All posts by Hutchins AAron

Born in Deutschland 1965, hometown was Bütthart, parents were not U.S. government employees. However, when father was tricked into joining the U.S. Air Force Civil Service, in 1969, with the promise that we could remain in Germany, we were promptly shipped off to Iran. Due to one of my Iranian educators being disappeared, along with her husband, by the U.S. ally Shah of Iran's Israeli & U.S. created Savak (for the then official terrorist act of promoting the idea that women can vote), and due to my U.S. citizen mother being placed on Savak's Terrorist Arrest List (for supporting the idea that women should vote, at that time the U.S. ally Shah of Iran did not allow women to vote, now they can) we left Iran for the United States in 1973, literally in the middle of the night. At the U.S. Embassy airbase the CIA operated Gooney Bird (C-47) was so packed with other U.S. citizens fleeing our ally Iran (because the Shah gave the OK to arrest any U.S. citizen for such terrorist acts as promoting the concept of voting) that we were turned away by the Loadmaster and had to take a chance on a civilian flight out of Tehran's airport. My father told me he and my mother had three culture shocks; first when they arrived in Germany as civilians, then after being shipped off to Iran as U.S. government employees, then again returning to the United States as unemployed civilians (because so much had changed in the U.S. while they were gone, their only news source was the U.S. Armed Forces Radio & Television Service which heavily censored information about the home front). Since I graduated high school in 1982 I've worked for U.S. government contractors and state & local government agencies (in California), convenience store manager in California, retail/property management in Georgia, California and Idaho. Spent the 1990s in the TV news business producing number one rated local news programs in California, Arizona and Idaho. 14+ years with California and Idaho Army National Guard and the U.S. Air Force. Obtained a BA degree in International Studies from Idaho State University at the age of 42. Unemployed since 2015, so don't tell me the economy has recovered.
Technology

World War 3, Asian Front: China builds copy of U.S. RQ-170 Sentinel, that was shot down by Iran!

23 November 2013 (03:26 UTC-07 Tango)/19 Muharram 1435/02 Azar 1392/21 Gui-Hai (10th month) 4711

In December 2011 Iran captured a very expensive U.S. RQ-170 Sentinel stealth UAV (drone), which was illegally flying in Iranian air space.  Today, China has released pics of their new stealth drone and it looks a lot like the RQ-170.

China calls their version the Sharp Sword.  The Sharp Sword stealth UAV is said to be a combat drone.

After Iran captured the RQ-170 they reversed engineered it and shared the info with Russia and China.

Iran decodes all data from stealth drone

Iran copies Stealth Drone shares info with Russia & China 

Iran…sends Obama a smaller hot pink version

Iranians are expert reverse engineers

Iran shoots down U.S. unmanned aerial vehicle

Business/Economics, Idaho, Technology, U.S.

More pleas for help from Idaho company that wants to save Pocatello’s Hoku polysilicon factory! 1-thousand new jobs to be created?

23 November 2013 (18:09 UTC-07 Tango 22 November 2013)/19 Muharram 1435/02 Azar 1392/21 Gui-Hai (10th month) 4711

The following was sent by Francis W Kreais III of JCF Funding:

Gordon Jenkins has been working closely with Francis Kreais who is the founder and CEO of JCF Funding-who has been the front man for Arco Hills Silica Company making this deal work.

Gordon Jenkins is the president of Arco Hills Silica Company. This company owns some very large and very pure silica located in Butte County, Idaho. (About 20 Billion tons) When we heard of the bankruptcy auction of Hoku, we became extremely interested in acquiring that polysilicon plant because it fits in so well with what we are trying to do with our silica mine located near Arco Idaho.

We plan to purchase the entire plant at this upcoming auction because it would make it possible for us to go into operation without having to build our own processing plant. We also would benefit the local community because we would not only bring back the some 160 jobs related to the shutting down of the Hoku plant, but at least another 500 to 1000 jobs related to the development of our silica mine and related to the companies that are willing to move their plants out here to Idaho just so they can decrease the transportation costs of hauling the silica back to where they are already located.

Contact Francis W Kreais III at [email protected] to express your support!

Read More about the Hoku Materials saga:

JH Kelley blocked by federal court

Business/Economics, Idaho, U.S.

More Economic Decline: Who is the new owner of Chubbuck’s Pine Ridge Mall? It’s not the “family” company you think it is! GGP connection?

