Another week of the shutdown. And yet, according to reliable TDV sources, the roads are still functioning, the sun rises and sets, and the IRS is still stealing your money. So all is well in the USSA!
Want to join in the discourse? Send your questions, comments, queries, and concerns to tdv@dollarvigilante.com, comment on a post, or get on the forums.
On to the feedback…
ONLINE EDUCATION
I'm 18 and currently a freshman in college. Now I'm pondering the idea of quitting too and just taking free courses online. What do you guys think?
Blake L.
Tyler Yasaka‘s Response:
Hey Blake,
I won't lie, it is difficult to get your foot in the door in America without any kind of degree. You can definitely do it, but a college degree could definitely speed up the process. It just depends on how much money and time you are spending on the degree, and comparing that to what you could be doing otherwise. I would strongly advise not getting into debt for a degree.
Personally, just due to the fact that I wasn't paying money for my education, I probably would have been better off continuing through college, as much as I dislike the system. If I can get my scholarship back, I might even go ahead and finish up that degree.
Whatever your decision is, I'm sure you will be successful! The key is to be persistent. Good luck.
RETIREMENT RIP-OFF?
Can a TDV expert address: My husband is soon getting TRS teacher retirement (TX). My jaw dropped when I heard it was not indexed to inflation, not even just the mild government numbers. No indexing, just a static payment of say, $3k/mo. Can someone with better math skills than me tell me if this is a huge a rip-off, or what, for a 52-year-old retiree. Incidentally, he paid a large sum, several hundred dollars every month to pay into this. He paid zero SS.
Jeff's Response:
It is absolutely a massive rip-off. The increase in the money supply has been over 10% per year for the last five years. While all that money hasn't made it all the way through the economy yet, it will. That means in the last five years alone, the value of the dollar has dropped over 50%. So, if that keeps up (and it will and will likely rise dramatically) that means that what is worth $3,000 today will likely be worth less than $1,500 in real purchasing power in the next five years. In fact I expect inflation to increase even more than that during that time period… possibly well over 20% per year in the coming years. If that were to happen, that $3,000 per month in nominal payments may only have a real purchasing power of less than $300/month in purchasing power terms. Or worse!
And, that is even if the teacher's union pension fund stays solvent. Many already aren't and most hold incredibly dangerous instruments like US Treasuries which will suffer a complete collapse in the coming years.
So, either your husband will be receiving enough funds to buy cat food to eat in the next few years or won't even receive a cheque at all. Sorry to be so negative but them's the facts ma'am. I suggest that people living on a pension look to get a job or start up a business (preferably in a place with a much brighter economic future). Why not take the $3,000 per month and move to a place like Chile and live in a small town where living expenses are very low and then find a way to start up a small business to have income.
In other words, reduce expenses (and you can still live like a king in places like Cambodia, Thailand and Nicaragua on peanuts… as we outline in the TDV newsletter) and increase income. That old concept of "retirement" was a bill of goods sold by a system that hoped to bilk all they can out of you and leave you with nothing.
ULBRICHT ANALOGY
Gary,
That analogy about Ulbricht harboring Jews in Nazi Germany, is fantastic. I hadn't put enough time into considering Ulbricht's actions to decide if they were moral or not (though, my gut reaction was that it wasn't necessarily immoral, since he was being manipulated), but that analogy makes it pretty clear cut.
I truly enjoy reading stuff that makes me feel stupid. It lets me know for sure that I'm listening to, and learning from, someone who knows more than me.
Adam
Gary’s Response:
Thanks, Adam. I'm glad we're helping you see things in new ways, but it certainly isn't our intention to make you feel stupid. We just want to continue having discussions that will bring us closer to a free world. Some feathers will get ruffled in the process as some tightly held but evil ideas are challenged. Our goal remains to convince people about the inherent immorality and destructive nature of aggression and coercion (i.e. government) than hurt their feelings…even as we don't pull any punches on calling out their conditioned acceptance of evil.
GERMANY?
Hey,
I was wondering if Germany was an ok place to go to? I have been thinking of moving there in a year or two because I know people there. So is Germany any good or is it just as bad as USSA?
Sara
Jeff's Response:
Hi Sara,
It is very tough to generalize. And it is very tough to predict the future. As The End Of The Monetary System As We Know It (TEOTMSAWKI) continues on anything could happen. Some places we figured may be safe may not… and vice versa. That said, we have many German readers at TDV and most of them would likely guffaw at the idea of moving to Germany. In fact, we are soon starting TDV Germany to help all the Germans looking to get their ass and assets out of that country.
I recently spent some time in Germany and spoke with many people and many of the things we usually talk about badly about the US occur in Germany as well. One friend, who lives near Dresden, was nearly bankrupted when the German version of the IRS and health/inspection departments decided to descend on his small house rental company. They found ridiculous things like window panes being millimeters too thin for regulation that ended up costing him thousands and thousands of dollars… money he could barely afford and it almost put him out of business. They hijacked his bank account during the entire process and he was left without funds for months. He tells me this is completely normal and knows many others who have had this happen to them.
He has decided to save as much money as he can and then move out of Germany (with his aim to move to the tax-free islands near the Canary Islands… Tenerife in particular). He says that most people speak German there and there is little or no tax, duties or regulation.
That said, there are parts of Germany that are lovely in terms of lifestyle. I recently visited Eastern Germany on the border of Czech Republic where you could buy quaint farm houses for just a few thousand dollars. And you were just a short 10-minute drive to Czech where you could buy things like cigarettes, alcohol, gasoline and other supplies for much cheaper without the German taxes. We wrote this up in the January issue of TDV this year. If you sign up to TDV you get access to all four years of back issues and can find all that kind of information. Click here to learn more. And even join TDV Groups worldwide to get advice from other TDVers who have expatriated. I'll be in Bangkok tomorrow night and will be meeting up with a number of TDVers who have made a life for themselves there..
