Oops, They Did It Again

Oops, They Did It Again

Dayton’s rulers squander other people’s money

Conspiracy Theorist

By Mark Luedtke

Publication date: 112916

For anybody who exposes the petty and not so petty, but legal, graft that permeates government at all levels, Dayton’s rulers are the gift that keeps on giving. The Dayton Daily News reports on the latest development of its former property. “The city of Dayton will spend $294,500 to finish demolishing and cleaning up a downtown property that formerly housed the Dayton Daily News operations, in the hope of setting the stage for its redevelopment,” Cornelius Frolik recently wrote.

That might sound like good news for people who’ve driven past that eyesore for years, but it’s just another cover for armed robbery. Dayton’s greedy rulers aren’t spending their own money to clean up the property. They’re stealing money from taxpayers at the point of the government’s gun and using that money to clean up the property. This is Dayton’s super-mafia at its most transparent.

The big winner is Bladecutters Inc., the company rulers hired to clean up the property. A cynical person might wonder why a lawn care company got a contract to clean up a bunch of concrete. Enriching rulers and cronies, not providing services, is the function of government. This is a naked transfer of wealth from Dayton’s poor and middle class taxpayers to the wealthy owners of Bladecutters with Dayton’s rulers taking their cut. You have to pay to do business in their town or you end up wearing shiny bracelets with chains.

It’s instructive to recall how this boondoggle began. “An $18 million student housing complex is planned for downtown Dayton at the site of the former Dayton Daily News building and adjacent property, Cox Media Group Ohio announced Wednesday,” the DDN cooed in April, 2013. “Cox Media Group Ohio said it plans to sell the property to the nonprofit United Housing and Community Services Corporation of California, which would partner with Missouri-based Student Suites to build the 350-bed facility just a few blocks from Sinclair Community College.”

The project was a giveaway to already subsidized Sinclair. The DDN continued its propaganda, “‘This takes a block that has been neglected to a shameful extent and really gives it new life,’ said City Commissioner Matt Joseph. ‘Having residents there, having investment there … you’ve seen it before where a little bit of investment in one place really starts something.”

It continued, “‘The market is unquestionably there,’ [Dayton’s director of cronyism] Sorrell said. ‘The market studies that have been done over the years have shown a huge demand for student housing. … This project of 350 beds just scratches the surface of the demand.”

So much for socialist analysis and plans.

This project was shady from the beginning, but the DDN, which hilariously claims to hold government accountable, presented no skepticism or critical analysis of the plan. Cox donated $1 million, Dayton’s rulers donated $1 million of taxpayers’ money, and $13.5 million was to be financed through tax-exempt bonds. The developers only had to put up $2.5 million. No bankers would fund this deal because of the risk. Sweetheart deals like this are available only from governments to cronies.

Despite $1.2 million spent by city government, the project never got off the ground. “Sinclair Community College students this month were supposed to move into a 350-bed housing complex near campus that Dayton officials hoped would be a cornerstone of downtown revitalization,” admitted the DDN in August 2014. “But federal rules and financing problems have delayed the $18 million Student Suites project on Fourth Street, and the site sits empty, except for debris and a few idle pieces of construction equipment.”

The project is still stalled. Rulers are supposed to be smarter, wiser and more benevolent than the rest of us, that’s why they wield government’s power of coercion against us, but the pros from Dayton aren’t so smart after all.

Imagine you worked in the private sector, you were tasked with developing some property, and the project stalled for three and a half years despite you spending over $1 million. You’d be out of a job and rightly so. The marketplace doesn’t tolerate incompetence on that scale.

Government not only tolerates such incompetence it rewards it. During this debacle voters voted to make the temporary part of Dayton’s income tax permanent then voted to increase the income tax. They’d have been better off shooting themselves in the foot. Now Dayton’s rulers will squander more taxdollars by lining their own pockets and those of their cronies.

Never trust socialists or their propagandists.

Originally published in the Dayton City Paper.

