Monday, May 11, 2009

The Joke's on Us

Marking his first 110 days in office, President Barack Obama ,aka, Chief Occupier, displayed his skill as a stand-up comic. "You know, it's been a whirlwind of activity these first 100 days," he jested. "We've enacted a major economic recovery package, we passed a budget and no president in history has ever named three commerce secretaries this quickly. Just last week, Car and Driver named me auto executive of the year. Something I'm very proud of."

The trouble is that the joke is at the expense of the American people, that’s you and me.

Obama has embarked on a strategy for the world to spend its way out of recession. His budget, inclusive of purchases of toxic assets, will saddle taxpayers with an additional $8.5 trillion in debt, or after interest, $200, 000 for every tax-paying family.

The underlying logic is that if the global boom following the hi-tech collapse rode on the back of the policies that created the sub-prime crisis, then a taxpayer-funded spending splurge should do the same trick.

The second step in the master plan was to go global. Luckily, a huge global stimulus package that was to be led by the Group of 20 nations has hopefully failed at least for now. Not content with bailing out defaulting banks and insurance companies with the failed management still in place and in receipt of huge bonuses, the same logic has been extended to defaulting nations. Anticipating more failures, the International Monetary Fund has received a huge funding boost, despite an abysmal track record.

The common thread underlying this administration has been to preserve failed or failing management of enterprises (and nations) at any cost.

In not too many years past, recessions once could be relied on to shake out and renew failed management in a form of creative destruction so that we could all prosper in the next boom. This is no longer the case.

Through hundreds of years the legal system has evolved to facilitate critical renewal of management. This process of putting the debt holders in charge when equity holders fail to properly monitor management has a name. We call it bankruptcy.

Because this word has ugly connotations - executives lose their jobs as well as their bonuses - Obama has attempted to abolish it. It doesn’t fit well into his more gently government concept where even terrorist are no longer called terrorist-- unless they happen to be American’s who disagree with his policies. To further clarify these new terrorist as those who cling to their “guns and Bibles”, who are against wholesale abortion, who call for border control and immigration laws to be upheld and returning military members who have given so much to rid this world of the real terrorist.

In an extreme example of “public-spirited compassion” (sarcasm intended), potentially hundreds of billions have been poured into American International Group, enabling business as usual for its failed executives, including more bonuses. Its role was to provide "pretend" insurance for issuers of sub-prime loans when even the previous administration was calling for the two arms of the US Government, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, to investigate and stop the underwriting of outrageous home mortgages. General Motors will be paid billions more by taxpayers to produce more failing cars. Schemes to encourage entrepreneurial American’s to start innovative businesses are abolished to fund what amounts to a public charity located in Detroit, which is shortly likely to belong to the US Government.

Vastly higher public debt levels are no more than a revival of rising private debt levels from the sub-prime era. The difference is that the burden is being shifted to the taxpayer and higher inflationary expectations.

With economies across the world shrinking - Britain by 4 per cent, Ireland by 8 per cent - the cost of borrowing in real dollars is falling along with demand. At the same time, the American taxpayer is becoming more beholden to banks as Obama’s guarantee enables investment banks, as well as regular banks, to borrow even more billions. Yet Obama’s intervention is promoting excessive risk-taking at the expense of the taxpayer, not providing a cure. Indeed, the public is being forced to financially back the people Obama has denounced since the beginning of his campaign.

In his first 110 days president Franklin Roosevelt gave the world the New Deal, which helped to prolong the Depression until World War II. Labour monopolies with high wages were promoted along with trade restrictions that made employing more workers almost impossible.

In his first 110 days, Obama has set himself up for a failed course of action that will not only delay recovery but sow the seeds for future disasters. To make matters worse he wants to continue to increase the spending by a few more trillion dollars on a doomed Federal Health Care Program.

In all of this he seems to think it all a joke, something to be laughed at, as was demonstrated in his remarks at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. His “jokes” fall lower than supposed comedienne Wanda Sykes stating she was hoping that Rush Limbaugh’s kidneys would fail, because folks the joke is on us.

I’m not laughing.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I certainly do not expect the president to know everything; after all, that’s why he needs counselors. The problem (with our political system) is that presidential cabinet appointments are ordinarily made to reward loyal followers. There is a fundamental problem with this, of course. A man who requires “yes men” around him 24-hours a day is not someone who I trust to render careful judgments borne of debate and differences of opinion. In the case of Obama, he has surrounded himself with acolytes of the Saul Alinsky school of destroying America. It cannot possibly bode well for our nation—but I’m preaching to the choir.

What happens when stockholders no longer enjoy confidence in their investment portfolios? They sell their stocks. What happens when the government directs bondholders to receive thirty-three cents on the dollar of their “guaranteed” return? They’ll refuse to invest in bonds. What happens when major corporations are unable to raise capital? They begin cutting back on production. This results in layoffs. And when layoffs occur, people stop purchasing. And when people stop buying consumer goods, resulting in less demand for products, prices drop through the expenditure of inventory, and then there are more layoffs. And the more layoffs there are the less revenues available for the federal government.

So once again my rhetorical question is, why would Obama surround himself with people who do not know this, and who would seek to reinforce capitalism, rather than to destroy it, if they were truly servants of the people?

Semper Fi

Mustang

Ticker said...

Could it be that he and those appointed have an ID ten D ideology?

Anonymous said...

The real back story on Obama is his connections with ACORN and SEIU. Read teh attacked article by Michelle Malkin. This onion is just starting to be peeled. CCI is teh political consulting arm and CSI is the accounting and legal wing of ACORN, and they are connected to Obama and SEIU.

http://michellemalkin.com/2008/08/22/acorn-watch-pt-ii-obama-hid-800000-payment-to-acorn-through-citizen-services-inc/

Always On Watch said...

Good point about the word "bankruptcy" and its not fitting in with the kumbaya administration of BHO.

I have absolutely no wish to have a Comedian-In-Chief!

To make matters worse he wants to continue to increase the spending by a few more trillion dollars on a doomed Federal Health Care Program.BHO's easy and ridiculing way of mentioning "We need to spend a few more trillion" doesn't seem to be alarming most Americans, however. Do they not realize that the trillions come from their own pockets or from the cranking up of the printing presses at Treasury so as to lead to hyperinflation?

Anonymous said...

He laughs on the late night talk shows, he laughs at thid roast, I don't doubt he laughts quite heartily every time he sees the jobless claims rise.

My president shouldn't be laughing, he should be fixing.

Ticker said...

Kris, How does one fix when they don't have a clue as to what they are doing and have surrounded themselves with like mannered incompetents.

All any of them can do is the bidding of the puppet master Soros.

I refuse to call him my president. This is the first and I served under all from Johnson to Clinton. I didn't like some of the things that some did but they were still my President, my CinC . This one would not be and is not. He is a disgrace to the office.

Anonymous said...

As bad as Barack Obama is a POTUS. Consider the order of presidential succession in the event that BO becomes unable to serve:

Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Robert Byrd, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Timothy Geithner. Pick your poison.

Inspector Clouseau said...

Ticker, this is one of your better pieces, and I just wanted to pay you that compliment. I do not agree with all of its substance; however, you put forth some plausible positions and ones with some merit.

I haven't had much time recently to visit the blogs of many fellow bloggers. Just checking in.

Additionally, I should generate a mini-post later today which somewhat touches on the same issue which you raised, but from a different angle. It will also be applicable to all of our leaders, no matter which segment of society, and no matter which ideology they follow.