On The Road To Serfdom? Try A Fast-Track To A Bust-Out...

MSM Money has a little slide show about the 15 richest counties in America.  Love the preamble:

While many Americans struggle to find jobs, balance their budgets and get by with less, some folks are living high on the hog.

Using the most recent Census Bureau data, from 2010, we chose the 15 counties in the U.S. with the highest median household incomes. With three counties exceeding the $100,000 mark, life seems pretty good in these areas, even as the U.S. median household income declined 2.3% from 2009 to 2010. Still, the following 15 richest counties have a median income that is about double the national average of $49,445.

Click ahead to see if your county made the list...

Unless you live within commuting distance of the United States Capitol, there is no need for you to waste your time.  Like the days of yore, the wealth is concentrated around the king and queen, and slowly diminishes in expanding concentric circles:

Of these 15, five are in Maryland (Howard, Montgomery, Calvert, St. Mary’s, Charles) and five are in Virginia (Loudoun, Fairfax, Arlington, Stafford, Prince William). Four of the remaining five are in the New York City area, and one is in Colorado. No Silicon Valley, nothing in the Chicago area, no oil wealth, no Southern California. ..

That’s what’s wrong with this country: You want to get rich, go to Washington.

But what exactly are they doing in DC to get so wealthy, without actually creating anything? Richard Fernanadez explains what Tony Soprano knows all too well:

Someone in the previous thread expressed astonishment that “public policy” should be a career. It’s not just a career, it’s a gold mine, properly approached.

One of the interesting things about the American economy, perhaps the world economy, is how it keeps trying to grow in spite of all attempts to beat it down.... It is like rooting for the caterpillar even while it is being devoured alive by parasitic wasps. Though clearly doomed, you can’t help but but admire the critter’s spunk.

Why so many extortionists? Because it is at present more profitable to be a racketeer than to be an entrepreneur. It makes more economic sense to invent some scam like Global Warming and then wait to be paid to go away than it is to frack for oil.
 Right now, selling bureaucratic protection is a land office business. Therefore it attracts the underemployed members of the minor aristocracy who see in it a potential source of income. What they fail to understand is that in the long run it cuts their throats too...

Like thugs with delusions of grandeur but brains of walnuts. So our government - full of what Fernandez charitably calls "minor aristocrats" and what Ayn Rand described as looters, treats our nation the way Tony Soprano's crew handles a small business that, ahem, "fell" into their hands:

A "bust out" is a common tactic in the organized crime world, wherein a business' assets and lines of credit are exploited and exhausted to the point of bankruptcy. Richie and Tony profit from busting out Davey Scatino's sporting goods store in this episode...
When asked by Davey why Tony let him get into debt, Tony replies that he knew Davey had the store and other assets he could take, and instinctively saw an opportunity for profit.

And how different is that from a president who allows up to run up an unthinkable amount of debt, or perhaps provides "favors" to a population, then takes everything they've got as recompense, as payment for services rendered or services due, whether or not one has even asked for them in the first place?

It's a gangster government. If you think they're gonna run a fair game this November, than you haven't been watching enough TV...