Karma's a Bitch

Sometimes, events occur that make me rethink (for awhile) my growing cynicism about the fairness of life.  Or maybe it's just that I'm a miserable SOB at heart, but the news out of New Jersey this week concerning Powerball winner Pedro Quezada?  Maybe it really is true that, sooner or later, you get what you deserve.

Pedro won the latest Powerball drawing, winning an estimated $152 million (after taxes).  The usual investigation into his life (nosiness) that happens to all major lottery winners revealed that he was a deadbeat dad, owing more than $29,000 in back child support payments dating to 2009 and that there was an active warrant out for his failure to pay.  NJ officials say that they will hold the warrant in abeyance pending his scheduled court appearance next week.

Ordinarily, I'd be a little pissy about someone who had demonstrated an inability or unwillingness to accept the responsibility of providing for his child and intentionally failing to provide such support when so ordered by the court for a number of years (all while purchasing lotto tickets every day at the same location) winning such an amount of money.  But in this case, it may have been a case of the dark cloud's silver lining finally showing up for this child and his/her mother.  There is no doubt that there will be legal action taken to remedy not only the arrears, but to secure a suitable trust fund for the child (and, presumably, the mother). 

I'm quite sure that lawyers have already been contacting the woman, offering her their services.  I can't imagine any of them relying on Mr. Quezada's good will to provide for the child in the future any better than he has in the past.  In fact, it has also been revealed that there are 4 other children (one now an adult) who also have valid claims to a share of the windfall, due to his failure provide support in the past.  One would assume that lawyers are contacting them, as well.

Mr. Quezada has said that he plans to be "generous" with his winnings, both to friends and family here and back in his native Dominican Republic.  If I were any one of his children, their mothers, or their lawyers, I'd take great steps to ensure that provisions for the care of his children were taken care of, with trust funds set up or money put in escrow for their future (completely free of ties to or influence by Mr. Quezada) before any money was sent out of the country.  For that matter, I'd at least try to set it up where the money went directly to his heirs' accounts (in amounts decided by Family Court) before he even gets his first check.  He's already proven he can't be trusted to do the right thing on his own.

Mr. Quezada has indeed been blessed with what some may say in light of his behavior to have been outsized good fortune.  However, given that he is facing significant financial penalties for failing to provide court ordered support for his children (the amounts he owes in arrears will not be affected by his winnings, but look for future payments to be adjusted upwards.  Greatly.),  and that the future of these children may have just gotten a little bit more secure, a little bit better than it was before, I find that I can accept his good fortune to the extent that it provides for children who had no say in their circumstances and frees the general taxpaying public from the obligation.

In a world populated by responsible adults, held accountable for their obligations, a man such as Mr. Quezada would have to repay--with interest--all monies expended by the state(s) for the care of his children (ANFC, Food Stamps, Welfare cash benefits, Section 8 housing subsidies, schooling, free school lunches, Medicaid, etc.).  I don't know whether or not New Jersey law provides for such a "claw back", but it seems to me no more than just.  Or, to use a term favored by the advocacy groups on the left: It's about time Mr. Quezada paid his "fair share".  Especially in light of the fact that he has just become so emphatically a member of the hated 1%.

 

Is it Time to Panic?

Whether or not you own guns, this one should give you chills.  A father posted a picture on Facebook of his son proudly holding a .22 rifle.  The kid's got a happy smile (the gun looks like dad's AR15) and it's obvious that he's been taught gun safety (he's holding it properly, with his finger outside the trigger guard).  The problem?  This family lives in New Jersey,  a state well known for it's strict gun regulations and anti-gun sentiment.

New Jersey also, apparently, has a number of busybodies.  One of whom called the New Jersey Department of Youth and Family Services to make a report of a juvenile with a gun (anonymously, of course).  This resulted in a DYFS agent, accompanied by 4 armed NJ State Police Officers (wearing bullet proof vests) showing up at his home demanding entry and demanding that he open his safe so that they could "inspect" his guns and insure they were properly registered.  (NJ doesn't require registration of firearms.)  All of this, without a warrant!  The DYFS agent threatened to "take his kids" if he didn't comply with her illegal demands for access.  When he & his lawyer (he had him on speaker phone) asked that she identify herself and show her credentials, she refused.  When the father tried to take her picture for identification, she "quickly turned and ran away".  Read the full story here.

Whether you own guns or not.  Even if you think no one "needs" a gun (see the next story).  This blatant violation of Constitutional protections by a government agency is a threat.  Even if it was just the over-reaction of a certain DYFS official who has a personal dislike for guns and gun owners, the fact that she felt justified in demanding the right to search a private citizen's home and to issue threats against his family when refused, indicates a culture of arrogant dismissal of private rights that should be impossible.  Today it's guns.  Tomorrow, maybe it'll be something you enjoy.  Action movies, perhaps?  So-called "violent" video games?  I'm sure I could find someone to verify that children shouldn't be exposed to such influences and that they should all be banned "for the protection of children and the public".  Progressives and Statists never stop.  Everyone will eventually find themselves on the wrong side of at least one issue.

I know it seems like I'm pounding away on the gun rights argument an awful lot, but think for a minute.  In the absence of the 2nd Amendment's protection of the right to keep and bear arms, what secures the other Amendments in the Bill of Rights, ultimately?  The 2nd Amendment, along with it's potential threat to would-be dictators, is the keystone supporting America's free society.  If it goes, eventually it all goes.

