled at what was done to the Davidians (at Waco),
and I'm on the other end of the political spectrum," says Judi Bari of the
environmental group, Earth First. "The ATF and FBI were just outrageous."
Julianne Malveaux, a liberal California radio talk show host, shares a similar antipathy for the FBI. "There are some reasons why people do rightfully distrust government," she says. "The movie Panther (which depicts governmental harassment of the Black Panther Party in the 1960s) comes out ... and it was back down memory lane for me. To see the way our government infiltrated an organization and caused the death of so many ... people."
Carol Moore is a liberal political activist who has written a book on Waco. "The whole idea of tanks smashing into a home is a traumatizing experience for everyone. Nothing like that has happened in the history of the country, and they could get away with it," she says. "Government is like a cancer," she says.
There may, in fact, be something endemic about that fear in the character of Americans. It is what leads them to hold their government in suspicion. George Washington himself called government "a dangerous servant and a fearsome master." [Interesting that US TODAY omitted the most important part of Washington's quote. This is what he said: "Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."]
Is the IRS Doomed?
Following are extracts from an article "Breakdown at the IRS" by
Elizabeth MacDonald in Worth magazine, March 1995:
The nation's tax collector can't keep up with Congress. Its slow-moving bureaucracy continues to hurt innocent taxpayers and botch federal deficit-cutting plans. Current social and economic trends are now threatening to push the agency over the edge...
How times have changed. Today, the cultural consensus supporting the system is teetering. Taxes don't seem to buy personal safety, much less civility, and the national infrastructure raised by generations of accreting revenue - airports, bridges, dams, roads - is crumbling...
The IRS was as big as big government ever got, a faceless bureaucracy that knew everything about us and operated according to its own laws. When Richard Nixon, seeking to escape the Watergate noose, threatened to use the service to punish his political "enemies," the country wasn't just shocked, it was frightened.
Today, however, the institution is seen less as awesome than awful... It can't spot the $127 billion in taxes evaders annually hide from it or nab the 10 million individuals who don't file each year. And when returns flood in each spring, IRS employees err on one of every ten they enter into the agency's computers, contributing to the monumental disarray of its records. According to the General Accounting Office, the IRS now has more than $200 billion in misstated taxpayer payments and refunds on its books.
What's more, the IRS mainframe computers, some more than three decades old, are obsolete and in some cases literally crumbling. A huge effort to upgrade the system is failing, according to both the GAO and the National Research Council, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. Last April at a Cato Institute debate in Washington, Shirley Peterson, IRS commissioner under President Bush, called the current income-tax system "an unwieldy, inefficient, ungodly mess" that cannot be fixed by "tinkering."
Government officials say the IRS's problems now jeopardize the funding of the government. The IRS's difficulties are so severe that the GAO had to warn Congress, the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Department of the Treasury, and the Office of Management and Budget that they all harbor "an exaggerated idea" of IRS's ability to help the government slash its $3.6 trillion deficit through improved tax collection. According to a 1992 NRC report to Congress, "a major breakdown of the nation's tax system" could occur before the year 2000.
The accelerating transformation of the U.S. economy, which grows daily more decentralized and international, is moving the IRS closer to that reckoning. Moreover, the developing cashless economy of the Internet and the declining proportion of people employed by large corporations will make the job of collecting taxes far more difficult in the near future.
The IRS, with 110,656 people - a full-time workforce greater in size than MCI, Merrill Lynch, and Apple Computer combined - is like Gulliver pinned down by the Lilliputians, caught in the massive shift of technological power from the public to the private sector...
... [I]ncompetence is rife in the IRS - a conclusion supported by interviews with IRS officials, members of Congress, and former IRS commissioners, as well as an examination of 55 confidential IRS studies, GAO reports, and reviews conducted by the NRC.
Some of the IRS's difficulties have been well publicized, such as its plummeting audit rate, down to 0.7 percent from a high of 5 percent in the mid-1960s, and the 1992 scandal in which the IRS caught 368 of its employees snooping through taxpayer returns. Some 132 of them were disciplined, with varying degrees of severity, but just six were fired.
The full extent of the IRS's troubles, however, are still emerging - partly as the result of the first-ever audits of the tax agency, conducted by the GAO in 1992 and 1993. These audits paint a picture of a very leaky ship. Among other things, the GAO concluded the IRS can't even document how it spends its own $7.2 billion budget, nor does it have accurate records for nearly $800 million in assets, such as cars and homes, seized from taxpayers.
Findings like these and others shed new light on the emerging debate over the merits of the present income-tax system. Although current arguments for abolishing the income tax are generally ideological, the sorry state of the IRS raises more practical considerations. Foremost among them: Is it even feasible to continue collecting an income tax?
