I agree. The government reminds me of a crack addict who blows through all his stuff and then demands more money because if he doesn't get it, he'll have to do stuff he'd rather not do because of your failure to cough up the money he MUST have for his next hit. Someone needs rehab badly.
Paul has been screaming about this for 40 years. Cat highlights the mind-boggling number: "over $100 trillion of unfunded liabilities." Gulp.
Not mentioned was the next "workaround" our rulers are already rolling out: Digital currency. This is a euphemism for their real goal - banning all or most cash transactions.
Yes, the government will continue to issue debt, which the Fed will continue to buy ... but even this "magic printing press" is going to fall way short of meeting those $100 trillion obligations. One solution: The government will confiscate even more of "our" money (digital currency/ban cash).
This all very well could end in secession ... if Cat really wants to address the largest "pachyderm in the parlor."
It's also going to result in massive, run-away inflation. Check that: This is already happening.
Don't trust the government's Covid numbers ... or their inflation numbers.
I appreciate the much-needed focus on this issue, but we all know federal spending will NEVER be cut.
The "solution" would be to dramatically cut real spending. In our "New Normal" dictionary, a government "cut" in spending is actually only a reduction in projected expenditure increases. If spending was projected to rise by 4 percent and a new budget deal says it's now going to increase by 3 percent - we have a 1-percent cut! (When actually we have a 3-percent increase. Plus, the projected reductions never materialize).
I say you could slash the Military Industrial Complex spending by 30 percent and America would still have the world's strongest military - by 100 fold. You could also abolish the CDC, NIH, FBI, CIA, all the "intelligence" agencies, Department of Labor (which rigs the inflation and unemployment numbers), Homeland Defense, Department of Commerce, Department of Education, etc.
Questions: Did people receive an "education" before we had a Department of Education? Could adults make their own "health" decisions .... you know, hypothetically?
And, seriously, what nation is plotting to invade America? Even our "enemies" know they don't have to take on that risk and new expense. They can just sit back and let America destroy itself.
The first Rule of Holes: When you are in one, stop digging.
The second Rule of Holes: When your enemy keeps digging a deeper one for himself ... let him.
My bet is they're eventually going to make WAR the "Secretary of Treasury".
War is the only finance vehicle that doesn't require underwriting, collateral or have a "term". And it's virtually risk free for the lending institutions.
Banks are happy to loan money to both "sides" of a war simultaneously and don't really care who wins. It doesn't matter if side A's bank(s) lose to side B's (or vice-versa) they have eliminated their risk by having all their corn in the same kettle. It doesn't matter which way it pops; either way they get to eat popcorn out of the same bowl while they enjoy the entertainment.
There's no better loan guarantee than "mutual assured destruction" financing "mutual assured reconstruction".
This has indeed worked in the past but I believe we have never seen the weapons systems we and others now possess. It takes one kook to push the wrong Button and there’s no off ramp from there. If mankind doesn’t realize this before it’s too late, we face utter annihilation or the Second Coming as the only two alternatives.
Anyone else remember this? Way back in the Obama days there was a shutdown fight, and the government employees and their media friends staged this outrageous psyop on us where they went out of their way to shut down all national parks. There was zero - zero point zero - legal/rational reason to do this, they just wanted stories in the paper that “government is unfunded, which means your little billy can’t go see Yellowstone.” But it turns out that to do this fake shutdown took more time and energy than running the parks - the supposedly “unfunded” park rangers had to work hard to patrol the parks like security guards and fence everything off and turn people away. It was all a giant, cruel psyop staged against the American people.
Anyway, I’m still pissed about that and I really wished that when Trump won he would fire all the park rangers who participated but of course he didn’t.
Surely we have learned “do not comply”. Some intestinal fortitude and large bolt cutters and the park is open. With enough support they “can’t jail us all”
At that same time, Obama also reduced funding to other agencies people needed as part of these attempts to upset the public and make the Republicans look bad. We were in the adoption process and the background checks, fingerprinting processing, etc. were slowed way down.
That moment changed everything about how I thought about Obama. Before that I thought he was well intentioned, but misguided. But when I knew he was so calloused as to mess with people in a very vulnerable and emotional moment of their lives who were REQUIRED to use govt. agencies just to move forward with their adoption--and for him to do all this just to make a fake political point---wow, I can't even say how low I thought of him. Respect vanished in that moment. It was then that I began to understand what these people are.
