I'm sure there'll be a place for him in the Hillary Administration.

'Robin Hood' Banker Jailed for Fraud

A former bank executive who was said to have "Robin Hood" mentality has been sentenced to 41 months in federal prison for taking money from some accounts and repaying others, as well as pocketing some of the money for himself.

But isn't that what government does when IT redistributes the wealth? There will always be money skimmed off the top when entity A takes money from entity B to give to entity C. They give it benign sounding names like "administration fee," or "the cost of bureaucracy," but it's more honestly referred to as the "cut." And the more of a cut entity A gets for taking entity B's money, the more of entity B's money entity A wants to forcibly redistribute.

And it's just as much theft when the government is "entity A" as when the Robin Hood Banker is.

Question: Why do they call it "redistribution of wealth" and not the more accurate "redistribution of poverty"?

Romney: Punish the rich for being rich., reward the rest for not being rich.

From the Glenn Beck Radio Show:

GLENN: So you didn't really answer question. Why don't we have a candidate calling for a flat tax?

GOVERNOR ROMNEY: Well, you know, it's -- it has a lot of features that are attractive but the flat tax as it was originally proposed by Steve Forbes had some things I think that would not work and one that I pointed out, of course, is that you eliminate the home mortgage deduction and that would have an impact on the housing market. Another is that the very, very wealthy would pay no taxes at all, none, under a flat tax. And so I think as people hear the term "Flat tax," they like the idea but then if they hear that some people will pay no taxes at all, the very wealthiest, they've say, ooh, there's got to be something to adjust it.

GLENN: Hey, hey, wait. You're talking about the very wealthy. You were talking quite honestly about people like Hillary Clinton that have millions and millions and millions that are working for them and they are not -- they are not paying in income tax. You're saying that they wouldn't pay anything on capital gains.

GOVERNOR ROMNEY: Yeah, that's right, under the Forbes flat tax plan, someone like Bill Gates who probably gets in a billion dollars of income a year from interest and dividends and capital gains, he probably pays $200 million in taxes a year. He would pay no taxes under the flat tax, and I don't think that's what people think about when they think about flat tax. So there's some --

GLENN: So why don't you -- why don't you fix those problems and introduce a flatter tax?

GOVERNOR ROMNEY: Yeah. And that's one of the things that I'll be talking about is my own tax policy. One of the elements that I've already put forward is that I would like to reduce taxes across the board. I'd also like to go after savings for people of middle incomes, and my view is middle income Americans ought to be able to save their money and get their interest dividends and capital gains tax-free. I don't think we should tax people when they earn their money and then when they save it and then when they die. So I want to take that tax off on capital gains, interest and dividends for middle income Americans.

GLENN: Okay. So wait a minute. Hang on just a sec. It's not right for Bill Gates but it's right for middle Americans. Mitt, I know you well enough. I know your history well enough to know that you understand our founding fathers. Help solve something in my head that has been bothering me here recently. Why can't I sue for my equal rights as someone who has prospered in this country? I was born poor, I made my money, and I do not have equal rights under this system because you're penalizing me and you just made an example. You want to make sure that somebody who is middle class has rights that I don't.

GOVERNOR ROMNEY: No, I really don't, Glenn.

GLENN: But I mean, help me out. How does that not work that way?

GOVERNOR ROMNEY: Well, obviously we have a whole series of provisions of the tax code that give advantage to people of lower income. Do you realize the bottom 30% of earners in this country pay no income tax at all, the bottom 30%. And then in addition, we give a child credit for every child so a person gets a $1,000 tax credit for every child they have. So that means the people who have children are getting advantages relative to people who don't. Those are the provisions that have been worked into the code over the years. Of course, in the Bush tax cut plan we put in place that we doubled the child tags credit. So there are dramatic differences in how we treat different types of income and different types of families, and I'll give you that. There are dramatic differences. But even the flat tax plan, it wouldn't charge any tax to people of lower income. They got no tax at all and no tax for the people of very high income.

