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Obama's 1.5 Percent Problem
American Thinker ^ | 07/31/2012 | Christopher Chantrill

Posted on 07/31/2012 7:06:32 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

What is wrong with the economy? Something is wrong when the GDP expands by only 1.5 percent a year as it did in the second quarter.

The problem is that nobody knows. Everyone thinks they know, but F.A. Hayek long ago put that fatal conceit to rest, if only for conservatives.

Some people think the problem is the continuing mortgage meltdown. It is said that 30 percent of home mortgages are still under water. That's a problem because any economy runs on credit, in the strict sense of that word. People need to have faith that other people are solvent, and in Obama's America they don't. In addition, there is the minor problem that business startups have, since the days of the Hewlett Packard garage, overwhelming used home equity as startup capital. Now they can't.

Others think the problem is the federal budget deficit.

To anyone not blinded by Lord Keynes, the idea of a trillion in capital getting sucked away from business expansion every year into the funding of entitlements doesn't sound like a recipe for quick economic expansion. The other side of entitlement spending is the savings deficit. When the government provides against the vicissitudes of life then people themselves learn to provide less against the vicissitudes of life. They work less, save less, plan for the future less, and that ends up with a lower GDP.

Then there is the looming crisis of next year's tax cliff. Fewer people plan business expansions if the government take is going to increase.

There is the problem of regulation. It's not just ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank. The last decade has seen a succession of regulatory belches, including Sarbanes-Oxley and the green energy regulation resulting from the global warming scam.

And did I mention ObamaCare?

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: debt; deficit; economy; gdp
Finally there is the medium term problem with the federal debt. USFederalBudget.us shows the problem. If you crank up the average interest rate on the federal debt to 5 percent by 2017 the annual interest expense goes up from 2012's $224 billion to $1,066 billion. So should anyone be surprised that the economy is only growing at 1.5 percent?
1 posted on 07/31/2012 7:06:46 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Liberals don’t care about 1.5% unemployment or the debt. Many Russians loved Stalin even when those froze or starved to death.

My neighbors blissfully ignore any data and trash talk Romney about his wealth.

Obama is a millionaire, as is Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, etc.

Irony means nothing. “The Greater Good” means everything, even if they can’t tell you what it means.


2 posted on 07/31/2012 7:11:25 AM PDT by whitedog57
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To: SeekAndFind
The problem is that anyone who supports themselves are justifiably worried about what disastrous policy the radical ‘Rats in DC are going to implement next.
3 posted on 07/31/2012 7:15:26 AM PDT by BenLurkin (This is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire; or both)
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To: SeekAndFind
The problem is Oboma, the democrat politicians, and their radical Marxist agenda. The nation is telling them "no", we're not going to cooperate.

Get rid of the Marxists, and the nation will come roiling back to life.

Starve this beast. We can survive without the democrats money, but the democrats can't survive without ours.

4 posted on 07/31/2012 7:25:11 AM PDT by concerned about politics ("Get thee behind me, Liberal")
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To: SeekAndFind

“Fewer people plan business expansions if the government take is going to increase.”

That is exactly what I heard while chatting with a couple of business owners this past weekend. There are just too many disincentives.


5 posted on 07/31/2012 7:27:44 AM PDT by Starboard
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To: whitedog57

Next time the mention Romney’s wealth, just say, “Has anybody ever gotten a job from a poor man?”.............


6 posted on 07/31/2012 7:29:00 AM PDT by Red Badger (Think logically. Act normally.................)
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To: Starboard
“Fewer people plan business expansions if the government take is going to increase.”

The democrats need slaves to support their base. No slaves = no money = no freeloder votes = no democrat party.

Starve that beast.

7 posted on 07/31/2012 7:34:05 AM PDT by concerned about politics ("Get thee behind me, Liberal")
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To: concerned about politics
Actually, what the democrats ‘need’ and have been cultivating for fifty years plus is dependents. They will borrow the money to fund the welfare dependency, as evidenced by the massive debt we now carry over, borrowing from our grandchildrens’ future, mortgaging the future of the Republic to such an extent that we are effectively ruled by the holders of our IOUs. ... And the plan for that was laid all the way back in 1912, with ‘The Creature From Jekyll Island’.
8 posted on 07/31/2012 7:38:27 AM PDT by MHGinTN (Being deceived can be cured.)
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To: whitedog57

“Irony means nothing.”