21 November 2013 (01:34 UTC-07 Tango)/17 Muharram 1435/30 Aban 1392/19 Gui-Hai (10th month) 4711

A couple of days ago the Idaho State Journal reported that the Pine Ridge Mall, in Chubbuck, was bought by a company called Farmer Holding Company.  The local newspaper quoted Rob Kingsbury as saying the company is a “family business”.

Farmer Holding started as Farmer Concrete back in 1948.  There are members of the board with the family name of Farmer (and employees related but not with the name Farmer), but today’s Farmer Holding Company Incorporated is a full fledged corporation created in Missouri in December 2000.  The incorporation has a “Permanent” (no expiration date) registration according to the Missouri Secretary of State.

According to the Missouri Ethics Commission, Farmer Holding employs at least three political lobbyists at the state level.

Farmer Holding Company branched out to mall properties in December 2012 when they paid a measly $11-million USD for the Capital Mall in Jefferson City, Missouri.  Farmer holding just paid a paltry $9-million for the Pine Ridge Mall in Chubbuck, Idaho.  And there is a connection; both malls were owned by GGP (General Growth Properties)!

Here’s another twist, according to Missouri’s News Tribune, ‘family owned’ Farmer Holding is a subsidiary of F&F Development.

At last report Farmer Holding was proposing a plan to improve the Capital Mall by combining it with an events center.  Farmer Holding told the Jefferson City council they would expand the property, and the city promised to give Farmer Holding $9-million collected from hotel taxes to help pay for $36-million expansion!

Interestingly Farmer Holding admitted that event/conference centers are money losing propositions.  Their own independently conducted economic survey said they would lose $250-thousand per year on the deal!  Yet, on 12 November 2013, the Jefferson City conference center facilitator told the city council to go with Farmer Holding’s plan.

On 18 November 2013, this is what city council member Carrie Carroll had to say about two competing convention center proposals: “At this point, neither one is right. Neither one is outstanding. Until they’re outstanding, they’re not going to be capable of getting our $9-million until we are enthused that this is right.”

On top of this Farmer Holding told city officials they had only $12-million of their own “investment” money to pay for the project, so even with the city’s $9-million they have to come up with $15-million from somewhere!  (thin air?)

A Jefferson City resident, Charles Gaskin, conducted his own research and warned city officials that Farmer Holding’s plan was a bad deal for the city.  He said city officials have become so desperate for developers that they now have the audacious hope that ‘if we build it customers will come’.  Gaskin says his research shows the economy is so bad that nobody will show up.  Remember, even Farmer Holding said they would lose money on the plan. (the Idaho cities of Chubbuck and Pocatello have adopted that same ‘built it they will come’ attitude)

In November 2013, Jefferson City council member Ken Hussey even warned “There’s a potential for super TIFs.”  TIF means Tax Increment Financing.

Farmer Holding was created out of a successful, truly family owned construction business.  The heirs decided to take their construction business to the next level and become fully incorporated.  In other words what they are doing is really all about making profits for their original construction ops.

And who is F&F Development?  At this point I don’t know!  Internet searches come up with many different companies that specialize in things like property development to things like direct selling.  Every listing for an F&F Development, whether it was a company in Florida or Connecticut, showed it to be a privately held company, which makes it hard to find info on them (they are not a publicly traded company).  There are several of these ‘development’ companies who list their forte as hotel and event/conference center developers.   If the News Tribune is correct about F&F being the parent company of Farmer Holding, it could explain why Farmer Holding is pushing Jefferson City to help pay for a new hotel and event/conference center in the Capital Mall.

Here’s another connection: GGP is an Illinois based corporation, Farmer Holding supposedly bought the Capital Mall but isn’t involved in operating it, another Illinois based company called Covington Realty Partners is actually running the mall (gee, it’s like an onion, so many layers).   Coldwell Banker Commercial Intermountain is managing the leasing of spaces at the Pine Ridge Mall in Chubbuck, Idaho.

I’m beginning to suspect that Farmer Holding always approaches city officials with the claim that they want to “rejuvenate” the local economy.  It could be that their true plan of action is to buy up distressed commercial properties for dirt cheap, build them up with the help of local taxes, then sell them off to the first sucker that comes along.  It’s like house flipping, but with commercial properties.

2017 Update:  In 2015 Caldwell Banker revealed that Farmer Holding-F&F Development took-over the once independently owned Carmike 7 theater in Chubbuck, Idaho.  The property was demolished and replaced with spaces for restaurants, currently occupied by Panera and Red Robin. The demolition of the Carmike 7 actually began in December 2014, as documented by Blind Bat News.

