Atlas Is Sorta Shrugging
Regulations Are Not Just Right-Wing Talking Points
But talk is talk and even the specter of crushing national debt is still not enough to sucker-punch our Atlas into bending a bit. But absorbing one-sixth of the U.S. economy, and putting new multi-thousand-dollar per worker regulations and obligations on employers to ensure government-run health care for their employees? Add that worry to the new Dodd-Frank regulations that add millions of collective hours of unproductive busy-work. Recall support for card check, and the reversal of the Chrysler creditors — and employers start to connect the dots. They see emerging a Regulator-in-Chief who thinks business is mostly collecting easy profits off the backs of exploited workers and from a clueless, exploited public. Still think that is hyperbole? Ask Boeing why at a time of unsustainable trade deficits, high unemployment, and fierce competition with Airbus, Obama has unleashed the NLRB to shut down a billion-dollar plant. Ideology trumps reality every time.
Energy Matters
Trying to stop shale oil exploration in the West might be an abstract issue on page nine of the Wall Street Journal. Perhaps we can get by without ANWR. Americans can forget now that Obama wanted cap and trade to pass the Senate and to become law with his signature. Maybe there are oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico that we can afford to forget about. California just possibly can import gas and oil without tapping all of its off-shore wealth. The new proposed Canadian pipeline in isolation might seem problematic. OK, now and then we should worry about the environmental downsides of fracking.
But all this together? The country simply has been given too many chances, and now the energy bill is mounting. Businesses really have concluded that Obama was once serious when he warned that energy prices would “skyrocket” and coal companies would be “bankrupt” trying to generate electricity under his new proposals. The tens of billions in “stimulus” that went, in sweetheart fashion, to solar and wind “industries” did not produce “millions of green jobs” but a few zillion-dollar megawatts of electrical production.
Taxes Are Not Investments
A couple of suggestions that tax brackets might need to be adjusted would slide off the backs of most business people. Perhaps we can even smile at Barack Obama’s new arbitrary $250,000 divide — above which those who make good money now pay 60% of the aggregate income taxes and are slurred with not paying “their fair share,” while 50% of American tax filers below pay no income taxes and are promised that they “won’t see one penny in new taxes.” That nearly every discussion on the debt ceiling was introduced by Obama with the euphemism “new sources of revenue” and “investments” was only a little alarming.
Yet once again, add up all the 31 months of tax-hike demagoguery. Those who hire finally got it into their collective heads that they were not merely not liked and to be overregulated, but to be further taxed as well — not in a conciliatory manner as contributing to the nation’s welfare, but in punitive fashion as if they were culpable for making profits in the first place.
Academics Don’t Know a Hammer From A Wrench, a W-2 from a 1040
Van Jones and Anita Dunn were pathetic distractions. Eric Holder was simply a deer-in-the-headlights member of the liberal apparat. Timothy Geithner seems clueless. Few will watch another silly video from Hilda Solis or pay much attention to the latest strange pronouncement from Janet Napolitano. Steven Chu’s dreams of gas prices reaching European levels and California farms blowing away due to global warming or Sierra snowpacks disappearing by now are merely boring.
But still again, total all of those ravings up — and without a CEO, farmer, or small businessperson in the bunch? The best that could be said from these appointments is that they raise ambiguity: are they (a) just starry-eyed, clueless academics and technocrats on sabbatical from tenured perches in universities, foundations, and bureaucracies, or (b) are these hard-core soldiers in the Obama army that is intent on making us more like the Belgians and Greeks? Both and more still?
A Thankless Job
The private sector has now begun collating Obama’s public statements, the political significance of hyper-debt, the force of his new regulations, the constant talk of higher taxes, and the array of strange appointees.
On the one hand, our Atlases are productive, entrepreneurial people who appreciate the singularity of the American experiment and the opportunity to profit and thrive, even when coming out of a severe recession. Real opportunity, they know well, is often best found in crises, not just in continued prosperity.
But on the other hand, they are deeply worried that the rules of the game are changing for only the second time in American history and that they are unliked, targeted and to be punished for being successful. The result is not that the private sector is fleeing the U.S. (where would one go?). Nor are entrepreneurs and go-getters shutting down their businesses that they have built from the ground up.
Instead, what we are witnessing is a sort of shrug, a pause, best summarized millions of times over as something like “I’m hoarding cash, hunkering down, and am going to wait this bad bunch out.”
So the globe is tottering as the tired-of-it-all American Atlas has finally sorta shrugged.
Its increasingly obvious that PresentDent Obama has never negotiated with anyone in his life. When you demonize, disparage and villify the same folks you need to sit across a table and negotiate with its obvious you don’t have a clue how to convince.
He’s an Alinsky-ite. The purpose of negotiation isn’t to win a trifling short-term victory. The purpose is to inflame one’s followers.
The victory comes when the followers overthrow and trampel the system and install Obamas as Chairman.
Well, you can’t serve two masters. 0bama is going to blame a “do nothing” congress while passing the buck everywhere but round his own administration and attendant war room. Harry Truman was no Alinskyite and 0bama is no Harry Truman. Changing horses in the mi\ddle of a race war/classwar is desperate, and emerges from people who never knew what the hell they were doing in the first place, outside of their Alinskyite avarice for power. Deception, bait and switch, intimidation, characterize 0bamas unmasked agenda, and will continue to do so despite any last minute attempts at a PR makeover. The American Idol™ ship has sailed, without wonder childe 0bama at the helm.
…but Punishment as Policy™ will continue until further notice from the taxpaying voter.
Yes, the beatings will continue until morale improves.
Actually ‘The Audacity of Hope’ aka ‘The Alice Walker’ aka ‘The Ayers & Dohrn’…
Truman tried to nationalize the steel industry–an event which was fictionalized in “Atlas Shrugged.”
The steel industry was reeling by union strikes which were preventing necessary materiel from being manufactured for our troops fighting in Korea. Truman’s “solution” wasn’t to go after the unions, but to nationalize their employers.
Fortunately, Truman was overruled by the Supreme Court.
It’s easy to see the inspiration for Atlas Shrugged in these events:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_steel_strike
Now we have a supreme court that doesn’t regocnized private property ownership (Kelo decision) and disregarded each and every rule of law regarding bankruptcy laws in the GM & Chrysler stock givaways in which stock holders were completely bilked out of their property – not to mention all the independant dealers who lost their properties – sometimes to their competitors simply for political purposes.
I guess the Poncie Prince is a lot more like Truman than I at first realized, thanks.
PresentDent…hmmm…
Presidebt?
You, your children, your grandchildren, and your great grandchildren have all y’all been found guilty as charged, and forthwith have been sentenced to debt!!
Why should HE have to convince? After all, he won! Besides, isn’t it racissst not to just accept what HE says?
Obama never had to “negotiate”. He had the “Chicago Mafia” behind him doing the “negotiations”. Too bad for him that the rest of us still prefer honest negotiation and not backroom wheeling and dealing.
Well, by the same token, Hanson’s Ayn Rand-inspired view of entrepreneurs and other businessmen is so tainted by the view that these are angelic agents of national salvation that any tax or regulation that doesn’t directly benefit them or their gated communities is evil. How many of these businessmen think their talents and hard work would have netted them the same fortunes in any other country? Why do they insist on the benefits of our business climate, cultural and educational institutions, and other support for their endeavors, but at by far the lowest cost of any of the G-7 nations? What’s going to happen if Atlas finally shrugs; i.e., the capitalists strike until the bottom 99% shut their mouths and eat whatever deal they’re offered? Does anyone really think that will end well for anyone? No, Hanson’s deification of the rich and powerful will, as it always has, plunge us into a violent revolution.
VDH has never portrayed corporations or the wealthy as angelic.
U.S. has, I believe, the second highest corporate tax rate in the world (30+%?).
Interesting that the CEO of GE, a corporation that truly does avoid paying taxes,is the head of O’s jobs commission and a huge donor to his political campaign.
We are Americans.
We don’t like being pushed over and we don’t like being held down.
That is why I’m very optimistic about our future. We will wait these people out and hand them their hats at the first opportunity. The we’ll begin the work of bringing America back.
Thanks again VDH for your clear reflections on these most bizarre of times.
I’m not optimistic at all, maybe it’s just my personality, but …
It should have been clear to people what kind of man Barry Sotero is before the election, and yet people were either too stupid, too greedy, or too whatever, and elected this man. I did not vote for him.
Yet, VDH, can write: “…start to connect the dots.” If people are only starting to connect the dots now, it’s hopeless! (Hopeless in the sense that we are stuck with Barry and what his minions have wrought and will bring about in the next one to five years. Not hopeless depending on where you put your hope, hopefully that’s not in political/economic solutions.) But, now you have to take a step back and ask yourself why is all this happening, why are people blind to it, what’s the final agenda, etc. Perhaps the answers to these questions will bring you to a broader understanding than what you are being programmed to accept via our masters in-part: the MSM.
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People aren’t blind to it. I don’t know if POTUS is a stealth Leninist doing popular front politics or a plain old social democrat. Maybe a red because he seems intent on destroying capitalism. The billionaires are supporting him because he protects their wealth from the lower orders. See this European precedent: http://clarespark.com/2011/07/16/disraelis-contribution-to-social-democracy/. As for Obama, he isn’t anticommunist enough to be a regular social democrat. I see him as a populist Keynesian who never understood Keynes. And not brilliant either.
Our country can survive an obozo, but it cannot survive a populace that voted for an obozo. Guily white liberals viewed Obama as a race messiah: a vote for him meant absolution for the sin of being a “white racist/ oppressor-of-people-of-color”, and redemption for “racist America”. To the MSM, the demonrat convention was a multicultural utopia, while the republican covention was “as white as a nuremburg rally.”
This is how Obama will win: his hold over all the guilty whites in America who will not forsake their race messiah, lest they commit the sin of “racism.” And for the brainwashed PC people-without-color in 2012, there is no greater sin than racism.
Yes, Eeyore, it is just your personality and if you want to do the rest of us a favor, keep your negativity to yourself. It doesn’t help.
I’ll take an Eeyore over a Pollyanna any day. “Eeyore” is exactly right, it was obvious who and what Obama was during the 2008 campaign. The “dammit, we’re Americans!” plea is well-meaning but from a bygone era. All the transformation going on is a direct consequence of profound demographic change in this country. The dirty little secret is, all that classic “Americana” that we see disappearing was actually more specifically the product of Anglo America, and its furtherance depends on the same.
The Democrat-Republican dichotomy doesn’t even describe the current state of affairs anymore. The real dichotomy is Looters vs. Producers, and the Looter demographic is exploding. We might throw Obama out in 2012, like someone burned by grabbing a hot pot on the stove, but idiots have a habit of repeating their stupidity over and over.
You have nailed it squarely on the head. Obama knows two things. How to win elections, sans Axelrod and how to protect his base, the looters. How far down the slippery slope we’ll go depends upon how messy the next president wants his legacy to be.
Except that something close to half of our population has essentially gone feral. Homo Sapiens is not a fallen angel, he is a risen ape and in his natural state a deadly predator. We have lost the thin veneer of civilization in large segments of our Country. Invest in precious metals: brass and lead.
I think there is an important element missing in the piece above. That is, the consumer.
Consumer spending is approximately 70% of our economy (plus more indirectly). If there was a demand for an extra million widgets per year, widget makers would fill that demand. Even if it required hiring or purchasing new equipment.
But consumers are just as battered and wary of Washington, DC as business executives and owners are.
A look at reasons for consumer’s, the general public’s, situation and pessimism might be a good companion piece to this article.
That’s right. And it’s more than hunkering down. It’s fear. Business and consumers are scared witless about what will happen next. If this scorpion somehow slips through another election, it’s over for this country. Wealth, education, competance, diligence, creativity, friends, property, income…all irrelevant. Obama’s followers will get it all…until he turns on them.
If you don’t believe it, read some history. It’s about as close to a sure thing as there is.
Indeed.
I am somewhat hopeful now– hopeful that the Indonesian Marxist has not done irreparable damage.
But, if he is somehow (And the “somehow” part is also frightening)re-elected, all hope is lost, because it will no longer be about the Marxist– it will be about what type of nation signs up for another four years of this.
Damage left unrepaired is the same as irreparable damage in its effects.
Who in the opposition party is paying more than lip service to repealing, rescinding, and abolishing the damage done by the Pelosi-Obama-Reid trio? Anybody?
Ron Paul.
The problem I see with him losing is this- in their depression about their hope not panning out, a majority of blue staters will hunker down even worse, and spending/productivity in many of them will plummet. Deregulate and create sensible tax laws all you want (and I want that a lot- I work in a small business), but when (I hope) he loses, we should be prepared for a pretty rapid dip in the economy. I live in a smurf blue city, and I already know people saying they want to vote for him simply because they can’t bring themselves to vote for a republican. They will pout like little kids.
I am kind of afraid to think what the likes of Soros will do.
Indeed…try to live in the past…Imagine Lincoln having to sneak his way into the Beltway for fear of Secessionists carrying out their threat. (Please dear readers correct me if I am wrong as I don’t retain as well anymore)…Imagine a human being coming to power sitting atop a powder keg of civil insurrection. This is what the next president faces if he or she would even dare to make the necessary cuts.
I, too, live in a smurf blue city and am well aware of what spoiled state workers not to mention their kids who have to be watched by a Sheriff at the downtown library are capable of doing. Flash mobs may just be a practice session.
“Consumer spending is approximately 70% of our economy (plus more indirectly). If there was a demand for an extra million widgets per year, widget makers would fill that demand. Even if it required hiring or purchasing new equipment.”
This is exactly wrong. The point is, even if there is a demand for another million widgets, widget makers WILL NOT expand production if the anticipated long term cost of the expansion (i.e. regulatory compliance, taxes, benefits etc. etc.) risks eating up their rate of return.
They will instead increase price (same supply, more demand…) and bank the extra money for the rainy day they are expecting.
Of course, this Obamafication of the economy was just what our spender-in-chief called for when he entered the Oval Office. Mark Steyn talks about this in his new book. BHO lectured the populace that since we comprise only 4% of the world’s population we shouldn’t be consuming so much. We should forego our gas guzzling SUVs, turn our thermostats up, yada, yada, yada. And then when he got what he lectured about – decreased consumer spending – and the economy tanked futher, he turned around and squandered a trillion dollars on wasted non-stimulative “stimulus”, all the while decrying that even this “wasn’t enough.” And when American consumers stop buying, the global economy is also negatively impacted. Ah, Barry, what have you done?
Demand is just another word for “want”. But “want” alone can’t drive an economy to grow. If that were the case, most third world nations with excruciating poverty and need would have gangbuster economies.
Gardens don’t grow just because someone is hungry. They have to be plowed, spaded, sown, weeded, harvested, etc., in order for food to be produced. Economies grow because people are willing to work and produce to meet anticipated demand. Gardeners won’t plant if they don’t have some assurance that the weather will be predictable, the crop won’t be confiscated or stolen, that varmints won’t ruin it, or anything else that leads to their work being wasted.
Our economy no longer has that kind of confidence or assurances from government.
VDH is right again. Every business and individual with a brain is hunkering down, fixing their balance sheets and waiting for the Redistributor in chief to go away so he can work on his library. I’m curious. Will he hire Bill Ayers to rewrite his archives?
Bang on target as usual, Professor.
I just hope to God it’s not too late….
