Empire of the Iguanadons

Do you hear that sound? The sound of mad scribbling? That's the sound of many hands tonight writing on the collective walls of our political process. They all have one thing in common tonight: Mitt Romney wins. It looks like we've finally managed to get the Republican party pointed in the same direction for the firs time in the last several months. While I'm not personally happy with where this is inevitably leading, the fat lady is singing loud and clear. This race is over. Time to get down to business with the results, after the jump.

Vermont Primary Results - 100% precincts reporting

Mitt Romney - 40% (22,533 votes, 9 delegates)
Ron Paul - 25% (14,407 votes, 4 delegates)
Rick Santorum - 24% (13,401 votes, 4 delegates)
Newt Gingrich - 10% (5,175 votes)

Virginia Primary Results - 100% precincts reporting

Mitt Romney - 60% (158,050 votes, 43 delegates)
Ron Paul - 40% (107,470 votes, 3 delegates)

(No other candidates qualified for the Virginia ballot)

Georgia Primary Results - 100% precincts reporting

Newt Gingrich - 47% (417,364 votes, 46 delegates)
Mitt Romney - 26% (225,926 votes, 13 delegates)
Rick Santorum - 20% (172,473 votes, 2 delegates)
Ron Paul - 6% (57,125 votes, 4 delegates)

Ohio Primary Results - 100% precincts reporting

Mitt Romney - 38% (453,430 votes, 35 delegates)
Rick Santorum - 37% (441,501 votes, 21 delegates)
Newt Gingrich - 15% (174,456 votes)
Ron Paul - 9% (110,516 votes)

North Dakota Caucus Results - 100% precincts reporting

Rick Santorum - 40% (4,510 votes, 11 delegates)
Ron Paul - 28% (3,186 votes, 8 delegates)
Mitt Romney - 24% (2,691 votes, 7 delegates)
Newt Gingrich - 8% (962 votes, 2 delegates)

Tennessee Primary Results - 100% precincts reporting

Rick Santorum - 37% (204,978 votes, 25 delegates)
Mitt Romney - 28% (153,889 votes, 10 delegates)
Newt Gingrich - 24% (132,142 votes, 8 delegates)
Ron Paul - 9% (49,782 votes)

Massachusetts Primary Results - 100% precincts reporting

Mitt Romney - 72% (260,509 votes, 38 delegates)
Rick Santorum - 12% (43,614 votes)
Ron Paul - 10% (34,575 votes)
Newt Gingrich - 5% (16,756 votes)

Oklahoma Primary Results - 100% precincts reporting

Rick Santorum - 34% (96,759 votes, 14 delegates)
Mitt Romney - 28% (80,291 votes, 13 delegates)
Newt Gingrich - 27% (78,686 votes, 13 delegates)
Ron Paul - 10% (27,572 votes)

Wyoming Caucus Results - 100% precincts reporting

Mitt Romney - 56% (294 votes, 4 delegates)
Rick Santorum - 30% (161 votes)
Ron Paul - 2% (13 votes, 1 delegate)
Newt Gingrich - 0% (Nothing)

Idaho Caucus Results - 65% precincts reporting (lazy bums, count faster!)

Mitt Romney - 64% (27,301 votes, 32 delegates)
Ron Paul - 18% (7,675 votes)
Rick Santorum - 16% (6,920 votes)
Newt Gingrich - 2% (916 votes)

Alaska Caucus Results - Are you guys done yet or what?

Mitt Romney - 33% (3,377 votes, 32 delegates)
Rick Santorum - 30% (3,030 votes)
Ron Paul - 22% (2,200 votes)
Newt Gingrich - 15% (1,505 votes)

Delegate Totals to Date

Mitt Romney: 407 delegates.
Rick Santorum: 169 delegates.
Newt Gingrich: 102 delegates.
Ron Paul: 41 delegates.

1,144 required to win.

So there you have it. The big bag of results. A couple of points.

Georgia being Newt's home state, it saddens me greatly he couldn't even get 50% of the votes there. Newt, love ya man, but you're done. I'm sticking a fork in you.

It disturbs me equally as much that Virginia only mustered 60% of their fucked up system to vote for Mitt. That so many of you voted for Ron Paul scares me, and should scare the rest of the country too.

It was a bloodbath tonight, and we're basically down the choice between a Massachusetts RINO and a fanatical social conservative who is too easily baited into stupid arguments by the media. Ugh. Still, either one of them is indisputably better than re-electing Obama. So let's hope Newt and Paul drop out so this can get over with sooner. That is the sound of inevitability. Why fight it?
.........................
RIP United States of America

July 1776 - November 2012.