One cause of the problems at the IRS has been inconsistent leadership. Over the last 42 years, the average tenure of the IRS commissioner has been one and a half years... This turnover in the top post allowed the IRS bureaucracy to mushroom, while making it impossible to pursue long-range planning.
The current commissioner is Margaret Richardson, a native of Waco, Texas, and friend of First Lady Hillary Clinton... Several months after her confirmation, Richardson told a congressional subcommittee: "Prior to 1989, there was no comprehensive effort devoted to improving financial management at the IRS. At that time, we were operating with outdated accounting systems that did not allow us to adequately account for the operations of our organization. We knew there were problems but did not know to what extent.... The audit of our financial statements by the GAO was a watershed for the IRS."
Richardson responded to these problems by abolishing seven assistant-commissioner positions and taking an energetic, hands-on approach to the job. She regularly bursts into subordinates' offices demanding updates on IRS problems. While away on vacation, she called audit manager Eva Williams and discussed the IRS's problems for three hours. This approach, however, has served to mostly alienate IRS bureaucrats throughout the ranks. Her habit of publicly dressing down people is so feared that employees often avoid going to staff meetings with her.
Management style, though, probably isn't the real problem. It's unclear whether anyone could halt the agency's decline. For instance, Richardson is now presiding over a much-ballyhooed replacement of the IRS's computer hardware. The new technology, including networked workstations, is expected to reduce paperwork through electronic filing and optical scanning of all tax returns. Richardson told Congress in the fall of 1993 that the modernization program will save taxpayers billions in lower tax-preparer fees and a billion hours spent in contact with IRS.
The computer upgrade, begun in 1986, is one of the most expensive civilian computer projects ever. It is projected to cost $23.3 billion through 2008. Of this amount, $7.8 billion is for new computers. The remaining $15.5 billion will go toward keeping the IRS's current computers running.
Already, however, the program is well behind schedule. Partly because of the red tape of the government procurement process and partly because of technical snafus with some of the first new computer systems it received, the IRS has to date spent just 17 percent of the money earmarked for the hardware upgrade.
Problems with new equipment last year contributed to an alarming number of refund scams that slipped through undetected - particularly those associated with electronic filing. When Congress learned that the IRS had paid out as much as $5 billion in bogus refunds for 1993 tax returns, it slashed the agency's computer budget for 1995 to $650 million from $989 million in the fall of 1994.
Last November, the NRC said it "continues to have very serious concerns about the IRS's ability to successfully complete the upgrade on time and within budget." The NRC's skepticism is well-founded. Twice before, in 1968-78 and in 1982-86, the IRS started to overhaul its computer system, but then abandoned each attempt. Eight years into the current upgrade, with no end in sight, Robert Clagett, a professor of business at the University of Rhode Island who chairs the NRC committee that reviewed the IRS, says, "I don't think any of us who work in the computer industry would have organized a computer upgrade like the IRS."
Still, the system must somehow be fixed. Otherwise, there will only be more incidents such as the one in the Philadelphia service center in 1985: After a computer crash, officials found employees stuffing tax returns into the ceiling and in drawers in an effort to keep up with their work quotas.
At the IRS, a computer crash is not always a metaphor. Former commissioner Peterson recalls the time a service-center system went down in 1992: "When we sent a technician out to fix the computer, the broken part was so old and rusted it crumbled in his hand."
The IRS's problems in processing tax returns begin at its ten service centers, where thousands of IRS employees toil in chaotic, football-field-size offices, seeking to deal with an ever-rising mountain of work. This year, more than 200 million businesses and individuals will post their returns to one of these centers, roughly triple the number filed in the 1950s. If the IRS taped together all the pieces of paper it receives annually, the trail would wrap around the earth roughly 36 times. "Both the IRS and taxpayers are drowning in a sea of paper," IRS commissioner Richardson told Congress in 1993...
The IRS says 21 percent of the 1040 returns entered by its clerks contain some sort of error. "About half of the mistakes are IRS, half are taxpayers," says Lawrence Westfall, the IRS official in charge of the agency's computer-modernization program.
That means the IRS processes about one in five returns erroneously. The IRS contends it fixes a large percentage of the mistakes before the data ever leave the service center, but the GAO asserts that many types of errors slip through. For example, it says IRS workers incorrectly typed 450,000 addresses into the agency's computers for 1988 tax returns, the latest year for which these data are available. Because of these mistakes, the IRS that year sent approximately 300,000 notices demanding $49 million in additional taxes to wrong addresses...