VDH: It’s not yet close to being hopeless but that might change and soon! Still, your points are well taken, as usual, and are great reinders that we can lose this shining city on a hill if we’re not careful to support it and build back upon its foundations. Obama is doing his level best, along with Reid, Pelosi, et al, to tear us down and they have many minions helping them.
We will take back this republic in 2012 as long as we strive and remember what our goal is exactly that. Otherwise, Obama and his minions will win, in fact I believe that he will try whatever he can get away with to keep working on his goals to radically remake this country into the dreams of what his so-called father wanted.
If you’re justifying your statement “It’s not yet close to being hopeless but that might change and soon!” based on your second paragraph: “We will take back this republic in 2012…”, please elaborate. There is virtually no significant difference between the R & D parties (yes, obviously a lot of difference in Barry as an individual) – what they do and accomplish is virtually seamless from one administration to another. Add on top of that the high probability that the Rs will nominate a RINO and/or be split by a third-party (e.g. Palin or Paul). If I were a betting man I’d put my money on Barry to win the election, but I keep watching his press conferences in hopes that one day he’ll burst into flames, if not literally …
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I can’t blame the Republicans too much for worrying that candidates will be vilified and demonized as extremists. Look what happened to Sarah Palin. A big problem, in addition to the pathologies of the “ruling class” is the fact that elections are determined by the low information voters, the independents. Most of them have little interest in issues and may decide their vote on emotional issues like guilt over past racism.
Then we keep pounding the mushy middle with: If you voted for him in ’08 to prove you were not a racist, you have to vote for someone else in ’12 to prove you’re not an idiot.
I laughed for half an hour over this comment…funniest thing I’ve read in a LONG time….. Somebody please put this on a bumper sticker :-)
Art, I gotta give you an attaboy for that one. First time I’ve heard it.
I think your assumption re “independent” voted being under informed simply shows your lack of actually being “informed.” Propaganda?
Many of us who fall into the “I” category have given up on many of either side of the aisle as being anything other than bought slaves and paid for by the likes of Los Bros Koch and ilk.
Both sides spend like drunken sailors, yet say, “Who, Me?” Flabbergasting.
Walt Kelly’s famous adage,
“We have met the Enemy,
And He Is Us….” comes to mind.
Wrong!! You at least are grossly uninformed, if you equate 5 TRILLION dollars of deficit spending by Democrats in three years to ANY period of Republican deficits. If you are concerned about federal borrowing, gun rights, defense, and a host of other issues, voting for Democrats is de facto proof that you are well below a 100 IQ. Maybe you are one of the developmentally disabled that were bussed to polls by Democrats and told how to vote. I can’t think of any other explanation for the idiocy of your statements. Ooooh, evil Koch brothers! Find some new talking point, troll.
your claim that both R’s & D’s “spend money like a drunken sailor”…have you seen this reply from a retired US Naval veteran?
.
I object and take exception to all those who claim Obama and Congress are spending money like a drunken sailor. As a former drunken sailor, I quit when I ran out of money.
Credited to Bruce L. Hargraves, USN Ret
of Worland, Wyoming in a letter to the
Editor of the Northern Wyoming Daily News.
Iran released the hostages the day Reagan was inaugurated president, replacing the feckless Carter. I predict business will come roaring back the day Obama leaves.
What a great thought. Imagine the day after a Republican is elected to office, if every hard working American goes out and buys something. Almost like Bush’s recommendation to “go shopping” to show those terrorists we won’t be messed with.
In effect, show the terrorist Alinskyites America can not be brought to her knees, the free market is here to stay.
The look on the Pelosi’s and Zero’s faces as the huge engines fire up and start turning with a really loud rumble heard all across the fruited plain, all of the rust just turning to dust as Paul Ryan sprays in a little WD 40 . Read the following , Zero’s admin doing just the opposite.
http://americanhistory.si.edu/powering/past/h2main.htm
You’re not serious?! “…goes out and buys something…”! Right, more debt, more demand pulled forward. That’s been tried and tried and we’re at the end of our rope on that one. IMO that’s a lot of what’s wrong with this country: our anesthetization through TV, entertainment, etc. and thinking that buying more crap will somehow make our meaningless lives more meaningful.
This country is broken in a fundamental way beyond Barry Sotero. To try to look at the bright side, we can thank him for hopefully hastening what is an inevitable course. I see it like an alcoholic or drug addict, no matter what you do or say, they have to hit rock-bottom before they see the reality of their situation and want to make a change. But, even with this catalyst this country has not reached this point. I think the current “bread and circuses” are preventing that by design and should we eventually see through these and break free it will at that point be too late; e.g. Barry could have his domestic force in place, we’ll be in resource wars with China, etc.
www
I notice that you use a computer, and therefore that you too, avail yourself of at least some of the products of our consumer culture.
The nice thing about living in a free, capitalist society is that you are pretty much free to choose how you want to live. And I disagree that it makes us more vulnerable to divisive pressures. In fact Autocracy and Tribalism are the historical norms. We are the exception.
Have we lost our way? To some degree, yes. But we are in the process of finding it again. A process you seem to reject. Do you think we would be better off if The One won another term? We have been subjected to a relentless, decades long campaign of cultural Marxism. Sometimes, self-awareness comes on suddenly. Sometimes a fuller understanding of who you are begins begins with the realization of what you are not. America is going through a re-awakening process, and the process of creative destruction you refer too has already begun.
But I am surprised at the passive observer posture you seem to advocate. Rather now is the time to begin determining the outcome.
“I notice that you use a computer, and therefore that you too, avail yourself of at least some of the products of our consumer culture.”
Cheap shot and from the git-go says much about your position. Computers today are essential; but the free-for-all spending by both consumers and the federal government is WHY we are in debt well beyond the $14.6T; think of the unfunded mandate payments to SS/Medicare and Medicaid and state and federal pensions which add up to over $64T. So I agree with www tha spending is NOT the answer.
We have lost our ability to be an industrial power which is by intention. That was the first pillar of our economic security the left destroyed. That made us a consumer driven economy which then would be easier to manipulate and destroy.
The nice thing about living in a free, capitalist society is that you are pretty much free to choose how you want to live.:
Sure at the expense of others. When you are not held accountable for your splurges like buying a house which you cannot afford and someone else will pay for it, sure life is great. Just what the left wants us to do.
“And I disagree that it makes us more vulnerable to divisive pressures. In fact Autocracy and Tribalism are the historical norms. We are the exception.”
Huh??
“Have we lost our way? To some degree, yes. But we are in the process of finding it again. A process you seem to reject.”
Where does www say this? We are? Please elucidate for us all.
“Do you think we would be better off if The One won another term? We have been subjected to a relentless, decades long campaign of cultural Marxism. Sometimes, self-awareness comes on suddenly. Sometimes a fuller understanding of who you are begins begins with the realization of what you are not. America is going through a re-awakening process, and the process of creative destruction you refer too has already begun.”
You’ve been reading too many psycho-babble books. A complete non-sequitur.
“But I am surprised at the passive observer posture you seem to advocate. Rather now is the time to begin determining the outcome.”
I say bring a .308 to bear on all lefties; is that aggressive enough for you?
Blotto, when my mom was a young girl, she had one dress and she washed it every night to wear to school the next day (at least that’s the story she told). Going out and buying something doesn’t even IMPLY that anyone should go out and buy a house they can’t afford.
My mom survived with one dress. I suppose we could ALL survive with one piece of clothing, replacing it only when it became too tattered to wear. And in America, YOU are free to do just that.
You are mistaken when you say that “Computers today are essential.” Many people live quite nicely without a computer. See, the nature of “essential” is ever-changing and different for each individual.
If a Republican — any Republican — defeats The 0 in ’12, I WILL go out and buy something, even if it’s just a bottle of good vodka.
3-Point Plan for Growth:
1. Repeal Obamacare.
2. Repeal Dodd-Frank.
3. Tax-Reform (lower rates, eliminate loop-holes and the EIC, broaden the base).
“I predict business will come roaring back the day Obama leaves.”
A lot of people agree, including myself. It won’t take a single policy initiative, just the overwhelming relief of getting this guy out of the way.
Ths stock market will begin predicting the outcome six months in advance. If it is going up, breath easy. If it is going down, batten the hatches.
But there is also the highly probable wild card. The marxists will not give up simply because an election is going against them. They were willing to throw the entire world into a depression in 2008 by tanking multimple markets in a coordinated attack. This time they will have that and more in their playbook. Iran, Israel, Mexico, Saudi Arabia…look for war in one of those places, or a terroist attack on the level of 9/11. And bear in mind that it doesn’t even have to be internal. Out of the 196 countries in the world, about 190 would love to se Obama win again.
Or a left-provoked race war like that of 1968′s “Long Hot Summer”, but -agnitudes greater.
RESPONSE TO BLOTTO @ #7 (RESPONSE IN CAPS FOR CLARITY)
“Cheap shot…”
COMPUTERS ARE ALSO A PRODUCT OF OUR CONSUMER DRIVER, CAPITALST CULTURE. WWW IS USING HIS, AT LEAST AT THIS MOMENT, TO COMMENT ON A POLITICAL BLOG. THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF A NON-ESSENTIAL CONSUMER GOOD. ONLY A FOOL (OR A DEMOCRAT) SUPPORTS MASSIVE DEBT AND BLOATED BUREAUCRACY. BUT I REJECT THE IDEA THAT WE HAVE TO THINK SMALL TO SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS. SPENDING ALONE IS NOT THE ANSWER, I AGREE. BUT WE NEED TO BE WARY OF THE MINDSET THAT SAYS “WE MUST SET MORE LIMITS ON OURSELVES”. THAT REPRESENTS A TRAP ALSO, ALBEIT A DIFFERENT KIND. PART OF THE COST OF FREEDOM IS THAT YOU CAN’T CONTROL WHAT PEOPLE WILL DO WITH THEIR MONEY AND THEIR SPARE TIME, NOR SHOULD YOU. ENCOURAGE HIGHER VALUES AND IDEALS, FRUGALITY AND FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY? OF COURSE. SHOULD GOVERNMENT LEAD BY EXAMPLE IN THIS REGARD? YES. DE-REGULATE AND ROLL BACK THE NANNY STATE TO REVIVE MANUFACTURING? YES. BUT IA GREE WITH WHAT MAC SAID, IN THAT I WANT TO SEE A RETURN TO THE KIND OF FORWARD LOOKING CONFIDENCE THAT IS THE ULTIMATE FOUNDATION OF ANY VIBRANT ECONOMY AND CULTURE.
“We have lost our ability to be an industrial power which is by intention. That was the first pillar of our economic security the left destroyed. That made us a consumer driven economy which then would be easier to manipulate and destroy.”
AGREED.
“When you are not held accountable for your splurges like buying a house which you cannot afford and someone else will pay for it, sure life is great. Just what the left wants us to do.”
SURELY YOU DON’T THINK I SUPPORT EXCESSIVE BORROWING?
…And I disagree that it makes us more vulnerable to divisive pressures. In fact Autocracy and Tribalism are the historical norms. We are the exception… Have we lost our way? To some degree, yes. But we are in the process of finding it again. A process you seem to reject.
“Where does www say this? We are? Please elucidate for us all.”
WWW SPEAKS OF ANESTHETISATION. I DO AGREE THAT THIS IS A PROBLEM. HE ALSO SEEMS (AS YOU DO) TO THINK THAT THE BEST OPTION IS JUST TO LET THE WHOLE THING COLLAPSE. YOU MAY BE RIGHT. I’M NOT CONVINCED THOUGH. AS A SOCIETY WE ARE FORGING NEW GROUND FOR HUMANITY. NEVER BEFORE HAVE SO MANY HUMANS LIVED WITH SO MANY OPTIONS, SO MUCH WEALTH, SO MUCH FREEDOM, SO MUCH KNOWLEDGE… YET THE MORE WE LEARN, THE MORE UNSETTLING THE UNIVERSE BECOMES. CHERISHED IDEAS AND COMFORTABLE PATTERNS ARE DISRUPTED… THIS PUTS NEW KINDS OF PRESSURES ON US AND EACH OF US TRIES TO ADDRESS THOSE IN OUR OWN WAYS. AND SO THE OLD PULL TOWARDS TRIBALISM (AND THE AUTOCRACY IT EVENTUALLY LEADS TO), ASSERTS ITSELF… WE HAVE REACHED A POINT WHERE WE ARE RAPIDLY DESTROYING AND RE-CREATING THE WORLD IN THE SPACE OF A SINGLE GENERATION. TO US, WITHIN THE CYCLE, IT SEEMS NORMAL. BUT IT IS HISTORICALLY UNPRECEDENTED. LEFTIES REACT BY SEEKING TO CONTROL CHANGE. WE REACT BY EMBRACING IT, AND SEEKING TO MODULATE. EMBRACING THE BENEFITS AND MITIGATING THE NEGATIVES. THIS IS THE CORRECT WAY.
SO I AGREE THAT THERE ARE CENTRIPEDAL FORCES AT WORK. BUT THE RISE OF THE TEA PARTY, AND THE KINDS OF DISCUSSIONS THAT ARE GOING ON, FOR INSTANCE ON COMMENTS BOARDS LIKE THIS ONE, ARE CLEAR SIGNS TO ME THAT AMERICANS ARE, ONE WAY OR ANOTHER, COMING TO GRIPS WITH ISSUES, AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, TAKING ACTION TO ADDRESS ISSUES THAT WERE JUST LEFT TO SIMMER IN PRIOR YEARS.
“You’ve been reading too many psycho-babble books. A complete non-sequitur.”
NO, WE ARE JUST SEEING THE SAME PROBLEM BUT LOOKING AT IT IN DIFFERENT WAYS, BROTHER. WE BOTH SENSE THAT THE CURRENT CRISIS WILL NOT BE RESOLVED WITHOUT A GREAT DEAL OF UPHEAVAL. I HAVE REASONS FOR BEING OPTIMISTIC.
I say bring a .308 to bear on all lefties; is that aggressive enough for you?
YOUR RESOLVE IS GOOD. IN FACT IT IS THE KEY INGREDIENT. VIOLENCE USUALLY IS THE FINAL ARBITER IN SUCH CRISES. THAT’S ACTUALLY THE EASY PART. I’M MORE INTERESTED IN SEEING OF WE CAN PREVAIL NON-VIOLENTLY. IT WOULD BE A GREAT VINDICATION FOR OUR SIDE. AND ALSO, IN ADDRESSING THE ROOT CAUSES OF THE CRISIS, SO IT WON’T HAPPEN AGAIN. I ALSO BELIEVE ITS POSSIBLE TO WIN OVER A LARGE PROPORTION OF LEFTIES WHICH WILL HELP BUFFER US AGAINST SIMILAR POWER GRABS, AT LEAST FOR A COUPLE DECADES.
Take a clue from the people who write legal agreements for you to sign, Gylippus. When they use all caps they do so because they know most people won’t read those parts.