Oppps i did not login, ^^ was The Fury BTW.

Ah, but the difference is, when I refer to them as socialists, the evidence of their actions is there to back up the claim. Though Marxist is technically more accurate, and even Obama himself has flat out said that distributing wealth evenly is his end goal.

When someone simply points to the conservative activist and calls them "teabagger" it isn't in an effort to tell people that we're bagging up tea. I think you know what the connotation behind it is, and it has no basis other than to be flatly insulting. Which is what the left's problem is. All they know how to do is insult and degrade when they've lost the argument. Also why they resort to trying to paint people as racist once they've lost on the substantive issue.

The right's biggest problem is that they're still too damned wimpy to fight back against it and call them on who the real racists are and to point out all of the policies they've attempted to enact which prove it.

New report came over KFI in the last 10 minutes that those treasonous bastards who run Wikileaks have just leaked info that we've got CIA ops underway in Syria and have since December. Another issue right there that I have with left wing media anti-war types who think that there can never be a legitimate reason for such things to be going on. If Assange isn't dead now, he ought to be.

Would have to agree with you, if it is the case that wikileaks has leaked stuff about things going on in Syria, then Assange or wikileaks has gone too far. President Asshat has to go, the entire Syrian regime as to go, and making it harder for all those involved is just plane stupid.

I don't think so, i think their main problem is they have nothing to offer. People want hope or a better tomorrow, they want policy that is about making the country better into the future, they want security for the next generation, and the right is just not giving them any of those things. All you hear from the right is the left is wrong, even if the left is right. Negitive politics is what is going to kill the right at the next election and positive politics is what is going to give the left another term in office, even though they have been hugely incompetant.

Gillard has got it correct, whenever she is in an interview, she always beings the interview back to the positive things the govenrment has done, the major policy chnages that the government has achived and what the governments vision is now and into the future, with a lot of it forward looking 10 to 20 years. An incompetant govenment that shows the positive things it has done for the nation has to be better than an opposition that only very has negetive things to say.

I think this is the very same reason why Obama will get another term. He will do the whole positive thing while the republicans do the negetive thing and they will totally miss the boat, because positive politics are what people are after and the republicans are still stuck in fear politics of the bush era.

You are clearly watching sanitized election coverage from the US. The Republicans have done nothing but talk about the positive things they plan to do once Obama is gone, and Obama and the Dems have done nothing but obstruct and malign the right for the last 3 years. It is inevitable btw that the subject of all the bad Obama has done will come up, it can't be avoided, because nothing the man has done yet was of any positive value to the country. So there's nothing wrong with mentioning it since facts are poison to liberals.

Just pay closer attention. Whenever someone DOES point out a negative thing, even if they just got done talking about a ton of positive stuff, the media only airs the negative portion as though that was ALL the candidate said. Well, except for Fox, but then the lefties all just say Fox makes up the news and is lying about it. They don't bother to come up with anything resembling a counter argument. MSNBC is famous for this sort of thing.

If Obama gets re-elected, this country is finished and Texas, Oklahoma, Montana, and Utah may as well draw up their secession papers and pack up and leave. There won't be anything remotely resembling the America we once knew left behind.

Had this been a candidate statement, the media would take only the immediately previous paragraph and run with it as though it was all I said.

This. I wanted to scream 'FUCK YOU' at the TV when I saw him say that.



The person in the top job in Australia at the moment I think is the least bit competent is Joe Hockey (the opposition treasurer). I think if we got back Turnbull we'd have a reasonably good combination, but since thats unlikely to happed...yeah, stranded in the wilderness. Although I'd still never vote greens. Never. And I will be voting in the next election.



Where did he say that. I'd really like to see that. Taxing people equally is a different thing, btw.



Then stop calling liberal's communists. Seriously.



Yeah...this probably shouldn't have been released. For the benefit of the Syrian people.



Honestly though, I don't think they have a chance at the next election. Their whole surplus promise is going crash out in a nasty manner, the libs are going to say 'we told you to cut more last time' (and they did, although they also did oppose every single cut labor did make), and I think that'll be it. If it hadn't been for this goddamn minority government we probably wouldn't be in this situation. To add insult to injury, we've ended up getting that bad policy concessions labour had to make (carbon tax) and losing the good policy concessions (pokies reform). Sigh.

