cobra2411

And what does this all have in common? Government! I'm sure the next person I vote for will fix it all though... That's a bit of an exaggeration. You would need a good sized antenna and a powerful transmitter otherwise the real transmission would drowned you out. You're not getting a $50 walkie-talkie from radioshack and ordering a plane to fly into the ground. Also, there are lots of armature radio guys out there that listen to air traffic and also love tracking radio signals. In fact, entire competitions exist for playing fox and hound. It wouldn't be long before they would start to triangulate the signal and most of those guys have the FCC on speed dial. They love catching unlicensed operators. Middle of the ocean? Sat com is the only thing that's reliable and even that has it's limitations. VHF radio is line of sight and over the oceans it's mostly HF which hasn't changed much since Marconi. I remember 9/11 when people were getting excited because we couldn't contact some inbound international flights over the Atlantic. HAM's are really good about relaying information when they can though. Private sector for the win again... As for the icing comments.... Eh, sensors would be nice but it makes pilots complacent IMO. Look at the Asia Air crash not to long ago where pilots had been used to the auto-land of the Airbus. You actually have to fly the 777 to the ground. They sat back hoping the computer would do it all and slammed it into the sea wall.

I don't know how to rationally respond to your argument so I'll simply call you a poopie head.That's not the exact quote, but Stefan was talking about ad hominem attacks.

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. The problem with teaching him to fish is that he doesn't have to come back to you tomorrow for another fish.The 3.7 trillion printed hasn't caused inflation yet because it largely hasn't been released. With QE the FED and the banks have a nice circle going on so there's nothing for the banks to do but sit on the money. Once rates rise the FED will have to follow or all the QE money will hit the economy. If they do follow then .gov is toast when they have to roll the debt.

When I hear someone say "Lets agree to disagree" and it's not over something trivial like mint chocolate chip is the best ice cream flavor ever, and it's something more factual and concrete like "government is a bunch of thieves and murderers" I simply hear "I'm not ready to grow and expand my mind at this time because the cognitive dissonance is too great for me to handle." Since every action is voluntary, whatever their reason is to wish to terminate the conversation I simply obey their wish.

I was raised Catholic and even at a very young age I saw the hypocrisy in it. The parents of my first serious girlfriend in college were religious nutters. The father was completely sincere in his believe and has traveled the world doing missionary stuff. The mother was a convert and was manipulative as hell. She didn't like me, probably because she saw her manipulation wouldn't work and she told her daughter to dump me and if she didn't she'd be sinning against god because god says "Honor your mother and father". I was in earshot for that one and came back with "He also has something to say about using his words for your own benefit too". I had a co-worker who was a southern baptist and he believed the uiverse was only 6-7k years old and was due to be destroyed around 2000. He was smart too, at least he had the capability to be intelligent. So we were discussing the universe being billions of years old which he said was wrong. I took him down the path of emperical science.... Me: We know how long it takes light to cover a certain distance right? CW: Yeah, we can measure it. Me: We have been to the moon and have sent probes out and can measure distances from earth to them, including the sun, right? CW: Yeah, absolutely. Me: We know how long it takes for the earth to make one complete revolution of the sun and by taking half that time we know we are 2 times the distance to the sun, right? CW: Seems reasonable - I agree. Me: If we have a the length of one side of a triangle and know two angles we can estimate the height of the triangle with a good degree of certainty, right? CW: Yeah, it's called trigonometry. Me: Then since we know the distance between the earth 6 months apart and we can measure the angles to a start we can estimate how far away it is, then since we know how long it takes light to travel a certain distance we can estimate how long it would take light from that star to reach us. Some of the more distant stars are billions of years away. How do you rectify that with your believe that the universe is only thousands of years old? CW: God wouldn't want us to know the true age of the universe so he moves the stars so the measurements aren't accurate and we think the universe is older than it is. Me:

Healthcare in the US is a giant scam. Many people think it's due to non-payment but according to statistics gathered by the state of California non-payment is less than 2% of the total billing. Charitable work is also just under 2%. In all, "free" services are less than 4% of billing. http://truecostofhealthcare.org/ The problem is that they are monopolies supported by the state. Their actions in any other business field would be illegal. By simply making them accountable under current laws; the same laws other industries are held to, the system would collapse and I suspect prices would be at least 5 times less than they are now. I can only imagine what the cost would be in a truly free society with DRO's.