To that you can add facts. Liberals emote; they don’t want to be confused or distracted by facts. You see its OK for liberals to have lots of money because they profess to care about the “little people”, especially when they can spend other people’s money to support their causes.

The ironic thing is that the liberals I work around and know are far more obsessed with wealth than my conservative friends.


9 posted on 07/31/2012 7:41:14 AM PDT by Starboard
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To: SeekAndFind

To try to find a single proximate cause indicates the writer is pretty much an ignorant lout. There is no proximate cause beyond the leftist government currently reigning. The forces mentioned are actually symptoms, not causes.

The moonbat utopia thrust upon us has proven to be unacceptable to enough of the population that they chose to withdraw and not play the game. Better to make do as comfortably and safely as possible until the utopian fervor collapses in despair.


10 posted on 07/31/2012 7:47:45 AM PDT by bert ((K.E. N.P. N.C. +12 ..... Present failure and impending death yield irrational action))
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To: MHGinTN
‘The Creature From Jekyll Island’.

Hey. That looks like a good book. I'm going to get that one.

I know we live in a debt society. We now have to buy, and pay taxes on for life, those things we used to be able to build and own freely. Debt and taxes keep us enslaved, so we spend our lives working to pay everyone else. It keeps us so busy, the government can do anything it wants, because people are too busy to notice.

Imagine owning your land free and clear. It used to be that way.
Imagine being able to build a house yourself without government legislation, regulations, fees, or taxes. It used to be that way.
Imagine, if your family needed food, you could hunt for it. It used to be that way.

We used to be a free people. Everyone worked for themselves, and the nations cup ran over. Everyone protected themselves, and laws mattered. Children had moms and dads, and no one would dare rape and kill little boy! Schools taught academics, and the family took care of the personal things.

This nation has gotten so lost. Maybe this economic decline isn't such a bad thing really. It may be the only way to free the government slaves once and for all and get us back on the right track. If so many fine people wouldn't be hurt by it because they're not prepared, I'd be all for a world wide crash. We'd no longer WANT an oppressive government. We'd have learned our lesson the hard way!

.

11 posted on 07/31/2012 7:58:01 AM PDT by concerned about politics ("Get thee behind me, Liberal")
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To: SeekAndFind

Liberals don’t care about 1.5% unemployment or the debt. Many Russians loved Stalin even when those froze or starved to death.

My neighbors blissfully ignore any data and trash talk Romney about his wealth.

Obama is a millionaire, as is Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, etc.

Irony means nothing. “The Greater Good” means everything, even if they can’t tell you what it means.


12 posted on 07/31/2012 7:58:29 AM PDT by whitedog57
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To: whitedog57

-——Obama is a millionaire, as is Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, etc.-——

and as were Al Capone, John Gotti, Meyer Lansky, Charlie Luciano, Michael Corleone and Tony Soprano


13 posted on 07/31/2012 8:01:26 AM PDT by bert ((K.E. N.P. N.C. +12 ..... Present failure and impending death yield irrational action))
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To: Starboard

It isn’t just the disincentives, it’s the uncertainty of what exactly the effects of the regulations, obamacare and taxes will be.

I have zero idea how what the real and definable requirements are and will be, much less how some government lackey will interpret them. If their interpretation is to much of an impairment I will have to fight to get another interpretation and that may take quite a bit of lobbying internal to the organizations involved in enforcement.


14 posted on 07/31/2012 8:31:51 AM PDT by Vendome (Don't take life so seriously, you won't live through it anyway)
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To: bert

yeah, but those guys came by it honestly.


15 posted on 07/31/2012 8:33:28 AM PDT by Vendome (Don't take life so seriously, you won't live through it anyway)
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To: concerned about politics
That book, that Author, made the hair ont he back of my neck prickle up!

I wonder if Americans realize that the federal government, which is a wholy subsidized entity beholden to the private Federal Reserve, now controls a vast real estate holding where precious natural resources are waiting? I wonder if Americans realize that the unconstitutional government now in power can give those resources to foreign debt holders, to pay our debts down so the credit keeps flowing until we are literally broken and fallen? Nah, the sheeple have been so well programmed that they wouldn't admit it if they saw it!

16 posted on 07/31/2012 9:58:51 AM PDT by MHGinTN (Being deceived can be cured.)
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To: concerned about politics
Here is a video to help you along; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu_VqX6J93k.

And here's another talk by this brilliant thinker, G. Edward Griffin, too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dba9OY0QatU

17 posted on 07/31/2012 10:03:53 AM PDT by MHGinTN (Being deceived can be cured.)
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