Everyone loves free stuff. Everyone except ‘Puter, that is.

Each time ‘Puter is offered something “for free,” ‘Puter’s skeptical mind immediately starts looking for the person’s angle. ‘Puter’s had some interesting conversations with car dealers, appliance salesmen, Jehovah’s Witnesses and even relatives.

Unfortunately for our country, most people aren’t skeptical at all when offered a freebie. No one ever stops to think, “Who’s really paying for this, because nothing’s really free.” Americans only see no immediate cost to themselves. Americans do not understand that they ultimately pay for every free thing they receive, whether in higher prices, higher taxes or surrender of freedom.

Government has engaged in a subtle seduction of America over the years, much like a drug dealer hooking new junkies. The first one’s always free. Sometimes, there are several free doses. But once you’re hooked, the costs are apparent, from the loss of income, to the health effects, to the devastating impact on families. There’s no such thing as free.

Government seems to have stolen a page out of the pushers’ playbook. Since the 1960s, liberal government has subtly seduced a large portion of Americans into believing government benefits are free. After all, you’re not paying for any of the benefits when you get them, right? They must be free. Welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, they’re all free, right? You just sign up and let the checks roll in. You’re not paying anything.

Except you are. Just because the costs aren’t immediate doesn’t mean the costs don’t exists. For example:

1. Social Security. If you’re a taxpayer, which label covers fewer and fewer Americans these days, you’ve either prepaid (OASDI payroll deductions) a portion of your recovery or you’re stealing from current workers’ OASDI contributions, not to mention income tax contributions, as Social Security is now in the red. You’ve paid monetarily, and you’re forcing others to pay monetarily for benefits they may never receive. And still you have the balls to call Social Security “free.” ‘Puter’s said it before, and he’ll say it again now. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, a scheme in which the costs are not apparent until the fraud becomes public knowledge. See, e.g., Bernie Madoff. America currently tolerates folks retiring at 62.5 years old, and living off the government dole at the productive’s expense for another 20 to 30 years. It’s not free to the government, it’s sure as Hell not free to the current workers, and it’s not even free to the recipients.

2. Medicare/Medicaid. Some folks have actually partially paid for these benefits, assuming they’ve ever held a job, which many recipients have not. However, both workers and layabouts pay a high hidden cost in terms of freedom. Government can limit your care as it sees fit. Government can tell you who can provide your treatment and who cannot. Government can arbitrarily remove certain prescriptions from the approved (red: “free”) formulary. Sure, the medical care is free (or significantly subsidized) under Medicare/Medicaid. But if all you can choose from are: (1) bitter doctors screwed over by the government; (2) hospitals/treatment centers that can’t maintain their physical plant and cleanliness because of low government reimbursement rates; and (3) inadequate prescription drug formularies because no private business will produce a product at a government-mandated loss, that’s not worth even the “free” price tag, is it?

Here are two additional examples — RIPPED FROM TODAY’S HEADLINES — illustrative of the high cost of “free:”

1. Obama’s HHS regulations. The Catholic Church seems to have at least prevented the immediate power grab by Obama, causing the Administration to issue a so-called “compromise” plan. The compromise is for the government to force all insurers to offer all women “free” birth control. Except as we know, nothing’s free. Essentially, Obama now will cause each Catholic institution, and each individual Catholic, to pay a fractional percentage of the cost of birth control through higher premiums. It’s a stealthy way to force a religious institution to violate its faith tradition. And Obama’s likely to get away with it, because Americans are too stupid to understand “free” isn’t.

2. Obama’s Mortgage Settlement. Free stuff for everyone! There’s so much to be angry about here, it’s difficult to know where to start.

2a. As part of the settlement, banks are going to pay out of pocket $5 billion to address allegations of “robo-signing.” Some of this money will find its way to the “wronged” “victims.” It’s estimated this will be about $2,000 per foreclosed homeowners who were horribly violated by banks’ shortcutting certain formalistic documents. What’s not discussed here is that there are no victims. No state attorney general has come forward with a sob-story homeowner who was current on his debt, yet the bank stole his house anyway through fraudulent filings. You don’t here about this because it didn’t happen. Yes, banks took shortcuts. Yes, such shortcuts are in violation of the law. But where no one is harmed, as here, what’s the problem? Fine the banks and move on. Do we not think banks have been sufficiently chastened?

Also, please consider that the $5 billion banks will pay isn’t merely sitting in their coffers, Scrooge McDuck like. Banks are either going to have to raise capital through equity (stock sales) or debt (borrowing). Either method has a cost to shareholder, such as your 401k or pension fund. If banks borrow to fund the fine, revenue will be siphoned to pay the interest cost of the debt, resulting in lower returns and depressed stock values for the shareholders. If banks equity fund the fine, shareholders find their stock diluted, resulting in lower prices, and lower dividends (if applicable) as the pot of money must be split more ways. It’s likely that even some of those “victims” benefiting from this settlement will ultimately pay a portion of their own recovery. There is no such thing as free.

2b. The other part of the settlement requires banks to write down principal for underwater borrowers to the tune of $20 billion. Again, this ain’t a free transaction. Writing down prinicpal requires banks to book the loan at the collateral’s current depressed value, meaning the bank now has fewer assets. Fewer assets means the bank is less attractive to shareholders. Further, booking losses of this magnitude may mean banks no longer meet regulator-required capital ratios for Tier 1 banks. This further depresses shareholder value, and may ultimately lead to equity flight and liquidation. There’s no such thing as free.

But what if the borrower has the ability to pay the unsecured portion of the debt? You’re letting shareholder and non-underwater borrowers pay for the underwater borrower’s forgiveness of debt. Through the 2012 tax year, forgiveness of debt related to a first mortgage on your residence is entitled to a dollar for dollar tax credit. Normally, forgiveness of debt is taxable income, something most folks don’t realize. So, performing borrowers get to pay for an Obama mortgage handout beneficiary’s poor choices in several ways. First, borrowing costs go up for everyone, as banks have to recapture their losses somewhere. Second, taxpayers lose revenue otherwise payable as income tax on the home-owning welfare recipient’s forgiveness of debt windfall. Third, banks with smaller balance sheets are unable to lend as much, drying up available capital. There’s no such thing as free.

If you know there’s a sucker in the room, and you’re not certain who it is, chances are you’re the sucker. Similarly, if your government presents something to you as free, and you’re not certain who’s paying for it (or stupidly believe it actually is free), you’re likely paying a cost, or the cost. Obama’s counting on Americans not knowing they’re the sucker. And he knows Americans can be counted on to not realize they’re paying hidden costs.

‘Puter could go on for days like this. He’s on a roll. But the fun’s got to end sometime. As a parting thought, consider this. Obama’s vision of America as an “everything’s free” zone is like the old vaudeville joke. A man says to a woman, “Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?” The woman thinks and says, “Probably. That’s a lot of money.” The man then says to the woman, “Well, would you sleep with me for a dollar?” The woman replies, “You ass! I’m no whore.” The man calmly replies, “We’ve already established what you are. We’re just negotiating price.”

America, based on its current behavior, is a cheap date.

'Puter

Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.

’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.

The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.

His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.

He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.

Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.

‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.