When he told Joe the Plumber it was fair for him to give up part of his wealth to help those who had none. That's NOT the purpose of taxation.


When they stop advocating Marxist/Communist positions, gladly.

What ideological position is a "teabagger"? Seriously. If we're to assume calling us this isn't meant solely as a derogatory insult, then explain the ideology they're referring to.

I dont know, carbon tax, super proffits tax, i support them both, they will position Australia well into the future. But the cabon tax is not about now, it is about positioning us to be ahead of the game in 10 to 20 years time. It is a gamble, sure, but it is one that is not going to cost us much at all.

I do agree on the pokies reform and how they softcocked out on it, however, i did not like mandatory pre-commitment, i would have prefered to see $1 bet limits and further restrictions on exotic bets on sports and the like.



I thiink i corrected what you wanted to say there

Come on, seriouly, I dont think i have ever called you a teabagger or anything derogratory in the many debates we have had on here, but I have been called a commie, marrxist and all sorts of things. Thin skinned? Pot, Kettle? At least argue about the rubbish i do say, not the rubbish i don't say

I wasn't talking about you specifically. I was talking about how the left refers to us as teabaggers, which has no ideological position to attach. It's meant entirely as an insulting remark. I never said YOU did this, I said the left does, and they do. Regularly. On US "news" stations even.

I call out lefties as Marxists and Communists because those are the POLICY DECISIONS I see them making. Not the sexual positions they prefer. I don't care one bit about how they handle that part of their lives. Your snide remark about it though is precisely what I'm talking about. You "corrected" something I was being entirely serious about. What ideological position is being attacked by calling us teabaggers? If you don't have an answer for that, it's probably because there isn't one and you aren't willing to own up to the fact that the left is wrong to resort to name calling on that level. It's an admission in logic that they've got no position to argue.

"Marxist" and "socialist" are specific ideological positions that are entirely relevant to compare their policy directions to. The Europeans even embrace being called socialists, right up until you remind them Hitler himself was a socialist. They don't like having that little fact pointed out to them.

So if there's some position to attack, let them attack it. To simply say conservatives are racists, homophobes, and teabaggers doesn't really accomplish much other than rightly making us angry.

How about when he said to Bill the Billionare 'you should really be paying the same tax rate as middle class American's'. Is that socialist? Or is that fair?

I don't think you get what Maxist/Communist positions are. Read the Marx's 'Communist Manifesto'. That lays out in a bunch of simple dot points what communism is (basically a government system designed for totalitarian dictatorship ala Stalin style, but anyway), and believe me, there isn't the tiniest amount of similarity between what Marx believed was the ultimate achievement for society and what liberal's want implemented (radical fringes excluded, such as the socialist groups John Stewart looked at a couple of nights ago).

Obama's interventionist financial policy during the GFC isn't Marxism, its an attempt to protect the population from the side effects of a downturn in the market cycle. You can argue about whether it was a good idea or not, but you can't claim it was socialism/communism/marxism. Nationalizing those companies to stop them from going broke would fit that category.

As a result Nationalization of healthcare might be socialist under that definition, but what's worse; socialized healthcare or a nation that leaves the sick and dying hung out to dry because they can't afford to pay for treatment. I know which country I'd rather live in.

And to bring it back to Joe the plumber having to pay for a safety net for the nations needy; so what. So the well off pay a little bit so the poor are able to satisfy their basic needs. Big deal. The market economy hasn't been destroyed, nothings been nationalized (except maybe healthcare) and after taxes people can still spend their money on whatever they want or invest it in whatever they want. And did I mention your income tax rate is lower than most of the western world? And that's before we get to the tax rate for investment earnings. You're no more on the way to communism than you are on your way to totalitarian theocracy because Christian values are used as a basis for you laws.



I dunno, I don't see the carbon tax contributing anything. I mean, the cuts it gives are tiny, and even worse, they've manage to end up bringing in more spending of compensate people for it than they are actually bringing in in new revenue. The super profits tax, on the other hand, I do support.

Oh yes...and mandatory pre-commitment...that would be the compromise Julia forced Wilkie to make, isn't it. Typical soft cocked labor. Also, for the American's here, this is a pretty good summary of the whole pokies issue me and Fury are going on about (and its funny, which is the main reason I actually wanted to bring it up).