GLENN: Right.

Setting aside the fact that the income tax and the capital gains tax are two different taxes and THEY DON'T HAVE TO MATCH, this sounds like the same old "punish success, reward failure" model that torpedoed the Soviet Union.

I guess that's what you'd call Rommunism.

BTW, how is reciting the current tax policy a reason that you can't fix the problems with it?

I've figured it out.

First, take a look at this clip from the Socialized Television program “Sesame Street,” keeping in mind that it IS socialized television.




Now, take into account that the Left is all about symbolism.

Bert symbolizes the HAVES in American society. The clay sculpture is the HAVE NOTS. Ernie is the government, and Bert’s nose is money.

The act of appropriating Bert’s nose and giving it to the sculpture is the redistribution of wealth through socialist economic policies such as the progressive income tax.

The government finds the looting of Bert’s wealth laugh-out-loud funny. Why should HE get to keep his nose, after all, when there are so many WITHOUT noses? True, Bert has a right to his own nose, but what are rights when there is need in the country? “Rights” is only a word, after all.

Socialized television does not go on to address the obvious, though. Does Bert not become the HAVE NOTS and the sculpture the HAVES? And why did the government create the HAVE NOTS without noses anyway?

The answer to that one is simple – so that it has an excuse to take Bert’s nose away from him. Ernie resents Bert’s ability to provide for his own needs. Ernie hates Bert’s unconcern for the plight of the sculpture. Ernie hates Bert’s certainty. Ernie, simply put, hates Bert.

But he’ll never admit it.

If I had written that skit, I would leave it exactly the way it is, except at the end, Bert would give a long, protracted, John-Galt-style speech and shoot Ernie in the head.

The bullet being symbolic of the ballot, of course.

Then Bert would take his nose back from the sculpture and tell the sculpture to grow it’s own nose or do without; he doesn’t care which.

End of scene.

Note: I tried to post this yesterday, but it disappeared. Perhaps a sinister, shadowy man smoking a cigarette in a darkened room at the hub of the blogosphere, on orders from our country's shadow government, removed it because of the part where Bert shoots Ernie in the head, not realizing it was symbolic of an election and not the actual shooting of the government in the head.

Hillary: It's the (lack of enough socialism in the) economy, stupid!

When Rodham-Clinton's husband began wee-weeing all over himself about communitarianism, Bear Review editor-in-chief Kevin Whited noted that communitarianism seemed to him to be nothing more than communism with a few extraneous letters thrown in.

Now Hillary has chosen to dredge up the old leftist resentment of the capitalist, laissez-faire "I'll take care of me; you take care of you" approach, in what I have dubbed the "It Takes A Socialist Village" speech:

MANCHESTER, N.H. - Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton outlined a broad [anti-]economic vision Tuesday, saying it's time to replace an "on your own" society with one based on shared responsibility and prosperity.

The Democratic senator said what the Bush administration touts as an ownership society really is an "on your own" society that has widened the gap between rich and poor.

"I prefer a 'we're all in it together' society," she said. "I believe our government can once again work for all Americans. It can promote the great American tradition of opportunity for all and special privileges for none."

My responsibility and prosperity are my own, Ms. Rodham. You and your fellow looters have no legitimate claim to a share in them.

When we're all in it together, Ms. Rodham, the "it" is invariably the toilet. The Soviets were all in it together, and their society collapsed. The Cubans are all in it together, and they are driving old American wrecks from the 1950's rather than manufacturing their own vehicles. The North Koreans are all in it together, and they are eating their children. These are not models I hope my country follows.

I'll take my America the way it is, thank you very much. And the way it is, or rather the way it used to be before your type came along, is free, liberty-loving, individual-rights-respecting, and capitalist. In other words, an ownership society.

More thoughts at Captain's Quarters and Blue Crab Boulevard.

[H/T 2 memeorandum.]
Ron Paul for President.