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A man in Ponca City, Oklahoma shot an intruder who broke into his home at 4:30 in the morning.  The man did what Bloomburg and all of the other anti-gun rights activists say we should do.  He called 911.  He was on the phone with the operator for roughly 5 minutes waiting for the police to arrive.  He told them they'd better hurry, because he was prepared to defend himself if they succeeded in gaining entrance. [Note to Joe Biden: He didn't just take a shotgun and "shoot through the door".]

It was only after the perpetrator succeeded in breaking in his front door, and the police still hadn't arrived on the scene, that the homeowner defended himself, shooting the criminal several times. "I just put three rounds in his ass."  He told the dispatcher.  The perp was taken by ambulance to a hospital, then airlifted to Tulsa for treatment.  This is an example of "When seconds count, the police are just minutes away".

Here's the most disturbing part of the story:  The police are investigating the incident and say that after their investigation they will turn over their results to the DA.  WTF?!  This is a clear-cut case of self-defense, as the recording of the 911 call makes clear.  There should be no question of potentially charging the homeowner with anything.  Perhaps this is simply the mandated procedure following a shooting and the homeowner has nothing to worry about.  Given the current climate in government, I wouldn't take anything for granted.  Even in a western state with a rich tradition of gun ownership.

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How much do you trust your institutions?  Your government? Your banks?  If you've been paying attention this past week you've heard about the events in the island nation of Cyprus. 

As part of a bailout deal, the IMF and other European partners required the nation's leaders to confiscate part of it's citizens' deposits held in the banks.  The Cyprian government agreed.  The news was quietly leaked late last week in a massive document dump.  The details got little or no reporting from the regular media until some regular citizens--after reading through the information and finding out what was going to happen to them--took to Twitter and social media to sound the alarm.  The reported agreement is to seize 6.75% of depositors' assets up to 100,000 Euros and 10% of amounts over that.  This isn't a tax.  This isn't a new government fee that was debated and voted on by the representatives of the people.  It's outright confiscation of private property.  In essence, the entities providing the bailout are demanding that the government confiscate the people's wealth be used to bailout the banks that mismanaged, and then lost, the people's money in the first place!

Of course, when people found out what was being planned they rushed to the banks to withdraw at least some of their money.  The government responded by ordering the banks closed, saying they "feared a run on banks" as a result of their decision.  ATM's wouldn't work.  If they didn't have money on hand, the people were screwed, unless they had a credit card (debit cards wouldn't work) or could convince someone to accept a cheque.  The government and the banks promised that this was just a temporary measure and that the banks would re-open in a few days.  They were supposed to open Thursday.  Now they are saying it may be sometime next week before the banks re-open.  How long do you think you would last if you woke up tomorrow morning to find that your ATM card didn't work and that your bank was closed and that electronic transfers were frozen? 

Think there's no way it could happen here?  The amounts we're talking about in the Cyprus deal are relatively small, about $20 Billion US.  The Federal Reserve Chairman, (Batshit) Ben Bernanke has just announced an expansion of the Fed's bond buying program.  Now, instead of promising to buy $40B of bonds, mortgage assets, and other securities, he says they are going to be purchasing $85B.  That's more than 4 times the amount that's causing the crisis in Cyprus.  Per month!  More than $1 TRILLION in additional printing and spending per year, effectively doubling down on the deficit.

We're now nearly $17 Trillion in debt.  Where is this money going to come from?  Literally all the money in the world isn't enough to pay that off.  But there IS a potential "solution" that has been talked about very quietly in the halls of Congress for years: the partial nationalization of privately held retirement accounts.  The Ghilarducci plan is for the Federal government, in the name of "protecting the consumer from the vagaries and risks of the stock marked" to assume at least partial management of private investment accounts by requiring that a certain percentage of deposits be held in government bonds.  In return, the government would guarantee a rate of return as a hedge against possible future losses. In effect, creating a second mandatory Social Security program (we've seen how well they've managed the first one).

Americans have, collectively, several trillion dollars sitting in personal retirement accounts such as IRA's, ROTH's, 401k plans, pensions, federal and state government employee retirement accounts, etc.  Imagine a certain cash-strapped administration looking at all that money.  It's just sitting there!  It's not being put to good use.  In light of what just happened without warning in Cyprus, do you really think that our government hasn't considered a similar proposal?  It's entirely likely that governments around the world are looking at the events in Cyprus as a test case.  The proverbial "canary in the coal mine".  If the government is able to make this go down without widespread violence and revolt, look for it to spread.  After all, what easier way to make sure that "the rich" pay their "fair share" than to just go into their bank accounts and take it?

I'm not telling you to run to the bank, take out all your money and stuff it in the mattress or bury it in the back yard but maybe, just maybe, it might be a good idea to take out a little bit?  Maybe stash away enough to carry you over for a few weeks or a month or so?  Couldn't hurt, could it?  I mean, are you really going to lose that much in interest?  Not at less than 0.5% you aren't.  If you are relying on FDIC insurance to protect you, just remember, the FDIC is ultimately run by the same people who may have designs on your money.

Is it time for "gold & guns"?  I can't say.  But a word to the wise.............