Also in 2015 Farmer Holding Company-F&F Development began buying vacant healthcare facilities when it took over Jefferson City, Missouri, Saint Mary’s Hospital.  Officially the plan is to redevelop the property (as part of the nationwide REIT conspiracy),  and at the beginning of 2017 Farmer Holding-F&F Development asked for taxpayer ‘incentives’ to finance the hospital redevelopment, which would allow Farmer Holding-F&F Development to cash-in on 50% of local sales tax revenues, and the imposition of an additional 1% sales tax on locals!  The city also granted easements for two parcels associated with the hospital property, blocking ‘right-of-way’ so that Farmer Holding-F&F Development could start redevelopment.

At the end of 2016, Farmer Holding asked Jefferson City to not only continue the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) for the Capital Mall project, but to increase it, as well as create a new TIF for their convention center project!

2018 Capital Mall Update: New signs and paint is all taxpayers got? 

Investment companies dump GGP & J.C. Penney!

Grand Teton Mall, in Idaho Falls, for sale! GGP dumping malls en masse! 

East Idaho’s Pine Ridge Mall, in Chubbuck, sells for paltry $9 million!

East Idaho shopping malls….quietly put up to be auctioned off….Merry Xmas!

A History Lesson in Economic Decline

All part of REIT plan to change the way you shop, and they blame you the shopper!

Mitt Romney….Destroyed jobs in Chubbuck 

International, Technology

Don’t take your Crapper for granted, it’s time to celebrate World Toilet Day!

20 November 2013 (14:53 UTC-07 Tango)/16 Muharram 1435/29 Aban 1392/18 Gui-Hai (10th month) 4711

The words crapper and crap, for that matter, are ligit.  They come from the name of a real person.  Thomas Crapper was a successful British plumber who was incorrectly associated with inventing the modern flush toilet.

The idea of a flushing toilet is ancient.  Archeologists say the first example was created for the King Minos more than 2800 years ago.  The first patent for a modern flushing toilet went to Alexander Cummings in 1775.  The first use of indoor plumbing and flush toilets was in 1825 by a hotel in Boston, Massachusetts.  But toilets back then were for the elites.  It wasn’t until after 1910 that flushing toilets took on a design similar to current toilets, and became affordable for us commoners.

And it wasn’t until after the Second World War that most commoner families of the Western World got indoor flush toilets.  I was in Scotland in 1991 and visited a museum dedicated to the history of sewage.  It even had a full size replica of a 1800s sewer system complete with stinking crap and piss (of course it was replicated, but who’d of thought somebody could be paid to make models of craps, other than those joke crap toys)!  But what awakened me to the fact that we take our crappers for granted was a small display that pointed out that most Scottish homes didn’t have indoor plumbing, or toilets, until after the 1950s!

Then you have to wonder at the Japanese, for taking toilets to the extreme.  Apparently the Japanese are so afraid of their rear ends they created toilets that blast their asses with water jets so they don’t have to wipe.  The latest Japanese toilets provide imaging systems and soothing female computer voices to tell them if they still have a nasty ass, and then it blasts them again.  (there are some people in the U.S. that are the same way and will pay top dollar for a robot toilet from Japan)

By the way the first production toilet paper wasn’t invented until 1857.   And the technology to make modern toilet brushes was used to create the first artificial Xmas tree, in the 1930s, thus linking Xmas and toilet cleaning.

Now to get serious,  the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) marked 19 November as World Toilet Day.  They want people to be aware of the major impact toilets have on reducing disease.  Even so, UNICEF says one reason for the rise of new diseases is the fact that (in their estimation) as many as 2-thousand children die every day because they live in areas that have no toilets, or way of handling sewage: “Access to toilets remains the unmentionable, shameful secret for even some very prosperous countries.  But its invisibility doesn’t make it harmless; in fact it is quite the reverse. Lack of access to toilets is quite literally killing children, making adults sick…”–Sanjay Wijesekera, UNICEF Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)

So those of us commoners who have toilets should be proud, and thankful, for they truly are our porcelain thrones!

Oh commodus selarium deus, forgive me for taking you for granted. I am truly thankful to have you.

Oh commodus selarium deus, forgive me for taking you for granted! I am truly thankful to have you!

U.S.

Exceptional Failed State: Anti-gun laws can’t stop Knockout Game! Teens killing “for the fun of it”! Time to watch the classic movie Death Wish for the answer!