Hilarity in Huber Heights

A recent Dayton Daily News headline read, “Huber expected to OK $1.25 million in music center upgrades”. Of course they were. The boondoggle isn’t even built yet, and Huber Heights’s rulers are already upgrading it. But this was a fait accompli. The history suggests Huber’s rulers met with Music and Event Management, Inc. executives, the boondoggle’s eventual manager, smoked $100 cigars and drank 90-year-old scotch purchased with taxpayers’ money, and agreed to use this music venue boondoggle to soak the taxpayers of Huber Heights for every penny they could loot from them before proposing the project.

The article’s sub-head reads, “Supporters say additional work will pay for itself”. Of course they do. They always say that. They said the same thing about their aquatic center boondoggle. The DDN tells how that is working out, “Attendance at the Kroger Aquatic Center at The Heights has dipped again for the second year in a row...” It also reports, “In 2013, the aquatic center — 8625 Brandt Pike — had a net loss of $35,159 and drew 29,282 people with 201 season passes.” So it lost money two years in a row, two out of three it’s been in existence. Rulers blame the weather without mentioning the inherent inability of socialists to perform economic calculation and therefore to effectively manage any project. Taxpayers are the gift Huber’s rulers force to keep on giving.

Sure, this summer was cool, as was last summer. If an investor lost his own money on a pool project because he didn’t do his homework to determine the Earth was entering a cool climate cycle, nobody else would get hurt. But since rulers steal money from taxpayers in the form of taxes, every taxpayer in Huber Heights is getting hurt by this pool boondoggle and now the music boondoggle.

After reviewing how Huber’s rulers hoodwinked taxpayers into paying for this boondoggle, the evidence it was a scam from the beginning is overwhelming. First, the rulers misled taxpayers about the cost. On Dec. 7, 2012 the DDN reported, “A $10 million music center has been proposed to anchor the $220 million Heights development here, and construction could start as early as next year, city officials said.” Three days later the DDN reported the price mysteriously nearly doubled to $18 million. It’s not credible Huber’s rulers learned the real price immediately after publicizing a grossly wrong one.

At the same time they compared it to Riverbend Music Center in Cincinnati. They allocated $100,000 to a management company to determine feasibility which turned out to be the same company that ran Riverbend and now manages Huber’s boondoggle. That’s a shameless conflict of interest. You’d have to be hopelessly naive not to realize this deal was pre-determined before anything was reported. Every meeting, every so-called debate on this boondoggle, has been a sham.

On March 5, 2013, the DDN reported Goodsports Enterprises would build a hotel and sports complex next to the boondoggle. Rulers led Huber’s taxpayers to believe the boondoggle was already producing benefits. That turned out to be phony too. The reality is rulers secretly paid for Goodsports to be part of their boondoggle, but Goodsports never committed to show up. The DDN reports, “Huber Heights officials are investigating why the city spent nearly $300,000 to prepare a building pad for GoodSports Enterprises’ $22 million fieldhouse/hotel — when the development agreement did not require it.” So the same rulers who made and paid for the deal are supposedly investigating themselves to discover why they did it. This scam is so transparent, they should be embarrassed. Meanwhile, Goodsports is a no-show. I apologize to Huber‘s taxpayers who are being robbed, but I can’t help but laugh.

The subsequent “scandal” regarding the “proposed” $1.25 million VIP upgrades makes me laugh out loud. While pretending they hadn’t yet decided to fund the upgrades, Huber’s rulers were already secretly paying for them. The DDN reports, “The two change orders totaling $323,751 impacting the two main concession stands and the VIP concession stand were approved in May and June of this year.” City council subsequently, unanimously approved the additional spending. Big surprise. The outrage and debate exhibited over discovering those payments was another scam. This boondoggle was going to cost $19.25 million, that we know of, all along.

Huber’s rulers have Romanesque delusions of grandeur. In a region where extravagant looting by local rulers is the norm, Huber Heights stands out, and there are negative consequences. The DDN reports, “Huber Heights officials are in the early stages of looking to revitalize the center of town that city leaders say points to a commitment to the entire community and not just the growth north of Interstate 70.” Baloney. This shows Huber’s rulers have looted Huber Heights into decline to enrich themselves and their cronies, and they plan to continue, using the town’s center next. Nobody can loot others into prosperity.

I compliment the DDN on dozens of articles conveying Huber’s rulers’ perspective. Unfortunately, it hasn’t reported any other perspective, let alone the full story.