Experts on the IRS point out that one of its problems is its inability to deal with the mobility of Americans - not exactly a recent sociological development. The seven regional offices, 63 district offices, and ten service centers rarely communicate with each other, and their computers aren't networked. As a result, taxpayers who move routinely run afoul of different IRS offices across the country...
This same quality shows up in the way the IRS responds to women, who pose a particular challenge at an agency that has yet to acknowledge women's liberation or the demographic changes it created... Every year at least 3 million women change their last names because of marriage or divorce. According to the GAO, these women are all at risk of receiving wrongful penalty notices stating that they did not file their returns. This occurs because the IRS's computer system is the same "as it was in 1962," according to a confidential IRS report, and cannot immediately fix a mismatch between its records and the taxpayer's new last name.
The IRS stores joint returns under the name of the first spouse listed, usually the husband. If the wife gets divorced or remarries, the IRS often assumes she is not filing tax returns because it can't match her new name to the one on file. Instead, it sends out a failure-to-file notice, often a lien on her property.
Worse, the GAO says these notices are sent to the last known address of the spouse of record on the old joint return, meaning the husband. According to the confidential report, IRS computer programs make a number of comically outdated assumptions about women and our society. They assume "women would report their income on joint returns, husbands would prepare joint returns, and husbands would be the primary taxpayers." They also expect women to report name changes to the Social Security Administration themselves and, in any case, that they will only marry once and will not revert to their maiden names if divorced. IRS inspectors concluded that the agency has yet to acknowledge that "over the last 31 years, women accounted for 60 percent of all new workers entering the workforce, the number of divorced women quadrupled, and remarriages increased 60 percent."
... Six years ago, IRS inspectors suggested that simply by including a line on returns for maiden names, or keeping a separate file under the second taxpayer's surname and Social Security number, everyone could stay matched to their tax records. Officials in the returns-processing division rejected the recommendations as "too expensive."
The IRS, still behind the curve of decades-old demographic trends, certainly isn't ready for new changes on the horizon, such as the advent of electronic money. Already, an estimated 30 million people and 20,000 companies around the world log on to the Internet computer network. Users in the first wave of on-line shopping can buy books and clothes, paying for them electronically via credit cards with the help of companies such as First Virtual Holdings in Cheyenne, Wyoming, the first entirely electronic bank. The number of Internet users is expected to reach 200 million by the turn of the century. By then, experts say, Net surfers will be able to conduct virtually any kind of commercial transaction through cyberspace.
Digital cash that requires no credit card is also coming, and soon. "Already, there's an estimated $100 to $200 million sold annually on the Net, and this figure is expected to balloon to anywhere from $2 billion to $600 billion by the year 2000," says Richard K. Crone, a senior manager at KPMG Peat Marwick's Center for Electronic Banking in Los Angeles.
Furthermore, anyone with a computer and a telephone line can become a small business (the number of small businesses rose from 15 million in 1984 to 21 million in 1992). As more taxpayers conduct business and get paid via the Internet, experts say the day will soon come when electronic income and assets on-line can easily be hidden from the IRS.
Crone says the IRS could track electronic transactions and that tax payments could be automatically sent to the IRS via computer, but the IRS will have to count on what merchants report and the sophistication of its auditors and computer systems. Crone is pessimistic. "The IRS is still behind the Berlin Wall in terms of computing power," he says.
Lee Stein, president of First Virtual Holdings, agrees. The electronic transactions will be "as untraceable as any merchant wants them to be," he says. "A person can rent space on a local computer system in a U.S. domain such as the island of Tonga, which has liberal tax laws, and conduct all financial business through it." You can live in Maine and run your Tongan business on-line, with no one the wiser. Beyond that, says Crone, "the Net will make it easier for a merchant to evade taxes, say, by setting himself up with a foreign E-mail address. There's no border control on the Net, and it is averse to any government intervention, which will also make it harder for the IRS to impose rules."
As the IRS nurses its computer systems into the next millennium, no one knows whether
the agency's manifold problems can be fixed, or patched, in time to prevent an agency
meltdown. Congressional apathy only adds to the problem. When Senator John Glenn conducted
a hearing on the GAO's audits last July, 10 of the 14 congressmen on the committee didn't
show up. The four who did stayed for ten minutes, then left. Glenn, who orbited the earth
alone in a space capsule, is still flying solo. At some IRS hearings, he says, "I sit
up there taking testimony all by myself."
Conclusion
Two factors from the USA Today and Worth articles are particularly important
to grasp:
These factors make it easier for people to operate in the real free-enterprise sector. They reduce the risk. Getting involved with the companies we promote is an ideal way to start learning how to operate in the real free-enterprise sector.