This is something that I had trouble with at first - after all, who would ignore the potholes littering the roads. /sarc Ultimately all taxation leads down the road to the definition of theft. I used to think that only businesses could/would pay taxes and thus the people would be free. However, most businesses simply pass on the cost of the tax to their customers to pay. I think a combination of the DRO model and the kickstarter model is where things should be. Most people would want to affiliate themselves with a DRO and those DRO's that specialize in the working class people would likely have very low rates so it would be easy for most people to have a DRO account. You can choose who manages your account and if you even want one. I can see a model where you don't want to join any DRO and those people who you deal with for goods and services simply charge a higher rate to cover the cost of their DRO keeping tabs on you. It won't be perfect and I suspect only the most hard core anarchists would want to deal with the restrictions, but I can see something working to provide the basics. So DRO's cover your court/legal system. Now onto a kickstarter model. This could be used for capital improvements. I'm still kicking this one around in my head because I still have to remind myself that there is no public property. However, If I own a stretch of road and let people drive over it should I be the only one who bears the cost of repairing it? If so then I'm not going to let anyone use it. So if the road falls into disrepair I'll start a kickstarter campaign and advertise on the road for people to chip in for repairs.

Money is a store of past productivity. It's fungible, meaning it's mutually interchangeable. Money can be anything two or more parties agree upon. You kind of want that to be stable. If I sell 5 chickens today I'd like to later be able to buy 5 chickens. Now, when I said it's value must be preserved I didn't mean though any action, but rather by a lack of what we have currently. The question was asked if a stable value was desired and I believe it is. If the value is stable there's incentive to stock it away for a rainy day. If on the other hand it's unstable and looses it's value then you don't want to hold it. Yeah, I guess I was in a poor attempt to illustrate a point. Like I said, it's a topic that's clear as mud and I still need to think it though a bit to explain it. Let me take another shot to see if I get it right this time. Lets go to chickens... Assuming that the cost of raising chickens has reached it's peak in terms of efficiency and there are no more cost savings left. If I sell 5 chickens for money today, in say 20 years I should be able to buy 5 chickens back. Back to the house painting. As the cost goes down from using rollers to machines it should cost less because the value of the money has remained constant. By diluting the money supply .gov and the banksters have not only essentially stolen the cost savings from technological improvements, but they have also caused the prices to go up. It's funny that Stefan did a piece on Lincoln as he was one of the first to realize a stealth tax could be created by printing the money to pay for infrastructure rather than putting it up for a vote to raise the money. I understand most of this, but explaining it still trips me up. You want to encourage capital formation. People will save money, start a business, grow it and be stable. Over the last 20 years or so we've had a declining interest rate environment where loans could be rolled over and money extracted all while keeping the same monthly payment. The principle is never reduced but as long as the interest rate keeps going down you can roll it over so who cares. When now we're at the bottom and are likely going into a rising rate environment. That's going to destroy a lot of businesses. With fractional reserve banking and unabashed printing both by the FED and as credit by the banks we've encouraged that buy now, pay later attitude that's going to blow everything up.

IMO preserving the value of money is essential for long term stability of the economy. . If I paint a 1000 sf house and get paid for it, I want to be able to save that money and have a 1000 sf house painted. Reguardless how much time has passed. If you destoy the value of money to penalize savers and encourage the use of credit. That's what we have right now. With credit comes leverage and leverage cuts both ways. If you buy a 100k house with only 10k down and later the house increases by 10% to 110k you've doubled your money. If, however, it goes down to 90k then you've lost everything you have. If you're a saver and you pay cash then you only gain or loseo 10%. Sure it hurts if you loose 10% of your savings but it's recoverable. It's not as easy when you loose everything. Technology will change and the amount of hours that went into painting that 1000sf house will likely decrease, but the overall value is the same. In reality things will probalby fluctuate but it shouldn't be as drastic as what we have now. What we have now is a stealth tax and is anotehr way that we're being robbed blind by the elite class.