Summary Execution for Tax Evader

There are two and only two ways one can obtain the property of another. The first is through voluntary means. You can either exchange something for the property or the owner of the property can give it to you. The second is theft. If the theft includes the threat of violence backed by violence - coercion - it’s armed robbery. Taxes, because they carry the threat of violence backed by violence, are armed robbery.

New York City’s legalized and uniformed armed robbers - the police - recently summarily executed a man for not paying taxes. CrimeFileNews.com tells the story. “Selling cigarettes on the street cost a man his life. Think about it for a moment. Trying to make a meager living in a miserable economy by selling a legal product deserves death now in New York. That’s precisely what happened to an obviously overweight (350 lbs.) and unhealthy man last week. A squad of cops investigating this tax transgression approached Eric Garner. Garner actually begged the cops to leave him alone. Soon Garner began to shun the cops and resist being handcuffed and the cops piled on him.  All too quickly, Garner was dead.”

Some might claim the victim deserved it because he feebly resisted. But resisting armed robbery is heroic behavior, if sometimes a mistake. What this report doesn’t mention is one policeman put Garner in an illegal choke hold. Garner was trying to protect himself.

“This was not about anything more than the attempted evasion of an outrageous tax on a legal product that millions consume in America. Our greedy politicians expand their power and the government monster by overtaxing anything they can. We all know that this was about money rather than evil, violence or simple public safety.”

Besides proving the obvious - that taxes are armed robbery - this also illustrates that every supposed crime in America carries the death penalty. Jay walking? The state’s enforcers might kill you for that. Run a red light? They might kill you for that too. This is the inevitable consequence of empowering an organization - the state - to have a monopoly on violence and the power to legalize crimes committed by its agents.

The murderers may have had another motive. Police reportedly had harassed Garner for years. While they were harassing others for petty pseudo-crimes in order to legally steal their money, a fight broke out. The police did nothing, but Garner intervened and stopped the fight. That made him a target for government predators. When police began harassing Garner again, they claim Garner stated, “I’m tired of it. It stops today.”

William Norman Grigg quotes one police officer blaming the victim, “‘Anytime a person says “I’m tired of it, it stops today,” that will almost always end with the use of force,’ insisted one contributor to an LEO-exclusive forum. ‘He made that decision, not the police. The Police must effect the arrest and rise above any resistance...’” That attitude suggests this was premeditated murder from the moment Garner expressed his exasperation with being harassed by cops.

This attitude that anybody who says they don’t want to be harassed by policemen must be physically assaulted, subdued and even murdered is also an inevitable consequence of empowering an organization to legally commit crimes against people. The most violent, sadistic people in the country are attracted to the job of legally attacking others so they can get their jollies legally beating and killing people. Most people we make cops would be the worst criminals in a free society. For example, cops are three times more likely to commit murder, not counting the legalized murder they get away with on the job, than concealed carry permit holders. But in Bizzaro World, ruled by government violence, they become legalized violence-dealers, beating and killing people without consequence, and the ones who do it best rise to the top.

Apologists for choking the victim make this clear. “Because the victim reportedly didn’t suffer significant damage to his throat and trachea, the illegal restraint wasn’t a ‘true’ chokehold, or so the apologists insist,” Grigg writes. “Under NYPD guidelines in place since 1993, this isn’t relevant: The policy explicitly and categorically forbids the use of any restraint involving pressure against the neck or throat.” The policy is a sham, as is the law. Grigg notes, “If [the murder] statute were applied equitably, as it almost certainly will not be, [the officer who choked Garner] and his accomplices would be prosecuted for murder.”

Murray Rothbard wrote in “The Anatomy of the State”, “Having used force and violence to obtain its revenue, the State generally goes on to regulate and dictate the other actions of its individual subjects. One would think that simple observation of all States through history and over the globe would be proof enough of this assertion; but the miasma of myth has lain so long over State activity that elaboration is necessary.” The brazen murder of Eric Garner by state enforcers in daylight in front of witnesses and on camera is another example proving more elaboration is necessary.

