RUSSIANS TO SCRAP CAPITAL GAINS TAX

Government is moving towards the free market in Russia while in America it's buying up industries. Funny how attractive communism is to those that have never experienced it while it is something that those that have run away from.

I suppose theory trumps experience for the intelligentsia.

"Russia will scrap capital gains tax on long-term direct investment from 2011, President Dmitry Medvedev has said.

Mr Medvedev said that in terms of improving Russia's investment climate "we, I hope, are moving forward".

He also said the number of "strategic" firms, in which foreign investment is restricted and which cannot be privatised, would fall from 280 to 41.

Mr Medvedev has been promoting the idea of "modernisation", including diversifying the Russian economy."
BBC

Elbridge Cleaver, as the Information Minister for the Black Panthers, worked to promote communism and destory capitalism in the '60's. He was forced to flee to Cuba after a gun battle between the Panthers and the San Francisco Police in 1968. Actually experiencing communism, instead of viewing it through the lens of theory led Cleaver to say this:

"During the eight years that I was absent from the United States, I underwent a change in my whole philosophy based on my observations," Cleaver told Ebony. "I stopped being a communist or socialist and developed an understanding and respect for free enterprise and the democratic political system.... I found the systems of dictatorships and communism to be absolutely unacceptable. Living in those countries put an end to my advocacy of communism."
Answers.com

"I'd rather be in jail in America than free anywhere else."
J Rank

Cleaver is probably not the best example of almost anything that I'd want my children to aspire to, yet his change of heart about the communist system is instructive. So many today are completely ignorant about the Constitution and our country and why we have the freedoms we have and what it takes to preserve them. They're willing to buy into greater and more intrusive government of the kind promoted by our current President with little or no understanding of the prison they're helping to build.

I'm watching many cheer on the extortion of $20 billion dollars from BP without ever once asking how the President gets the authority to act on his own volition to first extort the money, making threats through the Vice President and then to control the money he's extorted, creating a new position of Claims Administrator and filling it with Kenneth Feinberg. The government has no right to seize private property without due process and the Congress has the power of the purse. The President has no authority to control any money much less to create a clearinghouse to disperse his ill gotten gains. Extorting the money and then doling it out to his supporters is the Chicago Way, the way of corruption and destruction.

Most would say, "But BP deserves it. Look at the damage they've done." Maybe BP does deserve to pay this money, and maybe more. But that's for the courts to decide, not the imperial President. "But that would take too long. We demand justice now!" Fine. So the next time you have an argument about your property with the government I suppose you'll be more than happy to hand it over to them without any defense or recourse to the courts. Because, if they can do it to BP they can do it to you.

There is so much outrage about the blowout in the Gulf that I'm starting to wonder if this isn't the crisis they've been waiting for. I'm not saying it was anything more than an accident or negligence, but I'm thinking it is the perfect opportunity to tighten the screws. The emotion surrounding this tragedy opens the door to rash judgement on the part of the people, making them less vigilant and easier to manipulate. Why do you think that the President has slammed his foot on the accelerator with cap and trade, or whatever it's being called now? That's what his speech a couple days ago was about. There was no plan or solution presented regarding the blowout. It was a speech paving the way for green jobs and higher taxes; more intrusive government control of the economy. And through economic control it will control the people.

So as Russia moves towards more economic freedom and greater personal freedom we move in the opposite direction. Somewhere in the middle there's a sweet spot where our fascist system and their communist system will collide and join. The guys at the top will control everything and there'll be just enough "freedom" to keep the engine of commerce spinning along and the money flowing into their coffers. And the people will work and slave or die in the camps.