As Obama Fails Again, Voters Have Only One Choice

My wife works a full-time wage job. It supplies health insurance for our entire family. I am self-employed. Together, we do well. Obamacare will increase the already-absurd self-employment tax we pay, in addition to upping our overall tax rate. By my calculation, our tax rate, depending on how things end up for us financially, could increase by 4.7%. All of this to support an inequitable system that hardly represents "change."

My wife works full-time for one reason and one reason only -- for the health care. I know loads of folks who keep full-time wage jobs with benefits simply for the health care. Their "side jobs," "freelance" gigs, "hobbies" or, more aptly, true passions often provide income that dwarfs what they make at their "real jobs." But they keep the traditional, full-time, 9-to-5 job with benefits just for access to quality and affordable health care. Now these folks -- people like me and, quite possibly, you -- could pay a higher tax rate to support a smoke-and-mirrors health care system.

Personally, I would be more than willing to pay a heftier tax to subsidize a health care scheme that actually changes the game by providing the same coverage and equal access to all Americans. I want the Canadian system. It's simple as that. (Save the arguments that the Canadian system stinks for somebody else; I have watched relatives die and recover from cancer in Canada too many times over the years to get fooled by that tripe.)

At this point, as an investor I feel like I have one choice only -- throw my hands up, once and for all, and say screw the political system, the politicians and the activists who allow it to exist and proliferate.

That's the power that we have as investors. No matter how much the government attempts to chip away at them via taxes and programs that achieve absolutely nothing, we have control over our own destinies.

Theoretically, anybody can be an investor. All it takes is $10 a month. It's all relative. Yet, it still feels like a "big little club." That's because knowledge and initiative equals power. Plenty of people who can improve their lot in life by investing do not do it. Reasons ranking from lack of knowledge to poor budgeting to feelings of financial inferiority to sheer stupidity account for lack of involvement.

How many people passed up the chance to scrounge together $100 a month and dollar-cost average into a stock like Apple(AAPL) ? I don't have to run the numbers for you, but if you took that approach over the last several years -- after seeing the smashing success of iPhone -- you ended up better off for it today.