Yes, it's socialist, because Bill the Billionaire is already paying his fair share of taxes on the income he earned. Dividend income is an entirely different beast that falls under the capital gains system. In essence, double taxation. If you raise the investment income tax from its present 15% to the 35% Obama wants, that's a Marxist redistribution of wealth. There is no other thing you can call it. Also, the stock market would crash and burn as investors would get out to avoid the coming higher tax rates. So it would accomplish another of Marx's agenda points - making the general population dependent on the government to survive.

The rich won't be hurt by any of this. They have the means with which to escape it entirely. So any policy designed to punish them will inevitably backfire.


Read enough of it to know about Marx's checklist, of which more than half of the items are already accomplished. Perhaps you need to go back and realize just how far gone even your own nation is at this point. You guys are actually a lot further along than we are.

As a frog in the pot, I seek to get out long before the water reaches boiling and all that's left is to die and become someone's next meal. It's already hot enough to be very uncomfortable for those of us willing to see what's going on.

That's it for my country.



Funny; in my country investment income is considered part of your taxable and therefore fits all under the same bracket, yet our stock market hasn't crashed and burned. In fact, its one of the strongest in the world, as is the Australian currency is one of the strongest currencies in the world.

Actually, even on that extremely truncated version of the list ( or what I saw was something different, now I'll have to find it ) this is where I see it, and there's very little room for dispute:

#1 = Not yet. Though one might argue this is already done and gone in the form of Federal land grants, which are really property thefts under color of authority.
#2 = Yes. A thousand times yes. By the time the Feds and the States get done with you, over half of your income has been confiscated if you're rich. Our system is very much a heavy progressive AND graduated income tax system.
#3 = Partial yes. You can't really expect me to think otherwise when the death tax in this country again has more than half of the worth of such things going directly to the government. It isn't total confiscation, but 55% sure isn't fair to the families.
#5 = Hell yes. Federal Reserve. I need not say more.
#6 = No, at least not here. Your firewall though is starting to look more like a yes. "It's for the children" is about as bad as "it's to fight terrorists." Also this one would cause the rest to become seriously hard to detect if you're not being told it's happening.
#7 = Partial yes. Taking over previously private enterprises and firing their leaders under government authority sure smells like nationalization to me. The rest of that doesn't fit with the ideology so I don't even know why it's on the list. Marxism is *NOT* for the good of anyone but the super elites running the show, and Stalin clearly demonstrated that feeding people wasn't what he had in mind.
#8 = No. Obviously. It's inconsistent with the entire expectation of what the rest of this stuff would bring about. Nanny states promote sloth and laziness. Not a desire to work.
#9 = Partially yes. Ever seen how industrialized American farming is? It's rather shocking. Mass production has definitely come to agriculture in spades. The blurring of lines between town and country seems silly. However, we ARE blurring the lines between state and country the longer this is allowed to go on.
#10 = Well obviously yes, except for the last part. That last part is even a partial if you factor in trade schools who's sole purpose is to train someone to work in industrial production.

So you may not see yourselves as this far gone, but I sure as hell see US as this far gone.

I suspect your system of dealing with investment income is more fair because it's only ever counted once. When the money is earned. In the US, your income gets taxed when you first earn it. The leftovers are what folks then invest. The government then comes along and takes a huge second bite out of the same apple. You can perhaps understand then why someone already paying 39% on their income and 15% on their dividends doesn't want that becoming 45% on their income and 35% on their dividends, because then you're right back to the shitty days of when there was 80% taxation rates on the rich. If bringing about a true 2nd Great Depression is what Obama wants, THIS will do it. And as even the leftist media here will point out, if we go down that hard, we're taking the rest of you with us.

#2) Funny...I thought Mitt Romney is rich and paid only 11% or some number like that. That's a bit less than 50%. It depends how you define heavy anyway. Your income tax is way, way lighter than it was under, say Reagan (moreover, he was perfectly happy to raise taxes if he felt it was needed). Likewise, Australia's income taxes have become progressively lighter over time, even within my memory.
#3) I'll give you that one, a death tax is shit.
#5)I'm assuming that's a bit like Australia's Reserve Bank. Which hardly controls the economy in any regard and has limited power anyway (although it does use that power to try and maintain economic stability). Its hard to dirty the float when you only have $3 billion on hand to do so.
#9) What's wrong with mass production in agriculture? I'd suggest that the reason its doing well is simply because its more profitable than non-industrialized agriculture.
#10) Aren't trade schools optional to attend though (I'm assuming they're the as an education branch called TAFE in Australia, which teaches people trades and the like).



