Michael Snyder Needs Your Help Returning America To A Place Where Elected Officials Serve The People

campaignMichael Snyder – I have never been very good at asking for help.  My father was an officer in the U.S. Navy, and he raised me to be very strong and very independent.  So for my entire life, I have been a “pull myself up by my own bootstraps” kind of guy.  From a very early age I came to think of asking others for help as a sign of weakness.  Of course today I know that is not true, but there is still part of me that hesitates to enlist the support of others even when I really, really need it.

But now I have been put into a position where I have no choice but to ask for help.  As many of you already know, I am running for Congress, and there is no way in the world that I could ever do that by myself.  So this is very humbling for me, because I know that if this is not a team effort that I am 100% assured of failing.

The good news is that a number of my readers have already stepped up to help, and I am so thankful for that.  And if you would like to financially support my campaign for Congress, you can do so right here.

Thankfully, I don’t have to raise enormous amounts of money to be successful.  In some areas of the country, candidates for the House of Representatives raise millions of dollars, but in this district candidates for Congress usually only raise a small fraction of that.

And there is going to be no incumbent in this district in 2018, because the individual that is currently holding this seat is running for governor instead.  So the race is wide open, and it doesn’t look like any of my potential opponents are going to raise a great deal of money. Continue reading

Money Is A Form Of Social Control And Most Americans Are Debt Slaves

Economic Collapse Blog  February 19 2013

Money Is A Form Of Social Control And Most Americans Are Debt Slaves - Photo by Serge Melki from Indianapolis, USAIs America really “the land of the free”?  Most people think of money as simply a medium of exchange that makes economic transactions more convenient, but the truth is that it is much more than that.  Money is also a form of social control.  Just think about it.  What did you do this morning?  Well, if you are like most Americans, you either got up and went to work (to make money) or to school (to learn the skills that you will need to make money).  We spend a great deal of our lives pursuing the almighty dollar, and there are literally millions of laws, rules and regulations about how we earn our money, about how we spend our money and about how much of our money the government gets to take from us.  Not that money is a bad thing in itself.  Without money, it would be really hard to have a modern society.  Unfortunately, our money is based on debt, and debt levels in the United States have exploded to absolutely unprecedented levels in recent years.  The borrower is the servant of the lender, and if you are like most Americans, nearly every major purchase that you make in your life is going to involve debt.  Do you want to get a college education so that you can get a “good job”?  You are told to get a student loan.  Do you want a car?  You are encouraged to get an auto loan and to stretch out the payments for as long as possible.  Do you want a home?  You are probably going to end up with a big fat mortgage.  And of course I could go on and on and on.  The cold, hard truth of the matter is that most Americans are debt slaves.  Most of us spend our entire lives trapped in an endless cycle of debt that we never escape until we die, and meanwhile our years of hard labor are greatly enriching those that own our debts.

Have you ever found yourself wondering why you can never seem to get ahead financially no matter how hard you work?

Well, it is probably because you have gotten yourself enslaved to debt.

Just consider the following example about credit card debt from a former Goldman Sachs banker

On the debt side of things, how much does your credit card company earn if you carry just an average of a $5,000 credit card balance, paying, say, 22% annual interest rate (compounding monthly) for the next 10 years?

In your mind you owe a balance of only $5,000, which is not a huge amount, especially for someone gainfully employed.  After all, $5,000 is just a quick Disney trip, or a moderately priced ski-trip, or that week in Hawaii.  You think to yourself, “how bad could it be?”

The answer, including the cost of monthly compounding, is $44,235, or about 9 times what it appears to cost you at face value.

Continue reading