Your correct the economy will jump start the day after the Presidential Fool is out of office…….The Democratic Party Plantation is at the moment at wit’s end. I don’t believe that many realize how much the 2010 elections devastated the D.P.Plantation……they sincerely believed in their own fantasy……It will be far easier to limit & undo the follies of this Regime than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a Plantation overseer.The problem is much deeper and far more serious than the overseer,who is a mere symptom of what ails America.Blaming the prince of fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince….Republic can survive a Plantation overseer…..the question is….Is it less likely to survive to survive a multitude of fools,such as those who made him their Head Plantation Master…….(this come from an Eastern European) and I wanted to share this with you….When the supporters of the Democratic Party Plantation such as the New York Times , the 3 regular broadcast stations and the 2 Party plantation station on cable knowingly endangered America by entrusting upon the county a inexperienced Plantation Master they are all cringing with disbelieve of what they have allowed ….Maxine Walters is showing her colors…and the rest of the overseers are quite…..quite…..Since Rep.Allen West (R-Fl.) came out with this statement “I will lead blacks off the Democratic Party Plantation.” He has tagged the Democratic Party Plantation……and the Party like Pink Flamingo’s all stuck their heads in the sand…they don’t know how to respond..Only Maxine Walters the overseer of her Plantations has shown such vitriol this weekend aimed at the American opposition…….
Agreed. The real work begins after 2012. It will entail a kind of “shock therapy”, though quite different the kind practiced by Jeffrey Sachs. In fact it will require exposing Sachs and others in the Dem / Globalist cabal as the psychopathic monsters that they are. Their fate is sealed.
It will require a complete overhaul of education. Vouchers is the way to go. And an Academic Bill of Rights along the line of what David Horrowitz has proposed.
Many of the big federal bureaucracies will have to be abolished, and the rest dramatically downsized (except the military, whose brave ranks act as deterrents against expansionist tyrranies like China. Entitlements will have to be rolled-back. Some unions will raise hell but they are vastly outnumbered and can be broken if we hold firm…
These will be even more trying times than what we have lived through this last decade. But if we don’t follow through this time, we will just repeat this pattern endlessly until we are no more. Expose the liars, stand up to the thugs and keep articulating the principles enshrined in the Consitution. And never stop doing so. These are the keys to victory.
Dr VDH you are correct. But one thing is increasingly clear: Obama does not actually care about such earthly concerns as money, jobs, wars, or your opinions and observations. His cushy future has been insured. He is smug because he acquired the highest office in the land while having the least qualifications of any president ever elected. He therefore feels that he is diety personified. He is IN YOUR FACE at Martha’s Vinyard on your dime. HE DOES NOT CARE – HE “WON”. He will carry on as usual until 2012 and perhaps thereafter unless the country wakes up.
Indeed the ice cream shot did me in yesterday. It is truly a look of I really don’t care. I’m going to work for the U.N anyhow when all is said and done and then I’m really going to mess with your heads.
He probably thinks his re-election is a sure thing, and why not? He got to be president without ever doing a damned thing to achieve every rung of the ladder. And even then, he got everything he wanted…the StickItToUs, ObamaCare, a bill to destroy the financial industry, EPA regulations to choke the private economy to death, 5 trillion in new spending. These are not small achievements, and he didn’t lift a finger for any of them. They just happened. Why shouldn’t he be supremely confident?
It’s firmly implanted in his brain that he doesn’t play by the rules of mere mortals.
I am an owner of two small buildings that contain store front businesses. Real estate taxes plus insurance totals 57% of gross rents.
A 6% management fee means that any net profit starts at 37% of gross rents. Less any utilities, repairs and maintenance, and debt service.
The buildings are assessed at over 500K each. But no thinking person would pay more than 300K each, if that. The current tenants are struggling, and some will default. I will be selling out, and the resulting price will result in lower taxes for the new owner.
And a lot less in the way of tax revenue for the town and state. Worse times are coming.
Jack is making an excellent point, and he is merely speaking about commercial property. An even greater reason for consumers to ‘shrug’ for awhile is the lack of fiduciary closure shown by the fecklessness and chicanery of the residential mortgage industry. They dishonestly [nobody is that stupid] blew it big time a few years ago, were “bailed out” with public monies, and still today are holding a huge portfolio of properties classified as “distressed” but which are actually abandoned or virtually foreclosed residences of what has to be fraudulent, almost worthless, valuation. And nobody is calling them on it.
If the industry were forthcoming the country might actually have a 25 year inventory of residential property on hand. But no one really knows. Why would anyone want to be a builder under those conditions?
To “49erDweet” AND “Jack” your comments from you real world experience are extremely valuable. I am in the investment business and it is very helpful to obtain accurate insights into the real estate market without the normal spin. Thanks.
We seem to be in the “big stall” period, where nothing will happen unless an asteroid strikes earth. What would happen, I sometimes wonder, if all the distress properties were “cleared”, and under new ownership, and those owners went to work either gutting, flipping, converting or deconstructing that old, tire, trashed “inventory”, and turned it into fresh housing or whatever.
The economic surge from that activity alone would suddenly put millions back to work and “presto” – we’d once again have a housing economy. Wouldn’t be where it is now, but it should reflect real value. Could we live with that? Or are too many bankers going to be gored for that to happen?
And that brings up the question. Are we here for the banks or are they here for us?
“So the globe is tottering as the tired-of-it-all American Atlas has finally sorta shrugged.”
So Dr. Hanson, when do you think the sorta shrugging might stop? Can Humpty Dumpty be put together again?
A cautionary word to you all:
You may have the best of intentions and the true strain of American spirit in freedom, fairness, merit and industriousness, but I can tell you for a fact that major portions of the country – particularly urban areas on the coasts, but not just those – are diametrically opposed to absolutely every single thing you stand for. Their stance may be extremely hypocritical, unconstructive, contradictory and irrational, but they will not acknowledge it, even in the face of the most objective and logical arguments. In fact, they will look upon you as borderline criminal for rejecting their creed.
What the Obama presidency has revealed is that America is not whole anymore, but is fractured among at least two major fault lines of political, economic and social thought, and this president not only thrives on that rift, but has done everything in his awesome power to expand and deepen it.
This is not the same america I was born into over 4 decades ago. You must prepare yourselves for the real possibility that, if a great crisis breaks upon the nation, that it will not survive intact.
And don’t count on either dominant political party to rectify the situation. Both have proven without any doubt that they are concerned only and specifically with what is in their short term interest as a party and as individual politicians, and they will sacrifice EVERYTHING, no matter how sacred, to pursue their goals, protect their status and enhance their position.
We will get through this. And we will be the stronger for it.
I do sincerely hope you’re right.
But the outcome is not certain. And one thing is strikingly, horribly clear – most of the clearly well intentioned folks posting here are not aware that simply winning back the WH and Senate for the Republicans in November 2012 will not be a solution.
I fear the worst.
One step at a time.
Merely platitudes! IMO these are less than helpful. I can listen to a Barry Sotero speech for these.
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We play as if Obama has any intention of “fixing” the economy and apparently no one considers the possibility that he has no intention “fixing” the economy. Perhaps the economy is exactly where he wants it to be…ooh no sez the gallery he is “stupid” and this is all an indication of his “stupidity”. Racist and dumb but it doesn’t stop them..because the possibility that a President of the US could be actively attempting to destroy this country is just too far out of the range of possible explanations.
Furthermore the left at this very moment is consolidating their positions by regulation and subversion in every aspect of our Government.
The possibility that we can win this fight is shrinking with every denial of the true nature of our enemy. The left is fighting to destroy us utterly. They are not fighting to win this or that individual policy battle. The end state for us if we lose are re-education camps. Not next year but eventually our freedoms will have disappeared and we will be standing there wondering how it all happened…
We can win this fight but we are going to start fighting as if we intend to win instead of fighting as if we merely intend to delay defeat. Take the fight to them and realize as Stallion has pointed out that a significant portion of our population are addicted to the sweat of our brow and they will take up arms to force us to continue to support their crack addition to forcing us to support them.
Keep in mind, we’ve been here before. Now, we all see firsthand what was really going on in the 1930′s with FDR. Most of you probably learned about the era like I did, from your high school teachers who told you FDR saved American Democracy. But, memories were fuzzy by then, and the narrative had won the day. So, we were taught that nobody knew why the Great Depression lingered on for a full decade in the US, but that FDR’s actions cushioned it. We were taught that the massive deficit spending of WWII brought us out of it, and not the curtailment of the most onerous provisions of the New Deal for the War effort, or the invalidation of others by the Courts, or the thwarting of Truman’s plans to institute New Deal II by resurgent Republicans after the War, made possible by the public’s dawning realization that the cure was responsible for the disease.
You who are young today, whose children will be taught 20 years from now that GW Bush was Herbert Hoover II, that nobody knows why the downturn lasted so long, but that BHOFDR cushioned the blows and and that who-knows-what major cataclysm on the horizon got us out of it… Remember to teach your children the REAL reasons for the debacle.
It may be a hackneyed phrase, but it bears repeating: Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Teach your children well, that they may escape the repetition.
this was my experience growing up- we were taught that FDR was a hero- one night watching a TV show the subject came up- and I remember my grandfather practically spitting out his cigar when the praises of FDR were voiced!! He then told me his version of what to me, was history, but to him was a real-life experience. And he despised FDR- and not only for his blantant antiSemitism (a topic never mentioned in our textbooks) but for the reasons this article enumerated.
The older I get the smarter and wiser I know my grandparents were- of course being young & naive I scoffed at their ideas back when.
["Keep in mind, we’ve been here before."]
With all due respect, you should rephrase and delete the word “we’ve” from your comment. There are very, very, very few if any other than myself commenting on this site who are entitled to say “we’ve been here before” referring to the 30′s. “We” are a completely different breed from todays generations commenting on here or throughout the entire society of today. Our generations built the estate and todays generations have been busy over several decades ‘liquidating’ the estate they were given.
T.T. Thomas: not all of us who are younger are liquidating the estate. We are too busy busting our butts several hours a day to pay for the medicare and SS benefits YOU get, but that WE will never receive. See? Generalizations are easy, aren’t they?
Amen. Good Post. I fear we are repeating 1935-36, but without Europe getting out of the current economic mess first. Even more worrisome, Russia and China may be, or at least Russia.
Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.
Stallion makes an excellent point. While VDH’s essay points to the many ways in which our current condition might be reversed, there remains in too many sectors—government, business, higher education, the family—the inability, or unwillingness, to live by ideals and principles which are the indispensable underpinning of healthy, democratic institutions. The collapse of Enron; the implosion of the mortgage industry; hugely excessive state and local government pensions that take from those who work to give to those who don’t; a Congress that routinely puts party ahead of country; and a citizenry that refuses to countenance ‘sacrifice’ of even the smallest kind—all suggest that our moral compass is no longer working very well. Until we can resurrect the idea of the free and responsible individual and recover the bourgeois virtues of reason, prudence, deferred gratification, and self-restraint—make your own list—we will continue to struggle, irrespective of who occupies the house at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
hear, hear!
I will believe the country is on the mend when “conservatives” give up on the drug war.
Could some “conservative” point me to the Drug Prohibition Amendment?
Forget it – some hard drugs aren’t worth legalizing and the others are gateway drugs to the hard ones.
More to the point – when is the left going to give up the war on poverty?
I will believe the Country is on the mend when “libertarians” give up all their quixiotic purism and their crazier than a shithouse rat leader, Ron Paul, and vote against existential enemies of the US no matter what. Democrats are existential enemies of the US; you vote against them no matter who is running against them. As Churchill said, paraphrasing, he’d rise in Parliament to say a word on behalf of the Devil if the Devil was opposing Hitler. Learn from that.
Way to go Art.Keep hurling insults at anyone who actually bothers to put forward true Liberty as a principle.Go ahead and vote for whoever The Dead Elephant Party puts forth,since that has worked out so well for us all in the past 30 years….
I’m glad to see the Constitution is just a piece of paper to real “conservatives”.
Bunch a phonies. I knew conservatives didn’t mean it. Just another bunch of statists. Just with a different set of objectives.
OK. I get it. Conservatives don’t have to follow the law. Glad we cleared that up.
It’s the Constitution STUPID.
All drugs were legal until the Uniform Narcotics Act, 1940.
Democrat family corporations (thru Jay Mellon’s nephew, a Senator) slipped in the word ‘marijuana’in the last 5 minutes, wiping out over a million family farms.
Volstead and the Republican Drys funded evangelical and women’s groups to ‘demand’ the original Alcohol Prohibition because Volstead and co. had set themselves up to control the racket. They lost control to Democrat Klan moonshiners and Democrat Mob union organizers- who used violence to control voting in the South and the cities.
After a constitutional Repeal, the Democrats tried to repeat the secret funding with the Narcotics Act. Under the table funding for illegal political activity.
As much time went along, the Republicans turned this narrow slice of law into the huge enforcement racket we have today- prisons, parole, courts now process some 2000% more volume than they did when drugs were controlled by states, as per the Constitution.
Slumlords vs. Jailers
Both hate 3 things: Constitutional limits, free markets, and liberties.
We are reduced to either robbing or jailing innocent neighbors, without harm or intent to harm, rather than attacking the powerful criminal who rule us.
I am actually more optimistic than I have been in years. The current slide started 80 years ago and began in earnest in the mid 1960′s. It’s going to take at least that much time to put things right again.
But at last we see an awakening. It started with Obamacare: Ordinary Americans standing up and saying ‘enough!’. Some of my friends were afraid that the Tea Party would fade but the 2010 election and the debt ceiling battle has shown that the Tea Party is not going away. Ordinary Americans – The ones who understand what is wrong and have a real stake in the outcome – have decided that they must get involved.
You only have to look at Wisconsin to see the proof.
The old line that Joe Six Pack will remain placid as long as he has his bear and TV is proving to be false. And thank God for that.
Joe Six Pack will be even happier if his bear has some beer.
I don’t drink beer.
The divide will continue. This is surely the separating of the goats from the sheep – a reference that some will immediately get, and that others need to look up to refresh their memories.
Strategically, the good, decent, thoughtful people are going to have to band together and start working AROUND the liars, cheats, and plunderers. There is much we can do that does not go near or through them. We can and should build great centers of power alternative to Washington DC, perhaps even whole states and using state governments.
With the new forms and channels of media, the left’s stranglehold on communication is crumbling. We need to recognize it, and we need to help it crumble. Rather than complain about the leftist MSM, we need to build a strong and broad honest media. That will take work. Complaining about MSM is a waste of time. Let’s do the work.
The academies are in financial trouble. We need to help them fail. Harvard and Yale may be well endowed. We need to endow schools that have honest, virtuous scholars. We ourselves need to stop being in awe of scholarly credentials, and we need to teach others to stop being in awe too.
We need to stop infighting between denominations and sects. The Catholics and the Mormons are starting to work pretty well together in Salt Lake City, and now in San Francisco also. The evangelicals need to get over their Mormon issues and realize that what we need more than ‘purity’ is unity.
We have a lot of work to do, do let’s stop whining and complaining, and let’s get to it.
“America is not whole anymore, but is fractured among at least two major fault lines of political, economic and social thought”
Unless people begin to realize that the situation is not a random series of events, there is no long term hope. I’m optimistic that we can defeat them in 2012, but it will be only a temporary relief. They will be back. They always come back.
2012 has to be the beginning of a long process to root them out of our institutions and the fabric of our culture. Marxists, politicians, union thugs, “journalists”, academics, hollywood, and the long long list of parasites who feed off of them; trial lawyers, bureaucrats, welfare queens, agitators, black racists, con artists, “advocates”, etc., etc., etc.
Unless we have the will to return the country to the way it was in 1950, and implement firewalls to prevent the vermin from undermining the culture, it will all come back in short order, because they have a cadre of professionals who devote their lives to destroying cultures. Vigilence won’t be enough. We need firewalls.