Well, in the Australian system dividends simply go towards your taxable income and its all taxed under income tax (the top bracket of which is in the low forties; the highest I can remember it being when I was younger was 48%, although my parents were born into a time when it was 80%. That time was the late sixties, to clarify). When you sell an investment, you're only taxed on the profit you make on it, which generally goes in with your taxable income, although if you hold the investment for long enough the rate is only 25%. I tend to see this as pretty fair, but then, I've never lived under another system.

The problem I see with the American system is that its set up to suit the rich minority who can simply invest their large amounts of money and pay stuff all on the returns because of the separate, lower dividend rate. Meanwhile, hard working middle class and lower class people pay more on their income. To me, that seems wrong.

Romney doesn't have an actual working income anymore either, so yes, he only pays 15% since that's all coming from nothing but dividends. Frankly there shouldn't be a tax on dividends because it reeks of double taxation for those who still have working incomes and invest what they have AFTER it's already been heavily taxed.

Most rich folk aren't in his position. Especially when you realize the government defines you as "rich" when all you make is $200K/yr.

My income tax under Reagan was $0.00. Mainly because I wasn't of age yet to have a job Still, my parents would disagree with you strongly on the subject of their taxes being higher under Reagan than they are now.

I have no idea what your Reserve Bank does, but I wouldn't doubt it if they have far more control over your economy than you realize. The ability to manipulate interest rates alone is hugely powerful and often has destructive outcomes, like, oh, say, a housing bubble that bursts. Also, our Federal Reserve Bank is what prints our money, so it has direct control over inflation and has access to TRILLIONS of dollars. They are the very definition of a dirty float.

Mass production in agriculture is what's led to the sharp rise in incidents of food poisonings. Obviously I'm not a nutjob who thinks it should all be shut down, but food safety is often the last thing most of these places care about.

Yes, trade schools are currently voluntary. For certain types of voluntary if you consider that you've pretty much got to get a degree SOMEWHERE before the asshats in charge will hire you. If it's not a college, it's a trade school. Free public education ends at 12th grade. Personally I wouldn't be able to stomach sitting through 4-6 years of incessant liberal propagandizing. I'd probably want to mow the lot of them down in a rampage or something. Shoulda done it back in the day before it got as bad as it is now.

The whole thing with taxation is the loop holes. Romney payed only 11% because of all the loop holes available to him and those who are rich, have more loop holes available to them than those in the middle and lower income brackets.

Fair taxation is just that, fair, put what ever numbers you want there, 30, 20, 10% i dont really care to argue the semantics of it, just have people pay exactly that number and piss off all the stupid loop holes and deductions.

Its no different here, plenty of ways of cheating the system just by setting up your businesses, investments and the like in particular ways just to aviod paying tax, i think last year i payed about 20% and i am in the highest marginal tax bracket, 42%. And if i structured my bussiness how my accountant wants me too, i would have payed maybe 10% or less. Yet, my wife, who is in a lower marginal tax bracket, payed her full amount 32%, that is hardly a fair and equatable tax system, that is one that favors the rich, or favors business people and screws over the average employee.

No, that's basically what they do. They control monetary policy (interest rates, although the banks don't have to follow this. Which can actually create a problem, because banks try to act in there interest while the Reserve Bank tries to act in the interest of the nation. Australia is in a resources boom period, for that matter, so its a bit harder to fuck things up than it proved to be in America. I say that because our government fucked up big time and we still didn't have a recession, albiet because China was still buying our rocks at stupidly high prices. Still, if China was to have an economic shock, well, jesus, Australia would be in crisis) and print money.

The definition of the 'dirty float' I was talking about was actually referring to the Reserve Bank buying up Australian currency off the global market with foreign currency. Eh, different thing, although printing out tons of note when a nations economy is struggling is certainly a sure fire way to make inflation.



Same level of tax I'm paying now. But not for much longer.



The reason you need a trade nowadays is because of labor specialization, which is a consequence of capitalism driving business to be more efficient. Or driving work that doesn't require specialization to places were labor is dirt cheap. Like China.

@Fury:

I guess you've never heard of the income tax refund then. Something many of us get here, and as a result of deductions EVERYONE can take, 51% of the people in this country pay no income taxes at all at both the state and federal levels. If you want to talk about fair, there you go. The 51% paying nothing need to start forking over their 20% and shut up about it.