20 November 2013 (03:06 UTC-07 Tango)/16 Muharram 1435/29 Aban 1392/18 Gui-Hai (10th month) 4711

“She had her purse, she had bags from department stores. There was not even an attempt to take anything from her. It was just a wanton act to hurt another human being.”-Daughter of latest Knockout victim.  The victim died.

Most eastern U.S. states have strict anti-gun laws, but that isn’t stopping increasing random(?) attacks on people, called by police the Knockout Game (aka Knock Out King, Polar Bear Hunting).  And people are being killed, the latest death is a 78 years old woman.

Security camera video shows how groups of people are suddenly knocking out passersby.  The victims are knocked out, and as an example of the caring people of the eastern half of the U.S., rarely does anybody come to help them.

Some reports say the attacks are happening in Jewish neighborhoods, many of the videos show what looks like black teenagers attacking white people: “…the assaults are part of a disturbing game by some African-American teens.”-attributed to Rabbi Yaacov Behrman, by CBS New York affiliate news

However, a black female teen was attacked by black males, while she rode her bike home from school in Washington DC.  One man, with a Spanish last name, in New Jersey was killed, his neck broken with his head shoved between fence posts.

A 13 years old boy, arrested for helping to kill a man with his fists, said he and his buddies do it “for the fun of it”.

The attacks are taking place in Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Washington DC.  (you know, the places with strict anti-gun laws)

The main streamer news media are calling it a new phenomenon, which is another lie on their part: “It’s only new if you have been aggressively ignoring the epidemic of black mob violence around the country.  But it happened to my son and I had no idea it was happening around the country until I researched it and found the book White Girl Bleed a Lot.“-Sherry Godfrey, Springfield, Missouri

By the way, the British news media began reporting about Knockout Game back in 2011.  So why is only now the U.S. news media paying attention?

This reminds me of a pro-gun movie staring Charles Bronson. It’s about a guy who’s wife and daughter are raped, and his wife killed by teens/thugs just for the fun of it.  He begins to notice how the law abiding adults are being threatened daily by teens/thugs, who are actually encouraged by anti-gun politicians and ineffectual and corrupt police.  The only true justice the guy gets is when he gets a gun and kills those ass holes!   Watch Death Wish!

Guess what, in Michigan a group of teens tried to Knockout a victim with a taser.  The victim had a .40 S&W handgun and blasted them several times.  Don’t bring your fists or a taser to a gun fight!

“Our ideals and principles, as well as our national security……..That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional.”-Barack Obama, 10 September 2013

Idaho, U.S.

Exceptional Failed State: Obama on drugs? Says 100-million people now have Obama Care insurance!

19 November 2013 (15:37 UTC-07 Tango)/15 Muharram 1435/28 Aban 1392/17 Gui-Hai (10th month) 4711

There are about 314-million citizens in the United States, the Obama regime was recorded during a phone conference telling his NAZI Organizing for Action operatives that 100-million citizens now have Obama Care insurance: “In the first month alone we’ve seen more than 100 million Americans successfully enroll in the new insurance plans.”

That’s even 99.9-million more than what the Obama regime predicted!

But guess what?  Obama was including an estimated million citizens that applied but so far haven’t actually signed up, and citizens that supposedly will now qualify under expanded Medicaid.  In other words, Obama’s claim that 100-million now have insurance is a total guesstimation, it’s not fact!

I’m one of those citizens that should qualify for expanded Medicaid, except I live in one of about two dozen U.S. states that are refusing to expand Medicaid coverage!  You here that Obama?  About half of the 50 U.S. states are refusing to expand Medicaid coverage!

Even the main streamer pro-Obama regime news media says about 100-thousand people have signed up, or applied for Obama Care!  Is Obama on drugs?

Obama also told his NAZI followers that Obama Care insurance would cost less than a cable TV bill!  Guess what I can’t even afford cable or satellite TV, I use the old fashioned free TV antenna!  How the hell can I afford Obama Care?

“Our ideals and principles, as well as our national security……..That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional.”-Barack Obama, 10 September 2013

Prepare for permanent economic terrorism

Idaho’s Obama Care Christian corruption covered up

 More Obama Care job cuts!

Obama Care shuts down yet another Christian nursing home!

Hundreds more laid off due to Obama Care

Obama Care being blamed for 61 people becoming unemployed

Former mainstreamer news man gets screwed by Obama Care! 