Last Chance for a Tax Revolt in Dayton

There’s a long, patriotic history of tax revolts in America. The Boston Tea Party is the most famous. The Whiskey Rebellion occurred during George Washington’s presidency after big whiskey producers in the east conspired with Alexander Hamilton to tax the whiskey produced by small farmers in the west out of existence. History books teach Washington and Hamilton crushed the rebellion, but few note the farmers ultimately won. They never paid the tax, then Thomas Jefferson repealed it.

Doug French writes of tax revolts during the Great Depression, “History shows that people get angry when you kick them while they are down. During the last great depression there were tax strikes. Property owners created over 1,000 different taxpayer leagues around the country, ‘which voiced outrage over what were perceived as needless government expenditures in a time of severe economic hardship.’”

Few Americans have been kicked more when they’re down than Daytonians. Ohio and Dayton taxes transformed Dayton from the world’s leading center for innovation into one of the top ten fastest dying cities in the country. Local rulers were angry about the Forbes article, but only because it told the truth. In 1960, Dayton’s population was 262,332. In 2010, it was 141,527. It declined every decade in between. That kind of devastating decline is common in communist countries, but shouldn’t happen in America. Just as the burden of government caused the decline in communist countries, it caused the decline in Dayton too. Because of high taxes in Ohio and Dayton, it’s more profitable to do business elsewhere.

No honest person disputes this. Politicians admit they lure businesses into their districts by offering tax incentives. It’s no secret that lower taxes attract investment, and Dayton sorely needs investment. The reason Fuyao almost didn’t come to Moraine was the burden of taxes. The state and city had to offer significant tax reductions to attract Fuyao to what otherwise was the perfect location.

Even communists acknowledge this. Yahoo News reports, “Cuba is proposing a new Cuban foreign investment law that would cut the profits tax in half to 15 percent and exempt most investors from paying it for at least eight years, official media said on Wednesday.” If Dayton’s rulers cut taxes in half today, Dayton’s 50 year decline would immediately reverse and transform into economic growth and job creation. That’s what everybody, officially, wants.

But Dayton’s greedy rulers will never allow that. Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. The Dayton Daily News documents Dayton’s insanity, “Dayton’s income tax rate has been 2.25 percent since 1984. The first 1.75 percent is permanent, but the final 0.5 percent requires periodic approval, which voters have overwhelmingly given in 1990, 1994, 2000 and 2006.” Same tax rate; same decline. Dayton’s rulers were supposed to cut spending to match that permanent income. That was a lie. Dayton’s greedy rulers never intended this tax to disappear. That’s why Mayor Whaley and her ruling cabal are pushing for that 0.5 income tax to become permanent on May 6. This is voters’ last chance to stop the tax insanity that’s destroying Dayton.

Greed puts Whaley’s machine left of Cuba’s communists. Political machines push for tax hikes in low turnout elections because few people vote. Whaley won the mayoral runoff election last May with only 4865 votes. Even the DDN acknowledges this scandal, “Voter turnout was dismal. Despite high-profile candidates and television ads and numerous mailings, only 9,869 people voted in a city of 141,000. That’s fewer than the number that voted on the income tax issue in Beavercreek, a city of 45,000.” Dayton’s looters earned voters’ contempt, but low turnout this election will benefit them. They hope for low turnout so they can keep partying on dough stolen from taxpayers.

Whaley’s machine pulled out all the stops to pass this tax. All the socialists support it. WHIO provided a free propaganda special. The Dayton Chamber of Commerce supports the tax because higher taxes protect big businesses from smaller competitors. The ballot language doesn’t mention the tax will become permanent. Dayton’s rulers hope most voters won’t know. Plus, workers who live outside the city can’t vote. That’s taxation without representation. America’s Founding Fathers fought a revolution against that.

Every year, tax-feeders tell taxpayers they must sacrifice, supposedly for the common good, but Orwell understood political language is designed to make lies sound like truth. When tax-feeders use the term “common good”, they mean their personal bank accounts. Only parasites benefit from legally robbing taxpayers.

This is the last chance to stop the insanity, reverse Dayton’s decline, and start rebuilding Dayton into a great, productive city like it once was. The common good is served by having the common people keep more of their hard-earned money and making the tax-feeders sacrifice for once. As even Cuba’s rulers admit, if voters reject this tax, the economy in Dayton will improve. A small improvement because it’s a small tax cut, but great transformations have to start with a first step.

