Capitalism is under attack around the globe. It is being condemned not only by the traditional dictators and autocratic regimes one would expect but also by folks who should know better, from the Pope in Rome to America's communists disguised as Progressives disguised as Democrats. They argue that capitalism is unfair because it creates inequality among the people in a society. Yes it does. Capitalism is guilty as charged. The opportunities and incentives capitalism offers do invite the creative and productive among us to gain economic and social advantages. Is that really a bad thing?
Barack Obama has called income inequality "the defining challenge of our time". No argument from me. It is one of the most serious issues that confront Americans today. But as ever, Obama denounces a situation that his policies make even worse. Raising the minimum wage is one example, a policy that will cause more of those at the low end to lose their jobs. Constitutionally questionable mandates routinely generated by Obama's politically correct henchpersons at federal agencies (i.e., Environmental Protection Agency, National Labor Relations Board, etc.) prevent jobs from being created. So do increasingly costly regulations and paperwork for small business, as does the administration's war on fossil fuels and its campaign against right to work laws. And of course, ObamaCare and its higher costs of medical insurance hits the middle class the hardest, the very folks he claims to champion. Obama probably even knows all this, but he also knows the anti-business rhetoric and inequality sound bites appeal to the uneducated, uninformed and unindustrious when it comes time to vote.
It is ironic that income inequality in America has increased at the fastest rate ever and reached its most extreme under a progressive president whose stated goal is to redistribute income from the rich to the poor. But he and his co-conspirators are not playing Robin Hood by taking from the rich. They are taking money from the vast middle class and redistributing it to the lower income and unemployed to buy their subservience. And they are redistributing it to themselves and the super wealthy to increase and lock in their power. Who benefitted most from the financial sector bailouts, the stimulus programs and the Fed's Quantitative Easing? We are witnessing the Beltway - Wall Street Complex taking total control at the expense of everyone else.
The income gap has continued to grow ever since liberal policies creating the welfare state and government dependency began to permeate society more than eighty years ago. The programs continue to expand at the same time the problems they were created to resolve grow ever larger. Liberals can never point to any success their programs have achieved. Fifty years ago Ronald Reagan noted that if socialism is supposed to work, shouldn't Democrats be able to point to some successful progress? Yes they should. But they don't. The evidence of the results of the programs always indicate they make the problems worse.
Democrats always blame America's social problems and income inequality on Republicans. American voters never seem to remember that Democrats have controlled the presidency 56% of the time the last 80 years, the Senate 73% of the time, and the House of Representatives 70%. Furthermore, Democrats have controlled the presidency, the Senate and the House all at the same time 35 of those years while the Republicans have controlled all only 10 years. Yet the welfare state grows without producing any victories against the problems. Which party is bullshitting the American people?
It does not take a rocket scientist to understand that redistribution of income destroys economic progress as it kills the work ethic and eliminates the incentive to innovate, compete, boost productivity, and even pursue an education in order to improve standards of living for individuals and their families. It increases dependency on government, stifles creativity, punishes ambition, and extinguishes hope and opportunity. Only in feudal societies did the masses of people have nearly equal living standards, and their lives were miserable. The gap between the serfs and the royalty was infinite because the serfs had nothing. Modern productive capitalism is essential in creating a vast middle class that can achieve and enjoy prosperity and affluence. Economic growth is what generates rising living standards, not government handouts. Government bureaucrats do not produce economic growth. Private enterprise does.
The biggest change in America in my lifetime is that socialism has become respectable while traditional American values have been rejected. It has occurred under the radar screen, apparently metastasizing in educational institutions, popular media editorial offices, government dependent community organizations and among public service employees. It has happened while the economically productive members of society were busy working in the private sector to support their families. It was suddenly sprung upon the rest of us when an ideologically driven pied piper named Barack Obama arrived on the political scene to direct the change. Even Karl Marx, the progenitor of socialism, declared that socialism is only a transitional stage between capitalism and communism. That is where we are heading under Obamaism. History has shown us that prosperous democracies don't last forever. We are now experiencing the reasons why.
Friday, December 27, 2013
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!
Does anyone who still supports Barack Obama ever read the real news? Anyone who still believes that Obama has not been an unmitigated disaster as president is either seriously out of touch with reality or unable to handle the truth. There can only be two conclusions to draw from the evidence gained from his five years in office. He is either a clueless incompetent buffoon in way over his head, or a dedicated Marxist ideologue actively working to turn America into a communist dictatorship. Either way America is rapidly losing altitude and headed for disaster.
It is undeniable that Obama's disastrous foreign policy is causing us to lose credibility everywhere in the world. Islamic tyrants ignore and laugh at Obama's threats while they continue to massacre their own people. The Russians are gaining influence at our expense in Eastern Europe and throughout the Middle East. China is gaining influence at our expense in Asia and Africa. Marxist autocrats are dominating Latin America. Even the few allies that remain know they can no longer trust us.
Domestically, our economy has limped along for five years at less than half its average growth rate, and nearly a quarter of the typical rate recovering from a recession. Jobs remain scarce and many people have quit looking for them. Our exploding national debt is piling oppressive burdens on future generations and has rendered America insolvent. Our educational system is turning out idiots no matter how much money is thrown at it. Our society is now as polarized as it was just before the Civil War more than 150 years ago. And perhaps most frightening, our national security forces are being emasculated. We are becoming the 90 pound weakling the bully's of the world will look forward to beating up on.
So which one is he - the inexperienced, incompetent pretender or the devious, dedicated Marxist.