I don’t see a way out even now. The dollar dies, granny cries, the kids are left with nought but their bootstraps, and we build it back from sea to shining sea after the weak generations give way to the strength that is forged in the crucible.
IF we’re lucky. Getting the kids out of the schools and destroying the ability of the Fed to destroy the world is our best, and possibly only, hope, lest we become a third world hole with net emigration.
Beyond age, and IQ, it would help if the goal of these people (who are made exceptionally rich by the loophole profiteering of campaign finance "law" that they have been allowed to write, so that their wealth becomes 5, 10, 20 or more times their salary in just a few terms) was to stand in the breach FOR American and its citizens, instead of their own interests and net wealth.
The debt ceiling negotiations are kabuki theater from both sides. Both sides are exceedingly good at dishonesty. But this insanity of giving these mental midgets the country's platinum card AND the local coke dealers and hookers numbers on speed dial, has to stop, NOW!
So ready for the inevitable global economic implosion. It's going to happen. Anyone who remembers how to balance a checkbook should be able to see it, clear as daylight.
The only good news about covid is it brought the inevitable forward 10 years or so.
I'm not convinced that younger generations get the point at all! GenX is the only group that didn't totally lose its mind during Covid, and it was pretty divided.
Getting kids out of the government indoctrination camps is paramount. Low IQ club kids are all that’s coming out of the colleges as teachers. They are teaching kids collectivism. Confusing them about basic truths. They are doing everything besides teaching kids the basics and how to think critically. As bad as it is now, imagine a kid starting kindergarten today, by 18 they will be unable to do anything but post a tik tok video.
Yep. Parallel currencies and institutions is the only way to do it. When you keep hammering against a wall and can’t break through, the prudent solution is to just walk around it.
This. Gold. Silver. Food storage. Get and stay out of debt. Guns. Ammo. Crypto (though I’m skeptical of that one). Stay away from dollars and credit cards as much as possible. Dollars have no inherent worth and they are the only source of the government’s power. Don’t use them and we can take the power back.
Haha.. i guess, depending on your particular grocery store you might get dollars back, but there are some out there you might pay with gold and get ammo as change.. 😂
My uncle, Hastings Keith, was the Republican Congressman from SE Mass from 1958-1972. After retiring from Congress he waged a 30 year effort to bring to light the importance of recognizing unfunded liabilities in the US gov't. He used his personal example of how his various pensions from the US Army, Congress, his deceased second wife's career in the CIA, were all linked to COLAs. Cost of living adjustments. The net was his pensions all outpaced inflation and grew future liabilities. He showed how widespread this was in all areas as you point out in entitlements.
While in graduate school I helped him with some of this for a short period. I remember discovering then that the US gov't operates in its presentation of all budgets on a simple cash basis. There is no accounting mechanisms for the gov't to know, on an accrual basis, what is owns and what it owes. Think of that. We don't really know what the unfunded future liabilities are and whether we have the assets in place. There is no matching of liabilities and assets with a view to timing. We have a cumulated budget deficit, but that is merely a summation of cash accounting from all the past years. Good enough information, but in no way complete. Isn't it simply amazing that we are operating out of a cash box with no regard for the future. We know that elected political figures love this, as it cuts them loose to spend with alacrity now in order to keep them in power today. All they have to do is what they are trying to do now, which is take oxygen out of the room and promote fear of some cut to a rate of growth, all while overlooking what liabilities and assets will need to be in place in some years down the road.
What is financing the "immigrants" coming through the southern border doing to our debt through entitlements and entitlements and other mandated services? This is one thing no country can afford beyond certain limits. We are way beyond those limits now and we ain't seen nothin yet. One could think it was all part of some nefarious plan.
Sweden, which has long been held up as a model of a successful socialist cradle-to-grave economy, is finding this out the hard way. As long as it was a relatively homogeneous country people didn't mind its steep tax rates (40%-50%) because they could see the benefits. But now that Sweden has opened the doors to people who do not share Swedish culture and values, are not interested in adopting their values, who come from very dysfunctional cultures (which is why they are in Sweden in the first place), who are not contributing to the economy but taking from it, things look very, very different over there. I look to see Sweden do a drastic turn regarding socialism.