Ok, then what? For me it comes down to what I believe he would have done once I confronted him. I believe he would have done everything he could to make amends. Since he's gone that's all I have. He was involved in professional sports, not as a player though, so for what he earned only having a high school degree there is no other field of work he could have done. Not without a major change in lifestyle for all of us. Also, since he wanted to be a pro player it was as close as he could get to his dream job. By the time I was 25 I had over 350k air miles traveling with him, both work related and personal. Since I benefited from that greatly I wouldn't want him to change what he did. I used a free ticket one time to go visit him by surprise and he broke down in tears he was so happy to see me. So I know he missed me as much as I missed him. Got no problems with his job or the time he spend with me because the time he did spend with me was quality time. Beats a dad who sat on the couch drinking beer all the time... Now with my mother; you confront her and she'll tell you with tears in her eyes that I am the most important thing to her, more than life itself. I don't feel it's a stretch for him to believe that even though his relationship with my mother had major trouble, that my relationship with her could have been ok. Also, I believed that everything was normal so I didn't say anything. Now if you're referring to his one girlfriend after my parents split up, she wasn't questioning how close we were, she just felt that I would be ok spending the night home alone. If my father was alive I would call him up and get to the bottom of it. Since he's not, I have to make assumptions based on what I know of him. If my mother was an evil nasty person he would never have adopted me, he would have told her to pound sand. I know they had been trying to have kids and maybe he thought getting me would alleviate tension in the relationship. It's my understanding that the relationship didn't start to sour till after my mother's father died, which was after I was born. Lets assume he did know things were bad and he brought me into the relationship thinking it would fix things and it didn't. Then he left me here because with his job it would have been difficult or impossible to raise me. If he were alive and I confronted him about it and told him that I was deeply hurt by that he would apologize profusely and try to do everything he could to make up for it. I then would have forgiven him and we would have gotten on with our lives. Am I making excuses for my upbringing? I'm not sure. I didn't know how to rectify that I had a decent childhood despite the abuse so that lends itself to the comment "it wasn't all that bad". Because well, it wasn't. That's actually one of my mother's favorite lines when I try to confront her "Don't you remember all the good times we had? Or do you just want to focus on the bad to make me look like a monster." That doesn't negate the abuse but I didn't bear the brunt of it when I was younger. So now I know it's ok that I had a good childhood despite the abuse. Like I said, the abuse grew gradually, or at least that's how it feels to me. After my parents split most of my mother's venom was directed toward my father and the worst I got was having to listen to her curse him despite telling her not to do that in front of me. At least that's what sticks in my mind. I was at ground zero for that and after confronting both of them my father never said another word to me that was really intended for my mother and if she started fighting he would leave, many times taking me with me. My mother would always give me a laundry list of things to tell my father when I saw him. He would give me the same talk about how I should close my ears or leave the room and eventually I stopped getting the verbal laundry list and simply got an envelope to deliver. It wasn't till about 3 years ago or so, when my Aunt was diagnosed with cancer that the monster really came out. That's when my mother started with the comments like the one above, or a snotty look followed up with "you don't care about me, why should I give a *fudge* about you?" Or the more subtle comments about say my GF at the time "She's not right for you, I can't believe you would even date someone like that. Or "I know you better than you know yourself" followed by some attempt to program me with something. It really was in the last three years. Prior to that it was mainly against my father and there was some "family is everything, I'd do anything for you, so you should do anything for me." But not much else. Anyway, my father could have made all the mistakes in the world and I have full faith that if I confronted him about them he would have done everything he could to make them right. So I forgive him for any wrong doings he may have done in this regard, not because I don't want to acknowledge it but because I know if I did he would fix it.