Business/Economics, Idaho, International, U.S.

Economic Decline: JH Kelley blocked by federal court, Hoku auction done in violation of court order! Proof the property will be broken up, into more than 1-thousand lots!

19 November 2013 (13:24 UTC-07 Tango)/15 Muharram 1435/28 Aban 1392/17 Gui-Hai (10th month) 4711

When it rains…..

The auction of Pocatello, Idaho’s White Elephant, Hoku Materials factory was ruled in violation of federal court rules.   JH Kelley made a high bid after the piecemeal and bulk auctions ended.

Judge Jim Pappas also pointed out that the massive property was split up into 1364 lots, and that all but 300 lots were bid on.   That’s interesting because after the auction JH Kelley stated they would help Pocatello “…attract a new user to the property…”

The judge will set a date for a new auction.

Idaho politicians give away tens of millions to companies that shut down! 

Hoku factory bought by construction contractor

Business/Economics, U.S.

Exceptional Failed State: UnAmerican Corporate America asking their employees to donate T-Day food, to themselves!

19 November 2013 (13:02 UTC-07 Tango)/15 Muharram 1435/28 Aban 1392/17 Gui-Hai (10th month) 4711

“Please donate food items here so Associates in Need can enjoy Thanksgiving Dinner”-Walmart sign in Ohio

It’s not unusual to hear a cashier ask you if you want to make a donation to some charity, but now retail employees are being asked to make donations to their fellow co-workers!

Ohio news media reporting that the Walmart on Atlantic Boulevard in Canton (apparently taking on the new role of being a food bank charity) is asking its own employees to donate Thanksgiving Day food to its own employees!

I’ve seen this in the past, but only in businesses that paid much more than Walmart and where there was a major pay difference between long time employees and newbies (also in Union shops).  But, I didn’t think any Walmart employees were economically able to make donations.

At the corporate level Walmart admits they pay most of its employees low income wages, even poverty level.  The organization demanding higher pay at Walmart, OUR Walmart, says the Ohio store’s food drive for its own employees is arrogant and insulting: “The company needs to stand up and give them their 40 hours and a living wage, so they don’t have to worry about whether they can afford Thanksgiving!”-Vanessa Ferreira

Maybe Walmart is getting into the charity business?  Consider the signage asking employees to donate to other employees, note that “Associates” and “Need” are capitalized,  “Associates in Need”, as if it is some kind of organization.

An employee at the Canton, Ohio, Walmart revealed these food drives for employees are not new, they’ve been going on for years.  But she proves to be an example of an ignorant Walmart employee, she said people shouldn’t blame Walmart because low paying jobs are the norm across the United States.  She obviously doesn’t realize that Walmart is the corporation that’s responsible for leading the charge to low wages, spending decades destroying other businesses to become the largest employer in the country!

And realize this, Walmart isn’t donating food to its poverty level employees, Walmart is ‘asking’ other low wage employees to donate the food!  If Walmart is truly concerned about its employees then Walmart should be donating the food, or maybe increase their wages!

Another Walmart employee, in Dayton, is more awake: “Walmart sets the precedent for everybody, so if they make changes, everyone would follow suit.”-Scott Stringer

Another Dayton employee said this about working at Walmart after seven years: “Personally, it is difficult for me to stock groceries that I can’t afford at the end of the day.”-Ricki Hahn, planning to go on strike

“That captures Walmart right there. Walmart is setting up bins because its employees don’t make enough to feed themselves and their families.”-Kate Bronfenbrenner, Cornell University Labor Education Research

And since Walmart is the biggest employer in the U.S., that captures the state of the economy for the whole country.  Happy Thanksgiving!

“Our ideals and principles, as well as our national security……..That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional.”-Barack Obama, 10 September 2013

Fukushima

More Fukushima Fallout: More proof reactors damaged BEFORE earthquake & tsunami hit! Dozens of ‘Atomic bombs’! Main streamer news media covering it up!

19 November 2013 (00:42 UTC-07 Tango)/15 Muharram 1435/28 Aban 1392/17 Gui-Hai (10th month) 4711

Today, Japan’s NHK (Nippon Housou Kyoukai/Japan Broadcasting Corporation) reporting that Tokyo Electric Power Company has discovered that at least 80 spent fuel rods, in the GE designed Reactor 1 spent fuel pool, are damaged.  TEPCo also says they were damaged prior to the 11 March 2011 quake and tsunami, however, they don’t know how they became damaged.

