Beans
and Bullets and Bear Markets. Oh my!
by Wendy McElroy
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IMPLICATIONS
One very real
possibility for raising taxes will be a tax on every
serial-numbered firearm. Gun owners may also be ordered
to register and store their allotted guns at a government
shooting facility (as they do in the UK) and/or buy
heavily-taxed ammunition only from the government.
Severe penalties
for possession of all ammuntion, firearms, and reloading
equipment outside a government-controlled environment
will give the BATFE the right to arrest you and confiscate
all your property (home, land, guns, bank accounts,
and more) for government use.
Naturally, certain
"pro-gun" groups will denounce those who
fail to comply as "unpatriotic."
As always, enforcement
of these potential regulations will be carried out
by the BATFE -- the de facto "police"
in our impending police state. Visit www.jpfo.org/thegang.htm
for more information on JPFO's efforts to abolish
this monstrous agency, and how you can help.
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It used to be that only survivalist "cranks" and their
sympathizers expounded on 'the coming economic collapse' that would
devastate society. Intellectually-speaking, people would cross to
the other side of the street when they saw such an exponent coming.
Now the Comptroller General of the United States
David M. Walker is ringing
the fiscal alarm bell by using phrases like "going broke"
and "out of control". Professor
Laurence J. Kotlikoff, chairman of the economics department
at Boston University, has co-authored a book entitled The Coming
Generational Storm: What You Need to Know about America's Economic
Future.
What does the arrival of 'respectable' advocates
do to the claim
that America is teetering on or has fallen over an economic precipice?
What
does it do to associated claims such as the need to stockpile food
or to
own a gun to defend your family and property?
First of all, what exactly are the respectable advocates
saying?
Walker offers a snapshot of the current situation.
The American government is running a $470 billion
operating deficit
for this fiscal year. Its total fiscal exposure is $46.4 trillion.
Meanwhile, America's total household net worth is $51.1 trillion.
In other
words the ratio of national debt to personal net worth is over 90%.
This
translates into a financial burden of $156,000 per person or $375,000
per
full-time worker.
His solution: through computer simulations, Walker
demonstrates that
balancing the budget by 2040 would require a 60% cut in total federal
spending or a 200% increase in federal taxes.
Kotlikoff focuses on the burden that payouts to baby
boomers (e.g.
Social Security) will place on the younger generation and he predicts
"economic catastrophe." For example, 33 million people
currently receive a
SS check that averages $23,000 a year. Four years from now, 77 million
people will be collecting a check. That increase will hold steady
over the
next 30 years; the older population will remain double that of today
while
the younger generation will increases at a modest rate of about
18%. When
Medicare and other 'elder entitlements' are added on, the tax burden
on the
younger generation not only amounts to "fiscal child abuse"
but also cannot
be sustained.
His solution: the size of liabilities versus resources
to pay means
that catastrophe can be averted either by a 78% increase in taxes
or an
immediate slashing in half of all benefits to the elderly.
No politician who wishes re-election would entertain
the drastic
solutions offered by Walker or Kotlikoff. The only other way the
government
can even temporarily prop up programs like Social Security is to
speed up
the printing presses that issue money -- money that is worth slightly
less
with each dollar printed. By doing so, they are setting the stage
for
hyper-inflation to wipe out both savings and the decent standard
of living
now enjoyed by the average person.
Neither Walker nor Kotlikoff use the incendiary language
of
survivalist 'cranks' nor do they suggest options like living in
the woods
with a good supply of ammunition. Instead, they extend governmental
solutions to a governmental problem. To the extent individuals are
offered
advice, it is about which investment strategies will best protect
assets.
Nevertheless, the essence of their economic message is remarkably
similar
to that of survivalists. Very bad times -- perhaps even economic
collapse
-- are just around the corner. But a detailed vision of how individuals
can
best ride out an economic storm remains the purview of those with
survivalist sympathies.
The vision is sometimes reduced to the phrase 'beans
and bullets',
meaning that people should provide for themselves both the means
of
sustaining life (e.g. a stockpile of food) and of protection; usually,
protection translates into owning a gun which is the most effective
form of
self-defense.
In times of crisis, a gun may not only not save your
life it may
also be necessary to preserve those things upon which staying alive
depends: food, currency, a car, a dwelling. Society need not dissolve
into
a nightmare scenario with roaming bands of desperate looters for
this to be
true. All that is necessary is for crime to increase and, during
economic
crisis, crime predictably soars. Criminals -- who may be decent
people in
other circumstances -- will target those people with resources and
without
defenses. After 9/11 for example, many of the businesses located
near the
World Trade Center were looted because they contained valuables
and lacked
security.
The police will not protect you. The police were
at the World Trade
Center and their proximity did not prevent looting. Even today,
in a time
of relative prosperity and calm, a police car usually arrives long
after
someone has broken into your home to steal or attack you.
Moreover, in times of crisis, a policeman on your
doorstep may well be there to confiscate your gun. One of government's
responses in times of crisis, such as war or economic collapse,
is to impose strict gun control. For example, in the wake of Hurricane
Katrina, New Orleans police officers confiscated firearms from lawful
owners, stripping those people of self-protection. Although some
pro-gun organzations launched a campaign demanding that police chiefs
and mayors across America pledge not to confiscate legally-owned
weapons after disasters, it is folly to believe politicians would
keep such a pledge. Even a law against such confiscation is likely
to be ignored or repealed in a flash.
At the risk of using a hackneyed example,
gun confiscation in Nazi Germany offers a valuable lesson. The
Constitutional Law attorney Stephen P. Halbrook writes, "It
is instructive at this time to recall why the American citizenry
and Congress have historically opposed the registration of firearms.
Registration makes it easy for a tyrannical government to confiscate
firearms and make prey of its subjects. After invading [other countries],
Nazis used pre-war lists of gun owners to confiscate firearms and
many gun owners simply disappeared. Following confiscation, the
Nazis were free to wreak their evil on the disarmed populace, such
as on these helpless Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto." The Nazis
were no gentler to German citizens who resisted gun confiscation/control
(see the JPFO book Death
by "Gun Control"
and the JPFO documentary Innocents
Betrayed).
At the same time in America, a gun-friendly Congress
rejected a proposal for the national registration of all firearms.
Rep. Edwin Arthur Hall stated his opposition, "Before the advent
of Hitler or Stalin, measures were thrust upon the free legislatures
of those countries to deprive the people of the possession and use
of firearms, so that they could not resist the encroachments of
such diabolical and vitriolic state police organizations as the
Gestapo, the OGPU, and the Cheka."
With gun registration now mandatory in several states,
a Congress
that sits during crisis is unlikely to balk at a national registry
or the
confiscation of all guns on record.
Returning to the questions posed earlier in this
article: What does
the arrival of 'respectable' advocates do to the claim that America
is
teetering on or has fallen over an economic precipice? What does
it do to
associated claims such as the need to stockpile food or to own a
gun to
defend your family and property?
Regarding the first question, it means that the majority
of people
no longer have an excuse to dismiss the bottomline message of survivalists:
you must be able to provide for yourself and for your own protection.
Regarding the second question, the respectability factor doesn't
extend to
the associated claims. Indeed, I suspect both Walker and Kotlikoff
would
object strenuously to having a connection drawn between their arguments
and
the advisability of gun ownership; they want governmental solutions.
Their objections are beside the point because their
arguments lead directly to the advisability of owning a gun. And
buying it now, not later.
Economic hardship is staring you in the face. Whether
it brings a 'war' between the generations, between the haves and
have-nots, between individuals and government, one fact remains
constant: you and your family have a better chance of weathering
the crisis if you are holding a gun.
