Of course, our national debt is likely recorded in accounts held in other countries, so that won't get wiped out, either.

Okay, so that's not the point. But come the EMP maybe my neighbors will quit hating my dandelions. It's not MY fault I can't pick all the flowers before they go to seed.

I’m not suggesting it’s the solution to all our problems. Just saying that, compared to the various other options for advanced democratic society, William Forstchen’s apocalyptic scenario may be one of those 1950s creature features where you wind up rooting for the creature.

Well. It's the solution to quite a bit, then.

It's not about demonization. It's about calling for clarity from the largest company in the world now holding out a tin cup for Federal bailouts, forcing those of us who'd not sooner step into a GM car than play cards with Satan and Stalin in hell to pay ANYHOW, and then have the unions and government pretend they can manage the tedious managerial whole ball of wax with government pretenders to the throne at the helm, all the while telling the serious investors they can actually go to hell.

No–it's what my poor mama used to call "Distinction without a Difference."

If you benefit from it (and who in the hell would not), then for all practical purposes, you MAKE it.

If you get cancer from Marlboro Lights and cost the company 200 grand, then you pull in more.

Not much funny about a retirement home for Granny and the whole brood that makes cars on the side. Or, used to, in any case…..

The mixed economy is just that, and with all the predictible results to boot.

But.

Oxycontin is the least of anyone's problems these days….

If GM is plunking down more on health costs than steel for most of her plants, and we have everything from Me-maw's eye injections to stop glaucoma (for a while) and 17 MILLION dollars a year providing the magic blue wonder pill that makes the old coots harder than a scratchpost in their Golden Oldie retirement years (yet another reason you can "Bankrupt the USA in yer Chev-RO-LET!"), then I'd say we got some problems here.

So….. while 70 bucks an hour is not what shows on the paycheck on Friday after noon before hittin' Delaney's, you can be sure the figure is accurate for the whole cost that gets passed onto the price of the next lemon on wheels.

GM is a retirement home that now makes cars as a side gig.

And you can take THAT to the bank, even if not precisely 70 bucks an hour.

Compensation is an entire package. If it costs the employer to do X (whatever benefit or goodybag X might be or entail), then it IS counted as compensation, and salary.

When I worked for a large telecom bloodsucking company in another life, it mattered that the birth of all three children cost me and the wife a grand total of 30 bucks. That's it.

It mattered not, however, that it was payment "in kind" as they say, for a rather sumptious heath plan that COST the company about 1200 per month. Did I have the dollar bills in hand? NO.

Was this a golden moment nontheless?

You bet.

Does NK have a large enough nuke to inflict a sufficient EMP attack on the US that will wipe out everything? If not, they probably will soon.

I've realised that I'm totally responsible for my life and I've stopped being a victim, yes even of the government.

I don't need to know how to skin a rabbit because I'm a raw food vegan – have been for many years.

As for my money – I'll have to just take it out the bank and keep it under my matress. But I'm thinking if that does happen even cash will be meaningless because the whole system will be reevaluated.

But nobody can stop me from enjoying my life now. So I won't worry too much about it.

It seems that this comment trail is split between people who can't get past somebody making $70.00 an hour and a few who got the essence of "One Second After".

I did chuckle at Mr Steyn's observations that the present and future tax obligations of the current group of tax slaves oops, er … citizens would disappear if Total Societal Collapse (TSC) did automatically follow an EMP event that did bring down the grid. I disagree with Mr. Forstchen that the body count would reach 280 million americans within 30 days of such an event, I think it would be 20-30 million tops and most of that destruction would occur in our country's major urban areas. The big bonus there is that most our "Elites" would hopefully be consumed by the initial anarchy as the ravening mobs work their wicked will.

Americans are a very resilient people, and in spite of having the nanny state shove the concept of utter dependency down our collective throats for the last 40 years there are still plenty of people who can and do think for themselves. In the absence of all the distractions of the electronic age, Americans will do what Americans always do. They will gather in their respective communities, talk about what happened, make plans for how to deal with it and then act on those plans. I do believe that the post 30 day survivors would appreciate the big reset button getting pushed as it would return to the people the freedoms that have been slowly stripped away since the 1960's by our evergrowing government and it's parasitic appratchiks who revel in devising new regulations and bureaucracies to implement them.

So I suppose that if you don't want to be in the KIA/MIA column, you had better make the effort to prepare for the kind of event described in "One Second After" by at least educating yourself on simple survival skills. Might be smart to go camping once or twice, might want to look at why you're living where you live and oh yes, you might want to learn which end of a gun the bullets come out of. Or you can just continue to sleep soundly with the knowledge that your government is here to "help" you.

mhb23re at gmail d0t calm

I enjoy thinking of how most Obama zombies will fare after the EMP hits. I think about them out there on the freeway, sitting in their cars that no longer work, punching numbers into their cell phones that no longer work….sitting there without food or water, unwilling to leave their cars-turned-junkheaps because they're afraid someone might steal something, like the radio!

Mark is right, most of them are in debt up to their eyeballs, and the EMP will be the answer to their debt problems. And the beginning of their last days on Earth, given their lack of basic judgment.

How do we get people to wake up to the REAL crisis awaiting us?

On corporate taxes, I generally agree with your point, although in practice, a zero corporate tax rate would disadvantage a nation with a lot of subsidiary companies.