Well, if you find it, let me know.

Personally, I think we're too far down the road to recover without going through a collapse.

There are two basic problems. The first is that the average voter is a moron. They go to the voting booth (or mail in their ballot) secure in the knowledge that they have done their duty by voting for the putative "leader" of their tribe. They have no more understanding of the issues, or the people involved, than does your dog. This was well-illustrated in the case of the infamous Palm Beach butterfly ballot. The Demoncraps made the usual rounds of the spinster Jewish retirement homes, rounded up the senile old biddies and hauled them off the to polls with instructions to "Vote for #2" - and they did. To understand the problem, see http://www.asktog.com/columns/042Butterf...

There are several ways to look at this. The author of the web page I cite calls it poor design - and it is. But is it so poor that a thinking person would likely get it wrong? Or is it only people who don't know WTF they're doing in the first place?

Second, and related to the fact that the average voter is a dumbass, is the fact that a very large portion of the electorate is focussed purely on their own short-term interests. The entire body of people who voted for BHO likely fits into that category. For them, it's not about what's best for the Country. For them, it's about what's best for them right now, this instant. These are the idiots who take out a gazillion dollars in student loans to fund their campus partying. The same folks who bought houses that cost 100x their annual income, and were stunned when they wound up underwater and out of a home. They're also the majority of female voters who, despite the fact that they have bankrupted the country, continue to vote for every conceivable welfare program and support the Obama agenda. They're the feckless, helpless, useless, hopeless detritus of society. And they vote.

To turn the situation around (short of rebound after we hit bottom) would require that 1) People be smarter about what they're doing, and, 2) Be willing to defer gratification.

I've previously proposed that repealing the 19th Amendment might resolve the crisis. I no longer believe that sufficient. The idea of voting in a democratic republic presupposes some level of awareness and integrity in the voter. Unfortunately, I see none.

Given that the average American voter has the impulse control of a two-year-old (and less intelligence), expect them to continue to vote for themselves "bread and circuses" long after there is anything left with which to pay.

Unfortunately, female voting patterns have skewed heavily towards the "charge it" approach to government. John Lott wrote a very illuminating paper on the "Effects of Woman's Suffrage on the Size of Government" (or some such similar title). It's not politically correct, but the (apparently) inescapable conclusion is that when women vote, deficits appear. I only say, "apparently" because it's conceivable that someone, somewhere will come up with another explanation. But as Lott usually does, he seems to have hammered the lid down pretty tight on this research. The thrust of the argument is that in each state, and at the Federal level, governments uniformly began to run deficits after women got the vote. Wyoming was the first to let women vote - in about 1870 if memory serves, and the 19th Amendment completed the transition in IIRC, 1920. During that time, as states accorded women the franchise, deficits appeared. No female vote? No deficits. In neighboring states, no deficits until one state lets women vote, they begin to run deficits while the other state does not. The importance of the time span is that the effect can't be explained by something like a war (when all might run deficits at once) or economic collapse, or weather or any other explanation I've yet heard advanced. The closest to an alternative theory is that the zeitgeist of states that were ready to give women the vote might be broadly more inclined to run debts for social welfare. But at the passage of the 19th Amendment, there were a number of states that had NOT agreed to let women vote, did not want to let women vote, yet despite whatever communal hive thinking might have been in the air or water, these states too began to run deficits once women began to vote.

Lott doesn't go into depth on motivations - but there is some indication that women somehow figure that having Uncle Sugar as a backup sugar daddy is the way to go. In simple terms, women are more risk averse than men (I'd surmise because they are not as well-equipped to handle risk). Consequently, they want a "backup plan". That "backup plan" is government programs that step in when the marriage fails, the husband dies, or the woman just wants things her way and wants someone else to pay for it. At first glance, this appears to be a rational strategy. But on further inspection, women have created a disaster that will punish us all.

Ironically, women will probably suffer most of all for their profligate voting patterns. The past 3 decades have seen women sliding steadily towards the "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" camp. They appear to reason, "If all my needs are met by the government, then for what do I need a man?" Of course, this pattern of rejection of the traditional role of males as defenders/providers is not lost on men - who are rapidly UNlearning those roles. Rather than finding the woman of their dreams, getting married, settling down, having kids and working themselves into heart attacks, men (most notably among the younger generations) are turning to porn and video games for entertainment, and generally regard women as little more than unnecessary toys. There is little inclination to "improve onesself" for the benefit of a family one will never have, nor any reason to try to please a woman who will chuck you out the door (with the aid of the state) at the first sign of a disagreement. Kids are just liabilities. They're something women have... and men pay for.

