United States of America: 1776-2012

It's over.

This is how the Great American Experiment ends. When people figure out they can vote themselves money from the treasury. That moment is essentially here, and yesterday's election is but the smoking gun symptom for the diagnosis.

Oh, sure, the buildings and roads still stand. People will still get up and go to work to feed their families and themselves. If they have to.

But we've officially said "you don't have to".

Those buildings, over time, will wear on the outside, essentially looking the same. But as surely as the Hallett and Harmon Drug Store building in Brownsburg, IN looked the same as it did in 1974 when I cruised by it a few years ago.  It may have even had the old name of the store it used to be painted on the brick outside.   It's a flea market inside now, not a drug store. A fitting analogy. They sell the worn goods from an age that took pride in the things it made in a building that was built in an age where people took pride in what a building looked like.

Obamacare will stand. The only way to stop it is State Nullification now, and I don't see that happening. America doesn't have the gonads anymore. I overheard a conversation yesterday where a conservative was telling a liberal that Obamacare is not socialized medicine. And technically, as layed out, it is not - yet. But it is designed specifically with an eye toward killing of health insurance companies over time. The ones that survive will be mere marionettes with their strings being pulled by the same government bureaucrats, private in name only. Sort of like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, only for insurance.   Bureaucrats will call the shots, and when policies fail, the "private" owners will be blamed.   All of the authority, none of the responsibility.  Not a recipe for success.  For those who know their history -- that is what real fascism looks like.

Money, instead of going mainly to the makers, will go to the takers. Instead of a generally merit based economic system where what you do can get you ahead, it will be a system where the political class controls it all, and it will be who you know. They'll hand out the crumbs in exchange for votes when the pseudo elections roll around every few years.

The national debt will hit $20 Trillion over the next 4 years. The mainstream media will look the other way, or blame it on Bush and the rich who "won't give up their 'fair share'". People will believe it, even though confiscating all of the wealth of everyone making over $1,000,000 a year wouldn't even come close to making it disappear.

We can't tax our way out of it.  We apparently voted not to produce our way out of it.  So we will be forced to inflate our way out of it with "QE" after "QE".  It could get very ugly.  Weimar ugly.  I hope not.  But it'll likely get at least Greece ugly.

Gun and ammo sales will soar over the next several months. But laws will be passed. Treaties will be signed. And eventually, American gun ownership will be like Canadian gun ownership, or worse.

Only criminals and cops will have guns. And there won't be enough cops when a criminal comes barging in your door, knowing you don't have any.  And if you do have one you'll be thrown in jail for using it in self-defense, for violating the criminal's "civil rights".

It won't happen overnight. It'll be like a rental house. Someone used to live in it and keep it up because it was their property. But the new tenants ... while pleased with the outside appearance the day they move in, don't know the first thing about home maintenance, and it's not their loss when it starts to crumble.

The landlords won't have incentive to keep it up, either, as long as someone will move in and pay rent.  It's the rent that matters.  The income.  What net can they get out of it while it lasts.  Until it crumbles.  Then they'll raze it and sell the lot.

It's Vulture Socialism.  Like Maggie Thatcher says, it'll only work until you run out of other people's money.