The indicators pointing to Obama's being an inept snake oil salesman arise from the evidence that his idea of being president is nothing more than using teleprompters to give grandiose speeches promising free everything to friendly audiences and then going off to play some golf. He isn't really interested in the details of the job. He is only interested in the power. We have a president who is clearly a narcissistic sociopath who believes he can do no wrong. He lives in a fantasy world where all his initiatives are enlightened triumphs and any problems can be blamed on someone else. Unfortunately, under this supposition, his excess of arrogance and impudence combined with lack of experience, competence and understanding of how the world works has America in a nose-dive that may be unrecoverable.
For example, Obama's latest lunatic action is to declare a campaign to substantially increase the federal minimum wage. Obviously he and the rest of the Democratic Party are economic illiterates. Can they not understand that any business that pays minimum wage has only two choices if they are required to pay a higher one? They will either have to raise prices to cover the higher costs, meaning sales and revenues will decline as some customers refuse to buy the product at the higher price, or they have to lay off workers to keep from having to raise prices, increasing unemployment and creating more dependency on government. Neither is a favorable result. Why is that so hard for liberals to understand.
Then again, maybe Obama and the progressives understand all too well since their goal is to create more dependency on government in order to get the votes of the folks who like the government freebies paid for by someone else. Creating class warfare is the best way to incite a revolution. The best way to ignite class warfare is to create a common enemy by convincing the people that the bad guys are taking advantage of them by not playing fair. After all, the scam he and the progressives depend on to win elections is to claim they are political moderates while Republicans are obstructionist extremists taking advantage of society.
The facts of course prove otherwise, if anyone cares to notice. Obama and his politburo are the most extreme left wing ideologues to ever gain power in America, and it can be argued they are trying to turn us into a totalitarian Marxist state controlled by them. The Obama administration routinely ignores the law, disregarding our individual liberty and freedom of choice in the process. It is dictating our required personal behavior and confiscating our income to spend as it sees fit. It is using its control of the Senate, federal agencies and captive major media networks to stifle and eliminate any opposition to its ideological agenda.
Perhaps Barack Obama is America's first anti-American president. If that is the case, then we are in deep shit. The well of taxpayer dollars will soon run dry, chaos will ensue, and there will be a lot of unhappy Americans with guns. That is not a future anyone wants for us or our children. If American voters cannot figure out this political grab for absolute power, Barack Obama may become our last president and our first supreme dictator.
It is undeniable that Obama's disastrous foreign policy is causing us to lose credibility everywhere in the world. Islamic tyrants ignore and laugh at Obama's threats while they continue to massacre their own people. The Russians are gaining influence at our expense in Eastern Europe and throughout the Middle East. China is gaining influence at our expense in Asia and Africa. Marxist autocrats are dominating Latin America. Even the few allies that remain know they can no longer trust us.
Domestically, our economy has limped along for five years at less than half its average growth rate, and nearly a quarter of the typical rate recovering from a recession. Jobs remain scarce and many people have quit looking for them. Our exploding national debt is piling oppressive burdens on future generations and has rendered America insolvent. Our educational system is turning out idiots no matter how much money is thrown at it. Our society is now as polarized as it was just before the Civil War more than 150 years ago. And perhaps most frightening, our national security forces are being emasculated. We are becoming the 90 pound weakling the bully's of the world will look forward to beating up on.
So which one is he - the inexperienced, incompetent pretender or the devious, dedicated Marxist.
The indicators pointing to Obama's being an inept snake oil salesman arise from the evidence that his idea of being president is nothing more than using teleprompters to give grandiose speeches promising free everything to friendly audiences and then going off to play some golf. He isn't really interested in the details of the job. He is only interested in the power. We have a president who is clearly a narcissistic sociopath who believes he can do no wrong. He lives in a fantasy world where all his initiatives are enlightened triumphs and any problems can be blamed on someone else. Unfortunately, under this supposition, his excess of arrogance and impudence combined with lack of experience, competence and understanding of how the world works has America in a nose-dive that may be unrecoverable.
For example, Obama's latest lunatic action is to declare a campaign to substantially increase the federal minimum wage. Obviously he and the rest of the Democratic Party are economic illiterates. Can they not understand that any business that pays minimum wage has only two choices if they are required to pay a higher one? They will either have to raise prices to cover the higher costs, meaning sales and revenues will decline as some customers refuse to buy the product at the higher price, or they have to lay off workers to keep from having to raise prices, increasing unemployment and creating more dependency on government. Neither is a favorable result. Why is that so hard for liberals to understand.
Then again, maybe Obama and the progressives understand all too well since their goal is to create more dependency on government in order to get the votes of the folks who like the government freebies paid for by someone else. Creating class warfare is the best way to incite a revolution. The best way to ignite class warfare is to create a common enemy by convincing the people that the bad guys are taking advantage of them by not playing fair. After all, the scam he and the progressives depend on to win elections is to claim they are political moderates while Republicans are obstructionist extremists taking advantage of society.
The facts of course prove otherwise, if anyone cares to notice. Obama and his politburo are the most extreme left wing ideologues to ever gain power in America, and it can be argued they are trying to turn us into a totalitarian Marxist state controlled by them. The Obama administration routinely ignores the law, disregarding our individual liberty and freedom of choice in the process. It is dictating our required personal behavior and confiscating our income to spend as it sees fit. It is using its control of the Senate, federal agencies and captive major media networks to stifle and eliminate any opposition to its ideological agenda.
Perhaps Barack Obama is America's first anti-American president. If that is the case, then we are in deep shit. The well of taxpayer dollars will soon run dry, chaos will ensue, and there will be a lot of unhappy Americans with guns. That is not a future anyone wants for us or our children. If American voters cannot figure out this political grab for absolute power, Barack Obama may become our last president and our first supreme dictator.
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