Well yes and no. This is a topic that's clear as mud unfortunately. Money is a store of past productivity. Credit is a promise on future productivity. They are both fungible; meaning that they spend exactly the same. Money systems have evolved over time and really anything that is accepted where you want it to be accepted can be used as money. Once taxes came about it became beneficial for governments to adopt a standardized currency. The state, in cooperation with the quasi-state entity the FED, inject money at the highest levels in the economy. This typically lowers interest rates and spurs on economic activity. With a lower rate I can pay more for a house, you get more in return and can spend it in the economy. The business owner that you spend your money with makes more profit and thus can spend more. So when the money multiplier is above 1 the net result is increased economic activity for every dollar released. Yes it dilutes the existing money out there but it's more complex. Builders start building, employing more people, factories start producing more, stores hire more salesmen, etc. Remember, money is after all a store of productivity. So even though there is more money, there is more productivity to absorb it. Also, on the other side of the equation is taxes. Taxes destroys money in the private sector and without injecting new money it would be very deflationary. Now, on the other side is credit. I think it was the bank of England in the late 1600's that figured out that people only use about 10% of the money they have stored in the bank at any given time. That gave rise to fractional reserve lending which has devolved into what we have today. No longer is customer's money lent out with 10% of it reserved, they simply create money out of thin air to lend. After the trouble around 2008 there are little if any restrictions on how much reserve they need to back their credit. The banks claim it's economically neutral; on one side they have a loan for a $100k and on the other side of the balance sheet they have an asset - the home worth $100k. However, going back to at least 2000 it was clear the banks were basically ordering appeasers to give them the numbers they wanted. So the value of these assets are not what two people would buy/sell in a free market, they are in fact marked to fantasy. Unsecured credit is basically a zero, second mortgages are also essentially a zero and many first mortgages are underwater. That's only the tip of the iceberg. If the banks were forced to realize the actual value of the assets securing their loans most of them would be instantly bankrupt. Our banking system is a giant confidence game. Look at 2007-2008. Confidence was lost and it all fell apart at an incredible rate. Add to that the desire of the state to protect it's preferred class and you have what we had. That's why reserve requirements were reduced or eliminated and why the government is spending so much money. Without the efforts of the state the economy would wither up and die and contract to a stable level. There are a lot of people that are too far out over the edge that any tap of the brakes will send them over. Attempting to prevent it will cause distortions and what we have is people not responding to the FED's attempt to spend money but rather they are pocketing what they can get their hands on. Confidence, while a little better than 2008; hasn't returned. The banks are the ones that print nakedly into the economy and are far more dangerous to societies monetary system than the state. Because they create money out of thin air there is never enough to collect it all plus the interest that they charge - someone always loses. It's a giant game of musical chairs. The interest charged alone is enough to ensure that there isn't enough to go around. The system is designed to create scarcity and ultimately a group of losers who pledge tangible property that can be confiscated. When operating normally lenders believe that in the end they will receive enough to justify some losses. Currently there is a lot more hesitation. So the more the FED prints, the more the economy contracts. That which mathematically can not continue won't - despite all the games you try and play. The only thing you can change is the timing of it and right now IMO the elite class is grabbing everything they can get their hands on for when the music stops. The solution is to end the unbacked emission of credit. All assets must be valuated and all loans must be backed by $1 of capital. So if you loan $100k for a house and the recovery value of that house is only $80k then you need to have $20k reserved to balance that out. I can't even imagine how severely this would contract the money supply but it's the only stable way to do it while retaining the basic framework of the existing system. Additionally, the government's debt limit must be tied to it's productivity. You want more money? Find a way to make your citizens more productive. Additionally, the state needs to take over the central banking system - ala North Dakota. Combine these two items and we would have a sound, robust money supply. We would have utter chaos and destruction for a short while, but those that survived and those that rise from the ash will be much more stable than what we have now. That system will be inherently deflationary as increases in productivity will be passed along to the people. Replacing workers with machines would reduce the cost and thus people would have to work less. It's a vicious circle that would continue till you reached a utility value of an item which would be expressed roughly in the cost of the raw materials + energy to manufacture. This would also provide a strong pressure against anything that didn't contribute anything of value to the economy **cough** the state **cough**