Between your and Quayle’s comments, it underlines one of the points I was trying to make:
The gulf between folks such as those who post here, and folks who voted for and still support BHO, including his policies and world view is so profound a chasm that you need to be prepared for the very real possibility that The Union Will Not Survive.
You know what….? I’m not sure that it should. Would you have advocated some kind of conciliation between the 13 colonies and England in the 1770′s and 80′s? Sometimes, two ideologies are so antithetical to each other that they need to be physically separated for the good of everybody. If Texas, AZ, parts of the South and a good portion of the plains and non-coastal Western states were to desire succession from the Union, I’d be all for it. Sometimes you just have to cut out the tumor to keep the organism alive.
Easier said than done.
Cleaning out academia? Universities may be hard but public schools may be an easier target – if we can get rid of all federal control of schools (get rid of the Dept of Education!).
Show biz? Maybe some conservative stars, people like Klavan & Whittle – chip away bit by bit. Mostly impossible as long as the feedback loop of making junk that programs the masses to sit in front of their tvs and suck it in exists.
The media in general? Here is where the biggest strides have been made – cracks are appearing in the MSM monolith with talk radio, the internet, best-selling book writers and Fox News.
My biggest fear? We have not fought the left hard enough as it has taken over our judiciary. We are *one Obama appointment* away from leftist judicial dictatorship in which no vote of the electorate will ever count again (sort of like here in California already). Unfortunately this is where the conservatives in the Congress have not fought hard enough. And it is where the left sees it’s main hope of taking over. Other than politically costly filibustering (which the left gets away with but we don’t seem to be able to muster the will for) what can we do here? The libs fought Bush’s appointments at all levels and we will be seeing the fruit of that for a long time.
At the moment, the best hope seems to be the new media and spontaneous tea-party organizing. But unless we educate a LOT of youth, and FAST, demographics will continue to change in the wrong direction as the people who remember what America was are replaced by public-school and tv educated collectivist sheep who will vote for free big-screened tvs (and will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes)…
“The result is not that the private sector is fleeing the U.S. (where would one go?)”
You know, I have been wondering about that. Where could one go? Is there anywhere? Because I really don’t see how we can fix this country with the people who elected Obama on our backs. Maybe it’s time to blow this pop-shop.
Excellent comment. But you could also add the racial fault line. There is more racial animus now than ever before. And like you said, Odummer and the left openly approve of this.
I see seccession as the only way to really save America. The left will never relent on their mission of destroying our nation.
With all due respect Dr. Hanson, those of us (small businesses, petit bourgeoisie) who remain in the manufacturing sector have known for several years there was a problem. It’s the general public that’s just now becoming aware.
I left academia in 2009 (Professor of Economics) to run the family business. Recent (2011) disguised increases in employer federal payments (particularly the employer contribution to SS), undefined 1099 filing responsibilities, CPSC demands and requirements; that’s just Federal. In California, we’ve got thousands of employers who were never notified of increased UI contribution requirements (from 2.9 to 3.6%) by the state, and have since been forced to eat that cost without applying it to contemporaneous paychecks (meanwhile incurring fines and interest).
The upside is that small businesses are fighting back when they can; downside is it’s mostly with the threat of self-inflicted injuries. I don’t know ANY small business (our vendors or retailers) who’ve replaced employees who have left. There’s certainly no plan to hire for the foreseeable future.
If there’s an upside, it’s that many of us have nothing left to lose. I’ve been to SCAQMD Working Group meetings where industry representatives opened with lines like ‘You want to ratchet up restrictions to keep your regulatory jobs? Good luck with that, because you won’t have any manufacturers left to REGULATE by 2015!’
Businesses aren’t afraid anymore, but many of the regulators are becoming afraid. Regulators are not stupid people, and even they recognize that reality can’t be set aside indefinitely.
If I’m reading your comment correctly you don’t have a consumer demand problem but simply a regulatory ‘cost’ problem…is that correct?
Another home run, Dr. Hanson!
VDH: 1,486
DC Libs: 0
Too bad there’s not a slaughter rule.
There ought to be a slaughter rule…
There is one: Rule 308.
I finished my last major project in 2007 (real estate), and knew not to start another. When Obama was elected, I knew that things were going to get a lot worse. I 75% retired and moved to a small town. I had the wife retire too. There will be better times to risk money. I figure about 8 years should do it.
The radicals and globalists are cheering the chaos and pushing for more. The leftist ideologues are just smart enough to begin to understand how stupid they really are, but it is painful and so they will sink into apathetic rage and and denial. That imbicilic bus tour reveals that they still can’t tell there is another tsunami coming. And that there will be hell to pay.
Apathetic rage, or Revolutionary Rage?
This Trial will not be passed without profound, disruptive change.
No, the erstwhile revolutionary cadres, such as they are, are not connected to the masses as they would need to be to spark a true revolutionary movement. There will be increased violence and chaos, but the leftists will fall to disarray and impotent vandalism in short order. This is another way in which the statist / globalist cabal his miscalculated. They are not real revolutionaries, they are revolutionaries by proxy, and that doesn’t work so well.
…and we are the ones that are armed and ready to excercise our rights under the 2nd Amendment to protect our families, homes and businesses. Just think of how fast neighborhood “militias” have formed after a major natural disaster (hurricanes for example) and how quickly you see signs go up with things like “Looters Will Be Shot on Sight” written on them. The silent majority – at least in the Red States – will NOT allow London-style rioting, arson, etc. in our communities. Period. However, the blue stete lefty lib communities? Look out – Your homegrown chickens are coming home to roost!
Just a thought – social media-enabled ‘flash mob’ techniques can be used to call out business and residential-area defense groups just as easily as they can to call out flash-rob or activist demonstrations. It can be done, and it’s obvious, so expect that it will be as the pressure builds. If we don’t want vigilantism, such defense groups (I hesitate to call them militias because of the associations) should sit down with local police and get a degree of legitimacy and training as auxiliaries, whereever possible. Might take a while and a lot of effort for that meme to grow; probably worth it.
Why not call them militias? THere is nothing wrong with the term – they, in fact, have a proud history. Just because the media has vilified them (probably on some trumped up charges because they don’t like guns) is not reason not to use and rehibilitate the name.
Unfortunately, in the places where your really need “flash militia” the police will not be on your side. In the Blue places, the unionized cops will put or be ordered to put leftwing politics before protecting the property of honky dogs having their life, liberty, or property redistributed.
Alan
Good thought, but don’t rely on the social media. It’s pretty likely that at that point, between electric failures, intentional hacking, and sheer confusion, we’d be down to cb radios and messengers- maybe landlines.
So are you going to start with your neighbors and friends if you can discern they are democrats and lay a little lead on them? I’m not sure I understand how you’re going to know who your ‘enemies’ are to be for your target practice.
That’s because you’re being intentionally dense. How have neighborhood defenders always known who the would-be looters were, in the aftermath of disasters? Generally it’s obvious when there are uninvited individuals combing through the remnants of your home, that’s how. There’s nothing sinister in what the original poster suggested, despite your effort to insinuate some sort of Einsatzgruppen motivations of ethnic/political cleansing.
This is a letter I recently sent to President Obama. He won’t read it, but he should.
Dear President Obama,
We have had a huge financial shock caused by the failure of the mortgage backed securities that were sold as being of higher quality than they were. To avoid a melt down, the TARP was necessary to restore some semblance of confidence in our banks and financial system. It worked. However, the stimulus bill was a total failure because it stimulated government jobs not private sector jobs. The auto bailout of GM and Chrysler might have been a good idea if you hadn’t stiffed the investors in favor of the unions. That created a lack of confidence in your philosophy. Your constant advocacy of raising taxes on those (incomes $200,000 and up) who are the heart of our small businesses gave little indication to them that you were their friend. The passage of the health care bill has made things worse because businesses can see that, as a result of the bill, their costs are going to rise. This has destroyed a lot of confidence. Confidence in not being taxed and heavily regulated by government is the mother’s milk of business. Your anti-business rhetoric and actions have sucked the confidence and the life out of business. Many are going “GALT.” That is, they are hunkering down and not hiring or expanding because of the anti-business climate.
There are many things you could do to change all that and get the job increases that you would like to see. But it will require you to take off your redistribution glasses and see that your problems can only be solved by promoting business growth, not stifling it. A few suggestions:
1. Quit calling for more taxes on the wealthy.
2. Open up Alaska, all of the Gulf, and all of our offshore areas to oil exploration and drilling. The USA floats on a sea of secure, reasonably priced energy. You can make it happen.
3. Call for expedited permitting for nuclear power plants and ask utilities to build ten new plants every year for the next ten years. Think of the jobs and capital flows that would create.
4. Call off the EPA and its war on CO2. The only intelligent strategy for climate change is adaptation, not mitigation. Read Bjorn Lomborg’s book, “COOL IT.” He will explain it to you.
5. Give EVERYONE a waiver on the health care bill.
6. Want to stimulate the housing sector? Provide an eight year, 5% capital gains rate and expedited depreciation for all investors who buy foreclosed homes and turn them into rentals. No government money needed – just a chance to make a profit for those willing to take the risks.
There are many other things that you could do, just ask any free market businessman.
JIMMY J PLEASE REFER TO # 8. Although you are to be complimented for your efforts you will be ignored as will the rest of productive America. BHO DOES NOT CARE. He just wants your money and your obedience.
Good ideas, but let the next president institute them. If he were to institute these, it would increase his chances at re-election, an outcome I do not want to see. BTW, nuke plant production won’t ramp up until Harry Reid gets out of the way on the storage at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Billions have been poured into this location and he and Obama are blocking the completion. As a result, nuclear waste is stored on-site at the many nuclear plants around the country.
New nuke plants (fast breeder reactors) have the capability of re-processing and reusing the uranium until it is nearly spent. Can then be stored in lead containers for much shorter perioods before it is no longer dangerous. Re-processing was outlawed by the Carter administration to reduce the transport of weapons grade material. The fuel rods can now be re-processed on site, so no transport is necessary.
Good article about nukes can be accessed here:
http://www.solarcellcentral.com/nuclear_page.html
VDH, the book is being written now.
Dreams of My Fatwah
The small c communists have instituted amnesty for border crashers by fiat, have shut down American energy production, artificially raised energy prices, have seized the economy and own the mass media as their own propaganda arm.
They want to overthrow capitalism…and capitalism has curled up into the fetal position and has turned to ice
Typhoid Barry can do his Oblame-a act until we can recite it line by line, like some cult classic, Baracky Horror Picture Show..but it won’t change the tires on the bus that have gone flat. Nor will it scrape away the blood, flesh and bones from the tread…for all those who have been thrown under that bus the past three years.
Joe the Plumber, Jim the NASA scientist, John the “bitter clinger”, Jerry the entrepreneur, or Jane the small business owner.
Hounded, pounded and surrounded…Middle America had a fight or flight reaction to being attacked. The Tea Party chose one. The free market business community chose the other.
The alibi, excuse and blameshifting tour is hard work. After President Papa Doc Holiday is done with his latest siesta, we can look forward to him actually producing a “plan” next month. Heaven help us all…from that.
If and when we do get to better times, I want to go on a cruise with this person.
Great summary of what’s going on.
“Academics don’t know a hammer from a wrench.” And they know nothing about priming a pump. Van ones and Paul Krugman rant about the stupid Repblicans not understanding that you prime an economy by pouring money down the hole. You can be sure neither of them has every really primed a pump, where the key principle is that if the water doesn’t quickly start flowing, you stop priming – the well is dry and you are just wasting precious water. This demonstrates the value of a college education and separation from the proletariat.
I am pleased to see you using the word “Socialist” and “Socialism” instead of the much overused “Leftist” and Leftism”.
All conservatives should note that Socialists studiously avoid the true name of their ideology. They use the euphemisms “liberal”, “Progressive” and “Left”. There is no stigma attached to these vague and wimpy terms. But, make no mistake, the word “Socialism” does carry a threat to most Americans. That is why most Democrats become livid if you tell them they have become Socialists: not “Social Activists” but “Active Socialists.” They truly believe that they are just “moderate” Democrats.
Words do count and it is my sincere hope and major cause that more and more commentators and particularly candidates will use the accurate but highly offensive word, SOCIaLISM in the coming months. The truth will drive the White House gang crazy, shouting “Tea Party Lies!” and “Smears!”, thereby confirming that it is the truth.
His excuses remind me of those used by my kids when they were in junior high. Will we soon hear “My dog ate my homework” ? His only excuse that he can now use and I would except is that he has an I.Q. lower than that of Forrest Gump. IMHO though, he is merely the product of 40 years of affirmative action. He was rewarded by the system for bathing daily, not gettting caught and arrested, and not using the phrase “MF” (at least in public). Sounds like a winner to me! NOT!
So let me get this straight. Tax rates were lowered and then kept low to stimulate the economy. That hasn’t worked and deficits have grown. Now we are not supposed to raise taxes to lower the deficit because it will discourage business. Is the emerging logic if VDH’s argument that business needs to feel…like Sally Fields…he likes us, he really, really likes us? Hmmmm.
Yes, we have to get a handle on spending, but I am at the point to say raise the damned taxes, and then all the businesses sitting on their cash will see it start to melt away and say, “hey, maybe we had better try to make more.”
People want stuff, but they do not want to pay for it. Taxes is paying for it.
2-2-2, baby!
er, “emerging logic OF VDH’s argument..
“We need more cash. Cut Dwight’s salary by 10%. Huh? Who cares; where’s he going to go in the ObamAA+ economy?”
Dwight’s right–after all, there’s no way the current trends could worsen! I mean, what are business owners gonna do if they’re more heavily taxed, anyway: slow hiring further? Hoard more capital? Start laying off existing employees? Start looking even harder at foreign markets and providers? Take early retirement abroad? … …
Oh, wait. Poop.
The people who are getting the stuff are not paying taxes. The people who actually pay the taxes are getting nothing but scorn.
Of course, this is the fallacious argument of the small c communists.
If the stimulus doesn’t work, print more money and bloat the government payrolls, pay off the union thugs and steal more money for “entitlements”.
If tax cuts didn’t work …then they don’t work ever, and never have.
What a load of complete rubbish.
The stopping of confiscation of the highest corporate tax rate in the world, the ceasing of penal regulatory schoolmarmism over the free market, ceasing the assault on capitalism through agency dictatorship, stopping the mindless public relations attack on business, would immediately improve the economy.
To suggest that “tax cuts did not CURE the small c communist assault on the economy” is a half truth. It has kept the patient alive while the small c communists have been sticking a shiv in its back each and every day since they took over the Congress…then all three of our Houses.
The companies have cash, but have built fort walls and bunkers. What the apologists like Dwight want to suggest, is that more assault on business is a “good” thing. And that’s true…if you want to kill capitalism.
More taxes on the “rich”…so that union thugs can cut in line and slop at the trough like the pigs they are.
More “entitlements”, because heaven knows…the freeloaders of our society should contribute ZERO and they are “entitled” to be a burden on society, not productive members of it….at a clip of fifty percent of the population or more.
There aren’t fifty percent who are so disabled, feeble and frail that they can’t care for themselves…so somebody is gaming the system here…and that’s ok with Dwight. Those who want to kill capitalism are all about gaming the system and raping the truth while doing it.