In order for a socialist economy to work, the group has to be small enough that anyone who doesn't pull their own weight can be shamed and made to contribute. Or be exiled. They have to have the same code. That's the homogeneity that matters.
Socialism can (and does?) work in a nuclear family household, where the numbers are small and others willingly carry those who can't contribute as much - children (it's an investment, really; also maybe elderly relatives here) - but can learn to contribute more as they grow, and also made aware of how much others gave to them when they were less able.
Small tribal villages could also make it work if pretty much everybody knows everybody. That is, they can openly shame the lazy moochers.
But it doesn't scale up. Once it gets big enough, though, there's no way for those who make the contributions, the sacrifices necessary to carry the not-really-less able to shame the recipients, why try harder. They'll just keep giving.
Canada is an example of socialism that has only increased. We have long been a multi cultural society and it worked fairly well. Pi Guy's post is accurate although I think there is more. In Canada's case, our immigration, legal and otherwise (see Roxham Rd.) has increased far faster than our infractructure can support. Anything that the gov provides is failing with healthcare being a prime example. 2 years is not an exceptional wait time for elective surgery and yes, your health declines in the meantime. I can attest to that. Our criminal justice system has become 'catch and release'. Why not leave the criminals on the streets so their's no expense in jailing them. The list could go on.
Whether your society is multi cultural or not, good management is the key. A well run household, small business, large business, village, town, city or state prospers. Fools at the helm bring ruin.
Fools have been foisted upon us and we are facing ruin.
These radical leftists posing as the Democraptic Party have just added another $1.2 billion to the $35+ billion already lavished on the dictatorship in Ukraine. And with the rush at the border tomorrow, expect billions more to be pissed away there. Shutting down the government for all but provably essential services is the best thing that could happen to America, or what's left of it...
So they close the govt for 21 days. Or whatever short term event is the duration. All the govt employees furloughed ultimately get all their back pay, none lose their mostly redundant jobs, and the deficit continues to rise after a non-solution occurs and the govt media has been using the same propaganda script incessantly for three weeks. Entitlements continue to mushroom, and mostly unnecessary entire depts like Education and Energy, go on with even more bloated budgets. Entire agencies that are corrupt, like HHS and Justice, that need to be overhauled, arent.
There's a reason all these Washington DC federal employees are never perturbed about federal elections; they have seen their job security pronounced, and perseverated, and enhanced for decades.
I agree. The government reminds me of a crack addict who blows through all his stuff and then demands more money because if he doesn't get it, he'll have to do stuff he'd rather not do because of your failure to cough up the money he MUST have for his next hit. Someone needs rehab badly.
Hmmm...you mean like Biden's son? He apparently learned from the best. What a great Dad.
wonder what hold the cartels have on Hunter?
Leading him around by the nose?
Perfect analogy
love that. so true.
hate that it is true tho
Make Ron Paul the Secretary of Treasury
Paul has been screaming about this for 40 years. Cat highlights the mind-boggling number: "over $100 trillion of unfunded liabilities." Gulp.
Not mentioned was the next "workaround" our rulers are already rolling out: Digital currency. This is a euphemism for their real goal - banning all or most cash transactions.
Yes, the government will continue to issue debt, which the Fed will continue to buy ... but even this "magic printing press" is going to fall way short of meeting those $100 trillion obligations. One solution: The government will confiscate even more of "our" money (digital currency/ban cash).
This all very well could end in secession ... if Cat really wants to address the largest "pachyderm in the parlor."
It's also going to result in massive, run-away inflation. Check that: This is already happening.
Don't trust the government's Covid numbers ... or their inflation numbers.
I appreciate the much-needed focus on this issue, but we all know federal spending will NEVER be cut.
The "solution" would be to dramatically cut real spending. In our "New Normal" dictionary, a government "cut" in spending is actually only a reduction in projected expenditure increases. If spending was projected to rise by 4 percent and a new budget deal says it's now going to increase by 3 percent - we have a 1-percent cut! (When actually we have a 3-percent increase. Plus, the projected reductions never materialize).
I say you could slash the Military Industrial Complex spending by 30 percent and America would still have the world's strongest military - by 100 fold. You could also abolish the CDC, NIH, FBI, CIA, all the "intelligence" agencies, Department of Labor (which rigs the inflation and unemployment numbers), Homeland Defense, Department of Commerce, Department of Education, etc.