Yes, please print more... That'll help a bunch... /sarc Every dollar the fed puts into circulation destroys 30 cents in the real world... Ben is between a rock and a hard place. That what mathematically can not continue won't.

On star does have this, they advertise they can stop thieves with it. I've been going in reverse with the years of my vehicles so it won't affect me yet. Not till they mandate everyone buy a new car.

I find this all very amusing. The state approved banks have been caught numerous times laundering money for drug cartels as well as other "illegal" actions and they get fined a percentage of the profits they made and no executives ever go to jail. You'll hear some blurb about a bank receiving a record breaking fine with no mention that it was about 3% of the total profit from their "illegal" venture. BS. One of the issues I have with bitcoins is that in order to be authenticated there has to be a transaction history and once you get a hold of that you will know everyone who ever touched that coin. Sure you won't have a name, address, SSN, but you'll have a hell of a lot more than if someone used cash. Oh, and cash can be traded without using names and can be difficult to trace to individuals... Propaganda disguised as journalism...

Last I checked my mother didn't have horns, wings and think red leathery skin. I can see questioning someone for bringing in a child to an obviously flawed relationship but I don't feel it's that simple here. At the core is the socialistic idea of family. That idea where the needs of the many; family, outweigh the needs of the few or the one seems to be very strong with Italians. I would do anything for you so it's only right that you should do anything for me - that's what family does for each other. You bring up driving a car; how many 16 year olds with new driver's licenses are fully qualified to handle every situation we have on the road? Are love struck high school sweethearts supposed to know all the complexities that relationships can have? I think you're being a bit unrealistic in your criticism and bringing up Hitler just screams of argument from emotion. I am unable to convey my lifetime with my parents in full detail in a few posts. The relationship with my father grew into us becoming best friends. I know him exceedingly well and we had a very open relationship where we could talk about anything. I never confronted him about my mother because at the time I didn't feel that it was bad. Again, I was raised with the idea that we all do what we can to support family. Since my father has passed away I can't have that conversation with him but I know in my heart that if he were alive and I confronted him with this and said I felt he was a bad parent and a bad person for adopting me into a family with a manipulative and abusive parent he would have done everything within his power to make it right. It would become his life's mission to repair the damage as best he could. He very much believed in letting me live my own life and make my own choices, particularly as an adult, but he was always there for me no matter what. If he told me I was making a mistake and I did it anyway he never held it over my head. Sure, I had to bear the responsibility for my action but he was beside me the whole time. I also know he would take responsibility for his mistakes. Maybe he made a mistake and is culpable for where I am, maybe he was under my mother's spell, I don't know but I'm not bothered because I know in my heart that he would have stopped at nothing to make it right if he knew how much pain it's causing me now. I am as certain of that as I am that I need my next breath of air to survive. My mother's manipulation was very subtle and until her sister died I really wasn't aware that it was wrong. She's family and we have to look after family and we're no good if we don't... Her sister's death has opened up unhealed wounds from her past, along with the idea that she was now going to be alone in her old age, so the easiest option for her was to take further advantage of our relationship and find comfort there. With the exception of my grandmother, my extended family, once I was fully vulnerable with them and let them know how I was feeling and the issues I was having with my mother, they've all stood behind me and made it clear how sorry they were for what has happened and that they were committed to supporting me though this. My aunt who passed away believed that a strong family was the best thing in the world and that while disputes would happen you just smooth them over and she was acting on her highest value. I feel however, if I was completely vulnerable with her she would support me. My grandmother is a lost cause and even more toxic than my mother and I'm thankful that my parents kept me away from her when I was a child. I suspect she is the root of many of my mother's issues and it may even go back to my great grandmother who was straight off the boat Italian/American. She came here as a young adult and from what I hear was exceptionally toxic to be around. So in the end my family may have been guilty of putting me into this situation and not getting me out but I can't see where anyone was acting to maliciously to intentionally harm me. Harm was done whether it was intentional or not, that's not in dispute, but I find it very easy to forgive and forget because I'm dealing with people that believed their highest value was to sacrifice themselves to family and they were acting on that. Once confronted they wanted to do what they could to make things right. My mother and grandmother are the only two that will deny blame and reject any notion of restitution for their actions. Those are the people that I'm cutting out of my life. These questions are helpful for me as they are making me really thing and evaluate what has gone on in my life. I can not find anything that leaves me with resentment for anything my father did. Since I can't change anything that has happened it comes down to what can be done to make things right. In the case of my father he's no longer here so the only thing I have is my knowledge of who he was as a person and I know for a fact without any doubt in my mind that without hesitation he would do whatever he needed to in order to make things right. To me it's not about the mistakes that were made but what is done about those mistakes. Thank you for helping me focus on this and really look deep and hard into my past to see what's there and not there. Between the posts here and podcast 311 it's helped me formulate a plan for confronting my mother and it's really given me a clarity on my feelings about past, present and future and what my real feelings are. Typing all this out is also helpful as there's an evolution of though where things start to come together and make much more sense.

Sorry, I was referring to being a parent to my parent. I'm the magical mystical glue that holds my mother together; or something like that as Stefan put it. I don't have children. My mother's behavior and dependence on me really only got bad when her sister died. Sure, looking back I recognize now that it was always there, but I had school or a job or an apartment or something else to distract me. When she started living with me she worked and hid in her room. Most times we saw very little of each other. It wasn't until her sister got cancer and less than a year later died. Her abuse was always there but it was lost in the fog of family obligation and the distractions of life. I don't know when my father understood and accepted who he truly married but I doubt he would have said "Hey, I'm married to a psycho, lets raise a child..." Knowing him like I did I don't see how he would have intentionally introduced me to an abusive relationship. I believe he felt that they were a normal couple and that normal couples have children and that's why he adopted me. Am I supposed to blame him or find fault with him for doing what he thought was normal? That's all he knew. He was acting on his highest values. Everything I've heard from family and friends about how they were when I was born and before was that they were a fun loving couple that were great to be around. If anything the problems with my mother started shortly after my grandfather died when I was young. He was a drunk and abusive and I strongly suspect there are long unresolved issues there. After he left my mother and they divorced he did tell me a few times to get away from her and he did tell me not to let her move in. Like I said, I was under the fog of obligation to the family and I downplayed the abuse and ignored his advice. Should I blame him for not tying me up and locking me in a room to keep me away from her? At the time I probably would have resented it and it would have been a perfect in for my mother to alienate me from my father. If he were still alive today and I told him how bothered I was by all that was going on he would be on the first plane here. I remember a story of when I was visiting him when I was about 14 or 15. He had a hot blond so-cal girlfriend and we all were out to dinner. She was cozying up to him and she whispered something about ditching me so the two of them could go have some fun. He looked right at her and said "he's my son and I will not abandon him. He's going home in a week and if you can't wait then you should go home right now." And by go home he meant forever. I can only imagine how upset he would have been if he really knew the abuse I was subject too. What I went through when he was alive pales in comparison with what is going on over the last 2-3 years. Yes, it's all abuse and I understand that now, but years ago I thought I was just a brat kid who couldn't think of other people's feelings. I don't know if I'm supposed to feel anything negative about my father, but I don't. I've given it some deep thought over the last few days and it's not there. Hell, I don't even care about what my mother did beyond the fact that it's still ongoing. Ok, I do care, it was wrong but it's not keeping me up at night. I just want it to stop. There is some resentment that I have to throw my whole life into upheaval to get rid of her, but even that's fading. I have a place to go, I'm looking forward to it, I have a great girlfriend and lots of great friends. Once my mother's out of my life the only thing I'm going to think about is reminding myself never to let her back into my life unless it's clear that she's done a LOT of work to improve our relationship. At 70 years old I'm not holding my breath waiting for her.