“Fair share” only applies to the “rich” in the class warfare assault on truth. Paying the lion’s share of the burden is not “fair” enough….soaking them puts a few more burdens on their shoulders…it’s the “by any means necessary” way.
My only question is this: If we ever defeat these lying small c communists…do we have the courage to deal with them once and for all…as the traitors they have been…and always will be?
cfbleachers:
Sometimes, most of the time in fact, you make a whole lot of sense. This is one of your really good days. Well said.
Before sneering socialists begin their daily smear of “Tea Partiers saying don’t touch our Medicare”, may I highlight a significant differnce?
Medicare enrollees had 45 years of compounded interest stolen.
They contributed.
The unions in Wisconsin were rioting over finally being asked to contribute $13 per week to their own pension and insurance, with a salary/benefits package averaging near $100,000 per year.
They until now have contributed NOTHING- zip, zero, nada- to THEIR OWN retirement. 100% free ride in the Cadillac plan.
woops, sorry, alzaebo, not ‘a’.
VDH’s near neighbor- livin’ in the grapevines
dwight – you are ignoring the whole picture. When you lower tax rates to leave more investment money in the hands of private businesses, you do NOT at the same time, increase government funding and borrow money from external sources to triple the public debt.
And no, private businesses are not sitting on their cash (you seem to subscribe to the Magic Cauldron Theory of money)…and must be threatened by higher taxes so they will spend it in their businesses. They are sitting on their cash, if they have any, and you can read reports that many don’t…because the regulations and new costs (health care) will take it all before they can even invest. So, they can’t invest it in their businesses.
And as cfbleachers so accurately points out, what valid explanation is there for the results of work to be taken and given to someone who does not work? What valid explanation is there that the 50% who pay no taxes can’t be accused of ‘not paying their fair share’?
“People want stuff, but they do not want to pay for it. Taxes is paying for it.”
D-White, this is 2 much. Was this one of the principles that you taught the Little Monsters in your care?
Indeed, there is uninformed, and there is willful ignorance.
So, if you don’t pay federal income tax, your have the divine right to the prosperity of others. Hey, cut a check, right now, the Flash Mobs are waiting.
And you say, “Impossible”
As he hands you a bone.
Dwight, I’m not sure what you mean in your comment. When did taxes go down? Did I miss that part? You can’t be referring to the Bush tax cuts, because they were followed by an economic expansion. So what do you mean? And what about that hoard of cash you want to “melt away?” No change in INCOME TAX rates will accomplish this.
Perhaps you are referring to an ASSETS TAX. Now that would be novel. Or maybe you’re thinking of a VALUE ADDED TAX scheme (VAT) where everything you buy will be taxed when you buy it, like sales tax, for everything and everybody. They do this in Europe and since then their average unemployment has be about 15%, overall.
Let’s explore these two ideas to “melt away” the cash-sitters’ hoard.
1. Assets taxes mean that everything you own creates a tax, for you, me, everyone, every business. So you own a nice home, car, maybe a boat, some stocks and bonds, perhaps, plus furnishings and savings for your kids’ college tuition. Maybe that totals $500,000 or maybe your are “one of those rich Americans” with a once-more-expensive home that may not be able to sell soon and your assets total $5 million. In either case, the assets tax of say 2% per year doesn’t sound much until you get the demand from the IRS for $10,000, or in the second case, $100,000. Odds are you don’t have that cash laying around. So what do you do? Start saving for it? In either example, that is probably infeasible, because you don’t save enough income to reach your goal. Your only alternative is to sell some of your assets, if you’re lucky and can get your price. Sell that second car, in the first case, and maybe your vacation condo (good luck selling that!) in the second, and you just scrape by, FOR THE FIRST YEAR. But year 2 is just ahead and another 2% tax bill is in the mail! Hum, looks like one way or another, you will have to reduce your lifestyle and reduce your consumption by $10K or $100K per year. The effect on the economy seems very similar to an income tax hike, or you can see your possessions “melt away.”
For a business, the effect is not likely to be favorable to the economy. A) If they have a “pile of cash” and a “value” of $100 million, this new ASSETS TAX is a tax increase of $2 million. But if they are not making a lot of profits before this tax will put them into a loss. One wouldn’t be surprised if that caused managers to reduce payroll and contract their business to raise the $2 million (after income tax) even though they wrote a check out of their savings. B) For many business current after tax profits are little, zero or they may be losing money. These businesses have no option but to sell off assets and cut employment or both. In both cases, employment and the economy will contract. C) Finally, there are uncommon businesses with profits and a lot of cash reserves. For them, the tax bill will feel the same as a big increase in business income tax. But the long-term effect may be even more dire to our economy than in the other two instances. Liberal and conservative economists agree that business income tax is a principal driver of capital. In these cases, the business will be headed out of country, carrying the cash hoard to distant places.
2. The VAT approach has its own pitfalls. First, it will feel like everything we buy is suddenly inflated in price, say 10%, if one wants to raise $1.5T/year. [Our current expected Federal budget deficit is about $1.7T but this assumes improvements to the economy that now appear unlikely, in which case the deficit might be $2T or more next year.] The shock effect of the sudden 10% price increase will wear off, but the reality is that all of us citizens and businesses will have to adjust our budgets to buy about 10% LESS of everything so the major effect on the economy will be contraction, not expansion. And with a contracting economy, unemployment will rise and budget deficits will grow, and so the hoped for balancing of the budget that the VAT was supposed to produce will evaporate.
The author of the article you responded to may not have the answers that you think are credible, but your notion that we should tax more to get the economy going doesn’t seem to have much plausibility either.
Richard:
Will you please help me understand why many intelligent people continue to respond to the nonsense of the Dwights of the world since it only gives them encouragement. Don’t you know what a waste of energy it truly is? These are hopeless and hapless one dimensional people. They will never change.
In a polemic (ideologically-charged debate) your goal is NEVER to convert your opponent. That’s lottery odds. Your goal is always to persuade the persuadable in your reading/ watching/ listening audience, while turning few off. Hence the value of civil, reasonable replies.
Well-thought out responses in a friendly crowd go farther, and help others understand the point in more detail. The biggest payoff comes if/when they re-use that new understanding elsewhere, though it may be only at the level of “talking points.”
America does have a problem with government services wanted vs. willingness to pay, and there is a problem of fairness with so many paying nothing but collecting, and so many paying out but not collecting. Not to mention the loophole industry that leaves companies like GE paying zero. In good times, people ignore all this. When money gets really tight, and general worry rises high enough, this dichotomy becomes less supportable. Hence the reply in this forum re: “those getting the services aren’t paying.” Having huge chunks of the public goods funds siphoned off to support the Political Class Aristocracy and its dependents, rather than furnish those goods (vid. Obama’s own lament re: the difficulty of getting ‘shovel-ready’ projects), turns discontent into legitimate outrage.
With that said, the train wreck of entitlements like social security suggest that there is also a broader problem, which hits most people, paying or no.
So, warnings about the economic effects of tax proposals aren’t a bad idea. You can acknowledge the legitimacy of the services:funding issue, while noting that a particular proposal to fix it is a terrible idea.
["...Bush tax cuts, because they were followed by an economic expansion."]
Maybe take a look at the debt increase to start! Then consider the billions off-budget he left the incoming administration with. Then of course that ‘economic expansion’ went BOOOOM in 2007. I think President Bush was still riding shotgun in 2007..was he not? I think TARP I & II was on the Bush watch was it not? Was it not Paulson who layed out the economic recovery plan and budget? Follow the historical debt chart and you’ll see most every adminisration (all in more modern times) leave the incoming administration a pile of crap ($$$$$) to deal with…sometimes larger than other times.
Actually, he is right. There was an expansion that started in 2004. Click the link below and you will see an increasing Federal revenue in sync with his tax cuts. Unemplyment also dropped during that period
“Then of course that ‘economic expansion’ went BOOOOM in 2007.”
Wrong. The economy went “BOOOOM” in 2008 not long before the Obama election. Bush was a lameduck president under a Democrat-controlled congress, which was voted in during 2006. I will not defend him for raising the debt, implementing an unfunded senior prescription drug program, or TARP. His administration did not govern conservatively. But give credit where due.
http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/downchart_gr.php?chart=F0-fed
Thanks Jarmo…but we’ll have to agree to disagree. I’m more favorable to tracking tax rates to tax receipts as a percentage of GDP. For example:
1960 (91%:9.8%), 1980 (70%:9.4%), 1983 (50%:9.2%), 1993 (39.6%:7.7%) and 2010(35%:6.3%). My question would be two-fold. Should we set an arbitrary revenue percentage to GDP or should we set an arbitrary tax rate cap, period? Do we adjust one for inflation but not the other or do we adjust both for inflation? What do we do in the instances of unpredictable wars and national disasters? What do we do in the instances of cyclical population trends in the social programs which are NOT going to go away? What do we do in the instances of national infrastructure modernization?
The people have to make some pretty serious decision forthwith, for what kind of nation they want going forward. Theres only one of two choices! Third world nation or………..? What we historically have referred to as the developed western world cannot sustain any economy with the people demanding their increasingly excessive lifestyle they’ve become accustomed to at the same time poverty also increases. We’re now a consumed part of a very competitive global economy in which emerging economies and energy economies can easily leverage power over the ‘old’ western economies….they’re all broke! At the very same time the major wealth holders and the American consumers are both pouring hundreds of billions upon billions of monetary support into those emerging economies.
The people had better start thinking far beyond all the simplistic and superficial rhetoric of politicians and politicized economic theorists!
T.T., your method, somewhere in there, GDP must be measured. Just monitoring the percentage of tax receipts vs. GDP could give the wrong info. Is % dropping because fewer taxes are being collected as a result of tax rate decrease, or is it because the GDP is growing at a faster rate. But I admit, just looking at revenue, also doesn’t give a true picture. I agree with all your other comments.
“The people had better start thinking far beyond all the simplistic and superficial rhetoric of politicians and politicized economic theorists!”
You’re joking, right? In most cases, voter sentiment is based directly on “simplistic and superficial rhetoric of politicians and politicized economic theorists!” Politicians aren’t dumb. They know what gets them elected.
Businesses do not exist to employ people and pay taxes. Businesses do not exist just to provide goods and services to the community. Businesses exist to make money for the owners. If you don’t allow them to make a profit and keep the rewards of their labor, you won’t have businesses to employ people and provide goods and services.
This is the most pernicious crap the Democrats have been pushing, for years. In 1984, Cuomo gave a speech at the Democratic Convention that truly shocked me, and let me know what was going on. The SOB told the Dems assembled that he was a champion of business. Business was important. Business was necessary. Business was good. Know why?
Because business made the money for him to tax, so he could give stuff away. Where else would money come from?
I was shocked. When did I become his slave? I should work 100 hours a week, at hard labor, so he can give it away? 25 years later, I realize: Yes. My welfare meant nothing. That I would stop doing what I was doing didn’t enter into it. He was right. I should have punted, then. I’ve worn myself to a frazzle making tax money for the government. I’ve made millions, and handed almost every penny to those bastards. I, as an employer, have no rights. My quarter always rolls down the sewer, while theirs must be guaranteed.
Well, I ain’t terminally stupid. I’ve had it. My ten former employees ain’t coming back, because I ain’t hiring them. My son and I will soldier on, doing what we can, like a third world company. We will keep whatever we make. I will be really picky about customers: the jerks can figure out how to do it, themselves.
Is this good? No. But I refuse to make money so Obama can jet anywhere at all, on my dime. Screw him.
I see that someone from Obama’s Office of The Director of Progressive Media and Online Response has stopped by.
Dwight, have you ever run a small business (80% of the business economy)? I have. The absolutely sappy notion that raising taxes will motivate any employer to expand so that he can cover increased taxation indicates that you have not. Here it is in simple language. “Why bust my ass so I can give it (my business income)to the IRS?”. That’s what every same employer will say. Sorry Dwight, but your ignorance in this area is absolutely overwhelming!
Why do smart people waste their breath with reasoned responses to this idiot?
It isn’t possible to reason with someone uninterested in doing likewise. Any pretension at reason from him comes with a catch; all of the data and “solutions” come from the preset marxist playbook.
People like him operate on emotion, not reason. The ONLY thing that will wake the fool up is a cataclysm. And he has been through 9/11, the marxists tanking the world economy in 2011, and three years of Obama. It will take A LOT to awaken somebody as committed as he is to the fairy tales he has been taught.
Don’t waste your time.
Dwight,
I have a partial answer for you on tax rates and what it would take to spur the economy. The ONLY thing that is going to begin to raise us out of our economic doldrums is when the Obama administration becomes history after the 2012 election.
As VDH so ably illustrates, it is the sum total of all the Obama administrations’ statist goals and command-and-control based decisions that have caused businesses to run scared and hunker down. Similarly, consumers are holding off on large purchases and saving what money they can due to insecurity about their employment status.
In other words, the Obama administration continues to p*ss down on the heads of businesses; bury them in even more costly regulation and government mandates. The consumers (and those employed in private enterprise) get to feel that steady drip, drip drip of fear and uncertainty. It’s really a new definition of the “trickle-down” theory put into practice.
Of course there are two types of “tax cuts” (or “increasing federal spending” as Obama thinks of it):
A) The type that conservatives advocate – a reduction in rates to the productive sector with a promise to leave it that way for a long time (so that businesses can make plans to grow with the money they are allowed to keep), or
B) The type that democrats do, which is to write a one-time federal check of a couple hundred bucks to a special interest group (which may or may not have actually paid any taxes) to “stimulate the economy”.
Type A has worked – Reagan and Dubya’s both increased revenues within a year or two as the economy geared up (I’m not a historian but didn’t Kennedy and Coolidge do similar things?) Type B produces a slight spike in activity but no long term growth or recovery because it has NO effect on planning or incentive to investors to take any more risks.
Hence our feckless president, can say “I tried tax cuts and they didn’t work”.
It’s fairly text book collectivist strategy?:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy
“The presidential advisors – Austan Goolsbee, Peter Orszag, Christina Romer, Larry Summers – who, in the euphoria of the hope and change election sweep of November 2008, advocated a World War II-like new level of federal indebtedness. They are now quietly back on Wall Street, back to their tenured academic perches, or considering departure. They remain either mum or in op-eds visibly confused about why a strong recovery did not follow a strong recession in the manner of all other post-war ups and downs.”
I think all of the president’s advisors (Goolsbee, Orszag, Romer, and Summers) should be fired from whatever jobs they now have and forced to look for new ones, just like all the other people on the unemployment line. All of these IDIOTS from academia should be forced to find a real job with a real corporation or small business and see what it’s like to actually make a buck for once in their miserable lives. And what makes these people even more hateful is that there is absolutely no accountability for any of their actions. They have literally destroyed our economy and they don’t end up in jail or have to pay a fine. All they have to say is, “Oooops, at least we tried!”
These people from academia who knew, they just knew, how to run the most complicated economy in the world because they were such “giant brains” and held important posts in some college. Never mind that they never owned a business. Never mind they never had to meet a payroll. Never mind that they never actually had to deal with the overwhelming government regulations that kill businesses. They used us like some sort of biological experiment and, when the experiment went bad, they just chalked it up to experience and went on to their next experiment.
Well Americans are NOT experiments! There was real tragedy associated with their stupid economic beliefs and very real losses. And like all other government advisors, they escape all blame and all penalties. After all, do most Americans even know the names of these hideous individuals and what they’ve done? Nope, they go to their nice little tenured academic jobs and keep on spouting this junk to another generation of idiots in classrooms who are willing to believe it.
