Posted by
Patrick Henry on Monday, September 20, 2010 1:25:19 PM
At this election season the stalled economy is on everyone's mind. What is the
federal government doing to fix the deteriorating situation and why? More important,
is it working? You may be surprised by the answers.
Dian L. Chu, in a piece entitled Economic Forecasts and Opinions, published in
the September 11 edition of NASDAQ, says that "the Obama administraion has
shown very little understanding of the economy, markets and business," and that
legislatin and policy they have put in place seems "anti-business." She further
concludes that this is due to fundamental economic ignorance and inexperience.
If she is right, then it would follow that the current "reality therapy" regimen the
adminsitration and the nation are undergoing will, at some point, correct to a more
enlightened and therfore more successful direction. Unfortunately, Chu's overly
generous premise misses the mark.
Barack Obama does not misunderstand the economy, business and the markets.
He has surrounded himself with the finest academic minds to bring and keep him
up to speed. The disciplined consistency of his actions belies the notion that he is
wandering aimlessly. He is doing exactly what he always intended to do: mortally
wound American capitalism, impose government control over vast sectors of the
economy and redistribute the sum of corporate and business-generated personal
wealth according to his philosophic priorities.
Stating it more plainly, Obama does not want privately owned businesses to
thrive. The consequences of allowing that include greater accruals of private
wealth, prohibitive strengthening of market share and the creation of alternatives
to businesses which are, increasingly, government owned. To accomplish his goal,
Obama has sought to impose Draconian regulations and higher taxation on small
businesses, this guaranteeing that (a) they will not become large businesses, and
(b) their owners will not become unduly wealthy. By sustaining an environment
that is averse to hiring and investment, he has gone a long way toward assuring
that such businesses will not grow, unemployment will remain high and wealth
will continue to flow predominantly to the government for redistribution.
In this respect, Obama is in bed with the big labor unions who, through
contentious government-sponsored bargaining with business management demand
and ever increasing allottment of profit to employee salaries and benefits (i.e.,
wealth redistribution) and whose political contributions in turn prop up Obama
and his allies to foment policies and laws that are union friendly. In a very real
sense, Obama and the unions have the same mission.
But why doesn't Obama want businesses to grow? To understand that, you have
to understand his worldview, and it is that of a community organizer. In it, the
most basic premise is that the weak, poor and needy are, and will always be
oppressed by the powerful, the rich those of capacity. Thus, the only way to
achieve "justice," is to take from the advantaged and give to the disadvantaged,
thereby weakening the former and empowering the latter. Minorities are good,
whites are bad. Unions are good, management is bad. The poor are virtuous and
deserving, the wealthy are bigoted, selfish and uncaring. Obama justifies his
discriminatory policies with phrases like "at some point you've made enough," or
"fat cat bankers" or "we're gonna spread the wealth around a little." Such state-
ments are windows into the man's soul.
What's wrong with Obama's point of view? Three things. First, when you
encourage, through egregious policy or neglect, economic stagnation and high
unemployment, EVERYONE loses. There is less wealth to "spread around," and
an entirely new class of the needy is created. Those least damaged are the wealthy
and successful business owners who, seeing the lay of the land, simply tighten
their belts and sit on their reserves. And why would they do anything else?
Second, it is the classical Marxist point of view that has ultimately failed in every
country and government that has tried to implement it. It often has the effect of
permanently stifling the capacity for productivity and growth, thereby assuring that
an economically ascendant nation will fall in the world's unforgiving economic
taxonomy, to a place suited by its permanent stagnation. By the time populations
rebel against Marxist governments and ideologies they are frequently so damaged,
economically and culturally adrift that the road to recovery is tortuously long and
painful (e.g., Russia).
Third, the notion of "raising the masses" is a utopian myth. Since the days of the
New Deal and the Great Society, the policy of the Democratic party has been to
pour billions of "gift" dollars into the high-need population while, at the same time,
creating laws and policies designed to "level the playing field." Yet the poor class
remains, with poverty higher now, under Obama, than it has been since the days
of LBJ. While some inroads have been made in equality of hiring and college
admissions, unemployment and failure to complete high school among entitlement
populations remains at unacceptably high levels. The evidence is that while the
"spreading around" of opportunity has helped many at the individual level, the
masses remain somehow unable to access it, and thus untouched by it. Spreading
the wealth around has proven the same. If people lack the industry or the wisdom
to use such "spread around" wealth as a springboard to access the enhanced
opportunities, as statistics massively suggest they do, then they are no better off
than they were before and the escalating demand for further entitlement imposes
a prohibitive drain on the remainder of society. Largesse without accountability
and responsibility equals failed policy and subsidized social failure.
Barack Obama wants a slow, painful "recovery," but only to a much lower level
of productivity than before the recession. That way he can control business and its
wealth, insure that business follows only a course he considers "environmentally
friendly," and channels a lion's share of profits to government where it can be
consumed in the charnel ovens of entitlement redistribution. His policies are as
intentional and as devious as they are devastating, and will never lead to meaningful
economic recovery. He is not an ignoramus, blindly bungling through a job and a
situation that has him overmatched. He is a Machiavellian manipulator who knows
what he wants and how to get it.