47%

US president candidate Mitt Romney had a speech on a fund-raiser event which became (in)famous as the "47% speech". Please watch it.

When I saw it, I said that I'd vote for this guy despite his other flaws if I was American. It turned out - just as he used to - he had the numbers wrong and probably didn't know the details what he was talking about. The largest fail is that the 47% who don't pay federal tax still pay various taxes and this percentage jumped up when some republican president cut taxes. Ronald Reagan was proud of increasing this very percentage.

However Romney being prepared and knowledgeable as Sarah Palin does not change the value of the idea he was talking about. Something I was talking about for years. Let me rephrase what he said, you'll see that I did not change the meaning, just clear it up:

• There is a large group of people who are dependent on the government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that the government has responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That's an entitlement, the government should give it to them.
• These are the people who don't pay tax or contribute to upkeeping the country in any other meaningful form. So the message of lowering taxes or spinning up the economy doesn't connect. They will actually take these messages as "more money for the rich".
• We can never convince them to take responsibility and care for their own lives.
• This group will vote for a socialist government, no matter what

Almost the same as he said, except now it makes sense. I'm not sure that Romney would be a good president. However bringing up this idea in public, taking it to the spotlight is important. It alone explains why Greece, Hungary, Spain, Italy and such are in deep trouble. Here this group is way over 50% of the electorate. The prime minister of Hungary told that the IMF (who has terms for a loan) must understand that the topic of pensions (about 20% of the budget) are a matter of democracy, we can't afford the elderly to turn away from democracy (and vote for neo-nazis or communists). In the troubled European countries the only way of deficit decrease that the majority of voters accept is raising taxes and firing government employees (soldiers, firefighters, teachers, people who do useful work). These of course decrease the GDP, decrease tax income, increase the unemployment, therefore the number of welfare leeches.

What to do? Romney stumbled upon the solution: "My job is not to worry about these people." But how can you not worry about voters? Soon we'll see if Romney could afford to ignore them, but he has the theoretical chance to win an election against these people. In Europe (and in 5-10 years in the US), it isn't possible even if every single taxpayer vote as one. The only way to not worry about their opinion is the way we don't worry how kids feel about the election: they shouldn't be able to vote. The non-taxpayers should have equal rights as children. This is what I found after evaluating lot of data, 3 years ago. Of course this is directly incompatible with democracy. Well, this system had two good centuries and nothing lasts forever.


PS: PvP isn't boring at all if you find the fitting way for you. Here is me, answering the call on Jabber calling exactly for the ship I fly, PvP-ing 10 hours straight, clearing a whole system from -A- Citizens all by myself, while being asleep because I'm so good in PvP: (explanation, I picked a -0.8 system, which was busy)

Friday morning report: 155.3B (5.5 spent on main accounts, 3.8 spent on Logi/Carrier, 3.2 on Ragnarok, 2.6 on Rorqual, 2.4 on Nyx, 2.8 on Dread, 17.4 sent as gift)