Wow, powerful stuff in that 311 podcast. It's on my phone and I will be listening to it via bluetooth as I drive. Back to my father and whether or not I'd be happier with other parents all together. That's a tough one as I kind of know how that would have turned out. See, the doctor who delivered me and was instrumental in my parents adopting me almost became my father. His wife wanted a son; they had two adopted daughters. The doctor argued that my parents had no children and she relented. However, till I was about 16 or so my family would visit them on vacation and spend a few days with them. So I know I would have two older sisters, I know the house I would have grown up in, I know who my parents would have been, etc. However, a couple days a year hardly is enough to base a alternate lifetime on... It was an interesting experience however... Overall, despite the issues I'm having I'm very happy with who I've turned out to be. I know this issue is temporary and I feel I will be a much better person for getting through it. There are so many times I see my father coming through me and I really feel good about myself when I am that way. He wasn't perfect however, I can't really thing of anything that he could have done differently. Sure, as an adult I can think of a few things but trying to put myself back into who I was as a child / young adult, deep under my mothers spell I can see how she could have used that to pit me against my father. He came from a pretty crappy childhood and definitely didn't have the resources to deal with someone like my mother in regards with what was best for me. I don't think he fully understood what my mother was doing to me and what it was doing to my life, otherwise I suspect he would have been more forceful. While they fought and he saw her for who she was, the played the loving mother that would stop at nothing for her son... Tough one, but I really don't feel there's any resentment or hard feelings there. So we're back to the fact that I am happy overall with who I am. Sure, there are distortions in my life - how could there not be when I'm parent, spouse and child all rolled into one and dealing with someone who's idea of compromise is give me everything I want. I have a hard time blaming her for those distortions in my life because any time I would say something I get the "Sure, I say one wrong thing and it's all my fault now..." line. As Stefan said in 311, it's not an exaggeration if they actually did it. I have known for a little while that I in fact don't owe my mother squat, but there was always a piece I felt was missing. Stefan once again hit it on the head when he talked about value for value exchange - I'm simply not receiving any value from this relationship. Sure there may be a laugh here or there but it is decidedly one sided. That revelation has really helped me because my mother, when we have a dispute, is fond of saying "you don't remember the good times, all you want to do is focus on the few bad times and make a monster out of me." Also, I use the word dispute loosely; what I really mean is when I stand up for myself and she isn't getting her way. So yes, there could have been lots of great times, great memories, great laughs, etc in the past but that doesn't change the fact that now, today, this minute there is no value for me to continue in this relationship. One fortunate thing that I do have going for me is that almost all of my friends and family are supportive of what I'm doing. The only one really is my 92yo grandmother - my mother's mother. When I first asked my mother to leave and we were fighting I was supposed to go to dinner at my cousin's house. It was a last minute thing, we were going to talk about a vacation we were going on and simply to get away from the situation for a little. My grandmother was there and when she found out I was coming she said "Hmmph. I don't know why you had to invite him... I will not listen to him talk badly about my daughter..." My cousin looked at her and said "Well, you don't have to worry about that now - I just lost my appetite; dinner is canceled so you can go home now." Most of them knew my mother was a pain, but they didn't know just how abusive she was/is. They fully support me but they also feel sympathy for my mother who has basically squandered her life away and has alienated most of the people she knows. I guess the biggest thing I'm worried about is the fireworks when I tell her. I expect nothing less than a 50 kiloton blast and I'm nervous about touching off so much high explosives... I fully expect the personal attacks, I've done everything to isolate and prepare my GF for the attacks on her including the accusations that my GF is controlling me and pitting my against my mother... I also expect the suicide threats with vague hints that it may be all my fault. I just don't see a way that I can stay away from ground zero given that we live together and she's home all the time. Any attempt to start moving will trigger questions which will trigger the discussion and fireworks. I'm thinking it may be a good idea to have someone with me when I confront her. Oh, and selling the house was the therapist's idea; one that I was very resistant to at first. In the end it seems to remove the item of contention - that she is simply comfortable here, and it puts a sense of urgency under everything. This IS happening; I'm not just having a bad day and venting... It's good for me too as it's making it very real for me too. I don't know that I could continue to stand up to her and force her out and not let her back into my life living where I'm at now - too many habits...

Money is a store of past productivity for future use. It should be universally accepted, durable, stable, unique, self authenticating and difficult to counterfeit. Credit, i.e. debt spends like money but is a promise on future labor.