Government Exacerbates Income Inequality

President Obama thinks income inequality is the biggest problem facing Americans. The Pope thinks it’s the most important issue in the world. The two men recently met to discuss it, but if they were honest, the solution would be readily apparent to both of them. Obama’s policies, and the economic policies of all governments, create the outrageous income inequality we see around the world today.

Still, income inequality is far from the worst problem facing society. For example, income inequality in China today is far greater than it was when Mao Zedong killed 65 million equally poor people in his Great Leap of Mass Murder. Obama is a great demagogue of income inequality because it benefits him personally. The reality is older people tend to make more money because they’re more skilled and they tend to have amassed more wealth because they’ve worked longer. If government hadn’t broken our economy, young people would do the same.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with income inequality when it’s based on merit. Every individual is unique, with different strengths, weaknesses and priorities. In a free market, better businessmen would make more money than worse businessmen, and business owners would make more money than workers in general in because business owners incur more risk than workers. More skilled workers would earn more than less skilled workers in general because there would be a smaller supply of higher skilled workers. The incentive of earning more income based on merit would create an environment of generally increasing productivity that would benefit everybody.

At the same time, no business owner would earn outrageously more income than others, at least not for long, because as soon as they did, competitors would enter the market to take a share of those profits until unrestrained competition lowered the profits back into the normal range.

On the other hand, it’s grossly unfair when government uses it power of coercion to enrich some at the expense of others, but that’s the only reason government as we know it exists. It’s a law of economics that taxes and regulations benefit the richest by protecting them from competition because their big businesses can absorb the additional expenses better than smaller competitors. Taxes, regulations and printing money are the tools government uses to create giant banks, corporations and the fantastic salaries of the plutocrats while making everybody else poorer. The problem of income inequality Obama pretends to care about is caused by US government interventions in the marketplace that keep the economy from being a meritocracy, and Obama is the worst interventionist of my lifetime. Bush the Younger was the worst before him. The more government intervenes, the wealthier the plutocrats get. It has nothing to do with partisanship. It’s the nature of all coercive governments at every level.

The Mises.org blog identifies Obama’s policies as one source of income inequality, “He has presided over corporate bailouts, not only declaring the Wall Street banks too big to fail, while a multitude of small businesses did fail, his policies continue to support the banking industry through low interest rates and the payment of interest on reserves held at the Fed. Banks holding bad mortgages were bailed out while individual homeowners were evicted from their homes.”

Economist George Reisman writes of another source, “Credit expansion is responsible for sharply increased economic inequality, in which the wealthier strata of the population appear to increase their wealth dramatically relative to the rest of the population and for no good reason.” All central banks including the Federal Reserve (Fed) expand credit by counterfeiting funny-money and handing it out to their big bank cronies. The Fed is a quasi-private entity whose owners are secret, but run primarily by political appointees. It was created by Congress for the benefit of the government and plutocrat bankers. Because it is a legalized counterfeiting organization, it could not exist without government.

So-called intellectual property rights - patents and copyright - are another source of income inequality government uses to quash competition, artificially enriching giant corporations by raising prices for consumers. Patents are described as grants of privilege, but they’re better understood as bans on competition. They are grants of monopoly. Government creates monopolies, not the free market. Patents and copyright create high tech, music and movie plutocrats.

The defining issue of our times is economic freedom or, since every decision is an economic decision, freedom. Countries with greater economic freedom invariably enjoy greater prosperity, security, health and happiness. They also invariably enjoy greater economic growth. Economic freedom in the US fell under Bush and plummeted under Obama. The Heritage Foundation ranks US twelfth in economic freedom in 2014, below Estonia. 63 percent of Americans believe the country is going in the wrong direction, and this collapse in economic freedom is why. All you have to do is look around to see Americans were better off when we were more free. When the debt bubble collapses, we’ll realize how bad income inequality really is. We’ll be stuck with a modern version of feudalism much like survivors after the fall of Rome.