Last week TEPCo revealed that the spent fuel rods for the GE designed Reactor 4, at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility, were already damaged prior to the 11 March 2011 quake and tsunami!

But wait there’s more!  The first Reactor 4 fuel rods were damaged during transfer back in 1982!  Then in 2010, more Reactor 4 fuel rods were damaged, also while being transferred!

For some reason main streamer Japanese media didn’t run with story when it came out last week.  It was a local Fukushima newspaper that broke the story, then it was picked up by Reuters.

Reactor 4 was already powered down when the 11 March 2011 quake and tsunami hit.

Reactor 4 spent fuel pool has about 400 metric tons of fuel rods.  The rods are held in racks, containing 50 to 70 fuel rods each.  Don’t think because they are “spent” fuel rods they aren’t dangerous, each rack has the potential explosive power of 10 Hiroshima atomic bombs!

Stupid main streamer U.S. media continues to blame tsunami for “man made” disaster! 

Business/Economics, U.S.

Exceptional Failed State: Obama Care about to kill you with 20 new taxes! Violates Constitution! Prepare for permanent economic terrorism?

19 November 2013 (00:23 UTC-07 Tango)/15 Muharram 1435/28 Aban 1392/17 Gui-Hai (10th month) 4711

“….the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act violated the Origination Clause of the U.S. Constitution….”-MATTHEW SISSEL vs U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, et al

At least 40 U.S. Congressman have joined a federal Supreme Court lawsuit that charges Obama Care with violating the Constitution.   Specifically “The Senate of the United States violated this constitutional safeguard when it ‘amended’ a House bill designed to reduce taxes by substituting the legislative substance of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), which was one of the largest tax increases in American history, estimated to raise $675 billion in revenue. The Origination Clause requires that such revenue raising bills originate in the House, not the Senate.”

And just how many taxes were secretly created by Obama Care?  At least 20.  U.S. Congressman Jeff Duncan, from South Carolina, has published a full list of the massive amount of taxes created by Obama Care.  There are new taxes on investments, on individuals, on businesses (I’ve been posting about those medical device makers that are shutting down or leaving the country because of a new medical device tax),  taxes on non-profit hospitals (I’ve also been posting about non-profit hospitals shutting down because of this tax), increase in Medicare tax, even taxes on the outrageously expensive health insurance you’re being forced to pay for!  Click here to see the list.

Forbes is predicting that all the new taxes will result in a new level of tax evasion/fraud.  Obama Care will actually increase corruption within the United States.

Any political scientist/economist/historian will tell you that one of the major factors in the destruction of a society/empire is the introduction of excessive taxes, especially when the economy is crashing and burning.

The following was taken from How Excessive Government Killed Ancient Rome, written by Bruce Bartlett in 1994. See how much it reads very much like what’s been going on in (and what’s coming for) the United States: “….unscrupulous emperors like Domitian (81—96 AD.) would use trumped-up charges to confiscate the assets of the wealthy. They would also invent excuses to demand tribute from the provinces and the wealthy……citizenship was greatly expanded [immigration reform] in order to bring more people into the tax net.  Taxes on the wealthy, however, were sharply increased, especially those on inheritances…..Most emperors continued the policies of debasement [currency devaluation] and increasingly heavy taxes, levied mainly on the wealthy. The war against wealth was not simply due to purely fiscal requirements, but was also part of a conscious policy of exterminating the Senatorial class…..As the private wealth of the Empire was gradually confiscated or taxed away, driven away or hidden, economic growth slowed to a virtual standstill. Moreover, once the wealthy were no longer able to pay the state’s bills, the burden inexorably fell onto the lower classes, so that average people suffered as well from the deteriorating economic conditions.  In Rostovtzeff’s words, ‘The heavier the pressure of the state on the upper classes, the more intolerable became the condition of the lower‘ (Rostovtzeff 1957: 430).   At this point, in the third century A.D., the money economy completely broke down. Yet the military demands of the state remained high…….With the collapse of the money economy, the normal system of taxation also broke down. This forced the state to directly appropriate whatever resources it needed wherever they could be found [government run armed robbery]……. The result, of course, was chaos, dubbed ‘permanent terrorism’ by Rostovtzeff (1957: 449).  Eventually, the state was forced to compel individuals to continue working and producing [government run slavery].” 

“Our ideals and principles, as well as our national security……..That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional.”-Barack Obama, 10 September 2013