Questions: Did people receive an "education" before we had a Department of Education? Could adults make their own "health" decisions .... you know, hypothetically?
And, seriously, what nation is plotting to invade America? Even our "enemies" know they don't have to take on that risk and new expense. They can just sit back and let America destroy itself.
The first Rule of Holes: When you are in one, stop digging.
The second Rule of Holes: When your enemy keeps digging a deeper one for himself ... let him.
Shovels Down gets my vote.
I like that idea: The Great Declutter!
It’s entitlements, that’s where the “real’ money is.
The DC Swamp will eat him alive.
"Dr. No" has lots of experience navigating the swamp.
Rudy Havenstein
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Havenstein
My bet is they're eventually going to make WAR the "Secretary of Treasury".
War is the only finance vehicle that doesn't require underwriting, collateral or have a "term". And it's virtually risk free for the lending institutions.
Banks are happy to loan money to both "sides" of a war simultaneously and don't really care who wins. It doesn't matter if side A's bank(s) lose to side B's (or vice-versa) they have eliminated their risk by having all their corn in the same kettle. It doesn't matter which way it pops; either way they get to eat popcorn out of the same bowl while they enjoy the entertainment.
There's no better loan guarantee than "mutual assured destruction" financing "mutual assured reconstruction".
This has indeed worked in the past but I believe we have never seen the weapons systems we and others now possess. It takes one kook to push the wrong Button and there’s no off ramp from there. If mankind doesn’t realize this before it’s too late, we face utter annihilation or the Second Coming as the only two alternatives.
Yes, and we need a modern-day equivalent of Paul Volcker.
Anyone else remember this? Way back in the Obama days there was a shutdown fight, and the government employees and their media friends staged this outrageous psyop on us where they went out of their way to shut down all national parks. There was zero - zero point zero - legal/rational reason to do this, they just wanted stories in the paper that “government is unfunded, which means your little billy can’t go see Yellowstone.” But it turns out that to do this fake shutdown took more time and energy than running the parks - the supposedly “unfunded” park rangers had to work hard to patrol the parks like security guards and fence everything off and turn people away. It was all a giant, cruel psyop staged against the American people.
Anyway, I’m still pissed about that and I really wished that when Trump won he would fire all the park rangers who participated but of course he didn’t.
same with the plandemic to get Biden selected.
Surely we have learned “do not comply”. Some intestinal fortitude and large bolt cutters and the park is open. With enough support they “can’t jail us all”
I remember, and also recall thinking how absurd it was to expend all that extra energy just to inconvenience the public.
At that same time, Obama also reduced funding to other agencies people needed as part of these attempts to upset the public and make the Republicans look bad. We were in the adoption process and the background checks, fingerprinting processing, etc. were slowed way down.
That moment changed everything about how I thought about Obama. Before that I thought he was well intentioned, but misguided. But when I knew he was so calloused as to mess with people in a very vulnerable and emotional moment of their lives who were REQUIRED to use govt. agencies just to move forward with their adoption--and for him to do all this just to make a fake political point---wow, I can't even say how low I thought of him. Respect vanished in that moment. It was then that I began to understand what these people are.
I member
Of course he didn't. He is a different clown in the same show.
Abolish the CDC, NIH, Dept. of Education, Dept. of Labor, and the CIA for a start.
Yes please and I want more
M.Garland, Lloyd Austin, Jean-Pierre, Victoria Nuland, Blinken, and Sullivan.
I don’t see a way out even now. The dollar dies, granny cries, the kids are left with nought but their bootstraps, and we build it back from sea to shining sea after the weak generations give way to the strength that is forged in the crucible.
IF we’re lucky. Getting the kids out of the schools and destroying the ability of the Fed to destroy the world is our best, and possibly only, hope, lest we become a third world hole with net emigration.
It would help if the median age of these congress critters wasn't 59 in lower chamber and 66 in upper chamber.
Maybe their behavior would change if they thought this ridiculous fiscal irresponsibility would affect them?
"It would help if the median _IQ_ of these congress critters wasn't 59 in lower chamber and 66 in upper chamber."
FIFY
I say we send them all to Poland, that way we raise the IQ of both countries
Ouch!
Although, if the world's looking for a model of governance that emphasizes Liberty and Fiscal Sanity, you could do a lot worse than Poland.
