I would not be a bit surprised to see immediate relief on hiring once the demonizers of success are shoved to the sidelines. Small businesspeople are naturally alarmed to be called "the rich" and have their hiring practices subjected to lofty progressive disapproval merely for being. The progressives have adopted the remarkable position of being for the working man by keeping him unemployed and against the wage-payer by keeping him unable to employ anyone. Sure, that's Death To Capitalism for the academic fools that abound in the 0bama administration but it's death to a whole lot more first.
Not a small part of the potential recovery is likely to be at the expense of our European cousins, whose financial institutions have flooded ours with capital hoping not to gurgle down the Greek drain and several other larger ones. It is difficult to see that inherently unstable arrangement lasting; it is more difficult still to imagine what will stabilize it. Before the sun breaks through the clouds, there are, well, clouds.
And as VDH says, it is the Constitution that is our bulwark against the fools who always seem to have better ideas but never seem to produce better results. They've had their shot and they blew it, and short of the guillotine they are going to be a part of our political landscape for an indefinite period to come, always sniping from the sidelines, never actually producing anything but self-righteous demands for a fictitious social justice that is nothing but theft. They're happier that way. Time for the adults to govern again.
If you haven’t seen it then there’s another thread on FDR and the war: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2786907/posts
We were broke at the end of WWII. And, to be dramatic, the specter of the New Deal hung over us. But Truman, with a Democrat congress, couldn’t bring back the New Deal. Then there was Eisenhower and we flourished.
Everything could have gone wrong but didn’t.
I agree with the need to capture the Senate as well as the White House. However I fear Boehner and McConnell as leaders will be no better than Hastert and Frist who were financially irresponsible and beholden to special interests.
The concentration of economic power on Wall Street wil have to be broken to return freedom to main street. For small business to resume hiring, It must have access to capital which is today being deployed overseas or wasted in speculation. We must also remove the government backstop and allow the big banks and corporations to fail.
Some trends that are bad (and will be difficult to reverse) -
1. Homosexuals in the military - cannot see how this will improve military effectiveness. Rather, costs will go up (to build new facilities), retention rates will go down (as volunteers leave rather than bow to political correctness), enlistment rates will drop (IMHO), and good people will be killed because of poor training. Indeed, military chaplains are being called on to provide same sex marriages, which will force same sex marriage into every community that hosts a military base.
2. Media - the MSM is going to pull out all the stops to demonize opposition to “progressivism”, no matter how obvious its failure is. Those who get there news from the MSM will be angered and frustrated (intentionally) by what the MSM tells them is going on, and will resist a return to a constitutional order (who wants to be anti-”progress”?)
3. Education - as adults, parents, and conservatives, we have dropped the ball by allowing two generations of children to be politicized and abused by the Left’s takeover of academia. Even if we somehow generated intellectual and philosophical balance at all levels of education, and eviscerated bloated bureaucratic budgets, it would still take 20+ years for current and recent students to be un-brainwashed by reality.
4. Culture - the Left’s continuing attack against moral standards of any kind is prevalent here. Without calling for a return to Puritanism, we need to return to recognizing virtue and punishing vice in our communities. We need to take back the streets, schools, churches, theaters, etc. Stable two-parent heterosexual families should be the norm; strengthening this family ideal should be the goal of public policy. Recognizing “alternative” arrangements and/or rewarding them is not in society’s long-term interest and should be discouraged. There are two genders, male and female, and if you think you’re something else, than that is your problem, not society’s, and your fellow citizens should not be taxed to support your rebellion against reality.
5. Immigration - unless we transform our immigration policies as radically as Ted Kennedy transformed them in the Sixties, we are doomed. We have spent 40+ years importing poverty and radicalism, legally and illegally, from the 3rd world. Even if illegal immigration stopped entirely tomorrow, we still need to deal with an army of under-educated, non-English speaking people in our midst, and their radical “leaders” who seek to divide and weaken America. Suggestions: English as the official language of government, enforcement of the original intent of the 14th amendment (no anchor babies), and enforcement of the law equally (stop treating the law-abiding as second-classs citizens).
6. The nanny state - we have two generations of students who have been raised to believe that government is the source of all that is good, and that families, churches, and businesses are bad. We need to foster a spirit of self-reliance and a return to the family (as noted above) or else the growth of government will doom us.
7. Welfare - multiple generations of dependents are subsisting on the government dole, yet insist on enjoying all of the things earned by their hard-working neighbors. This needs to be radically transformed so that a minimum subsistence level of benefits are provided (preferably with a “gift of the taxpayer” label on basic foodstuffs, toiletries, etc.); if you want something other than that, then you need to work, earn, and save to afford it. Likewise, drugs and tattoos - if you can afford either, then you don’t need money from your neighbor.
8. Pensions - there will, of necessity, be a radical reset here. Civil society will not beggar itself to continue to pay bloated pensions and benefits. Likewise, all government entitlements, especially SS, Medicare, and Medicaid, will need to be trimmed to reflect the new reality of more retirees and fewer workers.
9. Public unions - this may be the hardest step. But if we are serious about returning America to a limited constitutional order, we need to dramatically curtail and/or eliminate public unions. As it is, they are a conduit to launder taxpayer monies into contributions for the hard left, and their pensions are bankrupting governments (and taxpayers) at all levels.
As you can see, I am not as sanguine as VDH. While the end of Obama may unleash an economic tsunami, failure to transform the culture will mean that much of the productivity and profits will be diverted back to support Leviathan and its pitiful dependents. YMMV