Of course, I already know this will never happen here because the Dems would scream bloody murder about how all you want to do is fuck the poor by making them actually pay their fair shares. All they're interested in is raping the rich. They'd raise the rates to 90% if they thought they'd survive the vote to get re-elected. Fortunately the House is run by saner people who realize doing that is an economy killer.

I've had years of my own where I got back well over half of what was paid in to begin with after nothing more than the standard deduction. I've never filed an itemized deduction in my life, never felt the need. I've never had to write a check to the IRS once. They've always had to refund overpayment from payroll deductions.

I agree 100%, remove all the bogus deductions and rebates and let everyone pay something. It is all about having everyone contribute fairly to the running of the nation. We do not have this problem here. Sure everyone gets some basic deductions they can claim, but if you have payed more than 1K income tax, you will likely not see all of it back in a return. Pretty much if you earned over 10K and are not on some government benifit, you will be paying something, might not be much, but it is still something.

Personally, i think employees should not have to file a tax return, they should have the income tax taken and thats the end of it, reduce the marginal rates a little and be done with it. It is only those with investment/business incomes that really need to report each year because you just never know how much they are going to, or have earned. Wipe out all the bogus ways of hiding income or avioding tax, like family trusts and the like and let everyone pay thier fair share.

None of this is class warefare or wealth distribution, its just common sence and fairness.

I'm sure you already know that my ultimate tax plan, which cannot possibly be argued as unfair, would eliminate *ALL* taxes of every type and replace them all with a national sales tax of 10% or so. Nobody could avoid paying it then because everyone, even the super rich, buy stuff.

It already works out fairly well in states that don't impose income tax, I see no reason the feds can't live on 10% of every sale. Nobody anywhere has to file returns this way and the IRS itself could be drastically reduced in size to only the staff needed to administer the collection of the sales tax.

Herman Cain was definitely on the right track with his 9/9/9 plan, but it should have been a 0/0/9 plan instead.

Yeah we have debated this before, there are a number of other simular ideas out there to achieve a simular goal, but even they have their problems. Take Conner for instance, sells his tomatoes grown on his organic ranch, buys no pestiside, uses his own pig shit as fertalizer, eats what he grows and his only expence is deseil fuel for his tractor, he makes 100K a year from tomatoes and spends 5K a year on deseil fuel, he effectivly pays 500 in tax, a win for Conner but not so good for the country as a whole.

A tax on consumption is a good thing, we have it here and it is a much simpler way of taxing things across the board, but it does not generate enougb revenue to run a nation, you still need income and corperate taxes to achieve the required revenue levels to run the country.

Your Conner scenario is precisely how it should work. If he's got the ability to become that self sufficient, more power to him. A national sales tax would breed exactly that sort of thing. Further, people buying his tomatoes wouldn't pay taxes on those either because under my plan, all food items would be exempt. So if all you ever bought was food and water to feed your family, well, then you pay no tax at all.

The rest of us who have varying degrees of buying everything else, like TVs, cars, houses, computer parts, yard tools, gym equipment, etc will pay sales tax on the value of those items. Cars being a big seller, they'd rake in lots of money. Including from the richy riches you claim pay nothing at all right now because of "loopholes". Consumerism is still alive and well and it would in fact be more than enough to run a country.

It would be especially so if the tax plan was coupled with a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution that called for criminal penalties for members of Congress who violate it by passing a bill that would create a deficit. Our economic woes would vanish overnight and we wouldn't really need to worry much about what China or Russia were doing.

Damn, Fury, you have any idea how many tomatoes I'd have to find a way to harvest to make $100k/year?!? I wish I could make my little farm anywhere close to being that truly self-sufficient, the truth is that I pay something in the neighborhood of $2k/month for stuff like internet, land-line, electricity, water, gasoline for my car, feed for my livestock, cell phone service, satellite television, etc, etc... and I'm damn lucky if I can bring that same amount in on an average month from anything grown on my ranch. We manage here because my wife's disabled and we're on food stamps, though as our crops are finally starting to come in and our chickens are finally giving us more eggs than we use, that's shifting slightly.. still, I can't foresee profits anywhere near that range (hell, I'm not even sure I can see gross incomes anywhere near that range) anywhere in the time I expect to still have my kids living at home, if ever. In any event, for a purely hypothetical argument, if I could manage to bring about such a scenario, yes, I believe that is basically exactly what Samson was arguing for. I'd still be contributing to the national economy because, in addition to the crops and livestock I'd be delivering to market, I'd still have to pay for the services and products that my family use which we can't produce ourselves.