They should be shamed, evey one of them. They should be put on TV on a regular basis and shown up to the American public as the idiots who made this mess even worse. For once, people in Washington should have to put their careers and reputations on the line if they are going to put our entire economy on the line. So if they fail, they will at least suffer some consequences.
If you mess up in business, you are either fired or your company goes out of business. If you mess up as a presidential economic advisor, you just go back to your high-paying academic job. Don’t you see anything wrong in that?
An excellent prescription for what to do with the professors. Add the stocks and prison. For some, capital punishment isn’t enough.
As Plato asks, “who will watch the watchers?”, I ask who teaches the teachers?
Beyond the economy, the academy has subverted several generations in America.
All Americans under 55 — one might as well say ALL Americans, period — have been taught (propagandized) by teachers from the 60s, who spawned teachers of the 80s, who spawned teachers of the 00s . . . .
The immoral but useful idiots the professors have created are evident in every adolescent, in every parent, in every public official, every societal institution, in every sporting event, in every image/video/theater/publication — such that no Cicero can now arise, no opposition can even slow the decline.
So what does an individual do to save himself and his own?
How does one do a John Galt today?
Yes, yes, as one of the Atlases, I can say that this has been obvious for some time. The only question, barring the question of when to shrug entirely (whether through retirement, expatriation, or otherwise), is what is to be done about it? Obama is not a lone wolf. He’s the culmination and embodiment of a set of values that have been embraced, to some degree, by the entirety of our political machine and the vast majority of our population for decades.
It’s not about Obama. It’s about the nature of the ideas. And the shrugging option to restart society on the path of sanity won’t do it, since there are many business moguls (Gates, Buffet, et al) who do not find it worth their effort to understand the moral foundations of Capitalism.
More articles pointing out the problems and consequences are fine. Great. I’m sure there’s one or two people who visit pajamasmedia who are not yet in the choir.
Now, realistically, what is to be done?
1 – Focus on Nov 2012.
2 – Block every single Dem proposal in the meantime (unless it is clearly and unambiguously beneficial – which is unlikely).
3 – The focus will change after Nov 2012.
What we’re going to be seeing pretty quick is the fight between the people who distribute the borrowed money, the welfaristas who get the borrowed money and the foolish lenders. And nobody who gets the money is going to fight fair.
Sounds like the businesses are “going Galt” on THE WON. This was predicted.
Who is John Galt?
Galt was a main character in one of Ayn Rand’s books, Atlas Shrugged. He did not like gov’t regulation.
I am John Galt.
(Frank, pay attention.)
“Eric Holder was simply a deer-in-the-headlights member of the liberal apparat.”
Manifestly not true. Eric Holder is a dangerous and destructive man.
Bingo.
Right. Holder was the guy who advised Bill Clinton to go ahead and pardon Marc Rich.
AIG is now suing Bank of America for bundling bad stuff and essentially lying about it. See this scenario grow. There are also hundreds, if not thousands of big shots who made a lot of money bundling and selling that stuff. They have now taken their money and run. Going after them, of course does not solve much, but for those of you so set on taking revenge, you can add them to your list.
It’ll keep the lawyers occupied…
And that is the crux of it, isn’t it dwight.
The dhimmicrats devised the CRA which compelled banks to lend money to folks who couldn’t pay it back. The banks then had the unmitigated gall to pass those bad debts along. The dhimmicrats actually expected the banks so simply absorb the bad debt.
Now the socialists like you are indignant for the mess that was made, but indignant at the wrong people. You have only yourselves to blame.
It is not revenge we seek Dwight, but rather, to teach.
Yep, and who is it that all those evil bankers donate their huge campaign contributions to?.?.?
What a surprise, it’s the democrats.
Wake up and smell the coffee.
Here’s another former entrepreneur (software company, 19 employees) who will never do that again. New venture: my husband and I are the only employees.
Secession…It’s the only logical solution.
Render: Sir / ma’am, I can speak only for myself but what I can continue to do is the best I can for the future of my children, and my partner (wife); which is to keep doing my job and continue to deliver quality of service. I can’t affect the external environment imposed by the government other than by voting every few years. And I’m not kidding myself that my vote is any more significant or influential than the vote of somebody who consumes more than they provide, when they have the possibilities do the opposite (some people don’t have that possibility or capability). but if enough of us keep doing our best, I have every confidence that we will prevail in the long run. And if ‘the long run’ is after I am dead, isn’t that the lot of all our ancestors?
So … more of the same, then? Einstein had words about that, I believe.
And while I’m at it; yes times are tough, but just think if we had had the internet during Vietnam, stagflation, Nixon’s wage and price controls, and several devaluations of our currency, one of which occurred when I was traveling in Europe in the 70′s.
Both the right and the left CHOOSE to be very narrow in their historical “perspectives,” because the full history, to the extent that we can know it cuts both ways.
“Both the right and the left…”
Yes D-White, your head is either half empty or half full.
Did someone put hot sauce on the Pick It Fence… But? Or is it that greasy gin?
I’d like to think that my head, whether half empty, or half full, resonates with the rhythms of history, which may lead to dizziness or stability…depending.
For what it’s worth and this has nothing to do with the topic of the thread, or maybe it does because I experienced many of the events mentioned above in the presence of my former wife, at whose Memorial Service I will speak today. After the event, I will undoubtedly consume a lot of greasy gin, or whatever is available. She was certainly a bleeding heart liberal, albeit not particularly political. Damned musical though; her voice would have blown you away.
Sorry to hear of your loss.
Enough said.
“…the inevitable recovery…”
This is where you are mistaken Dr. Hansen. A lot of business folks don’t believe under current conditions a recovery is “inevitable”. After the Russian revolution they waited several generations for a recovery; we may be in for the same wait. Certainly the base causes of the slowdown do not appear likely to be solved any time soon – excess government spending leading to higher taxes, a significant part of the population who believe everyone else should pay their way, greater competition from lower wage countries, a belief that you can retire comfortably after working just 9 – 5 until the age of 62-65 and then live another 25 years without working, that raising no kids or one kid entitles you to live off of someone else’s kids’ efforts – these cannot be changed in a short period absent a shock like war, revolution or severe, dislocating depression.
Sure, maybe a recovery is inevitable, but three generations is a long time to wait.
“a belief that you can retire comfortably after working just 9 – 5 until the age of 62-65 and then live another 25 years without working” — a LOT fewer of us believing that, these days. I know I’ll be working full-time past age 70; after that will depend on health as much as anything.
You’re right that the “It’s was only a matter of time” crowd are dead wrong.
Yeah. Like Soviet socialism finally failed. After seventy effing years!
To fall back on the “this will pass too” mantra is to dishonor the 23 million Kulaks murdered for not collectivizing, the 18 million Ukranians starved on the streets, the 20 million slaughtered soldiers, the uncounted millions of murdered Poles, Lets, Ets, Cheks, etc., etc., and the copycat murders of 70 million by Mao and Pol Pot.
It’s over. Get out while you can.
Every week I meet yet another business owner who has grown so weary of dealing with the tangle of Federal regulations that he’s thrown up his hands and walked away from an expansion opportunity.
From a Department of Transportation that proposes new rules requiring farmers to have commercial drivers licenses to operate their tractors to a Department of Agriculture that sends its rabbit nazis after a Missouri couple to an NLRB that tells Boeing it can’t build a new factory in South Carolina.
The Federal government has run amuk and is inventing was to tell business what it can’t do. And one-by-one, the people who build things and create paychecks are looking at the task ahead and saying, “It’s just not worth it. To hell with it.” and they are throwingup their hands and backing away from speding the money and creating the paychecks.
The article is commendable. We are a small $20 million/year company and we are tired. 11% increase in health care cost this year thanks to age 26 and other free diagnostics that we once paid a small portion out of pocket—thanks to Obummercare. We have training classes presented by our insurance carrier and profits pay for to protect us from OSHA, EPA and EEOC. Not sure what else is coming at us next. Would you be gung ho? If you would be you are not being truthful with yourself. Or you are a school teacher or college professor that hasn’t got a clue.
1776 Part II
Atlas is Shrugging
I own a small business. 1/09 I had 11 full time employees and 2-3 contractors, depending on how busy we were.
I now have 1 full time employee. 1 part time and I’m currently employing 2 contractors part time on one job.
I will not hire anyone as long as conditions are like this.
This isn’t out of spite. I hire when I can see that I will have enough consistent work for that person to do.
My customers have been crushed and dispirited. They are not spending. When they don’t spend, I don’t work.
There’s just too much uncertainty. When the Pres continually talks about how business owners need to ‘spread the wealth,’ that scares us.
We always pay ourselves last. If there’s nothing left we don’t get paid. We do everything that needs to be done to keep the business working.
Most of us are now doing jobs that employees used to do–along with the work we have always done as owners.
We already worked harder than everyone else. We don’t need the an administration made up of a bunch of people, who have never made a payroll or created a job, telling us we need to share in the sacrifice.
We’ve sacrificing since long before they came along.
Where is their sacrifice? The politicians saying these things are set for life. They will never have to worry about paying a bill, making payroll or figuring out if they can get a newer used car than they one they have now.
When they cut their own pay, their own befits and their own staff, then I’ll talk to them about shared sacrifice.
I haven’t taken a vacation in years. How many vacations, that my tax dollars financed, have the Obama’s taken. Yeah, being president is stressful, but he’s doing everything he can to make being a small business owner stressful.
I will crawl over broken glass to vote for anyone who runs against him.
Sam: You’ve accurately described conditions for 80% of small and micro businesses and owners. The protracted uncertainty, unrelenting diatribes, escalating regulation and constant threat of more taxes continue to take a toll.
We’re suffering from battle fatigue. In the next 15 months, most will struggle to find additional ways to cut or defer spending, employment, hiring, upgrades, research and investment. Many will close, because the owners are worn out, broke or both. Others are hanging on by their fingernails, hoping to make it to Nov 2012.
As a group, small business owners tend to be stubborn, demanding, contrary and independent. But like you, we’re united in one thing: we’ll crawl over broken glass to vote against Obama and his cronies.
GDI:
Right, but after all the lawyers are dead will we need to track down and destroy all the journalists as well? They are equally to blame for the lies, distortions and misinformation we have been living with for at least the last sixty years that have led us to the edge of this cliff we find ourselves on.
Lawyers, Journalists, Professors, Takers, professional politicians and the list goes on and on doesn’t it?
Angelo Codevilla identified them as the “Ruling Class”. Think he might have got it right? Can’t whip them all can we? If we can, how? Those who oppose Obama so much are so divided they can’t even find a suitable candidate to run against him because they are too busy building more strawmen to enter the race.
And so it goes in the real world.
We’re with you, Sam.
Hang in there for 15 more months Sam. You are a hero.
If the Menace somehow wins again, you will have to bail. It will be over.
There will be a crash worse than 1930 to 1932. The world will revert 100 years.
Hang in there, Sam; the Country needs you. But I’ve been where you are and being the last one to get paid sucks.
“I will crawl over broken glass to vote for anyone who runs against him.”
And the Democrats will be happy to include walking a gauntlet of knife-wielding Black Panther thugs for free too.
Sam’s comment got me thinking about the small business owners I know. Restaurant owner, door and window distributor, convenience store/gas station owner, commercial construction company owner. Every one of them works way more than the 40 hour week. All have their personal money at stake. All have other members of their family involved, wife, son and/or daughter. And all of them gripe (with justification, in my opinion)about the always-changing state and federal regulations thrown at them.
What you just detailed Mr. Hanson is what Steve Wynn aptly stated on an earnings conference call not long ago.
“And I’m saying it bluntly, that this administration is the greatest wet blanket to business, and progress and job creation in my lifetime.”
Anita Dunn and Van Jones – “are these hard-core soldiers in the Obama army that is intent on making us more like the Belgians and Greeks? Both and more still?”
Wrong continent Professor, they are Obama’s ideological mirrors and their publicly professed admiration for Mao Tse-Tung revealed Obama’s hero and model.
Review what Mao did – and how he did it through constant fast-paced destructive and disruptive change to anything traditional or functional and the explanation for Obama’s actions become obvious.
Another excellent summation from the good doctor of the multiple causes of our current malaise centered on a presidency that should never have existed and also has managed the feat of being the worst in US history. There seems to be a suggestion of hope in Dr. Hanson’s essay that when we finally shrug off this burden the economy will revive as if given a shot in the arm. Maybe we can then call the resulting prosperity the Obamaless stimulus. It sounds almost like Latin to me; as well it should—it’s better we give this creature a scientific name so we can remember it and forget it at the same time.
The middle class is already feeling this, “it will spur inflation and erode the value of accumulated wealth”. Many in the middle class are seeing what little they have in savings disappear due to the market losses, and inflation that is under reported to make us feel like it isn’t so bad until we make a trip to the gas station or grocery store, then we feel the pain big time.
I don’t know that another O is electable. The day of the election all these people were coming out saying they had never voted in their life until now. Granted, they were all voting for the O, but I doubt anyone can inspire that much new involvement. And, honestly, after that bunch, I think I’m okay with poll taxes, or a limit that says you may not vote if you are getting government services. Or, golly, a property owner, or married, or something.
Can’t we pull a Byzantium, and just say “dang, the treasury is empty” and quit doing all the bizarre, ornamental funding things? Honestly, my city applied for federal money to build a frisbee golf course. That’s just wrong.
And it just got worse; by fiat Obama has suspended deportation on all illegals, except supposed criminals, and furthermore has granted them the ability to apply for work permits. So what will ever be the point of becoming a citizen if you can work, or apply for welfare? They got what they wanted and the rest of us have to pay for their healthcare, social security, bilingual services, etc. The emperor has just favored barbarian over citizen in his game to retain power.
I taught entrepreneurshi in the 70′s. (8 students) The entrance to business back then was financing. Today the amount of regulatory obstacles to enter business are a hindrance on top of financing. Bamk regulators are looking to catch a bank to make a risky loan.
In Seattle there were 2,000 jobs promised in green weatherizing. Perfect for a start up because the sales were there. The paperwork and obstacles prevented this fiasco from serving it’s intended objective. After every economic downturn, startups are the first to create growth in employment. It won’t happen now till we clean out the liberals.
Funny – I just decided to look for outside financing to create a small new product line ($200k investment). While I could cash flow the investment over the next year or borrow the money now, I would rather give up some ownership then take on the added risk myself. We’ve also looked at how to make it a short term project that we can sell in a few years – so my investment is taxed only at the sale and at capital gains rates instead of income taxes that every year suck out capital I could reinvest. Frankly I don’t much care if I get the project off the ground – the added $$ won’t change my lifestyle and a good chunks of what I create will be used to fund things that damage our society. arg.
What a waste – business expansion / survival is enough work as it is.
P.S. Thanks to Dr Hanson for your essays! It’s always a pleasure to read and think about!!
Excellent job good Professor Doctor! I look to VDH’s prose as an example of educated Standard American English usage.
Obama got elected in no small part owing to a left-leaning MSM. Let us hope the next time around that the Fox News and the conservative talk-radio can play a significant role. After 71 years, I clearly remember that such conservative media were completely absent during the Vietnam War and thereafter.