Also consider the possibility that the continuing collapse of the US$ - see Special Report #TL13C: The Millionaire's Secret (III) - combined with the above two factors, could indicate the same fate for the US Federal Government as the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union. This kind of collapse creates an enormous demand for alternative institutions in the real free-enterprise sector. The real free-enterprise businesses and opportunities promoted in these reports constitute the beginnings of these alternatives.
We're talking here about the early stages of an entirely new economy. The pioneers who get in early are likely to reap the greatest rewards.
IMPORTANT BOOK REVIEWS
by Frederick Mann
Mr. Gross, former editor of Book Digest, has served for many years on the faculty of the New School for Social Research for many years has been Adjunct Associate Professor of Social Science at New York University. Four of his books are particularly significant:
The significance of these four books goes beyond their contents. They were all published by major "mainstream" publishers. Both The Government Racket and A Call for Revolution were New York Times bestsellers for more than 30 weeks and The Government Racket reached the #1 spot on the Washington Post list.
The word about the nature and practices of government bureaucrats is getting out. People are waking up! Government bureaucrats and their agencies are losing support. And when they lose a certain degree of support, they collapse - like the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union.
Those who don't prepare for the collapse of the government bureaucrats will most likely lose heavily, because the collapse will most likely include the US$ being wiped out, as well as dollar-denominated financial instruments. All or most orthodox U.S. banks will most likely also bite the dust.
On the other hand, those who prepare for the collapse, may reap huge rewards. Like during the 1930s depression, they'll be able to buy assets for "pennies on the dollar" - no! - for "grains on the gram of gold!"
The fifth book being reviewed here - Votescam: The Stealing of America by
James M. Collier and Kenneth F. Collier - was published in 1992 by Victoria House Press,
67 Wall Street, New York, NY 10005. It reveals more sinister aspects of the American
political system.
The Government Racket: Washington Waste from A to Z
Mr. Gross rightfully indicates that the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution leaves to
the states and the people all the powers not specifically granted to the federal
government. He also indicates that the Tenth Amendment is widely ignored and circumvented.
(To determine for yourself the extent to which the federal government has become a racket,
you should read Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution to see exactly what powers were
granted to the federal government. See if you can find where in the Constitution the U.S.
Department of Agriculture is authorized, not to speak of most of the other federal
agencies, such as FDA, EPA, OSHA, Social Security, and other alphabet soup agencies.)
In 75 short chapters, Mr. Gross gives hundreds of examples of government boondoggles amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars every year. He asks:
"Is the government truly my friend? Or if not my enemy, is the government indifferent to my concerns? Is the current $1.5 trillion budget, almost 25% of which is borrowed, and which is supported by record-high taxes, necessary? Is the money being legitimately spent or is it being squandered by bureaucrats and politicians instead of benefiting the American people?
... [W]hat does the federal government - which takes the lion's share of our tax money - actually do for us?"
He goes on to say:
"After decades of time and trillions of dollars, government loses its claim to legitimacy when it fails to fulfill its obligations. The nation begins to doubt, as it now has, that the promises were made in good faith. Government is then seen as a failure, a fallacy, a myth, a racket.
In some ways, in fact our federal establishment - which bears little resemblance to the one set up by the Founding Fathers - might be compared to a numbers racket. If you're lucky, you'll beat the odds and get a payoff. If not, all you're left with is a stub."
The main reason for reading this book is to get an appreciation for all the waste, an appreciation for the extent of this mind-boggling destruction of wealth. Then consider the possibility that any support for the system in the form of paying "your taxes" should be questioned.
The Great Whitewater Fiasco: An American Tale of Money, Power, and Politics
Mr. Gross writes:
"Whitewater is significant not because it's peculiar to that state, or that period in time. It's important because it represents American politics as usual - a case of corruption, or near corruption, or conflict of interest, or abuse of ethics by a large number of people in public life. It is a story that characterizes the present American political scene, whether in Arkansas, New York, California, or Washington.
Read this book for an in-depth analysis of the backgrounds of the Clintons and their cronies, the corrupt financial transactions, the deaths of investigators, the unanswered questions regarding the death of Vince Foster, the cover-ups, and the White House staff resignations.
A Call for Revolution: How Washington is Strangling America - and How to Stop It
The most recent edition starts with:
"When I first called for a "revolution" in American politics in 1993, some - including myself - were concerned that the call was too radical.
Were Americans ready to hear that their government was manic in spending, ignorant of the true costs, addicted to programs that didn't work, too corrupt to cleanse their system of elections, and indifferent to the needs of the majority of Americans they had pledged to serve?
The elections of November 8, 1994, proved that my call had been correct."