The evolving meme for men is that rather than get married, one might as well find a woman one hates and just give her half your stuff. It's no accident that women are now the majority at universities and are a growing portion of the work force. According to the author of "Men on Strike", the men are simply opting out of a system that is stacked against them. This is a second disaster for women, though they seem not to recognize it. If they thought raising kids, working a job, keeping a home was tough with a second paycheck and another adult in the picture, just wait until their money doesn't buy anything, their Sugar Daddy is broke and no men step up to protect them (as society goes to hell).

How bad will it get for women? It's conceivable that every "gain" they've made in the past 100 years will be reversed... with interest. As you've correctly pointed out, it's "pay now, or pay later". Paying later comes with a hefty penalty - and I believe women will wind up paying it. Women have worked hard to escape the image of "the fairer sex". They've pushed and clawed to be perceived the same as men. To the extent they've succeeded, men will simply regard them as weaker men. When it comes down to "survival of the fittest" - women will lose across the board.

One caveat in all this is that female voting patterns seem to be higly dependent on marital status. Securely married women tend to be more liberty minded - that is, they are generally opposed to the uber-state. But they are the minority of the majority. Most women (a 20% gender gap in the last election) are happy to vote for more government, more programs, higher taxes, and trade liberty for (the illusion of) safety. Of course, Franklin tells us what happens to people like that.

Excellent! You have done your homework. The sooner the federal gov't is shut down by attrition (few or no tax receipts) the easier it will be to upright our country again. This way there will be some planning involved. If we wait for a climactic collapse it will be even more difficult to upright the ship of state. You pay now or you pay later, and the later option is usually the most
costly. Think of buying something on credit. Let's keep communicating.

I'm not sure it's necessary to do anything but let the system collapse.

We already know that the level of welfare mandated by the Party of Women is completely unsustainable. The debt's at $17T+ with an average of an additional $4T in spending mandated (on average) each year for the next 50 years. Obama's done a fine job of pissing off the Russians. When (not "if", when) they get together with the Chinese one EOTWAWKI scenario would go like this:
1) The Chinese exchange their US debt for gold (they dump the dollar).
2) Russia tells Europe it will no longer accept dollars or Euros for energy. Gold, Russian Rubles or Chinese Yuan only.
3) Syria and Iran agree to the dumping of the petrodollar and the acceptance of gold, Yuan or Rubles for oil.

The dollar dump will send interest rates flying and the dollar will crash. When all the nations of the world see the dollar diving and Russia, China and a fair chunk of the Middle-East jettisoning dollars and accepting gold/Yuan/Rubles, they'll dump their "reserve" dollars - obliterating the dollar as an international currency.

The price of everything in the US will go through the roof because basically, we don't make anything here anymore.

The 40% of Americans who rely upon government subsidies to get through the week will continue to receive those subsidies which will have all the buying power of used toilet paper.

It is in the time just prior to, and during, and after the collapse of the Federal "Sugar Daddy" that freedom-minded people must hammer home the message, "You CAN NOT rely on government. Government is evil. It may be necessary, but it's evil. We must ensure government is as small as it can possibly be."

I can't imagine that there will be much in the way of eagerness to pay taxes of any kind at that point. A barter economy may replace a lot of the current dollar-based economy.

Hopefully a lot of the people who have been voting for the welfare state and the warfare state will simply die. I don't imagine they'll be prepared. The average city only has enough food for about two weeks, and the average household can go for about four days without more food - so starving a lot of the welfare scum may only take a couple months. The Feds have done drills to isolate cities. Some speculate this is what they have in mind. Seal off a dozen bridges and you can starve most of NYC in a month. But that's probably not even necessary. With no gas, who would be moving goods into population centers anyway? It's not as if one could make a profit. Remember, most people will try to pay with (worthless) dollars. At any rate, I know I won't be feeding them.

Whether this would result in a return to America, or the rise of a totalitarian state is an open question. The only thing that favors the former is 300 million firearms in private hands. Whether the death spasms of the current illegitimate government will spawn nuclear war with China and Russia is a wild card.

It's not going to be pretty.