Tax breaks bring Cate Blanchett film to Cincinnati

This year’s best actress Oscar winner Cate Blanchett is coming to Cincinnati to film a new movie titled Carol. The film will also star Rooney Mara, known for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Sarah Paulson, best known for Oscar winner 12 Years a Slave and TV’s American Horror Story, and Kyle Chandler from TV’s Friday Night Lights. Todd Haynes will direct.

This is a great opportunity for people in Southwest Ohio. The entire film will be filmed in Cincinnati. The Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky Film Commission called for 700 extras to be cast locally. Also, since the film takes place in 1950s New York, the producers called for 1950s background cars for the film. That should excite people in this car town. This is a big deal. It’s like Hollywood is coming to Southwest Ohio.

Cleveland.com reports tax breaks brought the movie to Cincinnati, “Carol was awarded an Ohio Motion Picture Tax Credit by the Ohio Film Office, which announced the project today along with the Greater Cincinnati Film Commission.”

For those people who don’t realize taxes harm businesses and kill jobs, the Ohio Motion Picture Tax Credit proves otherwise. In 2011, Cleveland’s Newsnet5 documented, “The spotlight may be on Hollywood, but the Ohio film industry continues to grow as Ohio's Motion Picture Tax Credit secures more productions. According to the Ohio Film Office, five new projects will bring in anticipated revenue of more than $17.1 million for Ohio.” In 2010, Cleveland.com noted, “The tally in the first year of Ohio's film tax credit is nine movies and at least one new resident. ” The Ohio Film Office describes the credit, “The Ohio Motion Picture Tax Credit provides a refundable tax credit that equals 25 percent off in-state spend and non-resident wages and 35 percent in Ohio resident wages on eligible productions.” This tax break brings new business into the state, boosts local businesses and benefits all Ohioans. It also creates lasting business connections and opportunities that continue to boost our economy over time. In addition, it increases tax revenue. Too many people don’t understand that. That’s it’s only downside.

Ohioans aren’t the only people attracting business out of Hollywood with tax incentives. Variety reports Hollywood continues to flee California at an alarming rate “despite the film production incentive program California enacted in 2009, which provides for $100 million a year in tax credits for what’s usually 20% of production costs. That’s significantly smaller than programs offered by other states such as New York, which offers $420 million a year in credits for 30% of production costs.” The secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor feared Hollywood is turning into Detroit and for the same reasons: high taxes and oppressive labor unions.

Tax breaks, best of all tax cuts, don’t only benefit the film industry. New York attracted The Tonight Show from California with a $20 million a year tax break. And they don’t just benefit the entertainment industry. They benefit all businesses. Fuyao Glass Industry Group considered moving someplace besides Moraine despite the market forces that made Moraine an ideal location until JobsOhio promised undisclosed - meaning really big - tax incentives.

Politicians only offer tax breaks to big businesses - plutocrats and cronies  - but the people of Dayton are legally scheduled to receive a significant tax cut. 0.5 percent of Dayton’s 2.25 percent income tax expires this year. That would give every worker and business owner in Dayton a 22 percent income tax cut. As Ohio’s movie tax break illustrates, that will bring new business to Dayton. It will also immediately make existing businesses more profitable. It will make every worker in Dayton wealthier. It will create productive jobs. It will improve the lives of everybody in and around Dayton. The boost in business would also increase tax revenue for the city, its only downside.

But Mayor Whaley doesn’t want the people of Dayton to be wealthier. She doesn’t want Dayton’s economy to improve. She wants her stolen money. She wants voters to make that 0.5 percent, business-killing income tax permanent in an election at the beginning of May. Whaley supports Detroit-style taxes and labor unions. We know how that ended up for Detroit.

If the government did nothing, we’d all become instantly wealthier. Because the tax is set to automatically expire, Dayton’s economy would instantly improve. Instead of allowing that to happen, Whaley and her cronies are forcing a vote for a new, permanent tax to replace the temporary one that’s done so much harm. Dayton’s minority governing cabal hid the permanent tax behind confusing ballot language, but they will come out in force to vote for it in a traditionally low turnout election they hope nobody else shows up for.

So tell your family, tell your friends, tell your neighbors. This is our one chance to win a tax cut that long-suffering Daytonians desperately need, but it can only happen if the people come out in force at the beginning of May to vote against the ruling cabal’s legalized theft of our incomes.