Before change in administrations comes about Obama’s reign has to hurt the country and I would say it has to “pinch.” Has it pinched enough that we as a country will try to change who is elected is the question of this age. In other words have his evil deeds gotten the attention of enough people who believe they are evil? During Carter’s reign his policies did pinch. I clearly remember the real estate market being throttled to zero owing to 21% prime, Russians invading Afghanistan, Iranian hostages, Olympic retreat, etc.
Carter’s malaise is like Obama’s malaise – what rolls down hill?
Fortunately Perry has been positioning himself as the “Anti-Obama” for several years now. Perry understands that stomping the living crap out of the private sector has deleterious effects on the economy.
As usual VDH is right on. Many people before the election stated they would ‘batten down the hatches and ride the storm out.” We are seeing that in action. This President did show most of his true colors when he was a candidate – no executive leadership experience, no business experience, no military experience, and supposedly no documented past regarding his education or any other aspects of his upbringing except autobiographical books. His Freudian slips during his campaign also showed where his values were.
So, here we are. My mantra is I can’t wait for Nov 2012 and it’s ABO – anyone but Obama. He’s too destructive…..possibly the worst or close to the worst president in the history of the USA.
What an amazing coincidence. I just read a piece called “Right Out Of Atlas Shrugged USA” at http://www.robbingamerica.com
They present a case of a bank that chose to disappear and join John Galt rather than handling their assets to the government.
Is Ayn Rand the visionary of our times?
The left-wing president’s mega-salary and the center for gender studies are never imperiled. They’ll drop something like math or history first.
This time, the recovery is NOT inevitable. The debt is staggering. Short of a MASSIVE change in Washington, there will be no recovery.
I don’t mean merely a slowing of the current march to destruction, I mean a LARGE and PERMANENT change of direction. LESS government, LESS spending, LESS regulation, LESS power for bureaucrats.
A mere reduction in the rate of increase won’t give us a recovery.
“Ask Boeing why at a time of unsustainable trade deficits, high unemployment, and fierce competition with Airbus, Obama has unleashed the NLRB to shut down a billion-dollar plant. Ideology trumps reality every time.”
To this list, we could add farmers.
One federal agency announces its plans to require some farmers to have a Commercial Drivers License and official DOT registration so they can drive a grain truck from the field to the elevator in town, that is when the drivers are not making sure all the logs and forms are correctly filled out. Worse, those rules will prohibit younger workers from driving a tractor on the farmer’s fields, a job that generations of rural youth tackled safely.
Another federal agency has plans to have farmers reduce the amount of dust their cattle kick up or that result from driving on county gravel roads.
Hanson is right, under the current regime, ideology trumps reality.
To elaborate on the quote you start with: I hear Boeing is considering a plant in Poland. Would that be yet another victory for the American worker?
In his columns Dr. Hanson sneers and attacks predictably, but he doesn’t suggest solutions, other than perhaps drilling for oil in more places. Never does he suggest that anyone on the right might be at all culpable for the decline of our nation. He doesn’t have a word to say about the oligarchs who really control the country and operate it like a work farm, nor about the ridiculously bloated military-industrial complex and the endless expensive wars that are sucking us dry. Nor about Wall Street that makes money by sending our jobs overseas. No, everything is the fault of “socialists,” unions, environmentalists, college professors, government employees, and everyday Americans. And the uncritical, fawning comments. Nice little echo chamber you have going here.
Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but this is why the Tea Party is separate from the Republican establishment: they’re upset at Republicans almost as much as at Democrats. We despise both parties for growing government and expanding its regulatory powers under every administration since Wilson’s at least. The solution to the messes you describe are all the same: repeal and rollback of governmental authority.
Energy: if you want energy independence, affordability, and ample supply, it makes absolutely no sense to bar American companies from exploring and producing from all sources (coal, gas, oil, …) where profitable in the current spot markets. Particularly when non-American companies are eager to do the jobs wherever we won’t (e.g., in international waters). It makes no sense to subsidize alternatives that are intrinsically incapable of producing on demand (e.g., solar, wind) and so cannot ever reliably replace these sources.
Oligarchy: if you want to fix the big banks, let some of them fail. “Too big to fail” ought to equal “too big not to be broken up”. Stop guaranteeing Fannie and Freddie, stop socializing financial risks. Wall Street contributes more to Democrats than Republicans, because they know regulatory capture works and so prefer eager regulators.
Military: if you want to get out of wars, win the ones you fight and don’t commit to potential wars you aren’t willing to win. Ridiculous lawyerly rules of engagement only extend the duration and cost of troop commitments. Phase out support for NATO and UN, stop subsidizing the defense of other nations and other nations’ sea traffic, and prioritize naval over land-based forces.
Jobs: if you want to keep jobs in America, stop running the costs of government through American employers. High payroll taxes, tax withholding, health insurance deductions, OSHA/EPA/EEOC/ADA/NLRB/etc workplace regulations, 30+% corporate taxes, high minimum wages, and so forth all conspire to make foreign suppliers more competitive than their American counterparts. There is no good reason, none, why it should be cheaper to make shoes or lightbulbs in China and ship them halfway around the world than to make them in America; our competitiveness problem is entirely self-inflicted.
I think that was an excellent response, craig. You are well informed.
Fair enough. I’m not a fan of either party — they are both equally bad in their own ways. I have some respect for the Tea Party. But in practice they play into the hands of the oligarchs. At least the Democrats make a show of concern for the average American.
It’s only a show; they don’t give a damn about the proletariat except as something to use.
The Tea Party IS average Americans.
“Fair enough. I’m not a fan of either party — they are both equally bad in their own ways. I have some respect for the Tea Party. But in practice they play into the hands of the oligarchs. At least the Democrats make a show of concern for the average American.”
Dems Reps
1ActBlue $51,124,846 99% 0%
2AT&T Inc$46,292,670 44% 55%
3American Fedn of State, County & Municipal Employees
$43,477,361 98% 1%
4National Assn of Realtors$38,721,441 49% 50%
5Goldman Sachs$33,387,252 61% 37%
6American Assn for Justice$33,143,279 90% 8%
7Intl Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
$33,056,216 97% 2%
8National Education Assn$32,024,610 93% 6%
9Laborers Union$30,292,050 92% 7%
10Teamsters Union$29,319,982 93% 6%
11Carpenters & Joiners Union$29,265,808 89% 10%
12Service Employees International Union
$29,140,232 95% 3%
13American Federation of Teachers
$28,733,991 98% 0%
So much for your oligarchs supporting the Reps, eh? No, what the leftist/marxist Dems have done with the approval and support of the LSM is to lie to the American public about their loyalties to America and who funds them.
OpenSecrets.org
Orlando, you can’t be serious. Well maybe you are serious about “Democrats at least making a show of caring about the average American.”
Look at urban areas, where Democrats have dominated for decades. Look at the school systems and tell me if this “show of caring” has resulted in good outcomes. Look at the multi-generations of people on public assistance who grow up being taught to vote for Democrats because they will take care of them.
Oh, yeah, Democrat policies and “compassion” have taken care of them all right, they have made them a permanent underclass, without skills, without ambition, and nearly completely dependent on handout from the state.
With reference to business “hoarding cash,” that cash will depreciate in future value as the debasement of the legal tender takes hold and accelerates. Those cash reserves will buy less in the same nominal dollars when time comes to “re-start.”
A number of the astute (Microsoft, Berkshire, etc.) have already begun to “cost-average” down what will be the end cost of their reserves by borrowing (bond issues)that (like federal debt) will be repaid with tomorrow’s inflated dollars.
Today’s “earnings” do not have a consistent significance, what can they be used for; only to build reserves for the “future?” So, earnings can not be evaluated on the former consistent basis. However, those earnings will more than cover the debt service as inflation gathers steam. So – borrow!
This is a very well written, and factual read….thanks !
The “solution” is very simple, replace the idiot sitting in the White House, and all his cronies. Repeal Obamacare, lift all the unnecessary rules, regulations, and expensive permits, and let this country get back to work, and, yes, most of the blame does like with the socialists, unions, environmentalists etc.
Look at the Verizon strike, these people get paid over $90K a year, with benefits totally $50K. Companies cannot afford that, so yes, I blame the unions for the greed and the fact some in business are forced to shut their doors. Environmentalists, and their extreme demands have halted much progress in this country. I could go on.
Obama doesn’t have an idea in his head to solve the jobs issue. Oops, he has one – he will create another commission but not report it until after Labor Day. Those of you out of work will just have to hold still. He has a tee time on Labor Day.
Here is my concern. When Mr. Obama is defeated in 2012, will he voluntarily leave office? Or will he try a January surprise that, by hook or crook, preserves him in power? Will he leave voluntarily and correctly, or will he force a crisis?
Honestly, I am betting heavily on the latter. Because that would dissolve the union, and allow him to reign un-impeded.
If this happens, we, and every single other small business people we know, will close our doors, and leave the country. Disappear. As they did in Ayn Rand’s wonderful book. The looters can have it all. They just can’t make it work, and under their misdirection, no one will want to invest time, effort, or money to make things.
We may need to re-invent the union. And outlaw the redistributionists.
He can play tough guy all he wants; he can even interfere with the transition, but come January 20, he leaves the Oval Office, either voluntarily, in handcuffs or in a body bag.
["or in a body bag."]
Thats some pretty reckless words in the eyes of some official type folks! Are you a gun owner by chance?
TT: Yep. We know the left will play dirty. It is just the we will not take it anymore. We will fight for America.
I think ‘he’ was referring to a body bag for President Obama. Thats some pretty reckless talk!
No, but it wouldn’t be me shooting him anyway. That job will fall on the new President and the military. The new President will show up at the Oval Office and order the military (and perhaps the FBI, too) to “Get that man out of my office, and if he resists, shoot him.”
Note 20th Amendment to the Constitution: The terms of the President and the Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January….
Along with other provisions, even if elections could be stopped, Obama’s term is over 20 Jan 2013, even with no one else being elected, I think that means the Senate, what’s left of it, then chooses the President , or that the president pro tempore of the Senate assumes the office. (By law under same amendment).
Under the current Presidential Succession Act, the Presidency devolves upon the Speaker of the House in the event the Presidency and Vice Presidency are vacated. The 20th Amendment provides that if no qualified President-elect is determined by noon on January 20, the Vice President-elect shall become Acting President. If there is likewise no qualified Vice President-elect, the Presidential Succession Act takes over, and under the current law, the Speaker of the House shall become Acting President. The Acting President shall remain Acting President until a qualified candidate for President is elected to the office per Article II and the 12th Amendment of the Constitution, at which time the President-elect shall become President.
You have a rich fantasy life.
The Bolsheviks attempted to “collectivize” agriculture after taking power in Russia. Grain and other crops were confiscated, leading to the Great Famine of 1921 – the first of many which killed millons from starvation.
Instead of handing their hard earned grain over to the thieves running the state, many farmers chose to destroy it instead.
The same thing is already happening here, though in a more subtle way.
America has bounced back from seemingly hopeless situations before, and it can again, and quicker than you think. The cash that business and consumers are hoarding now can spark a quick recovery once the socialist and crony capitalist in chief is gone, and it becomes possible to do honest business again, without begging the chief for a waiver or a subsidy.
But that bounceback has one unalterable requirement, the socialist in chief must lose in 2012, and we must take back the senate as well, preferably with a 60+ vote majority to crush a filibuster, so all the damage he wrought can be quickly repealed. If he wins another term, and we get 4 more years of stagnation, and Obamacare is fully implimented, and the present crushing regulation and cronyism continues for another 4 yrs, and the crushing debt burden is financed by the fed printing money with abandon and starting hyper inflation to go along with the stagnation, and the debt to gdp ratio hits 130% like Greece, then we truly will be finished. Patrick Henry’s line about true patriots standing behind their country when times are most dire is still true, but this time we dont need a violent revolution, we just need to win the next election, and win it big.
And to those cynics that say the repubs will also screw things up if they take over, like they did under Bush, I have one reply. This time we have the Tea Party watching them, and they know it. That should help keep them more honest this time around. No more buying us off with social conservative BS while they sell us down the river fiscally with “compassionate conservatism”, or a repub version of cronyism. And if it doesn’t, and the repubs do backslide, then next time we wont switch back to the dems, since we now know what they will do. Instead it will be time for another party, just like the Whigs went away and the repub party arose.
Among the herd, which will prevail?
Do we believe in the notion that all men are created equal with the right to pursue their own happiness and liberty, or in the egalitarian belief of automatic equality.
Many of us were taught that if you want something, you work for it…period. A man takes chances, works long hours, moves where he has to, does what is uncomfortable to make something of himself. This type of person distinguishes between need and want, they make mistakes and take responsibility for them. They push themselves through tough times and come out the other end better for it, with a renewed sense of pride. Their heroes are the self made business men, the producers and the makers of things. As Ayn Rand stated, and many hardworking parents taught us, “We must always reach for the best within us.”
Conversely and currently, many seem to believe in the punishment and envy of anyone who is better than someone else at anything. They must tear down the competent and the strong — raze them to the level of the incompetent and the weak. They blame others for their incompetence and are quick to take credit for the work of others. If the blind belief in automatic equality prevails, then not even the excellent will any longer bother to excel, since they will not be allowed to, nor rewarded for it. They will not even see the need to excel, nor feel guilty for not excelling. They can and will bring the engines to a stop. We will all then be mediocre.
In the end, much of it boils down to the herd mentality, if it is not too late…
Assuming that the nations economic wealth is still around $188 TRILLION maybe we should be asking the question of: “what percentage of that wealth is owned and controlled by the top ten percent stakeholders?”
Todays ‘non patriotic’ monetary stakeholders put/invest their money where they believe there is the greatest probabilty for greater long term profit margins….easy money so to speak! They’re not problem solvers…they’re easy profit chasers!
There was a time when the economic parity between employers and labor was pretty fair. Then came the labor unions demanding more and more. Then came the non union labor demanding more and more. For the past couple of decades or so, in the private sector, the unions have withered away and now it the non union employees demanding more and more. BOTH union and non union labor creating unsustainable, arbitrary, circular inflated values of goods and services. Yes, most companies continue to make decent profits but….they no longer reinvest their assets in America. They invest in more long term profitable place like foreign emerging economies. As they do, they drain the domestic economies and build up the emerging economies. So, as most everybody should know by now, Americas consumers become reliant upon foreign emerging markets for goods and services. Everywhere the consumer shops and buys, they’re too, now supporting the foreign emerging economies. America is no longer competitive and now are only relevant as a consumer supermarket.
But lets back up a bit! We haven’t taken a good look at the big boys ‘profits’ to define where all of it came from. Hello government subsides! Yep, cash handouts, special tax adjustments and special legislative favors nearly all correlating to $$$ advantages! Oh, and the various classes of ‘small business’ folks, well….guess what! They all get their share of government handouts too! Depending on your classificatrion you get ‘exempted’ from many of the governments big-boy mandates, escape the big-boy tax “rates”, free R&D grants, low interest government backed loans, and for many, the same legislative favor and $$$, etc. Government, government, government!
Now the consequences! The government well went dry but, not before the big boys got all nice and invested up in foreign emerging economies….that now every American consumer is even more invested in….while Americas economy withers away.
