Stark despair. Some hope

i don't want food stamps or section 8 housing preserved for my children, I want a free country preserved for them.

A chronicle of decline. And a choice.

The president barely hangs on in his home state of Illinois--another blue state but with a dimmer governor. The unemployment rate just hit 10% here, the decline continues, the burden grows:

  In just ten years, the Illinois General Assembly pushed the burden of billions in government spending onto Illinois’ future generations. Official estimates put Illinois’ unfunded pension liability at $85.6 billion. But that amount does not take into account the $25.8 billion in pension obligation bond (POB) payments still outstanding, which have a net present value of approximately $17.2 billion1 (see Graphic 1). Adding the present value of the POB debt to the unfunded pension liability puts the total pension burden at $102.8 billion.

Insert primal scream here again.

Chicago startups see drop in VC dollars for third quarter

Let's see, what's Occupy Chicago doing again.

The One's reelection strategy. Hope after all.

P.S.

Much of the state lending went to local governments eager to pursue grand dreams. Unfortunately, a great deal of what they built already appears downright useless. As the Washington Post reported, China’s stimulus spending produced “an astonishing frenzy of building—highways, subways, airports, bridges, high-speed rail lines, and even new cities constructed, literally, in the middle of nowhere.” Chinese citizens are staring at new airports in small counties to which few passengers will fly, new subway lines in small cities that may not have needed them, and high-speed trains with ticket prices many cannot afford.
The local governments, meanwhile, are sitting on large piles of debt they cannot afford.

nOpe. I want a free country. More:

On July 23, a high-speed rail accident in southeast China killed 40 and injured about 190 passengers. Officials blamed signal failure, but outraged citizens and journalists (including many from the state media) have demanded investigations. While China has built the world’s largest network of high-speed railway in under seven years, this undertaking has been plagued by corruption and shoddy construction. In February, Liu Zhijun, China’s minister of railways and architect of the country’s $300 billion high-speed rail network, was fired and arrested, accused of taking $152 million in bribes—not to mention keeping 18 mistresses.

In this, fortunately, we probably can't quite compete. I mean...

P.P.S. A percussion tax at OWS. Mugged by the dictatorship of the proletariat. A drumbeat of life lessons:) You tax something, you get less of it.