Posted on 12/09/2011 7:24:58 PM PST by sickoflibs
For most of his time as a national political figure, Barack Obama has been careful to cloak his core socialist leanings behind a veil of pro-capitalist rhetoric. This makes strategic sense, as Americans still largely identify as pro-capitalist. However, based on his recent speech in Osawatomie, Kansas, the President appears to have reassessed the political landscape in advance of the 2012 elections. Based on the growth of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and the recent defeat of Republicans in special elections, he has perhaps sensed a surge of left-leaning sentiment; and, as a result, he finally dropped the pretense.
According to our President's new view of history, capitalism is a theory that has "never worked." He argues that its appeal can't be justified by results, but its popularity is based on Americans' preference for an economic ideology that "fits well on a bumper sticker." He feels that capitalism speaks to the flaws in the American DNA, those deeply rooted creation myths that elevate the achievements of individuals and cast unwarranted skepticism on the benefits of government. He argues that this pre-disposition has been exploited by the rich to popularize policies that benefit themselves at the expense of the poor and middle class.
But Obama's knowledge of history is limited to what is written on his teleprompter. And his selection of the same location that Teddy Roosevelt used to chart an abrupt departure into populist politics is deeply symbolic in the opposite way to that which he intended. It is not by some genetic fluke that Americans distrust government. It is an integral and essential part of our heritage. The United States was founded by people who distrusted government intensely and was subsequently settled, over successive generations, by people fleeing the ravages of government oppression. These Americans relied on capitalism to quickly build the greatest economic power the world had ever seen - from nothing.
But according to Obama's revisionist version of American history, we tried capitalism only briefly during our history. First, during the Robber Barron period of the late 19th Century, the result of which was child labor and unprecedented lower-class poverty. These ravages were supposedly only corrected by the progressive policies of Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. We tried capitalism again in the 1920s, according to Obama, and the result was the Great Depression. This time, it allegedly took FDR's New Deal to finally slay that capitalist monster. Then, the account only gets more farcical. Apparently, we tried capitalism again under George W. Bush, and the result was the housing bubble, financial crisis, and ensuing Great Recession. Obama now argues that government is needed once again to save the day.
This view is complete fiction and proves that Obama is not qualified to teach elementary school civics, let alone serve as President of the United States. I wonder what other economic system he believes we followed prior to the 1890s and 1920s (and during the 1950s and 1960s) that that he now seeks to restore? Capitalism did not start with J.P. Morgan in 1890s or John D. Rockefeller in the 1920s as the President suggests. In fact, it was about that time that capitalism came under attack by the progressives. We were born and prospered under capitalism. The Great Depression did not result from unbridled capitalism, but from the monetary policy of the newly created Federal Reserve and the interventionist economic policies of both Hoover and Roosevelt - policies that were decidedly un-capitalist.
The prosperity enjoyed during mid-20th century actually resulted from the incredible progress produced by years of capitalism. Contrary to Obama's belief, the New Deal and Great Society did not create the middle class; it was, in fact, a direct result of the capitalist industrial revolution. The socialist programs of which Obama is so fond are the reasons why the middle class has been shrinking. America's economic descent began in the 1960s, when we abandoned capitalism in favor of a mixed economy. By mixing capitalism with socialism, we undermined economic growth, and reversed much of the progress years of laissez-faire had bestowed on average Americans. The back of the middle class is being broken by the weight of government and the enormous burden taxes and regulation place on the economy.
America's first experiment with socialism, the Plymouth Bay Colony, ended in failure, and our most successful colonies - New York, Virginia, Massachusetts - were begun primarily as commercial enterprises. When the founding fathers gathered to write the Constitution, they represented capitalist states and granted the federal government severely limited powers.
Apparently, Obama thinks our founders' mistrust of government was delusional, and that we were fortunate that far wiser groups of leaders eventually corrected those mistakes. The danger, as Obama sees it, is that some Republicans actually want to reverse course and adopt the failed ideas espoused by great American fools like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin.
The President unknowingly illustrated his own contradictory thinking with the importance he now places on extending the temporary payroll tax cuts. If all that stands between middle-class families and abject poverty is a small tax cut, imagine how much damage the far more massive existing tax burden already inflicts on those very households! If Obama really wants to relieve middle-class taxpayers of this burden, he needs to reduce the cost of government by cutting spending. After all, there is no way to pay for all the government programs Obama wants by simply by taxing the rich.
History has proven time-and-again that capitalism works and socialism does not. Taking money from the rich and redistributing it to the poor does not grow the economy. On the contrary, it reduces the incentives of both parties. It lowers savings, destroys capital, limits economic growth, and lowers living standards. Maybe Obama should take his eyes off the teleprompter long enough to read some American history. In fact, he could start by reading the Constitution that he swore an oath to uphold.
If you think there is a Santa Claus that has some magic easy cure for the economy; someone who is going to get elected in Washington and fix everything just by cutting your taxes, investing (more government spending) a few trillion more we don't have and will never have, and who will just command some countries to lower their prices and others to raise their prices all to suit your best interests, then this list is not for you.