A Call for Revolution goes beyond The Government Racket in exposing more aspects of government waste, corruption, and destruction, and suggesting specific steps individuals can take to rectify the government tragedy. The first step is to educate yourself. Mr. Gross writes:
"For years, Americans drew on their confidence in government, built up over centuries. Busy at their labors, they felt it was safe to leave the work of politics to politicians.
That has proven to be a grave mistake, and there are now signs that the citizens are awakening to the truth in increasing numbers. For the first time in American history, government is seen as an enemy, rather than a friend,..."
About the pathological lying of politicians and government bureaucrats, Mr. Gross writes:
"Politicians have always been somewhat deceptive, but the corruption of words is reaching new heights. Taxes become spending cuts. Spending becomes investment. Budget arithmetic is manipulated. Hidden agendas proliferate. It's even possible that we're no longer witnessing traditional political hype. More and more, the lying seems to be pathological - the mouthings of untruths almost by reflex, a dangerous new precedent."
Mr. Gross provides a wealth of detailed information on the destructive excesses of American government. He perceives a severe crisis:
"To put it in melodramatic terms: Either the American people will defeat the oppressive excesses of Washington, or Washington will defeat us, ending the story of the most successful nation in history."
He then outlines a "thirty-three-point Bill of Indictment," specifying what's wrong and needs to be fixed.
Chapter Three is titled: "The Tax Monster: How to Destroy the Middle Class." It outlines the history of the monster, going back all the way to Abraham Lincoln. But it's in more recent decades that the monster has become particularly destructive:
"During the last thirty years, the metamorphosis of the income tax bite has been one of the cleverest manipulations in history, one shaped in Washington by the masters of legal pickpocketing."
Mr. Gross guesses that, "there are now some thirty million people [in America ] who have become aware of the seriousness of the political and economic crisis dogging our nation, and who want to work to rectify it."
He concludes with an Appendix listing fifteen Public Service Organizations that campaign for better government.
The Tax Racket: Government Extortion from A to Z
Mr. Gross quotes Thomas Jefferson:
"A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.'
Mr. Gross advocates that the IRS be closed down and replaced by a national sales tax of 13.5 percent. He denounces the IRS as follows:
"But with Congress's blessings, the IRS usurps the Constitution every day. It operates its levies on our bank accounts, its liens on and seizures of our properties totally against any precepts of the Constitution, or any rule of common law. The Bill of Rights is crystal clear as to what civil rights we have, and we can easily see how the income tax system seeks to violate, then destroy them.
The Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights says it plainly: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath of affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
The Fifth Amendment adds to our protection from arbitrary and abusive acts from any government agency, the IRS included. It states: "... Nor shall any person be... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law..."
Obviously, the IRS is not acting constitutionally...
When they conduct an audit, they search your papers without a warrant, claiming that it is "voluntary" on the taxpayer's part.
When they place penalties on your taxes due, they do it without a court order.
When they levy your bank account and take out your money without your permission, they are making a seizure without a legal judgment against you.
When they seize your home because they say you owe money, they are depriving you of property without due process of the law. You've lost your constitutional right to defend yourself in court.
When you contest the IRS in Tax Court, you are guilty until you can prove yourself innocent, the opposite of our whole system of jurisprudence.
How have they gotten away with it all these years?
One reason is the connivance of the Congress and our presidents, and the cowardice of the Supreme Court in enforcing the Constitution...
The perpetrators of this national crime are, of course, our politicians, for whom extortion of funds from families is a major occupation."
Mr. Gross says that the "Underground Economy" - what we call the real free-enterprise sector - is growing at an annual rate of 8%.
He claims to have identified about 200 different kinds of taxes in America, and devotes much of his book to describing 36 of them.
Votescam: The Stealing of America
The premise of Votescam is as follows:
" For almost three decades the American vote has been subject to government-sponsored electronic theft.
The vote has been stolen from you by a cartel of federal "national security" bureaucrats, who include higher-ups in the Central Intelligence Agency, political party leaders, Congressmen, co-opted journalists - and the owners and managers of the major Establishment news media, who have decided in concert that how America's votes are counted, by whom they are counted and how the results are verified and delivered to the public is, as one of them put it, "Not a proper area of inquiry."
By means of an unofficial private corporation named News Election Service (NES), the Establishment press has actual physical control of the counting and dissemination of the vote, and it refuses to let the public know how it is done."
Votescam is a superb book that reads like a thriller. Having started reading, it was almost impossible to put it down until I'd finished it. To me it's also completely convincing. American corruption is more pervasive than Mr. Gross realizes. You must read Votescam!
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