I know. I would get in trouble if my wife heard that. She's half Polish and twice as smart as me
Can relate.
Mrs. Pi: Full Salvadoran, more like 2.718 times a smart.
Nice solution
Beyond age, and IQ, it would help if the goal of these people (who are made exceptionally rich by the loophole profiteering of campaign finance "law" that they have been allowed to write, so that their wealth becomes 5, 10, 20 or more times their salary in just a few terms) was to stand in the breach FOR American and its citizens, instead of their own interests and net wealth.
The debt ceiling negotiations are kabuki theater from both sides. Both sides are exceedingly good at dishonesty. But this insanity of giving these mental midgets the country's platinum card AND the local coke dealers and hookers numbers on speed dial, has to stop, NOW!
SHUT. IT. DOWN.
I completely agreed with your post already even before I got here:
"But this insanity of giving these mental midgets the country's platinum card AND the local coke dealers and hookers numbers on speed dial"
*pushes Biz Card across table* I think there could be a place for you in our administration.
#Pi/Gardner2024: We probably won't make $#!+ any worse!
😂
Bingo!
Completely agree. We are head towards suffering regardless. Let’s do it now. Rip off that bandage.
So ready for the inevitable global economic implosion. It's going to happen. Anyone who remembers how to balance a checkbook should be able to see it, clear as daylight.
The only good news about covid is it brought the inevitable forward 10 years or so.
I'm not convinced that younger generations get the point at all! GenX is the only group that didn't totally lose its mind during Covid, and it was pretty divided.
You know you're right. I'm smack-dab genX'er myself.
I would also add, that the few lucid greatest generation people I know thought we were a "shameful country of cowards".
Quoted verbatim from my 95 year old grandmother.
Fair. And my boomer parents weren't all-in, but ALL their friends and family were.
Getting kids out of the government indoctrination camps is paramount. Low IQ club kids are all that’s coming out of the colleges as teachers. They are teaching kids collectivism. Confusing them about basic truths. They are doing everything besides teaching kids the basics and how to think critically. As bad as it is now, imagine a kid starting kindergarten today, by 18 they will be unable to do anything but post a tik tok video.
Yep. Parallel currencies and institutions is the only way to do it. When you keep hammering against a wall and can’t break through, the prudent solution is to just walk around it.
This. Gold. Silver. Food storage. Get and stay out of debt. Guns. Ammo. Crypto (though I’m skeptical of that one). Stay away from dollars and credit cards as much as possible. Dollars have no inherent worth and they are the only source of the government’s power. Don’t use them and we can take the power back.
And, as a fundamental survival strategy - Get your families out of the cities!
Tyler, I got the guns and ammo part, but if I buy groceries at the store with a gold bar, what do I get back as change? Dollars? 🤔
Haha.. i guess, depending on your particular grocery store you might get dollars back, but there are some out there you might pay with gold and get ammo as change.. 😂
Lol! Never thought of that....maybe an AR 15 and some ammo. I don't own one of those yet. 😁
Notice how there's always a debt ceiling when it comes to "social safety nets," but the skys the limit for "warprofiteeting."
Just reiterating one of my fav ideas for budget cuts... DEFUND the CDC!! :)
1,000%
closing government is opening america
You've done it, el malo gato!!
This is the new slogan.
welcome to the anarcho-catpitalist revolution, brother.
Thanks for the welcoming!
My uncle, Hastings Keith, was the Republican Congressman from SE Mass from 1958-1972. After retiring from Congress he waged a 30 year effort to bring to light the importance of recognizing unfunded liabilities in the US gov't. He used his personal example of how his various pensions from the US Army, Congress, his deceased second wife's career in the CIA, were all linked to COLAs. Cost of living adjustments. The net was his pensions all outpaced inflation and grew future liabilities. He showed how widespread this was in all areas as you point out in entitlements.
While in graduate school I helped him with some of this for a short period. I remember discovering then that the US gov't operates in its presentation of all budgets on a simple cash basis. There is no accounting mechanisms for the gov't to know, on an accrual basis, what is owns and what it owes. Think of that. We don't really know what the unfunded future liabilities are and whether we have the assets in place. There is no matching of liabilities and assets with a view to timing. We have a cumulated budget deficit, but that is merely a summation of cash accounting from all the past years. Good enough information, but in no way complete. Isn't it simply amazing that we are operating out of a cash box with no regard for the future. We know that elected political figures love this, as it cuts them loose to spend with alacrity now in order to keep them in power today. All they have to do is what they are trying to do now, which is take oxygen out of the room and promote fear of some cut to a rate of growth, all while overlooking what liabilities and assets will need to be in place in some years down the road.