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The Austrian Economics School’s Commandments plus :From : link
1) You cannot spend your way out of a recession
2) You cannot regulate the economy into oblivion and expect it to function
3) You cannot tax people and businesses to the point of near slavery and expect them to keep producing
4) You cannot create an abundance of money out of thin air without making all that paper worthless
5) The government cannot make up for rising unemployment by just hiring all the out of work people to be bureaucrats or send them unemployment checks forever
6) You cannot live beyond your means indefinitely
7) The economy must actually produce something others are willing to buy
8) Every government bureaucrat should keep the following motto in mind when attempting to influence the economy: “First, do no harm!”
9) Central bank-supported fractional reserve banking is an economically distorting, ethically questionable activity. In particular, no government should ever do anything to save any bank from the full consequences of a bank run, no matter what the short-term consequences.
10) Gold is God’s money.
Add mine:
1) Businesses don't hire workers just because of demand for products or services, they hire because it makes them money. Sorry to have to state the obvious.
2) Government spending without taxing is still redistribution
3) Taking one man's money and giving it to another is not a job.
4) Paul Krugman and Bernake have been wrong about everything, as well as the other best and brightest Keynesian's who have been fixing our economy for over a decade.
5) Republicans in the minority (esp out of the White House) act like Republicans, in the majority they act like Democrats .
Equity bubble rules:
1)If something goes up too fast, it is going down faster,
2) By the time it looks like everybody is getting rich, it’s too late, stay out!
3) To get rich you have to get in early start of recovery and get out at the first really 'bad' news, and ignore the experts that claim that they will stop the next crash(our buddy Bernake.).
4) Don't invest money you will probably need, or worse money you don't really have.
The only surge this effeminate homo will feel is the tidal wave of a GOP landslide up his ass!
What special election? The 2010 elections were special.
What a shame Schiff didn’t get to serve Connecticut as a U.S. Senator.
We’re all the worse off for it.
Obama is going back to the start of the progressive movement. TeddY Rosevelt. Look it up.
I posted hid masterful YouTube clip of this. Schiff is the guy we need to run for potus.
Schiff is a Jedi master of economics.
1) Businesses don’t hire workers just because of demand for products or services, they hire because it makes them money. Sorry to have to state the obvious.
I tell people who work for me, “wanna double your wage? Double the money you bring to the company”.
Most employees are at best “place holders”. People willing to do just enough for their paycheck.
Schiff is a Democrat as far as I know.
I tell people that if you want to move up, do more than you are being paid for.
WTF???? Have you listened to schiff or read anything about him? Schiff is the modern day Friedman!
It only takes two clicks to find the truth.
Peter Schiff ran as a Republican in 2010, although he's more widely known as a Libertarian, when he advised Ron Paul on economics in 2008.
This seems like part of the problem also (thanks to Freeper Publius):
Since 1933 we’ve lived under something called the Modern State. This entity takes in vast amounts of taxes and redistributes the money to certain constituencies via the federal faucet. The institutional Democratic and Republican parties fight over the direction of the outflow of the federal faucet. This outflow goes to individuals, corporations, the Foreign Policy Community and the Military Industrial Complex, among others. The purpose of the two parties is to collect money from their constituencies to direct that outflow to those constituencies. It’s how business is done in America.
The Modern State is how we project power as the world’s policeman. The Modern State is how we govern and take care of each other. The Modern State is how the Union is held together: a combination of carrot (pork) and stick (a large standing army).
The Tea Party’s goal is to return to a model of federalism last seen before the Civil War, and that means the starvation and demolition of the Modern State. This is why John McCain and David Brooks view the Tea Party as quite literally insane. From their perspective, there is only one way to govern in today’s world, and that is the Modern State. Without the glue of a national debt, a fiat currency, pork and military intimidation, how could the Union be held together, considering that its citizens no longer share a common vision?
This is what terrifies the Establishment. They do not believe that a return to the principles of the Founding Fathers is possible or even relevant in today’s world. They see federalism as the bygone relic of the Republic that died at Appomattox. They view the Tea Party as not merely a threat, not merely subversive, but insane.
This is what we’re up against.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2755395/posts?page=64#64
Whenever someone plans to start a new business in my area, the local press and pols publicly state that they hope the new business owner will hire lots of people. But, as you've stated, no business will add on more costs, like extra workers, than they absolutely have to. Instead of demanding that the new business owner hire lots of people, they should be asking them what their business will bring to the area. I would think if a person owned a business, they would never hire one person more than they absolutely had to.
Logically, if I owned my own business and could make a nice profit without any extra help, why would I hire anyone else? Yes, it seems like common sense, but apparently libs think businesses exist to hire people instead of to make money.
Start? More like keep it going for another 100 years. It never stopped.
I hope to be marketing that lecture and others via the Internet in the next few months.
That’s only recent though isn’t it.
As I understand it he’s rather liberal on social issues.
I saved it because I thought it really described the problem well. I’d never relly looked it at it that way and it just clicked. You must first understand what you’re fighting.
Oh , and you’re welcome.
LOL! Ain’t it the truth.
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