The War on Terror Is a Racket

It's been a terrible month for the military. Generally considered above reproach, even worshiped, Stars and Stripes reports corruption runs rampant among military personnel, "The laundry list of wrongdoing, in the Defense Department and in various other government agencies, is contained in a surprisingly readable but unknown document compiled by the equally unknown Defense Department's General Counsel's Standards of Conduct Office. The name of the July 2013 report says it all: 'The Encyclopedia of Ethical Failure,' a 164-page who's who of bureaucratic ne'er-do-wells that details all of those government personnel who have tried to fleece the government, line their pockets with public money, use government property for their own use or demand loans from subordinates. Additional stories report over 800 soldiers gamed the recruiting system, senior sailors were implicated in nuclear a reactor scam, and 92 US nuclear weapons officers were tied to cheating scandal. And you thought the military was keeping us safe.

These reports aren't surprising. Military personnel, like everybody else, want to improve their standard of living, but they get paid to kill people with money stolen from taxpayers. It's a tiny step for people attracted to such amoral, violent activity to engage in a little illegal corruption to pad their bank accounts, especially since they risk their lives while our rulers stay safe and get rich.

In 1935 the most decorated Marine in history, General Smedley Butler, wrote War Is a Racket. Butler explained our rulers' motive for all wars, including supposed good wars, is war-profiteering. Some 8.9 million Americans make a living directly from war. Many get fantastically rich. War profiteers take money from taxpayers, line the pockets of politicians, and lobby for more war. Eisenhower also warned us about that when he left office.

But the problem of war profiteers controlling war policy spun out of control with the War on Terror. To insure the War on Terror gravy train never ends, our rulers are arming al Qaeda and funding the Taliban while also fighting them. They are literally fighting al Qaeda affiliates in Fallujah while arming al Qaeda affiliates next door in Syria. They ordered special forces to secretly, illegally fight beside al Qaeda in Syria. They turned Libya over to al Qaeda affiliates then turned them loose in North Africa. You can't have war-profiteering without an enemy to scare people.

In an essay entitled "Why We Fight", subtitled "Because it pays well", former CIA agent, counter-terrorism expert and military intelligence officer Philip Giraldi breaks down who profits and how much from what should be called the War for Profiteering, "Columbia University economist Joseph Stiglitz has estimated that the total cost of Iraq alone will exceed $5 trillion when all the borrowed money and legacy expenses for 30,000 wounded soldiers are finally paid off. And Iraq is only one part of the enormous shift in national resources that has taken place over the past twelve years. The direct costs of the Bush-Obama war are reflected in the Defense and intelligence budgets, both of which are more than twice as big as they were pre-9/11, but factor in the additional domestic costs for the Transportation Security Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, and growth of the federal bureaucracy in general and the numbers become mind boggling. And then there is the replication of the federal spending at the state and local levels..."

Giraldi estimates what we get for our money, "When all the increases are added up and compared to the baseline of 2001, the war on terror currently costs the American taxpayer more than $500 billion per year. As there may be only 100 or so terrorists seriously interested in attacking the United States directly, that works out to something like $5 billion per year per terrorist." Yet liberals blame capitalism for income inequality.

Ron Paul adds, "Appearing last week before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified that he could not say the threat from al-Qaeda is any less today than it was ten years ago."

If, after stealing over $6 trillion and killing hundreds of thousands of people ostensibly to fight the War on Terror against al Qaeda, and the threat hadn't diminished, that would be so far beyond outrageous I have no words, but it gets worse. Paul continues, "A former State Department official stated last year that every new drone strike in Yemen that kills innocent people results in the creation of 40-60 new enemies. Likewise, the young girl from Pakistan who had been brutally shot by the Taliban for her desire to go to school told President Obama during a White House meeting that 'drone attacks are fueling terrorism. Innocent victims are killed in these acts, and they lead to resentment among the Pakistani people.'"

Clapper even admits the al Qaeda affiliate in Syria being armed by the US aspires to attack the US. You can't make this stuff up. The War on Terror makes us less safe every day, it's helping collapse our economy, and our rulers are laughing at us all the way to the bank.