Thanks for your excellent post today!
What is financing the "immigrants" coming through the southern border doing to our debt through entitlements and entitlements and other mandated services? This is one thing no country can afford beyond certain limits. We are way beyond those limits now and we ain't seen nothin yet. One could think it was all part of some nefarious plan.
Sweden, which has long been held up as a model of a successful socialist cradle-to-grave economy, is finding this out the hard way. As long as it was a relatively homogeneous country people didn't mind its steep tax rates (40%-50%) because they could see the benefits. But now that Sweden has opened the doors to people who do not share Swedish culture and values, are not interested in adopting their values, who come from very dysfunctional cultures (which is why they are in Sweden in the first place), who are not contributing to the economy but taking from it, things look very, very different over there. I look to see Sweden do a drastic turn regarding socialism.
"As long as it was a relatively homogeneous"
In order for a socialist economy to work, the group has to be small enough that anyone who doesn't pull their own weight can be shamed and made to contribute. Or be exiled. They have to have the same code. That's the homogeneity that matters.
Socialism can (and does?) work in a nuclear family household, where the numbers are small and others willingly carry those who can't contribute as much - children (it's an investment, really; also maybe elderly relatives here) - but can learn to contribute more as they grow, and also made aware of how much others gave to them when they were less able.
Small tribal villages could also make it work if pretty much everybody knows everybody. That is, they can openly shame the lazy moochers.
But it doesn't scale up. Once it gets big enough, though, there's no way for those who make the contributions, the sacrifices necessary to carry the not-really-less able to shame the recipients, why try harder. They'll just keep giving.
The guy who cleans the toilets at public restrooms can demonstrate conclusively why socialism doesn't work.
It's that easy.
Canada is an example of socialism that has only increased. We have long been a multi cultural society and it worked fairly well. Pi Guy's post is accurate although I think there is more. In Canada's case, our immigration, legal and otherwise (see Roxham Rd.) has increased far faster than our infractructure can support. Anything that the gov provides is failing with healthcare being a prime example. 2 years is not an exceptional wait time for elective surgery and yes, your health declines in the meantime. I can attest to that. Our criminal justice system has become 'catch and release'. Why not leave the criminals on the streets so their's no expense in jailing them. The list could go on.
Whether your society is multi cultural or not, good management is the key. A well run household, small business, large business, village, town, city or state prospers. Fools at the helm bring ruin.
Fools have been foisted upon us and we are facing ruin.
“Pravda on the Hudson” is officially my favorite monicker of the NYT.
It ever floweth with sugary beverage known as Kool-Aid
These radical leftists posing as the Democraptic Party have just added another $1.2 billion to the $35+ billion already lavished on the dictatorship in Ukraine. And with the rush at the border tomorrow, expect billions more to be pissed away there. Shutting down the government for all but provably essential services is the best thing that could happen to America, or what's left of it...
“then 2008 hit and QE ran amok. then covid hit and all concept of restraint evaporated.”
^^^insert, “then January 20, 2009 happened.”
Blimey! Change the numbers and you're talking about the UK government. Exactly the same over here.
*flips through Nation-State Rolodex*
Blimey - they're all freaking corrupt and bankrupt!
So they close the govt for 21 days. Or whatever short term event is the duration. All the govt employees furloughed ultimately get all their back pay, none lose their mostly redundant jobs, and the deficit continues to rise after a non-solution occurs and the govt media has been using the same propaganda script incessantly for three weeks. Entitlements continue to mushroom, and mostly unnecessary entire depts like Education and Energy, go on with even more bloated budgets. Entire agencies that are corrupt, like HHS and Justice, that need to be overhauled, arent.
There's a reason all these Washington DC federal employees are never perturbed about federal elections; they have seen their job security pronounced, and perseverated, and enhanced for decades.
m.weiss
It sounds like Canada in the early 1990s. They got it nicely turned around, and then some idiot was elected as prime minister.
Excellent. Whenever we can shut down our government, freedom arises. When in session, freedom declines. Simple equation.