Lots of great points. I'm mobile right now, but I at least wanted to touch on a few things.Resentment may a little strong, the biggest issue is that I feel stuck. That's temporary. I'm sure there are some distortions in my life due to this but to discover and fix them I need my mother out of my life. The weather hasn't been helping...Yes, I have experienced physical issues from the stress. Actually, when I got everything off my chest I physically ached afterwards. Yes, I've seen a therapist. I was adopted when I was days old. Yes my father traveled a lot, but he did have summers off and I did get to see him a lot. He was big on letting me live my own life. He was always there with advice, sometimes more forceful than others, but he believed that the only way I was going to grow up was to make my own choices and live with the results. He did warn me not to let my mother move in with me. I didn't listen because, after all, good children take care of their parents... He wasn't perfect, but I'm still glad he was in my life. As far as saying it wasn't all bad with my mother, I guess that's old programming kicking in. After all, she can't be the bad one right? - Sarcasm. I'll post more later,

Thanks for the input. My parents where high school sweethearts and were married at 19. I didn't come along till they were 33 or so... Looking back I suspect that he went though the same thing I'm going though and while he did try and warn me he was also big on allowing me to live my life even if I was making a mistake; well within reason. Then he'd be there when I needed help and we'd talk about what happened and he'd give all the help he could - again, within reason. Was he perfect? Probably not but without him to balance things out who knows where I would have been. So I feel it's better he was in my life than not. If that makes any sense. Life with my mother wasn't all bad, I'm just bitter that it's come to this. Also, now that I see the manipulation for what it is I'm left re-evaluating my life wondering what's real, what's manipulation. Was my mother nice to me in such and such situation because she loved me or because it benefited her... Yeah, my problem is internal, that is a very good insight. I can see the changes that I've made over the last year and I hope that in time I'll be able to deprogram myself. There are years of conditioning on her part to make me feel that being angry at her for the situation makes me the bad guy. There's more to it than that however. The use of anger is a way that she manipulates people into doing what she wants - she simply beats them into submission. There's a fuzzy fine line between the initiation of violence and defending yourself and I find it completely abhorrent to initiate violence either physically or emotionally. I know that being angry at a bad situation doesn't make me an angry person - I just have to integrate that into who I am. And that in and of itself makes me angry because I can remember back to a boy who was bold and courageous before my father left and before my mother turned her sights on me. A lot of that is left but it's fragmented and broken in areas. I'm at the point where I have to sever the relationship. I am unable to heal any further till I am away from this situation yet there is some apprehension of the unknown future ahead - I am making a big change in my life, and there is a loathing feeling about what theatrics and drama will come. When I confronted her last year I told her I felt like she was attacking me for no cause. She responded that she felt as though I was drifting away from her. When I questioned that it didn't make sense to attack someone who you felt you were losing her response was "I wanted to get you before you got me..." I think I'm going to rally the troops one day and simply empty my belongings from the house one day and leave. Then I'll give her a letter explaining my decision and I'll give her a timeline for leaving and it will be on her.