Folks can blame the ‘government’ all they want to and even slash all the special favors, taxes and regulatory policy and America still has the same fundamental economic problems….most probably even more! Most of the middle class would/will join the growing poverty class. Our problem is a ‘people’ problem…not a government problem! More is never enough! Demanding more eventually drives investments elsewhere! The big boys are the same! They too are all about more money…and well, America the great? Not so great and relevant anymore! The ONLY thing that makes us relevant today, to the folks around the globe is our USD and the printing presses. Even that said, our USD isn’t looking so favorable long term around the world today…not to mention a totally dysfunction government being consumed by two factions of radical political/ideological zealots.
Now back to your fantasy/fiction world.
At what point in your (future) child-like, verbal-diarrhea will you present a fact? There is no point in trying to refute your diatribe because it would give legitimacy to what you wrote.
Fascinating little circle jerk of whiners. While you are assuring each other how correct you are did you notice that you were all mailing it in to the .01% of greedy, treasonous, scumbags who got rich off our labor and parked the money off-shore? America became an economic powerhouse with a thriving middle class because of, not in spite of, labor unions. We are now collectively in the toilet due to the attack on the American work force by greed, accomplished by their lackeys Reagan and W., and their inane tax cuts for the wealthy and subsidies for Big Oil. The economy was in the toilet under Reagan and Bush or didn’t you notice? Obama didn’t create the mess, he is trying to fix it. The middle-class is disappearing, the family farm is absorbed by multi-national corporations, and small business is being destroyed by the recession. Bush threw a party and attacked the wrong country and now we’re trying to pay the bill while mired in his two wars. Reagan piled up more debt than all the previous administrations COMBINED and started the demise of labor. A simple return to sensible tax rates of the sixties and the budget would be balanced. Take off your pajamas, get off the couch, stop drinking the tea, and start putting the blame where it belongs. The economy isn’t recovering and the “job creators” won’t be investing anytime soon. The only way out is a Marshall Plan size green investment in America, but the Tea Party Terrorists in congress have nothing to offer but shrill voices and comic relief. Palin? Romney? Perry? Bachman? Seriously?
The only way you could understand what Dr.H and the posters here are saying is for you to save or borrow the money to start up a business and when you open the doors the first entity to walk in is the Federal Govt or some union rep to tell you what it will cost you to comply with the regulations and now the looming healthcare costs to operate under this regime. The union rep will organize your workers and lay out the work rules and establish their control over your efforts and money. Fed Govt and unions now equal legal extortion. Who could operate a business with a piano dangling over their head?
In other words you need more facts before you.
“Obama didn’t create the mess, he is trying to fix it.”
That about says what can be said for you. Now let the grownups have their conversation and do the planning that will turn this around starting November 2012.
“The only way out is a Marshall Plan size green investment in America, but the Tea Party Terrorists in congress have nothing to offer but shrill voices and comic relief.”
Not so fast! I think this says more about the ignorance of this individual. Ergo why I continue to state that we cannot live with the left going forward. Something has to happen, either a division of the union or a civil war. MP and I cannot inhabit the same nation. We have absolutely nothing in common.
“Reagan piled up more debt than all the previous administrations COMBINED and started the demise of labor.”
I know that this is part of the narrative that the Media Matters left has been foisting on us but I wish we could at least stop throwing this one out. It’s stupid, and there are plenty of people that remember what happened. Reagan almost DOUBLED income to the government (through his dreaded tax cuts and the resulting ecenomic surge), but Tip O’neil and the Democrat congress actually managed to OUTSPEND the increase (it was they who always declared Reagan’s proposed budgets as DOA).
If we could just declare this one lie to be off limits, it would really save a lot of time. I know that the leftist mode is to “tell a lie often enough and it becomes the truth” but there are too many who know that this is untrue. The people here certainly know better.
Also, “demise of labor”? Obviously you don’t mean jobs, since the unemployment rate under Reagan plummeted from the Carter years.
“Fascinating little circle jerk of whiners.”
Congrats. You’re irrelevant.
Pardon. That was for 63. Michael Pedersen.
Some excellent points TT, but you also write:
“There was a time when the economic parity between employers and labor was pretty fair. Then came the labor unions demanding more and more. Then came the non union labor demanding more and more. For the past couple of decades or so, in the private sector, the unions have withered away and now it the non union employees demanding more and more. BOTH union and non union labor creating unsustainable, arbitrary, circular inflated values of goods and services.”
Yes, that definitely happens, but how does one STOP it? If a work force is comprised of millions of individuals, each one trying to work out the best deal for himself, their families, their aspirations etc.: let’s call them small business men and women, without their own business. They exert whatever power and leverage they can to get the best deal for themselves, and unfortunately will always want more, but capitalism agrees that it is essential for people to want more.
It seems that there is an underlying conservative? ethos here that as a worker-employee you have to accept certain limits for the good of the community and country and if you want more, then become a small business owner, and only THEN will you have the right to want MORE, possibly because you have risked more.
Maybe someone can clarify the appropriate BALANCE between businsses and their employees. We obviously need both, but both are constantly ebbing and flowing in power, profit, and employment, just to name three. To me, it seems more a pragmatic question of what is SUSTAINABLE, but the systems are so dynamic, with so many on ALL sides looking for the newest advantage, loophole, cushy pension, whatever that it is hard to get a good fix. Instead, so many throw their ponderous political or religious philosophies out their, spouting absolutes, taking predictable pokes at those their philosophy defines as the enemy.
VDH, for whatever reason has chosen to define the enemy as all the folks an earlier poster mentioned, and then he just rolls out sentence after sentence on how absurd, often loathesome, these people are. Is the implication that those NOT mentioned are probably better and we should elect them and espouse their policies?
“Maybe someone can clarify the appropriate BALANCE between businsses and their employees.”
I can’t speak for other employees. That’s between them and their employers. But I do have a problem with government regulations constantly favoring union employees, and especially public unions, especially when their dues end up in the campaign chests of the politicians who vote on those regulations. Perfect examples are the NLRB and Boeing and what went on in Wisconsin. Public union workers make better than an average salary and benefits for their professions, at the expense of the taxpayer. I don’t mind them getting a “fair share” (where have I heard that before?); anything above that is government-sponsored theft.
Do you really think Obama will accept being defeated in 2012? He will do something before then to insure he remains in office or should I say the head of the dictatorship. Congress? Congress has over 400 progressives from both parties and support Obamas actions by non action.
People had better be ready. If you know what I mean. Food, water, ammo and at least a months worth of living expenses on hand in cash. The first thing that will happen is all plastic transaction will cease. So will internet and cell phone. Look around you at all the other countries wher the gov’t has attempted to take power. These are the first things they do. Why do you think Obama wanted the internet ki!! switch. He has it just not legally.
I used to believe they would need a bit more time for the setup-
Obama’s THIRD TERM – you heard that right, what else in the Constitution has he paid attention to. Plus, like FDR, this is an attempt to ‘organize’ and nationalize the economy.
First, a radical faction takes control of the largest Party, then the Congress, then the Presidency, and then the economy and country. It’s happened many times.
But, reading the increasingly panicked financial news (ZeroHedge), anticipating the effect of Obamacare and Frank-Dodd implementation, watching Israel get surrounded by Obamanistas organizing the Muslim Brotherhood, and listening daily to left-wing media (“his next term is when he can take the gloves off”), I’m beginning to wonder if the 2012 guys are right. Are things accelerating?
So…what happens after 2012? …say, if the Republican Party takes the House and Senate , say, by veto-proof majorities?
Will it be our turn to embrace a Democrat-like narrative of ‘hope and change’?
How’d that work out the last time America tried it? (Yeah, Reagan…he told us what we wanted to hear, but big government increased dramatically under his reign, and the excesses of our present over-leveraged ‘economy’ arguably began under his administration..)
In 2012, will it be our turn to listen to the left deride us for talking about rainbows and skittles?
If you honestly expect the Republican Party to reverse all of the government and banking excesses of the last decade, and restore to us the leveraged prosperity of the last thirty years, I’m afraid that you’re either drunk…or insane. The math simply won’t add up, even if you try to ignore it.
We keep electing the same people – or the same types of people – over and over again, while expecting different results.
People are waking up??? Not, yet, they aren’t.
The Friendly Grizzly…. First, you live in the fantasy world of the internet! You recklessly assume you know first hand the people you’re directing comments to. Thats not a comforting indication for your and your generations! Now, you said to me: ["We are too busy busting our butts several hours a day to pay for the medicare and SS benefits YOU get, but that WE will never receive. See? Generalizations are easy, aren’t they?"]
Let me inform you youngster, that at 83 I have NEVER drawn a penny of social security, medicare or medicaid. My 32 years of active duty gives me a retirement and health care benefits. Since 1978 we have donated our annual income from my service retirement to various charities. Neither me nor my wife have ever used our military health care benefits.
Next time you feel the urge to smart off making a fool of yourself, may I suggest you do it when you’re face to face and know who you’re talking to.
Good advice. Perhaps you should follow it.
Actually, Obama was correct about the harm ATMs did our wages and jobs. However, ATM in this case means Another Tresspassing Mexican.
I hope everyone thanks him and the media for granting a backdoor amnesty this week to hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals now allowed work permits.
Bush was our first mexican president, Obama is on track to be our second.
It is quite obvious to me that Adolf Hitler was right, not about anti-Semitism, but about America being too weak and corrupted “negroized” to fight… he was just 60 years off in his estimation.
We need to face up to the fact that America is no longer the nation we were born into. More than half of our population pays no taxes.
Go to any state building and look around, if you are a white male it is the most disturbing thing ever. No one who looks like you anywhere to be seen, only those who are the opposite and when you look around keep in mind that for EVERY ONE OF THOSE JOBS a more qualified white male was passed over BECAUSE he was a white male. Same thing at a corporate office… that black woman working the front desk was not the most qualified and we all know that. She was given the job because of her status as the priviledged. Wake up people. The election of Obongo was them going for the death blow.
Someone mentioned something about kids learning about how Bush was Hoover, funny but not entirely accurate. If this country is around long enough for that… it will be taught that Bush was installed by right-wing racist white power group and that the people of America rose up and put Obongo in to get rid of the Nazi Bush. That and the founding fathers will be blackwashed… in 50 years there will have been 4 Jews, 8 blacks, 10 women, 9 mexicans and 3 white guys… and I really am not joking. Of course…this won’t happen because in 50 years the US will be a distant memory.
You have some serious racial hatred issues. Please, get to know a local colored person — you might actually like them!
Arthur,
1. Take a deep breath. Take several.
2. Have a little faith.
3. Read adam and DC a few times.
First, I think most of you need to read VHD seminal work Carnage and Culture. I have traveled extensively and as many of you note this country has its faults. Nowhere else in the world have I uncovered a society that enjoys the freedoms and wealth Americans do. Hence a society founded on western culture, grounded in empirically problem solving, and combined with the forces of capitalism bring far more positives than negatives.
Second, Arthur I think you stumbled into the wrong website. America is not an ethnicity, it is an idea open to all who believe it and are willing to defend it.
Victor Davis Hanson used to be worth listening to. Unfortunately he has descended into a corporatist mouthpiece spouting bogus “tea party” rhetoric. Have at it hoss, you are no longer credible.
“Unfortunately he has descended into a corporatist mouthpiece spouting bogus “tea party” rhetoric. Have at it hoss, you are no longer credible.”
Please provide examples of his posting of “bogus tea party rhetoric?” You seem so informed and insightful.
Take your care time replying.
No one seems to get it !!! Can you tell me one thing he has done that has been positive for this country? Yet, anyone can name dozens of things he has done to hurt this country. (I understand he is not wearing jewelry this month. Someone noticed he wasn’t wearing his wedding band or watch and were told “they were being repaired.” You don’t wear jewelry during Ramadan.) The man is out to destroy us without looking like it. He’s happy thinking we’re thinking he’s stupid or inept, when he is accomplishing exactly what he wants. He needs to be ivalidated over “natural born” (which he isn’t and has been in violation of the Constitution since taking office – acutally, since running, since he wasn’t qualified) using Quo Warranto through the US District Court in DC. The only way to invalidate him and undo all he has done, including his two Supreme Court nominations.
We had an Administration that loaded up the government with business persons, and industry “experts” and what did it get us after 8 years: an economy in shambles, a hugh deficit and Obama. Why should we trust the Republicans any more than the Democrats?
Why should we trust the Republicans ??? How about because they are the lesser of two evils…..we have only two party’s…..Republican and the DEMOCRATIC PARTY PLANTATION….lets start with the Plantation…..Big government,small military….don’t care for the Constitution…..believe that Government should rule the people ,remember they are the loyalist to he King…we are their subjects…they own the Pitch Fork Rascals …we saw them in Wisconsin & this past week end demonstrating for the union…the MOB…..REP. Maxine Walter perfect example of Plantation overseer being vitriolic ….demanding MOB action ….why because after being in office since ’07 and holding the majority they only push up our butts Obamacare……nothing else was accomplished…..the minute the oppositions get the majority…..in one house only…….our Plantation overseer go bunkers….they want jobs they want to feed the hungry , educate our children ,they want jobs….
What may I ask were they doing since ’07 till 2010 Nov.?????
Republican Party…..small Government…..Military to provide domestic tranquility ,secure our borders….a Judicial branch to protect our property from thieves (like Obama)to protect us from criminals …..
Adhere to the laws of the Constitution that the Democratic Party Plantation has been deliberately ignoring …..
If we did not like Bush at least he was a Leader 9/11 he addressed the Nation….A father of the country tell his family go back to what you were doing , I will carry the burden of cleaning the place up…..
He did not say share the burden, you greedy idiots….
Also our constitution states very clearly that we the people give limited power to the Idiots we elect… Raconteur if that is not enough you can move to France or Cuba….you do have that choice and bye the bye…..the 2nd Amendment is to protect ourselves from government like the soft tyranny we are in now…..
I would like you all (including Obama) to try this very simple though experiment. Say you want to start a tiny business – just a bit bigger than a lemonade stand, and you need one employee.
I bet you can’t. The massive number of regulations on business make it almost impossible without hiring another employee, but what happens if your business isn’t big enough to support three people? Sorry, I guess Steve Jobs will just have to stay in his garage in Cupertino.
There are ways around it of course. You pay for services like payroll or bookkeeper, but that’s really hiring someone else now, isn’t it? You can pay someone under the table, but that’s really a cheat.
By starting your own business and hiring a helper, you would instantly take two people off the unemployment roles, but government has become so intrusive, it no longer works unless that other person is a member of your family. People can talk taxes all they want, but the real sand in the gears of our economy is the mass of rules and regulations that require a lawyer and accountant and HR member on your staff – and that’s before you even sell a glass of lemonade.
From Reps to Dems….All time tested…Result- ? So what do you think now…? Can they do it..? They just believe in women n wine first..forget the rest..The nation trusts them, chooses them and sends to the Houses of Representatives..for doing what..? Women n Wine ..? NO……….. for safeguarding the interest of the nation…Did they do it ..? They all have miserably FAILED… The drunks can not guide the nation….Think…just think…you will be convinced yourself with your thought result that these liars, cheats and charlatans have lied shamelessly and cheated the trust of the nation openly with all their charlatan character…….. America is loosing its pride…they all have become like the criminal political cheaters of the third-world…..See their character…talks, false promises, acts…and the RESULT… Now USA is a third-world country…….
The Bad news: America is falling and failing until it is over. The good news—those who are the trouble makers, generational welfare seekers including emigrants, the academic progressives (communists but in denial), and all who want the government to take care of them, will not survive. Essentially they are parasitic on America. Those that do survive will reload and rebuild without “fleas”.
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