Long time lurker, supporter and listener in need of a little help. Hope this is the appropriate place for this. The backstory... After my parent's long, drawn out divorce I bought the family house I grew up in. My father gave me his share of the settlement and I bought out my mother. The divorce was bitter to the end, my mother not agreeing with the settlement, appealing it, only to be forced to settle due to financial constraints. She has since maintained that she was cheated... I'm a single child who was adopted. My father, who passed away several years ago, was amazing as a person and father - I couldn't be luckier. My mother... A narcissistic sadist that knows how to get what she wants... Yeah, there's bitterness at the moment... Anyway, my father traveled for work and I was raised by my mother in typical north eastern close knit Italian style. Anyway, shortly after buying the house I let my mother move back in with me. She was financially destitute. She's the type that spends everything she has and more... At 26 and as an only child I was under the belief that it was my obligation to look after her. That's what family is for right? The house was big enough and she basically hid in her room. Well, time as it does slowly ticked by and now it's over 10 years later and the concept of helping my mother save for retirement has failed miserably. Two years ago my aunt passed away and I got to see all the behaviors that my mother uses on me get used on my cousins and it was seeing that which really opened my eyes. She's nice when it gets her what she wants, nasty and evil to badger you into submission, quick to point out flaws but explosive if you question her, etc. She's also very good at projecting her shortcomings on you. She really fits the description of boarder line personality to a tee. Anyway, being able to see the forest through the trees made me wake up and realize I wasn't an ungrateful, selfish, judgmental son, I was an emotional abuse victim. It was about 6 months later, after a bit of counseling that I finally got everything off my chest and asked that she move out. I was completely vulnerable with her and her first reaction was to verbally attack me - "I'll sue you if you even think of throwing me out!" and "I'm bringing my mother here, you may think you can throw me out, but can you throw out your 91yo grandmother??" It was an uneasy time where I stood firm and resisted the urges to just scream at her. That was what I had grown up with, my parents started fighting when I was about 8 or so and it lasted though their separation, through the divorce and almost up to my father's death. Screaming is learned behavior - my true self doesn't believe in violence in any form. Anyway, we finally came around to an agreement that in 6 months, the end of the summer, she would find a place and move out. I was not charging her anything for living here, but to get her ready to live on her own and to help me out I asked she start paying me rent. At the end of the summer she simply said to me "you are 100% right, you're an adult, this is your house and you should be able to live your life as you wish.... But I'm comfortable here and don't want to leave, so I'm just going to keep paying you rent and simply stay here." Shortly before that she had filed bankruptcy. I had found out that since she lived here so long I couldn't just tell her to leave I had to evict her and that if I didn't bend over backwards to help her a sympathetic judge could cause problems. Additionally, if she appealed it would take 3-6 months for the appeal process. So I was very familiar with what I had to do and what challenges I would face and with the bankruptcy I really couldn't do anything. So I let the comment pass without any acknowledgement. As of last month the bankruptcy is closed and discharged (ch7). In the interim, live has slowly returning to status quo... At least on the surface. I have decided that since the argument is over the house; at least on the surface - that's she's comfortable here, then the best thing is to remove the house from the equation. Additionally, in the last few years work has slowed down for me and it's getting harder and harder to make ends meet, even with the rent she's now paying me. Actually, almost all the rent goes to pay the cable bill ($300/mo). I don't watch TV and sometimes go months without turning it on. 2011 or 2012 I didn't even have the tv plugged in for the whole year. Anyway, I digress.... I've decided to move in with one of my cousins and sell the house. He just bought a house and needs help fixing it, so in exchange I'm going to stay and save money. Actually, I plan on going galt and simply earning what I need plus enough to save a little, so it'll be a welcome reduction in stress. I'm self employed and it's a constant struggle to stay busy these last few years. I'm at the point where I need to tell my mother that I'm selling the house and moving out. She in no way shape or form could afford the house on her own so giving it to her won't work. I simply don't want to fight about it. Last year I said everything I needed to say. I ended up going into verbal diarrhea and things came out that I didn't even know I was repressing. I physically ached afterwords... I'm dreading the attacks, the calls to initiate a fight, the drama. I had a dream the other night where we were driving and I told her and after she ridiculed me for being stupid and making bad decisions and trying to pass them off on her she very calmly looked at me and asked "so this is it?" to which I responded yes. She then proceeded to open the door and jump out of the moving car. She squandered every opportunity to save money and build a nest egg. "I might be dead tomorrow" was a common response to any question I had about what she was going to do about retirement. She's now retired, living on a fixed income, but nothing is stopping her from working. She's a very healthy (physically) 70yo woman. She makes enough to live on, but... She would have to change her lifestyle. I can hear it now, she is going to start singing the "what am I supposed to do, where am I supposed to go, what can I afford" song. If I challenge her as to whether I should be responsible she'll answer "no, absolutely not, I don't want you to feel that you have to worry about me... If I end up dead on the side of the road it will be in no way your fault..." She has her mother to go to. Actually, it would be best for both of them as my grandmother is 92 and is becoming like a slow moving 5 year old. She's beginning to be a threat to herself and should really have someone look after her. My mother is the only one in the family that is in a position to help as everyone else works. However, she doesn't want to live with her mother... "Nobody who's an adult wants to have to live with their mother..." Well, except me, I'm the bad guy for not wanting to live with her... So that's my story. I need to tell her but I'm afraid of the attacks and more specifically that I'm going to just explode. While I did get a lot of my repressed felling out there's still a lot of resentment there. I am a giving person who doesn't believe in violence. I will gladly give the shirt off my back for nothing more than a sincere smile. Yet she plays off that to get what she wants and walks all over me while preaching what family is supposed to do. I feel as though I'm being torn apart. On one side is who I feel I am and the other is who I'll end up being if my mother's influence remains. I don't like who I feel I'd become in that latter situation. So I'm up for idea's, constructive criticism, links to books, blogs, podcasts, etc worth listening to or reading. I'm thinking a letter would be best but I'm unsure exactly what to say. I don't want to blame her, but she's a big part of why I'm changing my life so drastically. Oh, and lastly I'm very fortunate that I have lots of support from both friends and family on this. With the exception of my grandmother who I suspect will side with my mother - it's where she gets her behavior, the worst reaction I've gotten was a 10 minute Q&A about if I was making the right decision. After that I was told I have full support. That was from my great uncle who is basically my grandfather. It's his sister who's my grandmother. Thanks and I hope it's ok that I rambled on... It was helpful just typing everything out, but I still would like to hear what other's say. David